Tennis odds, margins and the licensed bookmakers that quote them

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

*Current as of 27 October 2026 — verified against the Gambling Commission’s public register and each operator’s own published terms.*

Tennis is a sport of small margins. The ball travels at over 200 km/h, the rallies last seconds, and the difference between two professionals on the same day is a handful of points. For the punter, that granularity is the point. A match offers a hundred markets before the first serve, then a fresh hundred every game thereafter, and the price on each is the bookmaker’s working answer to one question: what is this outcome worth right now? Everything else on this page flows from how that answer is reached, what the bookmaker keeps for answering it, and which firms are licensed to ask it at all.

Safer gambling and the limits around a tennis bet

A tennis match has no half-time pause for a punter to step away from. A five-set final can run five hours. The markets stay open through every changeover. That is the reason the safer-gambling tools sit at the top of this page rather than at its foot: the same speed that makes tennis interesting to bet on is what makes the controls worth setting in advance.

Every operator reviewed here is a member of GAMSTOP, the national multi-operator self-exclusion scheme. A customer who signs up for six months, one year or five years is barred from opening new accounts at every GB-licensed remote bookmaker for the duration. After the minimum period ends, the exclusion stays in force for a further seven years unless the customer asks GAMSTOP to remove it. Self-exclusion sits at the far end of a range that begins more lightly.

Deposit limits are offered by every operator under the Commission’s Remote Technical Standards, on a fixed time frame (daily, weekly or monthly). A punter can set a ceiling that suits the budget before the first deposit; once set, a cooling-off period applies before the limit can be raised. No state-set ceiling exists for sports betting in Great Britain, and no bookmaker here is allowed to advertise a “no limit” account.

The financial vulnerability check is the line that determines whether the operator asks further questions. Once a customer’s net spend (deposits minus withdrawals) crosses £150 in a rolling 30-day window, the operator runs a public-record check, looking at county court judgments, bankruptcies and the like. It is not an income check and not a credit reference search. Where the check flags a concern, the operator steps in. A punter who wants help before any of that should reach GamCare on the National Gambling Helpline, or work through the NHS gambling clinics and Gamblers Anonymous listed on the operator’s safer-gambling page. Self-exclusion is not the only tool; a simple deposit limit set on day one is the cheapest one.

Cryptocurrency and the question of an anonymous tennis bet

Tennis punters who want to keep their betting off a bank statement tend to ask the same two questions: can I deposit in crypto, and can I bet without showing ID? The honest answer to both is that the second question settles the first.

Every operator reviewed here verifies name, address and date of birth before a customer can deposit or gamble, including with a free bet or bonus. The rule has been in force since 7 May 2019 and applies to every Gambling Commission licence. A punter who wants anonymity cannot get it at a GB-licensed site, and a GB-licensed site is the only kind a customer in Great Britain can use without losing the protections the licence confers.

Crypto deposits sit at the other end of the same chain. None of the operators reviewed here lists cryptocurrency as a deposit method; the standard set runs to debit cards, bank transfers, Apple Pay, PayPal, Trustly, Paysafecard and Skrill. A credit card is banned for gambling in Great Britain, including credit-card-funded e-wallet payments, since 14 April 2020. A punter who holds crypto and wants to use it for tennis bets is, in practice, converting to one of those methods first, which means the bank sees the deposit.

The unlicensed route exists: Curaçao- and Malta-licensed sites take bitcoin and ask no questions about ID. Those sites are not licensed to take bets from customers in Great Britain. The customer is not the target of prosecution under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005; the loss is the protections, which means no GAMSTOP, no complaints route to the Commission, no approved alternative-dispute-resolution body, and no British consumer redress if the operator declines to pay out. The page that promises “bet with bitcoin, no questions asked” is selling the loss of every safeguard listed in the section above.

Tennis betting bonuses and what the small print takes back

Tennis has long seasons and short tournaments, which is why almost every welcome offer names tennis among its eligible markets. A £10 free bet on a Wimbledon semi-final reads as a gift; the small print says otherwise.

A free bet is a token whose stake is not returned with a winning bet. Place a £10 free bet at decimal odds of 3.00 and the returns are £30, of which £20 is profit and £0 is the stake. The £10 stays with the bookmaker. Compare that to a £10 cash stake at the same odds: returns £30, profit £20, and the £10 stake comes back too. A punter who treats a free bet like a cash bet overstates what they have won.

