Decimal vs American Odds: Reading Basketball Prices in Canada

Reading a Basketball Price in Decimal or American Odds

Every basketball bet is attached to a price, and that price is shown in one of two formats depending on the sportsbook: decimal or American. Both describe the exact same thing — how much a winning bet returns — just with different maths behind the number on screen. This covers how to read each one and how to move between them without second-guessing the conversion.

Decimal Odds: The More Literal Format

Decimal odds are the simpler of the two to apply directly: multiply your stake by the number shown, and that’s your total return, original stake included. A decimal price of 2.20, for illustration only, returns $22 on a $10 bet — $12 in profit plus the $10 you staked back. Anything below 2.00 marks the favoured side of a bet, since it returns less than double the stake; anything above 2.00 marks the underdog side.

American Odds: Reading the Plus and Minus

American odds attach a plus or minus sign to a number built around 100. A minus number shows what you’d need to stake to win $100 in profit — a price of -150, for illustration only, means a $150 stake wins $100. A plus number shows what a $100 stake would win — a price of +130 means a $100 stake wins $130 in profit. The minus side is always the favourite, and the plus side is always the underdog, which makes American odds a fast way to spot which side the market leans toward before doing any further maths.

Converting Between the Two

Moving from decimal to American, and back, follows a fixed formula rather than intuition. For a decimal price of 2.00 or higher, subtract 1 and multiply by 100 to get the plus American price. For a decimal price under 2.00, take 1 minus the decimal, divide that into -100, and round to get the minus American price. A price of 1.91, for illustration only, converts to roughly -110 in American odds — a common two-way price on close spreads and totals.

Why the Format Doesn’t Change What You’re Actually Betting

Neither format changes what a bet actually pays; they’re two different ways of printing an identical price. A sportsbook that only shows American odds hasn’t priced a bet any differently than one showing decimal, and switching a display setting between the two, where a book offers that option, doesn’t move the underlying number at all. What does change the price is the market itself moving — new injury news, a shift in betting volume, or the game state changing during live betting.

Which Format Canadian Sportsbooks Tend to Show

Decimal odds are common across most sportsbooks operating outside the United States, Canada included, though many platforms let you switch to American format if that’s what you’re used to reading. Neither format is more accurate than the other — pick whichever one you can read fastest at a glance, since speed matters more than format once you understand what the number is telling you. Basketball Odds Explained covers implied probability and the margin built into a two-way price, both of which apply the same way regardless of which format you’re reading, and How NBA Lines Move and What Moves Them covers what actually changes a price once it’s set.