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How to read prop odds: break-even and implied probability

Turn any American odds into the win rate a bet needs to break even.

Every price on a player prop hides a number that matters more than the odds themselves: how often the bet has to win just to break even. Once you can see that number, it’s easy to compare a price with your own read on a player.

American odds in one minute

  • Negative odds, like −150, show how much you risk to win $100. At −150 you risk $150 to win $100.
  • Positive odds, like +120, show how much you win on a $100 bet. At +120 you risk $100 to win $120.

From odds to break-even

The break-even rate, often called the implied probability, is the share of bets you’d need to win for the price to come out even over time.

Negative odds: |odds| ÷ (|odds| + 100)
Positive odds: 100 ÷ (odds + 100)

OddsBreak-even
−20066.7%
−15060.0%
−11052.4%
+10050.0%
+12045.5%
+15040.0%

Why both sides add up to more than 100%

If the over and the under are both −110, each side’s break-even is 52.4%. Together that’s 104.8%, not 100%. The extra 4.8% is the sportsbook’s margin, sometimes called the vig or juice. When both sides are priced, you can remove it by scaling both percentages so they add to 100%, which here gives 50% each.

Putting it to work

Break-even tells you the bar a bet has to clear. If you believe a player goes over 0.5 hits about 62% of the time and the price is −150, the bar is 60%, so your estimate sits 2 points above it. If the price were −200, the bar would be 66.7% and the same estimate would fall short.

GammaLine shows this for every prop: the estimated chance, the break-even for the current FanDuel price, and the gap between them. See how the numbers are laid out.

Clearing the break-even bar doesn’t make a bet a winner. Estimates have error, and small gaps are well within it. Read why a 60% prop still misses.

Published by GammaLine · Updated September 25, 2026

More guides: What are fair odds? Turning a probability into a price · Why a 60% prop still misses

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