What Does Evens Mean in Betting Terms?
If you like to place wagers on a betting site, you’ve probably heard about evens. But what does this betting term mean?
Evens is a term used to denote bets that effectively double your stake money. Practically all betting sites use this term to denote bets with a 50% chance of happening.
You can place bets in practically every sport, including horse racing, football, basketball, and even notable events like the Super Bowl.
So, for instance, if you place an even bet of $10 with any selection available, you will double your money if you win. In other words, you’ll get $20 if you win or lose the $10 stake if you fail to guess correctly with American odds. It’s as simple as that.
But before you begin, let’s take a look at everything else you need to know about events betting.
How Are Probabilities Calculated in Betting and What Are Odds?
Before we delve deeper into events, we need to explain some basics. First of all, how do bookies calculate betting probabilities?
For instance, if a player has access to five tickets and draws one, it means that the probability of them winning is 1 in 5, or 20% or 1/5.
As for betting odds, they are ratios of a bettor’s chance of winning or losing a bet. They can also be the average number of times a loss happens to the average number of wins.
In plain terms, if a player has 1 of 5 tickets, it means that their odds are 4 to 1, for the simple reason that they have four chances of losing and only one chance of winning. However, the probability is still 1 in 5.
This is actual mathematics, but in real-life sports betting, it’s never used as precisely as this. Actual betting odds are estimates, and they are very subjective, which is why you’ll often find slightly different odds if you check the same selections on various betting sites. What’s more, the odds you get will be further altered as they show your payout, not your actual chances of winning.
What Odds Are Evens?
It depends on which type of odds you are using. In sports betting, there are three types of odds:
- Fractional odds
- Decimal odds
- American odds
Fractional odds are displayed as a fraction, and an even bet using this system would be 1/1. That’s because fractional odds are the actual ratio of the amount you win to the stake you’ve made. As you can win double the amount with an evens bet, it stands to reason that the evens bet here is 1/1.
Decimal odds are the easiest to understand as they tell you exactly what your payout is. With this system, an even bet would be 2.0 as this is the only number that doubles the stake. Calculating your payout with a decimal odd is easy as you only need to multiply the stake with the odds, and you get your payout.
American odds are primarily used in North America, and they are the most complex of the three. Decimal odds show how much you win for every dollar you stake, but with American odds, you get to see how much you win if you gamble $100, where the odds are displayed as +100. You can also get -100 odds, and these tell you the amount you need to stake to get $100. All in all, an evens bet in this system would be +100.
It’s also worth mentioning that some bookies will display even bets as EVS.
What Are the Benefits of Evens Betting?
Evens are often a popular bet among experienced punters, and it’s mostly because they offer various advantages, including:
- A higher chance of winning — You have a good chance of winning an evens bet if you are an experienced punter. Such pro bettors often use these bets to make a profit.
- Great for covering your bets — If you’re placing a live bet, it’s much better to cover your bet by placing an even wager. Many bookies will let you surrender part of your bet and cash out early when you’re unsure of your wager, and if you’ve placed an evens or higher bet, you’ll get a significant portion back.
- You get to win more regularly — If you become adept at spotting good shots in a sport you follow, even bets will be a great way to win a decent amount regularly.
What Are the Best Sports for Evens Bets?
You can use this betting strategy with any sport if you want, but that doesn’t mean you should. That’s because this betting type works much better with sports where many markets have only two potential outcomes.
As for specific sports, it’s best to use even bets on football, cricket, and rugby, but bear in mind that other sports where there are plenty of selections with only two outcomes will work as well.
Is It Worth Placing an Evens Bet?
It’s never easy to decide if an even bet is worth placing. As always in sports betting, you need to think for yourself and decide if you believe some bet is worth placing.
However, with evens, this bet is not very easy to win if you are a beginner, so it’s much better to use selections with odds below the 2.0 mark and only make an evens bet if you’re sure of your choice.
Naturally, this is only the case with less experienced punters, as they are more adept at finding great opportunities. They’ll use them as a way to make more profits or to get back from a losing streak. So, if you have enough experience, you should use even bets to win more money than usual.
