Sports fans tend to be passionate. That’s a given. Yet, the psychology can play out in different ways. A fan might believe their team is going to win more so because they want it to happen rather than through any objective analysis. Conversely, fans who give in to pessimism might think that their team is going to lose despite signs to the contrary.
As you might expect, the same emotions tie into sports betting. Of course, not every sports bettor backs the teams that they support, but the same type of psychology will apply when you want something to happen or fear something won’t happen. It can be difficult to be objective, yet being impartial and unbiased is key to being successful. This applies to other areas, such as financial trading, as well as sports betting.
Odds can feel somewhat abstract
And yet, there are other simple ways to help train your brain to be a little more objective, and one of them is arguably looking at the odds in a different manner. Odds, whether they are presented in a moneyline or fractional format, can feel a little abstract. Yes, they can tell you who the favorite is for a particular outcome, but they say little about the probability of that outcome. If you convert to implied probability, you can get a clearer picture of the possibility of an outcome.
For example, if you take the latest NBA odds for the upcoming 2025/26 season (starting October 21st). Right now, the Oklahoma City Thunder is a red-hot favorite to retain the Championship won back in June. OKC’s odds are sitting at +260. That puts the team way out in front of its rivals, with the next best being the Denver Nuggets at +800. While the OKC’s odds suggest clear favorite status, when we convert it into implied probability, we get a figure of 27.8%. Still possible, of course, but at a glance, you can see that it is viewed as less likely to happen than not to happen. We could do the same for the current favorite for the Super Bowl, the Buffalo Bills, with +500 odds, giving an implied probability of 16.7%.
Seeing the bigger picture
Of course, context is important. There are 32 teams in the NFL, and if we accept the 16.7% probability that the Bills will triumph, we have to consider that, collectively, the combined chances of any one of the 31 other teams winning is 84.3% chance. It’s not as neat as that in practice, but the point serves for this example. Anyway, the implied probability for the Bills is effectively identical to the odds of correctly calling the right number when rolling a standard six-sided dice.
Most certainly, none of these offers the key to correctly predicting the NBA winner or Super Bowl champion, but it can challenge biases when looking at the probabilities instead of the odds and potential winnings. There are caveats, for sure, including the fact that implied probability is based on the actuary of sportsbooks, thus not the true mathematical probability represented by the dice roll.
Yet, it all ties into that sense of being more objective. You see the odds, you consider how much you could win. If you see the probability, you start to consider how likely it is to win. It is by no means foolproof, and that alone will not strip away all biases, but it is more logical. The mindset is closer to trading than it is to sports betting, and the best financial traders keep a cool, calm head, allowing the probabilities to usurp their emotions.
