Fractional odds are sort of the ‘forgotten way’ of displaying betting odds and are the more old-school way of doing things. But you may well have to work with them at some stage and it can only be a good thing if you know how to read fractional odds, understand them and know exactly how much you could pocket if a selection displayed in fractional odds goes on to win.
And that’s precisely what we’re going to look at here.
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Even though decimal odds and American odds tend to rule supreme at online sports betting sites on both sides of the Atlantic, fractional odds are by no means about to go extinct at the top online bookies.
In the UK, most brick-and-mortar betting shops will still quote fractional odds on the numerous sports to bet on, while many betting sites UK have them by default, though you can of course switch to decimal odds if you prefer.
When in the paragraph above we were talking about fractional odds being old school, we meant it: they’ve been around since the 1700s when punters first started betting on horse racing.
Tic-tac, the traditional method of bookies using hand signs at racetracks to communicate the odds on horses is based on fractional odds. So, for example, a bookie touching his head with both hands means 9/4, a common price used in fractional odds, but one not used that often in decimal odds (3.25).
Further proof of fractional odds’ legacy in betting is that certain fractional odds have nicknames they’re known by. For example, 100/30 is often substituted by ‘Burlington Bertie’.
So, how do fractional odds work? The easiest way to explain them is that they’re the ratio of the amount (profit) won to the stake. So, if your horse wins at 5/1, your profit is five times the value of your stake plus the stake itself. However, not all fractional odds come in nice little round figures like 5/1 so that’s where things get a little tricky.
A good starting point is to always think of fractional betting odds coming into three different categories: even money, odds-on, and odds-against.
Even money (strictly speaking expressed as 1/1 in fractional odds but almost always just called evens or even-money) means you stand to win exactly the same amount in profit as what you’re wagering. So, a bet at evens for £20 would win you exactly £20, plus your stake, as you know already.
For the record, a bet at evens doesn’t have exactly a 50% chance of winning because of the sportsbook’s house edge of around 5-8%. So, if a bookie thought a horse had a genuine 50/50 chance of winning a race, it may only offer you odds of 10/11. Or, to look at it another way, if they offered you odds of evens (1/1), the true chances might be 11/10.
Even money bets aside, one of the two numbers in fractional odds will always be bigger than the other.
The foolproof rule is that if the first of the two numbers is smaller (e.g. 8/11), then it’s an odds-on quote; if it’s bigger (e.g. 11/4), then it’s an odds-against quote.
An odds-on quote means that there’s a better than 50% chance of it winning, an odds-against quote means there’s less than a 50% chance of it winning. The exact chances depend on the actual odds, of course.
As we said already, when fractional odds come in those nice round numbers, it makes things easy.
A 4/1 shot means there’s a one-in-four chance of the bet winning and subsequently a payout of four times your stake. A 1/4 shot means the bet has an 80% chance of winning or if you prefer, a one in four chance of not winning! The flipside of course is that you’ll only win £1 for every £4 staked.
When numbers in fractional betting odds aren’t so nice and round, the easiest way to look at them is in terms of how much you’d win if you placed a bet at those odds. Check the last section for more on this.
First things first: if you like sports betting but don’t really like maths, there’s an extremely easy way of converting fractional odds into decimal odds: Google ‘Odds Converter’, go to the website, enter the odds as fractions, and it will automatically convert them into decimals for you.
You can also just use decimal odds all the time and bypass fractional odds altogether by changing the settings at the best sports betting sites.
But here’s how to do the conversion yourself.
If it’s an odds-against-chance, just add a 1 to it. So, a 5/1 chance becomes 6.0. With decimal odds, the value of your stake is included in the decimal odds quote if it goes on to win, which is why the number is bigger by 1.
If it was an odds-on chance, say 1/5, you just divide one by the other. So, 1/5 = 0.2 plus the 1 gives you 1.2. So, 1.2 is 1/5 in decimal odds.
First up, we’ll give you an explanation of how American Odds work in general.
Just like with odds-on and odds-against quotes in fractional betting odds, American Odds are divided into favourites and underdogs.
A favourite always has a – symbol attached, before the number. The bigger the number, the bigger the favourite. So, a -200 favourite is actually a 1.5 chance in decimal odds, implied probability 66.7%, while a =120 shot is 1.83 in decimal odds, implied probability 54.5%.
An underdog always has a + symbol before the number. In this case, the bigger the number, the bigger the underdog. So, a +200 shot is 3.0 in decimal odds (implied probability 33.3%) while a +80 chance has decimal odds of 1.8, implied probability 55.6%.
And here’s how to convert fractional odds into American odds, noting the methods are different for odds-against and odds-on chances.
To Convert Fractional Odds Over 1/1 (odds-against) to American Odds
To Convert Fractional Odds Under 1/1 (Odds-on) to American Odds
Remember that with odds-against quotes, the amount you win will always be greater than the amount you’re staking.
So, if a horse is quoted as 9/4, it means you’d win £9 when staking £4. If it was 10/3, you’d win £10 for every £3 staked, or £1 for every 30p staked, if you prefer.
The opposite is true when it comes to odds-on shots. You’ll always win less than what you’re staking if your odds-on chance wins.
So, if a horse is quoted as 2/5, you’d need to wager £5 to win £2, and so on. If the tennis player you’re betting on is 8/11, you’d win £8 for every £11 that you stake.
Remember that in all cases with fractional odds, your stake isn’t included in the payout as such, though of course you do get it back if the bet wins.
