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Calculate Betting Winnings

How To Calculate Your Winnings With Common Bets

The most important thing for any online bettor to get to grips with is the odds offered at bookmakers and betting sites. Read these wrong and you could be in for a far smaller return than you were expecting.

The other thing about odds is that not every gambling jurisdiction worldwide uses the same ones. The UK, Europe and the U.S all have their own unique systems when it comes to betting odds.
In this guide we'll take you through each type in turn, and show you how to calculate your winnings using the different systems.

Fractional (UK odds)
Decimal (European odds)
Moneyline (American odds)

Fractional Odds Aka The UK System

If you're a UK bettor you'll be used to seeing odds presented fractionally at bookmakers on land and online. If you're new to sportsbook betting then fractional odds are the system all bookies in Britain use to represent the potential return bettors can expect to make on each bet.

They look a little something like this:

Rafael Nadal to beat Andy Murray at The Wimbledon Men's Final - 33/100

If you took this bet and wagered £20, and Nadal did in fact beat Murray, you'd be looking at a total return of £26.20. Remember, your return is your original stake + any profits you make. So on this bet you've made a £6.20 profit.

Calculating Fractional Odds

With any fractional bet you can work out the profit in advance by looking at the first number in the fraction as how much you can expect to win, and the second number as how much you'd need to wager.

For example, with odds of 3/1, you'd win £3 for every £1 you wager. Not including your original stake of £1, which is added on after in fractional odds. So your total return in this case would be £4 (£3 profit + your £1 stake).

To help you get your head around fractional odds a little more, here are a few other examples of the profit and return you can make on specific bets. For each example we've used a £10 wager to keep things simple.

10/1 £10 £110 £100

4/6 £10 £16.67 £6.67

40/85 £10 £14.71 £4.71

7/10 £10 £17 £7

10/3 £10 £43.33 £33.33

5/1 £10 £60 £50

Calculating Decimal Odds

Here are a few other examples of profit and return with decimal bets:

1.63 £10 £16.30 £6.30

1.70 £10 £17.00 £7

3.75 £10 £37.50 £27.50

5.00 £10 £50 £40

2.88 £10 £28.80 £18.80

3.13 £10 £31.30 £21.30

Betting In Europe: Using Decimal Odds

While Britain is located within Europe, the fractional odds system that we use isn't the common way of calculating odds across the continent. In fact, if you visit a bookmaker whilst in France, Spain or Germany the odds you'll see will look quite different from what UK bookies advertise.

That's because within Europe a decimal odds system is favoured. With decimal odds, you can work out your profit and total return just by multiplying the decimal by your wager amount.

For example, with odds of 3.00 you'd simply multiply your stake amount by 3.00. If your stake is £10 you'd get a £30 return (3.00 x £10). That's because with decimal odds, the stake value is automatically included in the return too.

Let's illustrate with an example, this time using football:

Say it's Man City V Man U in the premier league at home. A European bookmaker might display odds on the three outcomes of the match (win, lose or draw) a little something like this:

Man City win 1.28
Both teams draw 1.45
Man City lose 1.53

If these odds were presented in the UK fractional form they'd look like this:

Man City win 2/7
Both teams draw 9/20
Man City lose 8/15

So, if you wagered £10 on Man City to win in this case at odds of 1.28, you'd get back a total of £12.80 (1.28 x £10) if Man City did win the game.

U.S Moneyline Odds

For most Brits, the American odds style is the most difficult to get to grips with. Unlike fractional or decimal odds, that show the bettor what return he (or she) can expect to make. In USA style Moneyline odds the system displays odds as positive or negative denominations.

For example:

+237.50
-142.90

These same odds presented fractionally are:

95/40
7/10

Negative Moneyline odds

If the odds you see have a minus (-) in front, this shows you how much you would have to bet in order to get £100 back.

Positive Money odds

If the Moneyline odds have a plus sign in front (+) this shows you how much profit you could expect to generate if you wagered £100.

Unlike with decimal and fractional odds, which show you the total return including your original stake, Moneyline odds only show you the profits. So you need to add your bet value on top to work out the total return.

Calculating Moneyline Profits

With positive Moneyline odds you work out the profit as so:
Stake x (odds/100) = profit

With negative Moneyline odds it's this formula:
Stake / (odds/100) = profit

In both cases, once your profit is established you need to add your original wager amount to get the full return value.

Again, we'll use a £10 wager to illustrate the different outcomes when betting using Moneyline odds.

+140 £10 £24 £14

-175 £10 £15.71 £5.71

+500 £10 £60 £50

-110 £10 £19.09 £9.09

+120 £10 £22 £12

-150 £10 £16.67 £6.67

Example Sports Betting Odds

If you're wondering what sort of bets you can make at a bookmakers online in Britain, here are some of the most common ones UK bookies offer:

Football - The Premier League generates a lot of interest from bettors online. Bookies will typically offer odds on wins, loses and draws. But, if you want to increase your returns, placing an accumulator bet will give you better odds.
Tennis - When Wimbledon takes place in June all eyes are on London. It's the final heats where bookies look to make the most money so look out for odds offered on the winner of the men's and women's singles finals respectively.
NFL - America's National Football League has risen in popularity among UK gamblers. Always a big event stateside, now British bookies are taking their share of the action, with bets on the amount of runs made and the overall winner typically offered.
Horse Racing - The Grand National is the event of the horse racing calendar, and bookies offer odds on each horse's chance of placing. Predicting the winner is always tough, and it's not uncommon for an outside horse to finish first. Giving bettors great odds.