If you’re new to gambling, one of the first things you need to know is how casino gambling odds work. It’s important to understand the likelihood of an event happening, the risk involved, and what your winnings may be. There are several ways to educate yourself about gaming odds, such as learning betting terminology and risk calculation.

Allow Grand Sierra Resort to walk you through everything you need to know about probability and gambling odds, so you can improve your “luck”.

Odds & Probability Explained

In order understand odds, you need to understand probability, or how likely a particular event is to happen. Put simply, betting suggests you have the ability to predict the potential outcome of an event. For any given event, there are a certain number of outcomes. For example, if you roll the dice, there are 6 sides to the dice and therefore 6 possible outcomes. Therefore, your chance of rolling a 1 is 1 in 6, or 16.67%.

Types of Odds

There are three main types of odds commonly used on online betting sites and at casinos around the globe. The type of odd used largely depends on where in the world you're gambling.

• Fractional Odds: Fractional odds are commonly used in the United Kingdom and are considered the traditional method. The easiest way is to understand fractional odds is “how much you will win”/”your stake”. 
• Decimal Odds: This style is also referred to as European odds because they’re commonly used throughout Europe (with the exception of the UK). With decimal odds, you multiply your stake by the decimal shown and the answer is how much you can potentially receive in winnings, including your stake.
• Percentage: Odds written as a percentage are referred to as implied probability. Implied probability is the statistical likelihood of your bet occurring. The odds are displayed as a percentage out of 100.

How To Use Betting Odds to Calculate Probability

Using fractional odds, you can determine how likely a given event is to happen with a calculation. The odds indicate how much you can win based on how much you stake.

To properly explain it, here is the calculation:  Probability (%) = B / (A+B).

Example: 6/1 can be calculated as  1 / (6 + 1) = 0.1428 – There is a 14.28% chance that the event will happen.

Betting odds allow you to calculate your winnings using the fractional odds method. Using numbers instead of letters, this means that for every value of B that you bet, you will win A, plus the return of your stake.

Example: 6/1: For every $1 you bet, you have the potential to win $6.

To summarize it all, gambling odds represent the likelihood of an event happening and allow you to calculate how much money you can potentially win if you bet correctly. As an example, with odds of 6/1, for every $1 you bet, you will win $6. You have a 14.28% chance of this happening, calculated by 1 / (6 + 1) = 0.1428.

What is a Casino Payout Rate?

While we generally play casino games with the intent of having fun and winning money, there is a large difference in the typical payout percentage between each game. The casino payout rates are designed to give players an idea of how likely they are to win at a game, or how much they can expect to lose in pursuit of that one big win. Casino payout rates are commonly expressed as a percentage and the figures indicate how much of the money wagered on a specific game is returned to players on average.

What is the House Edge?

The payout rate helps determine the casino’s house edge, or the statistical advantage the casino holds in any given game. A casino's house edge can be reduced using effective strategy, but it's safest to simply play the games that have the lowest house edge available.

Understanding how to effectively calculate the odds and probability associated with each bet may allow you to place more successful bets. Think you know your stuff? Test your “luck” on Grand Sierra Resort’s gaming floor!