Mark Lewis
Editor
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Last Updated on 09/23/2022
Fact checked by: Mike Goodpaster
Table of Content
- Most important reasons to compare odds – how you can find the best hockey odds online
- How do bookmakers determine their odds? – see how sportsbooks come up with the hockey odds you see online
- Why do odds vary between bookmakers? – how you see different hockey odds
- Most popular odds formats explained – how to know the difference between the different hockey odds formats
- How to calculate the expected value – How to find out if hockey odds offer you a good deal
- Why loyalty doesn’t always pay – how not finding the best hockey odds could be costing you money
- Other factors to consider when comparing odds – when looking for the best hockey odds might not be to your advantage
- Odds comparison vs live betting – how to get the best hockey odds live
- Conclusion – you can make a really difference to your betting profits by shopping around for the best hockey odds
- Hockey odds FAQ
Most important reasons to compare odds – how you can find the best hockey odds online
If you are used to using the same sportsbook every time you place a bet, it might not occur to you that you might not be getting the best betting odds available. If you don’t look anywhere else you may not know that you could have made so much more from each of your winning bets by just looking around.
Or, if you are new to hockey betting you might think that all the sportsbooks have ‘pretty much’ the same odds. But if you did take time to look around, you might well find that odds vary a bit more than you thought, and that those small differences can make a big difference over time.
There is of course, the issue that looking around different sportsbooks can take time, and the small difference in odds might not be worth all the hassle. But, if you add up what you could have made over the course of a month if you bet regularly, or maybe a longer period if you don’t – you could find that you missed out on a tidy sum.
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How do bookmakers determine their odds? – see how sportsbooks come up with the hockey odds you see online
As you would expect, sportsbooks invest a lot of effort in determining the hockey odds you see when you log into your account. There are a great number of factors that contribute to the figures you see, and for obvious reasons, much of the tsunami of data that is available is crunched by computers, with minimal human input.
These will work out what the relative probability is, given all of the factors, of various results occurring in a market, and that so all eventualities balance each other out. This complicated business is also known as making a book, and why the term bookmaker is used at the top of this section. These calculations have to be precise, because errors can cost the sportsbook dearly.
Why do odds vary between bookmakers? – how you see different hockey odds
There are a number of reasons why the hockey odds you see at ‘sportsbook A’ won’t match the hockey odds you see at ‘sportsbook B’, but the most common is when the ‘book’ we mentioned above becomes unbalanced. To use a quick example, imagine a team near the top of the standings is playing one near the bottom. You would expect the higher ranked team to have lower odds of winning and attract the greatest number of bets (as people tend to bet on favorites for obvious reasons).
If for some reason, a large number of bets started to come in for the underdog, the sportsbook would have to lower their odds to make the bet less attractive to bettors. If this has happened at one sportsbook but not others, then the odds for the same market would be different at each one.
Most popular odds formats explained – how to know the difference between the different hockey odds formats
It’s not just the odds that can vary between sportsbooks, but the format you can view them in. This is why when you see a horse racing operator, or a sportsbook that operates in a different country, what you are seeing might not make any sense. You can sometimes switch between these formats by changing the settings on your sportsbook, but if you can’t, you can use a betting odds converter instead.
Here is a quick explanation of the different odds formats:
How to calculate the expected value – How to find out if hockey odds offer you a good deal
Expected value is something that is often used by people who use specific betting strategies, but can also be useful to occasional bettors to work out if they are getting a ‘value’ bet. You can use a betting odds calculator to do this if you find the matth a little daunting. The short version is that it works out what the ‘value’ would be if you placed a bet time and time again, and the easy way to illustrate it is using a coin toss analogy, because the odds of it coming down heads is 50% and the same for tails.
If you could win $150 each time it came down tails, and $100 when it came down heads and you knew that either result had a 50% chance, then clearly tails would be a better bet. Also with this data, you work out that over a number of bets, your average profit for continuously betting on tails compared to heads would be $25, so the estimated value would be +$25
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Why loyalty doesn’t always pay – how not finding the best hockey odds could be costing you money
There are, no doubt, many reasons why you love your current sportsbook, and there is a very comfortable feeling about going to the same place each time you place a bet. However, you might feel a little less comfortable when you realize that doing this every time might not be as profitable as comparing odds before you bet.
As we mentioned earlier, small differences over a number of successful bets can really make a big difference when you add things up at the end of a year, so shopping around might help you make a little more each time you bet, or make a big win even bigger!
Other factors to consider when comparing odds – when looking for the best hockey odds might not be to your advantage
As with all things though, there are exceptions to the rule. These are few and far between, as shopping around for the best odds is nearly always the best tactic but taking the odds you’re given is sometimes the best option when it’s part of a bonus or a loyalty program.
With a bonus, you might have to turn over your balance a certain number of times, so betting elsewhere isn’t a good idea, and there could, of course, be the occasions where you are placing a bet to get a reward like a free bet. With a VIP program, you might find that the rewards you get for staying loyal more than make up for the better odds you might find elsewhere.
Odds comparison vs live betting – how to get the best hockey odds live
You may think it’s a bad idea to go shopping for the best hockey odds while the game is in play, as hockey is pretty much the dictionary definition of a fast-moving sport. While most of the time the odds would be moving too fast for you to make a rational move, during breaks or while a player is injured, the odds are likely to stabilize long enough for you to get a snapshot across a couple of sportsbooks to see how they compare.
Conclusion – you can make a really difference to your betting profits by shopping around for the best hockey odds
After reading this guide, you should be in no doubt that you are better off looking for the best odds rather than sticking with the same operator time after time. While your usual bookmaker might seem familiar and you can place bets quickly and easily because you know where everything is, they might not have the best odds, which means you could be leaving money on the table.
There are a very few selected occasions where not looking for odds is the best plan. But, every other time, whether you are sitting in a bar or at home watching the game live, or before that match on your laptop, you are likely to get more from a successful wager by shopping around for the best hockey odds.
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