Those are terrible odds, but interesting of course.
I used to live in the UK and I was the manager of a betting shop for a time. They are legal there and several firms can be found in any town.
The way to check whether odds are good or not is to see how much you would need to bet to guarantee a return of $100. By that, I mean that you bet on every possible outcome. The best odds will be the company that requires you to bet the least amount to get back that $100. Any amount over $100 that you need to stake is their profit margin.
Here is a proper definition...
Overround and Overbroke (general terms )
Adding up the probabilities as shown by the odds of all the participants in an event for a particular bookmaker gives a percentage. While mathematically the total probabilities of all participants in an event must be 100% (one participant - and only one - can win) bookmaker’s total percentages are set to add up to over 100% because it’s the amount over 100% that represents the bookmaker’s profit. A book with a total percentage over 100 is called overround. A book that adds up to less than 100% is called overbroke which means that a punter could back all the participants and know that the total of their lost stakes will be less than their winnings (a good, if rare, thing).
I discovered an online calculator that takes the odds and converts them to a percentage so that you can see how overround the odds are. Unfortunately, it only allows a maximum of 20 outcomes, so you can only enter the top 20 teams in the betting. But it gives a very good indication, and the remaining 12 teams would not actually impact the numbers very much as their odds are so large.
The first thing you need to do is to convert the odds to decimals. This is done by dividing the first number by the second number, and then adding 1. The 1 is your stake that would be returned with any winning bet.
So for example: Odds of 7/4 would convert to 7 divided by 4 = 1.75, plus 1 for your stake = 2.75. Do that with all of the odds.
I entered the odds from the link at the start of this thread to see how overround they were...
$20.00 bet on IND @ 5.00 would return $100.00
$16.67 bet on SEA @ 6.00 would return $100.02
$20.00 bet on NE @ 5.00 would return $100.00
$14.29 bet on CAR @ 7.00 would return $100.03
$14.29 bet on PIT @ 7.00 would return $100.03
$9.10 bet on DAL @ 11.00 would return $100.10
$9.10 bet on SD @ 11.00 would return $100.10
$9.10 bet on DEN @ 11.00 would return $100.10
$6.25 bet on NYG @ 16.00 would return $100.00
$6.25 bet on CHI @ 16.00 would return $100.00
$6.25 bet on TB @ 16.00 would return $100.00
$5.27 bet on CIN @ 19.00 would return $100.13
$4.77 bet on WAS @ 21.00 would return $100.17
$4.35 bet on JAC @ 23.00 would return $100.05
$4.35 bet on KC @ 23.00 would return $100.05
$3.85 bet on ATL @ 26.00 would return $100.10
$4.77 bet on PHI @ 21.00 would return $100.17
$4.77 bet on MIA @ 21.00 would return $100.17
$3.85 bet on MIN @ 26.00 would return $100.10
$2.78 bet on GB @ 36.00 would return $100.08
$170.06 bet in total returns at least $100.00
So this is 170% book and the oddsmaker has a profit of 70%, plus slightly more because of the 12 teams I was unable to enter. Anything above 130% is a total rip off.
At these odds the bookmaker is paying out 58.80 %
It doesn't have to be that complicated if you only want to bet on one or two teams; just search for the best odds among the oddsmakers for the teams you are interested in.
Here is a link to a UK site that shows an odds comparison between the firms offering odds on that particular event...
http://www.oddschecker.com/betting/mode/o/...313x/sid/828117
I limited the search results to those firms that allows US bets.
Here are the best odds available for comparison with the odds at the start of the thread:
Indianapolis 13/2
Pittsburgh 10/1
New England 10/1
Seattle 12/1
Denver 12/1
San Diego 12.5/1
Cincinnati 21/1
NY Giants 22/1
Washington 22/1
Chicago 25/1
Dallas 25/1
Philadelphia 25/1
Kansas City 27/1
Carolina 27/1
Minnesota 28/1
Atlanta 28/1
Miami 33/1
Tampa Bay 33/1
Jacksonville 33/1
Baltimore 50/1
Oakland 66/1
St. Louis 68/1
Detroit 80/1
Green Bay 100/1
Cleveland 100/1
Arizona 100/1
Buffalo 125/1
Tennessee 125/1
NY Jets 125/1
San Francisco 150/1
Houston 150/1
New Orleans 200/1
Taking the top 20 teams there and using the best odds from any available firm, it would take $104.03 to guarantee a return of $100, so that's a huge difference between $170 from the firm in the original link.
If I look at the odds from just one firm, let's use Stan James as they appear to have the best odds, it would take $120.20 to guarantee $100 return. So that is far better than taking Vegas odds.
If you are planning a bet on next year's winner, I would suggest checking out places that compare odds as in the above link I gave. It's tough enough predicting a year in advance, so at least get the best available odds.
