What is a Pay Out?
The pay out is the amount of money given back to a bettor by a bookmaker as the result of a successful bet. Calculating the exact pay out available on a particular bet will depend up the amount of money wagered, the odds offered by the bookmaker and the type of bet which was placed. When placing a bet it’s important to work out exactly what the pay out will be in order to ascertain whether it is genuinely a bet worth placing.
How is a Pay Out used in Sports Betting?
The pay out received after a bet has been placed will vary depending upon the type of bet, and it is important to remember that the pay out on a bet placed using either fraction odds or decimal odds will include the original stake. The amount of profit made on the bet will be the total pay out, minus the original stake. For example:
A successful single bet of £5 on Liverpool beating Manchester City at odds of 3/1 will produce a pay out of £20 which, minus the original stake of £5, gives a profit of £15.
An each way bet of £7 on horse race in which the horse in question comes in second at odds of 16/1 will require a stake of £14 and will produce a pay out of £29.40 which, minus the stake of £14, gives a profit of £15.40.
It should be noted that different bookmakers offer different maximum pay outs on a range of sports, running from as much as £2million on football matches to £100,000 on golf.
Although a pay out would traditionally always have been claimed at the end of a sporting event, many bookmakers now offer the option of cashing out early, which generally involves accepting a smaller pay out during the course of an event in order to avoid the risk of the result shifting and the bet becoming a losing bet.
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