Betting at shorts odds seems like the easiest way to get to profit when it comes to betting, however it comes with its own risks. Anytime you place money on the possibility of an event happening, you are, of course, doing something risky.

For the most part, when betting at short odds, people look at markets such as Over 1.5 goals, Over 0.5 First Half goals, sometimes Both Teams to Score (BTTS) and others too, like Clean Sheet, Over 0.5/1.5 Team Goals etc.

Usually we see the prices for these events occurring being from 1.20 - 1.40 and, in the case of BTTS, a shorts odds price would be from 1.50-1.60. However, to really know how these odds work we should look at the implied probability of an event occurring when we see those prices.

First we’ll show you how to do it yourself. Let’s pick an upcoming Premier League match; Aston Villa vs Leicester, currently Over 1.5 goals is 1.20 with some of the better bookmakers.

Thanks to the Bet Dynamo Insights Page, we can see there’s value in this selection. But what we want to focus a bit more on is the implied probability of a price.

Short Odds Football Betting Tips

So, our odds are 1.20, we divide 1 by 1.20 and get 0.83, multiply that by 100 and we get 83.33%, so for this Villa vs Leicester we would expect Over 1.5 goals to happen in 83% of matches played between the pair. We’re not factoring in the bookie overround/commission here, but it’s something you can read about here.

Thankfully the good people at BitEdge have done up a very handy page where we can quickly see what a certain price of odds are in implied probability, you can see it here. This is incredibly handy and you’ll be able to quickly decide if an event is worth betting on.

Betting at Shorts Odds in Football Matches

Here’s the thing though, we’d expect this to not happen in 17% of match, so we need to remain objective in our bets and make calculated assessments of whether an event will occur before we place our wagers. Bookies set their odds not only depending on the chance of an event occurring, but they also factor in how tempting the price is for an event occurring. What they price as 1.20 in many case, should really be priced as 1.30 or even higher and they make it 1.20 to tempt in the risk-averse punters.

Many people prefer to put short odds selections into doubles, trebles or accumulators to boost their winnings and this can be a profitable strategy, but please ensure that you remain objective in your choices and not to place wagers based solely on price and rather look at the implied probability, factor in the overrounds per each selection and, of course, investigate teams news, recent form, motivation etc. We’re written about some of the factors here so if you can keep a steely eye on your selections and ensure you’re getting value every time this method can lead to profit over the long term.