Wager calculation is something important in the Sports Betting Reinvented formula.
You’ll be recouping the money temporarily “lost” (what we refer to as the inventory) in the future game or games the team who lost and on which you had a wager on will play (explained in the Odds Reversal Section). On the next game they’re playing (home if they lost at home or away if they lost when they were on the road) you’ll be placing a wager in such a way to recoup the previous wager or wagers plus the “per win” profit you’ve set using the divider we've mentioned earlier.
We show you how to calculate the “per win” profit in the section on money management. That’s in function of the working capital you start with at the beginning of every month.
Let’s first start with an example on how to calculate a wager after a team just won a game. Let’s say you’re up to a “per win” profit of $50. You want to place a wager on the Texas Rangers. You look at the odds at the sportsbook and they are at USA -120 (EU 1.83, UK 5/6).
Your “per win” profit being set at $50 means that you want to earn $50 for a win of the Texas Rangers.
The USA -120 means that you have to place a wager of $120 for earning $100. You want to earn $50. The way to calculate how much your wager should be is a simple rule of three.
$120 to earn $100
X to earn $50
$50 x $120 / $100 = $60
Another way to do it is to compare the amount you want to earn with the standard $100 and apply the result to the odds. $50 / $100 = 0.5
0.5 x $120 = $60
You’ll be getting the same result by dividing the odds by 100 and multiplying the result by the amount you want to earn. $120 / $100 = 1.2 and 1.2 x $50 = $60
Just look at it by saying to yourself that those odds are based on a $100 win.
Now, for the next example, let’s say the Texas Rangers, on which you want to place a wager on, are on a 2 game losing streak and that you had placed a $60 wager on the first game and a $132 wager on the second game. You now have $192 of inventory ($60 + $132) to recoup plus your “per win” profit of $50. You then have to earn $242 on the next game.
Assuming the odds are also at -120 for that game, you do the same rule of three as in the above example
$120 to earn $100
X to earn $242
$242 x $120 / $100 = $290.40 (you would round that amount to $290)
You can also compare the amount you want to earn with the standard $100 and apply the result to the odds. $242 / $100 = 2.42
2.42 x $120 = $290.40
You’ll get the same result by dividing the odds by 100 and multiplying the result by the amount you want to earn. $120 / $100 = 1.2
1.2 x $242 = $290.40
Let’s now redo the above example but this time having the Texas Rangers as the underdog team with USA +120 (EU 2.20, UK 6/5)
The USA +120 means that if you’re placing a $100 wager, you’ll be earning a $120 profit. You want to earn $50. The way to calculate how much your wager is again the same simple rule of three.
$100 to earn $120
X to earn $50
$50 x $100 / $120 = $41.67 (you would round that number to $42)
You can also compare the amount you want to earn, $50 with the $120 you would if you’d place a $100 wager and apply the result to that $100 reference wager. $50 / $120 = 0.4167
0.4167 x $100 = $41.67
You’ll get the same result by dividing the odds by 100 and dividing the amount you want to earn by this result. $120 / $100 = 1.2
$50 / 1.2 = $41.67
Just look at it by saying to yourself that those odds are based on a $100 wager.
Now, assuming the odds are still at +120 and that you have to recoup the same $242 because the Texas Rangers lost the same 2 games, you do the same rule of three again.
$100 to earn $120
X to earn $242
$242 x $100 / $120 = $201.67 (you would round that number to $202)
You can also compare the amount you want to earn, $242 with the $120 you would if you’d place a $100 wager and apply the result to that $100 reference wager. $242 / $120 = 2.0167
2.0167 x $100 = $201.67
You’ll get the same result by dividing the odds by 100 and dividing the amount you want to earn by the result. $120 / $100 = 1.2
$242 / 1.2 = $201.67.
That’s how you’re getting the amount of money you have to wager at the sportsbook you choose for different amount of inventory you want to recoup.
This might seem a little complicated but it’s actually very easy. Just leave yourself some time and we assure you that you’ll be totally comfortable with these calculations after a couple of days. You can also take 15 minutes playing with different odds and different amounts for favorite and underdog and practice with them. You’ll become a master in no time.
Let’s do the same thing with the EU odds.
We know that USA -120 odds are EU 1.83. We’ve seen in a previous section that with the EU odds, the wager is included in the decimal number. The wager being obviously equal to 100% or 1, you have to subtract 1 to the EU odds to get the wager part so in this example, that’s 1.83 – 1 = 0.83.
This means that we’ll be getting a profit equals to 83% of our wager. So, if you want to earn $50, that amount is the 83% (0.83). By using the same rule of three, you can calculate the wager you want to place for having a $50 profit.
$100 to earn $83
X to earn $50
$50 x $100 / $83 = $60.24 (you would round that number to $60)
The reason why we’re getting $60.24 instead of $60 even is that the real number for the EU odds is 1.833333333 and they’re only using two decimals.
That would be the same thing if you wanted to get the $242 from the above example.
$100 to earn $83
X to earn $242
$242 x $100 / $83 = $291.57 (you would round that number to $292)
In the previous example we had an amount of $290.40 and the difference again comes from the number of decimals used.
For the underdog odds, you have EU 2.20 (USA +120) Again, the wager is included so we have to subtract 1 to get the real profit, in this case; 2.20 – 1 = 1.20
This means that you’ll get a profit equals to 1.2 times the amount of the wager. In the first part, you want to get a $50 profit. You then calculate the wager amount by dividing $50 by 1.2 which is $41.67 (you would round that number to $42)
You would do the same for the $242 and divide it by 1.2 and get $201.67 which you would round to $202.
I’m sure you’re already starting to get familiar with these calculations.
For those of you using the UK odds, you’ll see that UK odds and EU odds are very similar.
We have UK odds at 5/6 (USA -120 and EU 1.83) we know that UK odds don’t include the wager part. It means that the 5/6 is the profit you’ll be getting in reference to the wager. If you take a calculator and divide 5 by 6, you get 0.83, exactly the same odds as EU after removing the wager part.
The calculations are then exactly the same as in the example using the EU odds.
For the underdog part, we have UK odds at 6/5 (USA +200 and EU 2.20) The same as before holds true with the wager part not being included in the UK odds so 6/5 is the profit you’ll be getting.
If you divide 6 by 5, you’re getting 1.2 which is again the same odds as EU after removing the wager part and you’re then getting the same calculation results as with the EU odds.
No matter which odds system you’ll be using, you can notice it’s pretty straightforward. Just give yourself some practice with the odds system you’ll be using and you’ll be fine in no time.