Sports Betting Margin Calctulator

Our sports betting margin calculator allows you to quickly and easily calculate the Bookmakers margin on any major market with up to five outcomes. In addition to seeing the bookmakers advantage you'll also see the optimal player return along with the implied probability for each outcome based on the odds you enter. Compare and gather odds from multiple bookmakers and bet like a pro by finding an edge and hedging across bookies.

What is the Bookmakers Margin?

Every bookmaker and sports betting company in the world makes money in one of two ways, either by taking a commission such as in the case of an exchange or via a margin. Every market that is created by the bookies has a margin and this is the core foundation of the bookmakers business model. To explain it in a simplified way sports betting punters have often used the coin toss analogy. In a coin toss the odds are exactly 50:50 which in decimal form are 2.00 or 1/1 as a fraction. This means you have a 50% chance of hitting heads and 50% chance of hitting tails totalling 100% - on other words a 0% margin.

For a bookmaker there is no use in offering a 100% Market (also known as a Book) as this would mean no profit. Instead a margin is built in with an industry standard of around 10% across the entire Sports book. This would be representative of around 1.80 per outcome on a true coin toss.

So if you bet £10 on heads and on tails you would see a return from £20 of 1.80*10 = £18 giving a net win for the bookmaker of £2.00.

What is the Player Return?

Player Return is effectively the reverse of the Bookmakers margin, if you Bookmakers margin is 10% the effective and optimal return to player would be 90.%

To get the best possible edge you should look for the highest possible Player Return, if you ever get a Player Return rate above 100% you effectively have a sure bet. It's not likely you'll ever see this from one sports bookmaker, however it can be possible by playing on multiple sports betting websites and taking the best odds from each.

What is Implied Probability?

Implied probability is another way of expressing the potential odds of winning in a simple but effective manor. Going back to our coin toss example the implied odds of a 2.00 outcome are 50%. The calculation for this is fairly simple by taking the odds and dividing by 1 you get 1/2.00 giving you 0.50 represented as 50% or a 1 in 2 chance of winning.

This simple calculation gives you an insight into what the bookies see the chances of a particular outcome coming to fruition. Our sports betting margin calculator will conveniently give you the implied probability for each outcome entered giving you a better picture of the overall odds on the market you are prospecting.

For a simple view of how our calculator works there's no better way to learn than by punching in some numbers on a prospective bet and you'll quickly see the insight that you can gain.

Pro Betting Tip

Start betting like a pro with our online sports betting margin calculator by researching the markets you are looking at betting on. The best sports betting players in the world always do their research first and if you are shrewd you can take advantage of being a member at multiple sports betting websites and combine outcomes with the best odds to calculate improved and winning margins for your bets.