Odds

What odds are

Odds are the price a sportsbook puts on an outcome. They say two things at once: roughly how likely the book thinks the outcome is, and exactly what a winning wager will pay. In the United States they are usually written in American format. A negative number, such as -150, is how much you must risk to win $100. A positive number, such as +130, is how much a $100 wager wins.

Odds can be converted to an implied probability. A -150 price implies about 60%, a +130 price about 43%. On a two-way market those two numbers add up to more than 100%, and the excess is the book's margin, the vig. Odds move as information and money arrive, so the price you get depends on when you accept it.

An example

A book prices the favorite at -200 and the underdog at +170 on the moneyline. A $200 wager on the favorite returns $100 in profit if it wins. A $100 wager on the underdog returns $170 in profit if it wins. On the point spread for the same game, both sides might sit at -110, meaning $110 risked to win $100 on either team.

How Speed Survivor is different

Speed Survivor has no odds. Every live question is a plain yes or no, and a correct answer earns the same base points for everyone who gets it right, plus a speed bonus for answering fast. There is no price to read, no line that moves, and no difference in what a correct yes pays versus a correct no.

That is possible because nobody at Speed Labs is on the other side. The company sets the question, never a price, and entrants compete against each other for a pool their entries funded. Rank on points decides who is paid. How it works explains the scoring and the cuts in full.