Odds and prices
How to read betting odds
Read every price as a return first and a probability second. Decimal 3.00 returns three times your stake in total, and it says the outcome is about a one in three shot.
Fractional says the same thing as a ratio of profit to stake, so 2/1 is decimal 3.00 is American +200. Three costumes, one number.
Same price, three ways
Take an even-money bet. Fractional writes it 1/1. Decimal writes it 2.00. American writes it +100. All three mean: risk ten, get twenty back, ten of which is yours already.
Now take a short favourite. Fractional 1/4, decimal 1.25, American −400. Risk forty to win ten. Nothing about the bet changed, only the notation.
British and Irish books lean fractional. North American books lean American. European and most Canadian apps lean decimal, which is the format we use everywhere on this site because it needs no mental arithmetic to check a return.
The bit the price does not tell you
A price is an opinion with a margin baked in. It never shows the true chance, only the chance after the book has taken its cut, so the implied percentages on both sides of a market always add up past a hundred.
Compare the same market across two apps and the gap between their numbers is real money. On a C$50 bet the difference between 1.90 and 2.00 is five dollars, every time, forever. That is worth more than any welcome offer you will be shown this month.
Reading a slip under a thumb
Prices move while you are looking at them. Most apps flash the row green or red and then either accept the change silently, ask you, or reject the slip. Find that toggle before your first bet; it usually sits under settings as accept odds changes.
The parlay tab multiplies decimals together, which is why a four-leg slip shows a number that looks like a jackpot. That number is a multiplication, not a prediction.