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If someone offered you 5.00 odds for throwing the dice an exact number , would you accept this rule? It is easy to count that. In the long term, you will hit “your” number once in six tries. Thus, your expectation is 1/6 * 5.00 = 0.83 You are destined to lose 17 cents on every dollar you bet. Throwing a dice 1000 times and betting $1 on each toss, you will most likely win 166 times (it is 1/6 of 1000) so you will win 166*5.0 = 830 what makes you lose $170. The same rules apply in a world of sports-betting.

Lets look at a game between Real Madrid and Valencia. Bookmakers expect that public opinion will spread in a perfect way. They predict that half of all the money wagered on this match will be on “over 2.5 goals” bet and the other half will be staked on “under 2.5”. Knowing this fact (they can never be sure but most likely are very close in their estimations) they should set the odds in a way which allow them to grab an equal profit regardless the final result of this match. How to do it?

They set fair odds which are equal to 50% / 50 % distribution. The common formula is “100 / expectation” , so it is 100 / 50 = 2 . Odds 2.00 / 2.00 are called fair odds. The overound has not been applied yet - in this case both a punter and bookmaker would finish with zero net profit if money was distributed as expected (50/50).

Having fair odds they must decide how big margin they need. It varies throughout betting companies reaching as low as 2% to as high as 45% . Generally, there are some information which are worth remembering:

• The more outcomes in any event, the bigger overound is to be applied. The best payable from punter’s point of view are 2-way bets, like Tennis matches, Under/Over in Football or Asian handicaps. There you can grab even 1.98 / 1.98 offers in major European leagues. In this case, a bookmaker earns as little as one dollar from every $100 wagered!
• The worst for a punter are special and outright bets. It would not be a bad piece of advice to suggest avoiding this kind of outcomes at all. Forget about “First scorer”, “To Win Premiership” , “Exact Scores” kind of bets. I know that some time odds on 1-0 correct score around 5.50 might look a bit tempting but, believe me – it is horrible difficult to beat 45% overound in a long term.
• The bigger prestige of any league, the lower overound applied. It is well known that 1x2 fixed market on English Premiership, Spanish La Liga and other major leagues varies in 8%-9% range while games on English Division Three have as big as 12% overound. It is an easy explanation: a competition. The more exotic division is, the less number of bookmakers offer odds on this. They must find a way to compensate it so they set up the bigger margins.
• By betting more than one pick on a coupon increase the overound. 

Looking back at our example of a match between Real and Valencia, a bookmaker decides to earn 5% from this outcome. He offers 1.90 on “over 2.5” and 1.90 on “under 2.50” . If his predictions were right, he will have $2000 wagered on “over” and $2000 on “under” , which is 50/50 distribution of all $4000 staked.

No matter, how the game finishes, he will have to pay one of the sides $2000*1.90 = $3800 cashing-in $4000, what would bring him $200 net profit (notice that $200 is 5% of $4000).

Wanting to earn 10% he would have to set 1.80 / 1.80 odds. Nowadays, the market is so saturated and competitive that you will easily find 1.92 / 1.92 (4% house edge) on any event 2-way event.

If odds have built-in house edge, how to beat the bookie? The numbers are not fixed as in craps or roulette. This distribution 50/50 it is only a prediction made by a human like you and me. If you are capable of spotting his mistakes, you are on a good way to be on plus in a long term.

There are all the possible outcomes in a match between Manchester City and Aston Villa in a range of only one bookmaker. The game was played 31.10.05 . In brackets you can find how many outcomes were offered on this particular event. Conclusion is obvious: most sophisticated bets like Goal Scorer or Exact Score are the worst profitable for a punter while simple offers like Asian Handicaps are the easiest to beat.