There are definitely some odds that are harder to work out the payout for than others. We’ve covered some of the more complicated ones, such as 4/5, elsewhere on this site, but the one we’re looking at here is arguably the easier of them all to understand.
In essence, when your bet is Evens, which might also be written as 1/1, you will win exactly what you stake. Quite simply, you are getting one for one, so if you bet £5 you’ll win £5 back, plus the stake that you paid in the first place, which is nice and simple to get your head around.
Payout
Mathematics isn’t everyone’s favourite subject and some people struggle with even the simplest of sums. There is nothing to be ashamed of on that front, which is why we have a table here that looks at some of the most common bets that you’re likely to place.
As well as the stakes, we’ll also look at the payout that you’ll receive and the profit that you’ll make if your wager is a winner. You can then use this information to extrapolate what you’d win if your stake amount was different to the ones we’ve selected here:
| Stake Amount | Payout | Profit |
|---|---|---|
| £1 | £2 | £1 |
| £2 | £4 | £2 |
| £5 | £10 | £5 |
| £10 | £20 | £10 |
| £25 | £50 | £25 |
| £50 | £100 | £50 |
| £100 | £200 | £100 |
Each-Way Payouts
Whilst a Straight Win payout is easy enough to understand when the odds are Evens, the same isn’t true of Each-Way wagers. Each-Way bets, don’t forget, are actually two different wagers, with one of them being the Straight Win and the other being the Place bet. Bookmakers usually payout a reduced stake on the Place part of the bet, which will differ from company to company and also depending on whether or not you’ve got an offer. The most common payout on the Place part of Each-Way bets is 1/4 of the original odds.
That means that if you were to bet on a 10/1 wager, for example, you would be paid out at the equivalent of 2.50/1 on the Place part of your bet. It all might seem a little confusing, but the good news is that you don’t need to worry about doing the maths on it as your bookie of choice will do it automatically. Even so, it is helpful to have a sense of how much you’re likely to be paid out, so here’s a look at what your total bet amount will be if your stake is as above but placed on an Each-Way wager, as well as the payout depending on whether your selection won or was placed:
| Each-Way Stake Amount | Total Bet | Win Payout | Place Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| £1 | £2 | £3.25 | £1.25 |
| £2 | £4 | £6.50 | £2.50 |
| £5 | £10 | £16.25 | £6.25 |
| £10 | £20 | £32.50 | £12.50 |
| £25 | £50 | £81.25 | £31.25 |
| £50 | £100 | £162.50 | £62.50 |
| £100 | £200 | £325 | £125 |
Examples
If a bookmaker is offering Evens on an event, the reality is that they expect them to win but don’t necessarily think that the option in question is nailed on. It is a suggestion from the bookies that the outcome is likely but not certain. When you bear in mind that a bookmaker should offer Evens on the odds of a coin toss but doesn’t because they are building their Edge into the odds, that means that something with odds of 1/1 is actually less likely to win than more. That being said, they’re still pretty low odds all things considered.
The truth about Evens as a selection of odds is that it doesn’t come up all that often for the simple reason that is the bookmaker’s equivalent of sitting on the fence. Bookies never like to be so unequivocal, hence Evens rarely appears. Between the first Gold Cup at Cheltenham Festival in 1924 and the 2022 running, there were 94 winners. During that time, only one horse has won the race with Evens as its odds. That occurred in 1940, when Evan Williams made it home in first place on the back of Roman Hackle.