Gambling on the Arsenal; how the odds work « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

By James Evans

As an Arsenal fan, you’ll have likely placed a few friendly wagers between yourself and friends about the outcome of matches.  Indeed as we all know football betting is big business worldwide and many players bet on matches for both fun and profit.  Today, let’s take a quick look about how to read bookmaker odds on football matches.

There are three common types of betting odds you will see.  The first is a money line bet.  An example of a money line bet would be Arsenal -185, Draw +230, Liverpool +350.  In this example, fans of Liverpool that bet £10 would win £35.  Fans that bet on the Arsenal must wager £18.50 in order to win £10.  In other words, the Arsenal are favored to win the game.  You can also bet on a draw, which will pay £23 for £10 wagered in the bet above.

The next type of bet, and one that is very popular with online UK casinos is your typical fractional bet.  With this bet, odds are fractional based, such as 4/1.  The top number is how much you can win, while the bottom is how much you have to wager.  An example would be if Chelsea was 50/1 to win the Premier League against the Arsenal’s 5/8 odds.  Anyone betting on Chelsea would win £50 for every £1 wagered.  Arsenal fans would have to wager £8 in order to win five.  Basically, Chelsea is a longshot in this example.

Your final typical bet type is an over-under bet.  These bets are usually placed on individual games and are decimal based.  For example, you could bet one the number of goals that will be scored in a match between the Arsenal and Liverpool.  Odds for more than 1.5 goals being scored would be 2.2 and under would be 1.33.  In this case, the higher the number, the worse the odds.  Taking the under would cost you £3 to win £1.  A decimal line of 2.0 is break event, so the over is not much better than breaking even.

Finally, realize that oddsmakers take into account numerous factors regarding a game including team trends, injury reports, etc.  They don’t have rooting interest in teams, so don’t take it personally if the odds don’t match your expectation of the games.  Also, just like when you play casino games, only wager with money that you can afford to lose.  Hopefully the information above will allow you to make better decisions on your football wagers and allow you to win more often.