In sports betting, the odds you take are possibly the most important factor in any wager you place.
For those who take their punting seriously, the odds you take ultimately determine whether you are accessing value bets on a consistent basis – the key to long-term success.
For recreational punters, the odds are still important because it is these – multiplied by your stake – that will ultimately determine how much money you can make on any winning bets you might place.
How to Work Out Returns on a Bet
One of the perks of using a betting app is that your returns are calculated for you – simply add your selections to your betslip, enter your stake in the box provided and you will see a figure labelled ‘potential returns’ or something similar.
To calculate your net profit, simply subtract your stake from the potential return – e.g. putting £10 on Liverpool at 11/10 would see a net profit of £11 (£21 return minus £10 stake).
Of course, if you wanted to work out your potential winnings without resorting to an app or online calculator, you’ll need to get your maths head on.
For single bets, the calculation is much easier than it is for each way punts or multiples. Our tip is to temporarily switch from fractional odds to decimal, as it makes doing the math much more straightforward.
Now all we need to do is multiply the decimal representing our odds with our stake size. Here are some examples:
- £5 on at odds of 2.00 –> 5 * 2.00 = £10
- £10 on at odds of 2.50 –> 10 * 2.50 = £25
- £15 on at odds of 2.75 –> 15 * 2.75 = £41.25
- £20 on at odds of 3.25 –> 20 * 3.25 = £65
How to Calculate Returns on an Each Way Bet
Calculating your payout for each way bets is somewhat more complicated.
First things first, we must remember that we are essentially placing two equal bets in one – on the win part and the place part. So, if we staked £10, then £5 would be on the win and £5 on our horse/team/player to finish in the places.
Let’s consider two examples; in the first our horse wins, and in the second it finishes second in the places. We’re staking £10 each way (£5 on the win, £5 on the place) at odds of 10/1. The place terms are 1/5.
Bet 1 – our horse wins
We calculate the win part as before –> 5 * 10.00 = 50.00, plus our £5 stake back equals £55.
To calculate our each way payout, we must work out our place return – in this case, it’s odds divided by the place terms, so 10.00 / 5 which equals 2.00. We then multiply our stake by our place odds, thus 5 * 2.00 = 10.00, plus £5 stake returned equals £15.
Now we bring the two elements together: we win (£55) and place (£15) for a total return of £70, which is a positive return of £60 minus our stake.
Bet 2 – our horse places
It’s much easier to calculate the maths now given that we know the place returns already, i.e. we’ll get £15 back.
But we lose our £5 win stake, so our overall return is £10 (£15 on the place minus £5 win stake).
With our place stake removed, this bet leaves us £5 ahead of where we started.
How to Calculate Returns on an Accumulator
To calculate our potential accumulator payout, we will convert our fractional odds to decimals, and then simply multiply them together – as implied by the term ‘accumulative odds’.
So, we place a four-fold featuring these teams:
- Liverpool – 1.80
- Barcelona – 2.00
- Arsenal – 2.40
- Inter Milan – 2.75
And so we grab our trusty calculator or phone and simply tap in 1.80 * 2.00 * 2.40 *2.75, which equals 23.76.
If we placed a £10 bet on this four-fold, our potential return would be £237.60, which with our £10 stake removed would leave our bookie account £227.60 stronger.