If you are new to betting you might just cheerfully be playing along without really understanding what the different odds mean. It can seem too much of a rookie question to ask, so if you have arrived here because you are searching for the answers, you will find what you need here in this quick guide to odds from www.bonusbets.com.

Odds are often shown in two different formats, and it can really throw you if you don’t understand what they mean. You will find that odds can be displayed as fractions or decimals, and while this might sounds as if you are back in the maths classroom, it really is simple once you understand the difference and what they mean. If you understand bets you are best placed to know two things, firstly how likely the bet is to be successful.  A 1/1 bet is basically 50/50 so pretty likely to go either way, but of course, because of the high chance, you won’t win as much money if you are right. In contrast a 1000/1 bet (which you won’t actually see often, it is just to make the point, means that the likelihood of being right is much less, so, should you win the amount of money you get back is much higher, but in likelihood, you will lose.

Secondly, the odds show you how much money you will win, and the rest of this guide explains how this works.

Fractional Betting

So, when odds are written with a / separating the two numbers, this is fractional odds. 3/1, 11/2, 4/1 – you name it. So what does it mean?

So, for 3/1 odds the information is telling you that you will win £3 for every £1 you bet if the bet is successful. So if you bet £1 and win you will get £4 back, your original stake and your winnings.
9/1 odds, therefore, tell you that you will win £9 for every £1 you bet if the bet is successful. So if you bet £1 and win you will get £10 back, your original stake and your winnings. It also means that there is a 10% chance of winning.

Decimals

Although they are displayed differently these work in a very similar way, so sometimes you will see that the odds are shown as 9.00 and this is what we call a decimal betting odd.

We use £1 as the stake number, and this is added to the winnings, so 9.00 means that if you bet £1 you will win £8 if the bet is successful, £9 overall as you get your original stake back. So if you bet £2 and won you would get £16 of winnings, £18 back overall. 2.00 is a basic 50/50 bet so if you bet £1 and win; you get £1 winnings and your stake back which gives you £2. If you were to bet £5 and be successful, you would get £5 in winnings and your stake, so a total of £10.