How do I calculate my potential winnings from a bet?

❓Potential winnings ? Odds and stake
📌Bet winnings calculations for common bets
🎉Bet winnings calculations for each way bets
✨Top tips

One of the most exciting aspects of placing a bet is learning how much you could potentially win, if the wager is successful. To do that, you need to know how to calculate your potential winnings from a bet. Fortunately, there are several ways to do this, utilising various online tools. If you prefer, you can use the old ‘pen and paper’ method and work the odds out yourself!

So, what are the key factors in determining your potential winnings from a bet? There are two factors to consider: the odds of your selection and the size of the stake you placed on the bet.

Potential Winnings Key Information - Odds and Stake

The odds of your selection and the amount you wagered on it will determine what your potential winnings are for any bet, including Each Way, accumulator or non-standard multiple selection bets (such as Forecast, Tricast, Patents, Heinz bets etc). Odds can be shown in a number of formats including fractional odds (7/2, 5/1 etc), decimal odds (2.50, 7.00 etc) or American odds (-100, +350).

Your stake is the amount that will be multiplied by the odds in order to give you your winnings. However, in order to do this most simply, you need to make one adjustment to the odds if they are in a non-decimal format.

The Key Step - Decimalise Your Odds

If your odds are not already decimal format, then it is much easier to work out the odds if you decimalise the fractional or American odds format first. That makes the final calculation so much easier. It can be tricky to decimalise some odds amounts. For example, any odds amount quoted as X/1 is easy enough to decimalise. 4/1 becomes 5.00, 8/1 becomes 9.00, 16/1 becomes 17.00. But if the odds amount shown is 13/8 or 19/2 or 2/7 then this becomes trickier.

Fortunately, you can use an online tool to translate odds from any format into decimals. There is a very useful odds converter at SportyTrader that does precisely this! Once you have the decimal odds for your wager, then it is relatively straightforward to work out your potential returns.

Join Bet365

Bet Winnings Calculations for Common Bets

Bet Winnings Calculation Options for Win Bets

The calculation for standard win bets is:

Your Stake x Decimalised Odds = Total Return

Then to calculate your potential winnings, you simply subtract the stake amount you placed from the total return.

Total Return - Your Stake = Potential Winnings

If we insert odds and stakes into that calculation for a £10 bet on a selection at decimal odds of 7.50 we would get £10 x 7.50 = £75.00. For potential winnings, that would then be £75.00 - £10.00 = £65.00. Which means £65 would be potential winnings, with your £10 stake returned making up the £75 total return. However, calculations become a little more complicated for some other common types of bet.

Bet Winnings Calculation for Each Way Bets

Each Way bets are essential two separate bets. Half your stake is placed on the win, and the other half on the place bet at a fraction of the standard odds. So to work out potential winnings for this bet, two calculations are required.

Win Bet

For the Win Bet the calculation is almost the same as a standard win bet with one small alteration.

(Your Stake/2) x Decimalised Odds = E/W Win Bet Potential Winnings

You can see that we have divided the stake in half before we make the calculation to discover potential winnings for the win part of the bet. Remember though, if your each way selection wins, you would also win the place part of the bet, so your total potential winnings for the each way bet would be the Potential Win Amount + Potential Place Amount.

Place Bet

Working out the place part of the bet is a slightly more complex calculation as place bets are often paid out at a fraction of the standard win bet odds (say ½, or ⅓ or ¼ in most cases). Therefore, the calculation for this bet as a £5 Unit Stake each way bet is as follows:

(Your Unit Stake) x (Decimalised Odds/Place Bet Fraction) = E/W Place Bet Potential Winnings.

The bet starts with half your total stake (unit stake) and then you take the decimalised odds and multiply it by the fraction of the winning odds for the place bet.

For example, if the win bet odds were 6/1 (7.00) and the fraction of those odds paid out for a place bet were ½ (0.5) , then the odds for the place bet would be 3/1 (7.00 x 0.5 = 3.50). This would then give us the following calculation for a £5 each-way bet at the place odds shown above.

(£5 unit stake) x (7.00 x 0.5 = 3.50) = £5 x 3.50 = £17.50 E/W place potential winnings.

So if your e/w bet selection wins, you would win £75 in total from the win portion of the bet and £17.50 from the each way portion for a total return of £92.50. But if only the place part of your each-way bet wins, your returns would be £17.50.

Join Bet365

Bet Winnings Calculation for Accumulator Bets

Fortunately, accumulator bet calculations are simple, you simply multiply the total odds of all selections to get a combined odds total for the accumulator bet and then multiply this by your stake. For example, for a fourfold accumulator with a £10 stake on the selections at decimal odds of 2.00, 4.00, 6.00 and 7.50 would be the following calculation:

(2.00 x 4.00 x 6.00 x 7.50) x Stake = Potential Winnings.

This breaks down to: 360 x £10 = £3,600 total return. That means £3,590 potential winnings and £10 stake returned.

Two Top Tips For The Easy Way to Discover Your Potential Winnings on a Bet

Fortunately, you do not have to do any of the maths to discover your winnings as there are two great online tools that can help you work out all the bets above, and many others besides.

Bet Calculators

There are many bet calculators available online into which you just add the details of your bet selections, namely the odds, and your stake and the calculator will work out the returns for you.

Bet Slip

Many companies now have a bet slip feature that shows the potential winnings for a bet you place. For multiple selection bets, or each way bets, the winnings for the win part and place part of the bet are also usually shown. So whether you want to work out the odds yourself, or use any of the tools available online, it is very easy to calculate any potential winnings from any bet you make.

Join 1xbet