Plus and minus: what the sign means
A minus number is how much you stake to win $100. At -110 you risk $110 to win $100; at -200 you risk $200 to win $100. Minus prices belong to the side the book thinks is more likely.
A plus number is how much a $100 stake wins. At +150, $100 wins $150; at +300, $100 wins $300. Plus prices belong to the less likely side.
Either way you also get your stake back on a winning bet, so $100 at +150 returns $250 in total.
How to calculate the payout
For any stake, the profit on a winning bet is:
- Plus odds: stake × odds ÷ 100. $20 at +250 profits $50.
- Minus odds: stake × 100 ÷ |odds|. $30 at -150 profits $20.
- Even money is +100 (or -100): profit equals the stake.
Turning odds into implied probability
The implied probability is how often a bet has to win to break even at that price. It is the single most useful number in betting, because it lets you compare a price with your own estimate of how likely something is.
Plus odds: 100 ÷ (odds + 100). +150 implies 100 ÷ 250 = 40%. Minus odds: |odds| ÷ (|odds| + 100). -150 implies 150 ÷ 250 = 60%.
Standard -110 on both sides of a spread implies 52.4% each, which adds up to 104.8%. The extra 4.8% is the sportsbook’s margin, the vig.
Why shopping for the best price matters
Different books price the same bet differently. The gap between -120 and -105 looks small, but it moves the break-even rate from 54.5% to 51.2%. Over a season of bets that difference is often the difference between losing and breaking even.
Livdy Board and every Livdy matchup page show each tracked sportsbook’s price side by side with the best one highlighted, so you never have to open five apps to find it.
Put it into practice: Sportsbook Odds Comparison for Every Game. Compare sportsbook odds side by side for NFL, college football, NHL, soccer and more. See the best price, opening vs current lines and how the market moved.
Questions
What does +200 mean in betting?
A $100 bet at +200 wins $200 profit (returning $300 with your stake). It implies a 33.3% chance of winning.
What does -110 mean?
You stake $110 to win $100. -110 implies a 52.4% chance, so a bettor needs to win more than 52.4% of -110 bets to profit.
Are American odds the same as decimal odds?
They describe the same price in a different format. Decimal odds include the stake: +150 is 2.50 decimal and -150 is 1.67.