GuideHow the odds work
Price, chance and payout, with the numbers worked.
The price is the chance
A contract pays $1 if its side settles and nothing if it doesn't, so its price is the chance the market gives that side. Yes at 25¢ is 25%.
Decimal odds
Decimal odds are $1 divided by the price: what each dollar staked returns if the side wins. A price of 40¢ is 2.50× odds, so a $10 stake returns $25. betondit shows sports prices this way and everything else as a chance; the number underneath is the same.
A stake, worked
- You put $20 on Yes at 25¢: that buys 80 contracts.
- It settles Yes: 80 × $1 = $80 back.
- It settles No: the contracts are worth $0.
- You sell before settlement, when Yes trades at 45¢: 80 × 45¢ = $36 back.
The order pad shows the exact fill before you send an order, because a larger stake can take more than one price off the book.
Yes plus No, and the spread
The two sides' prices add up to about $1. The gap between the best price someone will buy at and the best price someone will sell at is the spread: the cost of trading in and straight back out.
Thin books
A market with few orders has a price one trade can move a long way, and sometimes no price at all on a side. betondit shows a dash there instead of inventing a number.
Draws, voids and regulation time
What a draw does is written in the template. A two-sided sports market (one team or the other) pays both sides half on a draw or a no-result. A three-way market has its own Draw side, which also takes most no-result cases. Many sports markets count regulation time only, so a cup tie settled on penalties settles as a draw.
Over/under lines and ranges
An over/under line pays $1 to the side that is right, so its price is a chance like any other. A range market is different: it pays in proportion to where the result lands between its low and high, so its price is the value the market expects, not a chance.