Sports Betting for Beginners: How odds, bets and bankrolls work, explained with numbers is a free ebook from Scores and Stats. It is a PDF of 13 chapters and nearly 16,000 words, built from our own betting guides for someone who has never placed a bet. To get it, join ScoresAndStats Members, our free membership, with your email address. The download link appears as soon as you join and arrives in your inbox too.
What is inside
- How a bet works: who the bookmaker is, where the price comes from, and how an online sportsbook compares with one in Vegas, with our guide to what a bookie is.
- Reading odds: what -110, +200 or 2.50 means, and how to turn any price into a percentage (how betting odds work).
- The three bets on every board: the moneyline, the spread and the over/under.
- Placing your first bet: each line of a bet slip, and why a straight bet is the place to start.
- Bankroll and units: how to set money aside and size each bet against it (bankroll management, what a unit is).
- Parlays, teasers and same-game parlays: how legs combine on a parlay, what a teaser changes, and how a round robin splits one ticket into several.
- Props and futures: prop bets on a player, futures on a season, and the anytime touchdown scorer.
- During the game, and when the line moves: live betting, the hedge bet and what line movement tells you.
- What makes a good bet: expected value, line shopping and why sportsbooks limit players.
- Sport by sport: 1X2 and draw no bet in soccer, and NFL props in football.
- How to read a Scores and Stats prediction: where our number comes from and how a call is made, as set out in our editorial policy.
- Tools and the words you will meet: betting terms from A to Z, the odds calculator and the parlay calculator.
- Keeping it a game: the habits that keep betting a pastime, from our responsible gambling guide.
Who it is for
It is for anyone who has seen -110 next to a team name and wondered what it meant. No earlier knowledge is assumed. Every idea comes with a worked number, so you can check the arithmetic yourself before you trust it.
A taste of chapter 2
Every price tells you two things: what a bet pays, and what chance the sportsbook gives the outcome. Take -150. You stake $150 to win $100, for $250 back in total, and the price implies a 60% chance. At +200, $100 wins $200 and the implied chance is 33.3%.
You do not have to bet in hundreds. At -150, a $30 bet wins $20. At +200, the same $30 wins $60. The same price can also be written in decimal: at 2.50, $10 returns $25, which is $15 of profit plus your $10 back.
How to get it
Join ScoresAndStats Members with your email. It costs nothing. The download link appears straight away, and a copy arrives by email so you can find it later.
Already know the basics?
Our predictions show the method from chapter 11 at work, game by game, with the prices and the numbers behind each call. Best bets today gathers the day’s calls on one page. For any single topic in the book, the guides go into more detail with more examples.
21+. Bet responsibly.