How to Read American Odds

What American odds are

American odds, also called moneyline odds, are the price format you see on almost every US sportsbook: a three-digit number with a plus or minus sign in front of it, such as +150 or -110. It is the most common odds format found in the United States, and it usually appears as a pair, one positive and one negative, on the two sides of a market¹.

The whole format is built around a stake of $100. That is the one thing to hold on to, because it explains every plus and minus price you will ever see:

• A plus number tells you the profit you would make on a $100 stake.
• A minus number tells you the stake you would need in order to win $100 profit.

Neither number is the total return. Both describe profit only, and your stake comes back on top when you win. This is the big difference from decimal odds, which fold the stake into the number itself: decimal odds of 6.00 include both your profit and your stake, so a £10 bet at 6.00 returns £60 in total¹.

If you are used to the prices at Asian operators, this takes a moment of adjustment. A Hong Kong fixed-odds football price like 6.50x pays HKD 650 on a HKD 100 bet, stake included², and a Singapore Pools price of 1.80 pays S$180 on a S$100 stake³. American prices never include the stake in the quoted number, which is why they look so strange at first.

The rest of this page walks through the plus sign, the minus sign, the arithmetic behind both, and where you will actually run into these prices. For the wider picture of odds formats across the region, see betting odds explained.

What the plus sign means: reading +150

A plus number is usually the underdog, and the number is the profit you would win with a $100 bet¹. That is the whole rule.

Take +150:

• Stake $100.
• If the pick wins, you get $150 profit.
• Your stake comes back too, so the total return is $250.

The stake does not have to be $100. The price simply tells you the rate: for every $100 of stake, you earn $150 of profit. A $10 bet at +150 returns $15 profit plus the $10 stake, so $25 in total. A $50 bet returns $75 profit plus the $50 stake, so $125.

Compare that with the same price written as decimal odds. A plus price of +150 corresponds to decimal odds of 2.50, and the decimal figure is the total return per unit staked: $100 × 2.50 = $250, the same $250 as before, stake included. The two formats say the same thing in different ways, which is why state operators in Asia quote prices like 6.50x on a correct score and pay HKD 650 for a HKD 100 bet, stake and profit together in one figure².

Plus prices are common on underdogs, but you will also see them on favorites in markets with several outcomes, such as a three-way soccer moneyline where every team might be quoted at a plus price. The sign tells you the arithmetic, not automatically the role of the team.

The minus sign: what -110 means

A minus number is usually the favorite, and the number is the amount of money you need to bet in order to win $100¹.

Take -110, the classic price on a point spread or total in US markets:

• Stake $110.
• If the pick wins, you get $100 profit.
• Total return: $210.

Again, the stake can be any size; the price is a rate. At -110, every $11 of stake earns $10 of profit. A $22 bet wins $20 profit; a $55 bet wins $50 profit.

The key mental shift is that with a minus price, the profit is smaller than the stake. The minus number will return less than your stake in profit, while the plus number will return more¹. That is the fastest way to sanity-check a price when you are reading a board: if the profit is smaller than the money you put in, you are looking at a favorite, and the bookmaker is charging you extra to back the likelier side.

The reason -110 in particular is so common is that it is the standard price on a two-way market with a small margin built in. Two sides at -110 each means the bookmaker collects more in losing stakes than it pays out in winning ones. That margin is covered in detail on vig or juice explained.

The $100 rule and how returns are calculated

Everything in American odds comes back to the $100 rule, and both directions have a simple formula.

For a plus price:

profit = stake × (odds ÷ 100)

At +150, a $100 stake gives $100 × 1.50 = $150 profit. At +250, a $100 stake gives $250 profit. The total return is profit plus stake.

For a minus price:

profit = stake × (100 ÷ odds, sign ignored)

At -110, a $100 stake gives $100 × (100 ÷ 110) in profit, a little less than the stake itself. At -200, a $100 stake gives $50 profit. The total return is again profit plus stake.

Notice the asymmetry: with plus prices you multiply, with minus prices you divide. A common slip is treating -150 like +150 and working out a huge profit on a favorite. If the number has a minus sign, the profit is always less than the stake.

It helps to compare this with how fixed-odds payouts are calculated elsewhere, because the logic is identical even when the format differs:

• At Hong Kong fixed odds, the stake is multiplied by the fixed odds displayed when the bet was placed, so a $100 bet on Home Win 2:1 at 7.50 pays $750⁵.
• At Singapore Pools, a S$100 bet on Over 2.5 at odds 1.80 pays S$100 × 1.80 = S$180³.
• Japan's WINNER lottery states the same principle in its own terms: the prize is the payout multiplier times the purchase amount⁶.
• Korean cycle racing describes its refund the same way: the payout is the bet amount on the winning ticket multiplied by the refund rate⁷.

American odds are just a different way of writing the multiplier. Once you have converted a plus or minus price into a rate of profit per unit staked, every payout works the same way as these examples.

One more detail worth knowing: when part of a fixed-odds bet is void, for example a match that does not count, operators commonly settle that part at odds of 1.0, which means stake back and no profit on that leg⁴. The same idea applies to American-priced markets on international sites.

Even odds: +100 and -100

The border between plus and minus is +100, and it means even money: a $100 stake wins $100 profit, so the total return is $200. You may also see it written as -100, which works out to the same thing, since the stake needed to win $100 is $100.

