How to Create an Odds Line

Sports lines are listings that show the payouts for a successful bet on a given sports team or athlete. An effective method of increasing your success betting on sports is to create your own lines for every fight or match you are considering wagering on. Once you have completed your lines, comparing the payouts you would award each competitor against the payouts the sports book offers gives you an idea of bets that may be in your favor.

Things You'll Need

  • Calculator
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Instructions

  1. Using Your Lines

    • 1

      Assign a winning percentage to each competitor in the event, based on how likely you think they are to win. For example, in a mixed martial arts fight between Georges St. Pierre and Nick Diaz, you may assess the fight and think St. Pierre will win 75 percent of the time, to Diaz's 25 percent.

    • 2

      Divide each percentage by 100 to find the decimal value for each winning percentage. For the example, St. Pierre's decimal value is .75, and Diaz's is .25.

    • 3

      Subtract the decimal value for the favorite being calculated from one. So, in this example for St. Pierre, subtract .75 from one to get .25.

    • 4

      Divide the decimal value for the favorite being calculated by the result of the subtraction. So in St. Pierre's case, .75 divided by .25 is three.

    • 5

      Multiply the result by -100. For St. Pierre, three times -100 equals -300. The formula through step four finds the amount of money that must be bet in order to earn $1, but lines are based on the values to win $100, so that's why you must multiply by -100. The number is multiplied by -100 instead of 100 because the minus sign on a betting line is a notation that means that competitor is the favorite.

    Underdog Line Calculation

    • 6

      Divide one by the decimal value of the underdog being calculated. So, for Diaz, one divided by .25 is four.

    • 7

      Subtract one from the result of the calculation to find the amount of money earned for each dollar bet. So, with Diaz, four minus one is three.

    • 8

      Multiply the result by 100, as underdog money lines are listed as the amount of money earned for betting $100 on the competitor. For the Diaz example, three times 100 is 300.