The odds in your favor
The first thing to do if you want to invest in sports is to learn how to use odds to your advantage. Odds are simply numbers that represent how likely it is that a certain event will occur. To better illustrate what is meant by this, we can take a simple example:
A player is listed on a betting site with odds of 1.75 to win a match in the Grand Slam. To find out how likely the player is to win the game, you can use a simple mathematical formula:
Probability = 1 / decimal odds
Using this simple formula, we find that the probability that the player listed with the odds of 1.75 wins is:
1 / 1.75 = 0.5714 = 57.14%
In the final stage, you simply multiply the number by 100 to get the chance of winning as a percentage.
Understanding the probability of odds is incredibly important to be successful in sports betting. But fortunately, it doesn't have to be too complicated, and you can take advantage of this simple formula when playing. Being able to convert odds and get the probability this way is very valuable and it will help you significantly by increasing your chances of becoming successful in your gambling in the long run.
Now that you know how to calculate the probability that a certain player will win a match, it can be helpful if you also learn how to do to calculate your possible earnings when you bet. You can also calculate this using a simple mathematical formula:
Earnings = (Bet * Odds) Bet
To make it all easier to understand, we can take another example. Let's say you place a $ 10 bet for a player to win a 1.75 odds match.
Earnings = ($ 10-1.75) - $ 10 = $ 7.5
In this example, you would earn $ 7.5 after investing a total of $ 10, which is a very good profit.
Rafael Nadal, who in 2014 was about to take home the victory in the Australian Open, was Melbourne's top player and the best player in the world. In 2013 he made an outstanding come-back after being injured, and during the year he took home titles in both the French Open and the US Open as well as in nine other tournaments. After easily defeating Roger Federer in the semi-finals, Nadal was a strong favorite among sports bettors, with odds of 1.18 winning against Stan Wawrinka in the final of the Australian Open in 2014. Those who had bet $ 10 on Nadal with these odds got back a win at $ 11.80, with the original $ 10 bet included. This meant a very small profit of just $ 1.80. The probability that Nadal would win in the match against Stan Wawrinka was 84.75%. There is s relation between those numbers that makes it possible to calculate tennis outcomes and odds.
Despite playing better than he ever did in his career, and defeating champion Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals, Stan Wawrinka was a massive 5.60 underdog when he would play the final against Rafael Nadal. This was mostly due to his history of 12 straight losses in all the matches he had played against Nadal previously. Despite his poor results, several experts felt that something unexpected was about to happen. Nadal was on top and played great, but so did Wawrinka. Admittedly, Stan Wawrinka had never defeated Nadal before, but it had also been 7 years and 14 games since he last beat Djokovic. Stan Wawrinka had begun to do better and better against Nadal, losing with less and less points.
A $ 10 bet on Wawrinka winnings at 5.60 odds would have yielded a total profit of $ 56, with the original $ 10 bet included. This would mean a mere $ 46 earnings. However, according to the odds, there was only a 17.86% probability that Wawrinka would win. What finally happened was that Stan the Man won the 2014 Australian Open, after defeating Nadal in 4 sets.
