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Best Tennis Betting

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To understand tennis betting odds margins, it helps if you understand how sportsbooks make money.  On tennis, or for any sport for that matter, the goal for a sportsbook is to balance potential payouts among all the potential event outcomes so that the stakes from the losing wagers can cover the winning wagers.  When balanced, the sportsbook will make a small percentage of revenue through the odds pricing margins that it offered.

If the sportsbook does a poor job of balancing the potential payouts, they could be left to cover the payout from their own resources.  This is why handicaps and odds prices change.  When a lot of money is being wagered on one particular player, like a fan favourite, the sportsbook will lower the price on the heavily wagered-upon outcome and increase the odds price for the other outcome(s) and/or alter the handicap.  This is the sportsbook’s effort to shift betting interest to help balance the eventual payouts.

Sportsbooks build their profit margins into the odds across all potential event outcomes.  These margin percentages vary from sportsbook to sportsbook and betting market to betting market.  Some sportsbooks focus on providing excellent margin value on particular sports, but use higher margins on others, while some sportsbooks approach all sports with essentially the same margins.

Here is an example of how tennis odds margins are calculated using decimal odds, so you can see how sportsbooks make their revenue:

For the sake of a simple example, let’s say it is a very even match with two great players:  Djokovic at 1.95 and Murray at 1.95.  The formula would read as follows:

(1/1.95)*100 + (1/1.95)*100 = 51.28 + 51.28 = 102.56%.  This thus indicates a sportsbook margin of 2.56%

How does this work in real money terms?  Since the odds are the same on both sides, the goal would be to have the same amount wagered on each side.  If a total of$1,000,000 was bet on the match with $500,000 on each side, those that won their bet would be entitled to $500,000 * 1.95 = $975,000.  Those that lost, obviously receive nothing, this leaves the sportsbook with $25,000 in revenue on this particular match.  Note this is revenue, not profit as the sportsbook certainly has operational costs in order to provide their service.

If Djokovic were to play an unseeded player ranking in the hundreds, you can imagine that Djokovic would be listed as a very heavy favourite with odds prices in the range of 1.01 (1/100) to 1.05 (1/20).  Quite simply, very few people will be betting on the heavy underdog, thus the underdog will pay heavily from 12 to 1 up to even 30 to 1 in order to achieve the same odds margin around 2.5%.  If a match ever gets to a point where bettors just won’t lay stakes on the underdog, the sportsbook will simply stop taking bets as the goal as ever is to balance the potential payout on both sides.

So for odds on Djokovic at 1.01 (1/100) and the Unknown Underdog at 28.7 (that’s an odds margin of about 2.5%), as ever, the sportsbook is looking to balance the potential payouts.  If there is 1,000,000 bet on the match in total, the revenue for the sportsbook will again be $25,000.  Of that $1,000,000 wagered, the target for the sportsbook is to have about $965,346 bet on Djokovic and only about $34,843 bet on the underdog.  No matter the result, the money for the winning bets is covered by the money from the losing bets and the sportsbook earns its revenue through the 2.5% odds margin.

Below, you’ll find the tennis betting odds margins offered at each of best tennis betting sites for Money Line bets (to win the match) and where available, the most popular handicap market which involves the number of total games a player must win by in order for you to win the bet.  To learn more you can read about this handicap and other tennis betting markets.  Below, the general odds margin range for other major sports is also listed, incase you expect to bet on sports other than tennis.  

Understand and compare tennis betting odds margins on major tennis betting markets.  Lower odds margins lead to better odds and higher payouts on winning wagers.

Compare Odds Margins

William Hill Tennis Margins

Money Line Margin: ~5%

Handicap Odds Margins: NA

Other Sports Margins: 2 to 5%

Early bet cash out feature: Yes



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Unibet Tennis Margins

Money Line Margins: 5 to 7%

Handicap Odds Margins: ~7%

Other Sports Margins: 4 to 5%

Early bet cash out feature: Yes

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BoyleSports Tennis Margins

Money Line Odds Margins: ~4%

Handicap Odds Margins: NA

Other Sports Margins: 3 to 5%

Early bet cash out feature: No


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