When you place bets on esports, you need to know how the odds work. Why? They show you the chances of winning a bet, your potential earnings, and how risky your bet is.
Bookmakers calculate betting odds for eSports events. To do this, they use a variety of information: match history, team performance, and other details. Some bookmakers express odds as fractions, while others use decimals.
What is Esports and Esports Betting?
Esports means competitions in online video games. These games include shooters, multiplayer games, and computer sports. Many players and fans worldwide love esports, and exciting tournaments are held for them.
In recent years, esports has become more popular. Despite the differences between the markets of traditional sports and esports games, they are based on the same principles. If you’ve ever bet on your favorite team or how many goals will be scored in a game, you already understand the rules of esports betting.
There are different types of esports bets. They include betting on kills or predicting the winner. Live betting during esports streams is very popular. It allows you to see the constantly changing markets.
How Esports Betting Odds Work
When you’re betting on esports, checking the odds can give you helpful hints. Bets are based on probability to determine which team is most likely to win.
For instance, let’s use numbers to understand this. If we have two teams, A and B, and team A has odds of 1/2 while team B has odds of 2/1, it means team A is more likely to win. Team A has a 66.7% chance of winning, while Team B only has a 33.3% chance. However, how much you’ll win by betting on either team depends on the odds.
For example, when a strong team plays against a weaker one, the stronger team is usually favored with lower odds because they’re more likely to win. The odds for the weaker team are higher because the bookmaker thinks they have less chance of winning.
What Are the Odds?
The odds are similar to what you see in traditional gambling. They can be represented as follows:
●Decimal odds,
●Fractions,
●American odds.
The odds are one of the ways to show players a chance of winning.
Understanding the Odds
Decimal Odds
When you use decimal odds for betting, you just need to multiply your bet amount by the odds. For example, if your favorite team’s odds are 2.1, and you bet $10 on them, you’d win $21 in total.
To understand the chance of winning, you calculate the percentage for each team. To do this, divide 1 by the team’s odds and then multiply by 100. For team A, with odds of 2.1, the winning percentage would be (1/2.1) x 100 = 47.6%.
Fractional odds
If your favorite team has 1/2 odds, and you bet $10 on them to win, you’d get (2 ÷ 1) x $10 = $20 if they win. To find the winning percentage of your favorite team, you divide the numerator (which is 1) by the sum of the numerator and the denominator (which is 1+2) and then multiply the result by 100. So, for example, the winning percentage of your favorite team is (1 ÷ 3) x 100 = 33.3%.
American odds
American odds can be positive or negative numbers. For example, if your team’s odds are +200, it means if you bet $100 and your team wins, you’ll get $200 as a payout.
If the odds are negative, it means you need to bet a certain amount to win $100. For example, if your team’s odds are -200, you’d need to bet $200 to win $100 if your team wins.