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Betting Odds Explained: Will You Win?
Harrison Score
Harrison Score

Betting Odds Explained: Will You Win?

No matter if you play bingo or poker, odds are always important.

Betting Odds Explained

In gambling, odds are often presented as a fraction like 9/1, pronounced “nine to one” – but what does this mean? It’s simple! Just turn that fraction into a percentage:

1 /(9 + 1) = 0.10 – There is a 10% chance that the event will happen – a 10% chance that you will win the bet.

Alternatively, you could get a rough idea of your odds by looking at the difference between two numbers in a given fraction; little difference between these digits, like 8/9, has a much higher chance of happening then 1/9, where the two numbers are much further apart.

How Likely Are You To Win?

It’s time to look at these odds in terms of bingo. Calculating odds in an online bingo game is actually very easy – divide the number of tickets you’ve got for the game by the total number of tickets in play. For example, there may be 50 tickets up for grabs in a single bingo game. Let’s assume all of these cards have been purchased and you’ve bought 5. This means you have a 5/50 chance of winning, or 10%. If you see the same names come up a lot among winners, it’s only because these folks have a tendency to buy A LOT of tickets, meaning better odds for themselves, but also a much bigger risk should they lose.

How Much Can You Win?

Odds also affect how much you can win, not just how often. Usually the more likely something is to happen, the much lower your winning pay-out. Just take the 90 ball bingo game featured by National Lottery. It is a great deal harder to get four corners on a National Lottery bingo card then a single line. Therefore, the cash prize for four corners can be as high as £300,000 vs. just £3 for a single line.

Most bingo sites recognize that players have a higher probability of getting 1 line, before 2 lines, before a full house. Therefore the prize pot is staggered, and money is split between each of these winners. The smallest sum of money (e.g. £5) goes to the one line winner, while the largest amount (e.g. £50) goes to the full house. Get it?

How Much Should You Bet?

Now, let’s look at another National Lottery example: Instant win games are all labelled with the odds of winning, plus the cost to play. For example, ‘Merry Millionaire’ features 1 in 2.91 odds, which mean players have roughly a 1 in 3 chance of winning, with a £5 cost to play. On the other hand, Hook a Duck features 1 in 3.79 odds, making a 1 in 4 chance of winning, but costs just 25p to play. You can clearly see that the worse the odds, the cheaper the game. This same rule applies to penny bingo, where just 1p is bet for a whole full house against LOTS of bingo roomies. In other words, a bigger risk usually equals better odds and more chance of a jackpot.

Betting Odds Written On A Chalkboard


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