How to read betting odds
A minus price is what you stake to win $100; a plus price is what $100 wins. Decimal odds are your total return per $1, and fractional odds are profit over stake. All three describe the same thing.
Updated September 27, 2026 · TrueEdge Academy
Betting odds tell you how much a bet pays, and they also tell you how likely the sportsbook thinks the outcome is. In American odds, a minus number such as −150 is how much you stake to win $100, and a plus number such as +130 is how much a $100 stake wins. Decimal odds, such as 1.67 or 2.30, are the total you get back for every $1 you stake, stake included. Fractional odds, such as 2/3 or 13/10, are profit divided by stake. They are three ways of writing the same price, and this guide shows how to read each one and convert between them.
What do the minus and plus mean in American odds?
The sign tells you which side of $100 the number is on. A minus price marks the favorite: at −150 you risk $150 to make $100 of profit, and a winning bet returns $250 in total. A plus price marks the underdog: at +130 you risk $100 to make $130, and a winning bet returns $230. You don't have to bet $100; the ratio is what matters, so $15 at −150 wins $10 and $10 at +130 wins $13. The scale meets in the middle at even money, which can be written +100 or −100 and means a winning bet doubles your stake. There is nothing between −100 and +100, which is why some books print EVEN instead.
- −110: profit = $50 × 100 ÷ 110
- $45.45 (you get back $95.45)
- −150: profit = $50 × 100 ÷ 150
- $33.33 (you get back $83.33)
- +100: profit = $50 × 100 ÷ 100
- $50.00 (you get back $100.00)
- +250: profit = $50 × 250 ÷ 100
- $125.00 (you get back $175.00)
Illustrative prices. Minus: stake × 100 ÷ odds. Plus: stake × odds ÷ 100. Add the stake back to get what lands in your account.
How do decimal odds work?
A decimal price is the multiplier on your stake. Stake times decimal odds is everything you get back if the bet wins, and subtracting the stake leaves the profit: $50 at 3.50 returns $175, which is $125 of profit, exactly the same as +250. A decimal price of 2.00 is even money, anything under 2.00 is a favorite, and anything above it is an underdog. Decimal is the standard in Europe, Canada and Australia, and it is what most calculators use, because almost every betting calculation becomes a single multiplication. Parlay odds, for example, are just the decimal prices of each leg multiplied together.
How do fractional odds work?
Fractional odds come from British and Irish bookmaking and are still the norm in horse racing. The fraction is profit over stake: 5/2 means you win $5 for every $2 you bet, so $10 wins $25 and returns $35. Evens is 1/1. When the top number is smaller than the bottom one, as in 2/3, the price is odds-on, meaning a favorite: you win $2 for every $3 staked.
- Plus American → decimal
- 1 + odds ÷ 100: +250 → 3.50
- Minus American → decimal
- 1 + 100 ÷ odds (ignore the sign): −150 → 1.667
- Decimal 2.00 or more → American
- +(decimal − 1) × 100: 3.50 → +250
- Decimal under 2.00 → American
- −100 ÷ (decimal − 1): 1.667 → −150
- Fractional → decimal
- 1 + top ÷ bottom: 5/2 → 3.50
- Decimal → fractional
- decimal − 1, as a fraction: 1.667 → 0.667 → 2/3
- −200
- 1.50 · 1/2
- −150
- 1.67 · 2/3
- −110
- 1.91 · 10/11
- +100
- 2.00 · 1/1 (evens)
- +150
- 2.50 · 3/2
- +250
- 3.50 · 5/2
- +300
- 4.00 · 3/1
Decimal prices are rounded to two places here. −110 is exactly 1.9091, and the rounding starts to matter when you multiply several legs of a parlay together, so calculators keep the extra digits.
What odds say about probability
Every price also implies a chance of winning. −150 implies 60%, because a bettor who wins 60% of −150 bets exactly breaks even; +250 implies 28.57%. The method, for all three formats, is in the next guide on implied probability. The catch is that a sportsbook's price includes its margin, so the implied chances of both sides add up to more than 100%. That margin is explained in hold and vig, and the price with it removed, the number every edge is measured against, is fair odds.
Why the same bet has different odds at different books
Each sportsbook sets its own prices, and they disagree more often than beginners expect. If one book has a team at −150 and another at −135, a $100 bet wins $66.67 at the first and $74.07 at the second: $7.41 more for exactly the same outcome. Nothing about the game changed; you just paid less for it. Taking the best available price every time, called line shopping, is the simplest habit in betting and the one that pays in every other lesson.
Seeing every book's odds at once
The TrueEdge Odds Board puts every book's price for a bet on one row, highlights the best of them, and shows a Fair column with the margin taken out, so shopping a price is one glance instead of eight apps. In Settings you can display odds as American, decimal, fractional or percentage, and the choice applies everywhere prices are shown; the calculators still take decimal odds as input. The Odds Board walkthrough reads a real row from left to right.
Frequently asked questions
- What does +200 mean in betting?
- A $100 bet at +200 wins $200 of profit and returns $300 with your stake. The price implies a 33.3% chance before the book's margin is removed.
- What does −110 mean?
- You stake $110 to win $100, or any amount in that ratio: $11 wins $10. It is the usual price on spreads and totals, and it implies a 52.4% chance.
- Is −200 or +200 better?
- Neither on its own. −200 is a favorite that pays $50 per $100 and +200 an underdog that pays $200 per $100. What makes a bet good is whether the price pays more than the real chance of winning justifies.
- How do I convert American odds to decimal?
- For plus odds, divide by 100 and add 1 (+150 becomes 2.50). For minus odds, divide 100 by the number and add 1 (−200 becomes 1.50).