Even money is the point where the profit exactly equals the stake, and it maps to decimal odds of 2.00 and to fractional odds of 1/1, traditionally called "evens". If you see a price drifting from -110 toward -100, the market is moving toward even money; if it crosses to +100 and beyond, the selection is now an underdog price.

The language of favorites and longshots around this border is covered on odds-on, evens and odds-against, and the fractional equivalents are on fractional odds explained.

Is a minus number always the favorite?

In a two-way moneyline market, yes. The minus number represents the favorite and the amount you need to bet to win $100, and it will return less than your stake, while the plus number will return more¹. If one side of a basketball game is -180 and the other is +155, the -180 side is the favorite.

But be careful with minus signs in other contexts, because the sign does not always mean the same thing:

• In Asian handicap notation, a minus marks the team giving the handicap, and the number after the sign is the number of goals given, so -1 means giving one goal⁸. That is a line, not a price, even though it looks similar.
• In pari-mutuel markets across Asia, favorites are shown by low numbers rather than minus signs. In horse racing, the favorite is the horse with the most money bet on it, which carries the lowest odds⁹. Japanese keirin works the same way: the lower the odds, the more popular the pick, and the lowest number on the board is the favorite¹⁰.

So the rule is: in a two-way American price, minus means favorite. Anywhere else, read the context before assuming the sign tells you who is favored.

Moneyline vs point spread

A moneyline bet and a point spread bet are two different wagers, and American odds can price either one.

A moneyline wager is simply betting on the team or player you think will win the game, with no points or goals spread involved¹. The price attached is the American odds, one plus and one minus number on the two sides.

A point spread bet is different: you are betting on a team to win by more than a given margin, or to lose by less than it. The spread itself is written with plus and minus signs too, which is where confusion often starts. In a soccer handicap market, the minus marks the team giving the handicap and the plus marks the team receiving it, with the number of goals after the sign⁸. So a line of -1 and a price of -110 are two different things: the first is the margin, the second is the price.

Spread and handicap prices also move. Handicap lines and odds will change during the betting period as money comes in and team news arrives¹¹, so the -110 you see in the morning may be -105 or -115 by kickoff. Why that happens is covered on why odds change.

For the payout side, a spread bet at -110 works exactly like the moneyline example above: $110 staked returns $100 profit. The bet type changes what counts as a win, not how the price pays.

Where you will see American odds

The honest answer for readers in Asia: not very often at local outlets, but regularly if you use US-facing sportsbooks or follow American sports coverage.

In the United States, American odds are the default on every sportsbook app and every broadcast graphic. If you follow NBA, NFL, MLB or UFC markets on international sites, the prices will usually be shown this way, and most sites let you switch the display format in settings.

At Asia's own betting operators, the prices you meet are decimal, Hong Kong, or pari-mutuel:

None of these use plus and minus prices, but they are worth recognizing because the underlying idea, a number that tells you what a winning bet pays, is universal. A few display quirks exist too: on some Japanese odds screens, prices from 1.0 to under 10.0 are shown in red¹⁷, and at JRA tracks red odds indicate a price under 10 times¹⁸. Very long prices can appear as extreme figures, such as a horse quoted at 566.8¹⁹.

For a full map of which format each jurisdiction uses, see which odds formats are used in each Asian jurisdiction.

Converting American odds to other formats

Because American odds quote profit against a $100 baseline and decimal odds quote total return per unit staked, converting between them is a two-step arithmetic job.

Plus price to decimal:

decimal odds = 1 + (American odds ÷ 100)

+150 becomes 1 + 1.50 = 2.50. +200 becomes 3.00.

Minus price to decimal:

decimal odds = 1 + (100 ÷ the number without the sign)

-110 becomes 1 + (100 ÷ 110), a little under 2.00. -200 becomes 1.50.

The check is built in: plus prices always convert to decimal odds of 2.00 or higher, minus prices always convert to something between 1.00 and 2.00, and even money (+100 or -100) is exactly 2.00.

To go the other way, from decimal to American: if the decimal odds are 2.00 or more, subtract 1 and multiply by 100, so 2.50 becomes +150. If they are below 2.00, divide 100 by (the decimal minus 1) and add the minus sign to the result.

A few related conversions and ideas:

• To convert to Hong Kong odds, simply subtract 1 from the decimal figure, since Hong Kong odds quote profit only, the same idea American odds express against $100. This is covered on stake, profit and return.
• Malay and Indonesian odds also use plus and minus signs, but with the baseline flipped in different ways; see Indonesian odds and convert decimal odds to Malay odds, and for the minus sign in general, what negative odds mean.
• To convert to fractional odds, write the plus price as a fraction over 100 (+150 is 150/100, which reduces to 3/2) or the minus price as 100 over the number (-110 is 100/110, which reduces to 10/11).

Once you can move a price into decimal form, everything else follows, because decimal odds multiply directly against any stake: a price of 2.50 pays 2.5 times whatever you put in, stake included, exactly the way a fixed-odds football payout of S$100 × 1.80 = S$180 works at Singapore Pools³. For the deeper question of what a price implies about a team's chances, and how the bookmaker's margin distorts it, see expected value in betting and fair odds without margin.