A welcome bonus of 100% up to £50 sounds like free money. Read the terms: a wagering requirement of 10x, the cap in force since 19 January 2026, means the £50 bonus has to be turned over into £500 of qualifying wagers before any of it can be withdrawn. Bets at odds shorter than the minimum price (commonly 1.50 or 1.67 in decimal) do not count. The clock starts the moment the bonus is credited. A punter who clears the bonus by betting on short outright favourites, the obvious tennis market of the week, may find half of those bets excluded by the minimum-price rule. The qualifying period commonly runs 7 or 14 days; at the end of it, any uncleared bonus is forfeit.

Mixed-product promotions, offers that require gambling on two or more product types (betting plus casino, betting plus bingo, betting plus lottery), are banned as of 19 January 2026. The “bet £10 on tennis to get 50 free spins” offer has gone.

The arithmetic that decides whether any bonus is worth claiming is straightforward. Required turnover is the bonus multiplied by the wagering factor. Number of bets is turnover divided by the stake per bet. Expected cost is the turnover multiplied by the bookmaker’s margin on the market used to clear it. A bonus that looks generous at the headline becomes a poor deal when the expected cost is taken from the bonus value, and a punter who runs the numbers before opting in saves themselves a grind.

The licensed bookmakers reviewed here each describe their own offer in their own terms. Where a headline reads “free”, check whether the stake returns; where it reads “100%”, check the wagering factor; where it reads “guaranteed”, check the clock.

Tennis betting apps and what the touchscreen changes

A tennis match unfolds in points, and the betting app that sits in a punter’s pocket is the tool that keeps up. The reviewed operators vary widely in what their app does well.

London Bet’s app folds sports and Pragmatic Play casino into one account, with the in-play markets for tennis on the same screen as the slot games. QuinnBet’s app puts horse racing at the centre of the homepage, with tennis and football behind a sport tab. Betfair’s app adds free live streaming for events the bookmaker has paid to show, alongside in-play markets, Bet Builder and the 90 Minute Payout market. BoyleSports’ app lists quartering free bets for new customers alongside its racing and sports tabs.

bet365’s app is the most downloaded sports betting app in the UK and is the official global betting partner of the UEFA Champions League, which is not a tennis fact but explains the marketing spend that funds the in-play product tennis punters use. The app’s Bet Builder+ combines markets from one event into a single bet, available pre-match and in-play. 888sport’s app offers Cash Out, Bet Builder, racing streams, BetFinder form tools, a live bet feed and daily boosted odds. Spreadex’s app is unusual in offering fixed-odds and spread betting from one account, with one-click, auto and partial cash out, Bet Builder across fixed odds or spreads, and live streaming of UK and Irish horse racing, greyhounds, tennis, NFL and selected football. Star Sports offers a phone line to a trader on 08000 521 321 for those who would rather place a bet by voice than by tap.

The practical consequence for a tennis punter: an app that loads faster than the rally wins in-play markets, because the price displayed at 30-0 in the first set is not the price at 30-30 two points later. A punter who bets on a phone with a stale price screen is paying the bookmaker’s margin twice, once in the price and once in the lag.

Live tennis betting and the cash-out question

Tennis is built for in-play betting. There are no substitutions, no injuries to assess in real time, and the scoreboard tells the story. Between serve and return, the bookmaker reprices every market: match winner, set winner, next game, total games, even the next point.

In-play markets are offered by every operator reviewed here. The cash-out question is what makes the live product different. Cash out lets a punter close a bet before the match is over, at a price the bookmaker sets in real time. A pre-match acca on three favourites is sitting at break-even when the first two legs have won; cash out locks in a return before the third leg is played. The price is the bookmaker’s price, and it carries the bookmaker’s margin.

Spreadex’s app offers one-click, auto and partial cash out, which is the fullest set among the reviewed operators. Partial cash out closes a fraction of the stake at the current price and leaves the rest running. 888sport lists Cash Out as a headline feature. Betfair offers Cash Out alongside its exchange product, where the cash-out price is set by other punters rather than the firm. QuinnBet and BoyleSports each offer cash out on selected markets.

The maths of a cash out: a punter with a £10 acca at combined decimal odds of 4.00 has £40 riding on the result. With two legs won and the third in play, the bookmaker offers a cash-out price of £25. The punter takes it and walks away with £25 on a bet that started at £10. The third leg wins and the original ticket would have paid £40; the cash out cost £15. The punter took a sure £25 over a probable £40, and the price of that certainty was £15. A punter who cashes out every time the acca is in front bleeds the long-run return; a punter who never cashes out misses the chance to bank a result when the third leg looks shaky.

The price of cash out is not negotiable. It is the bookmaker’s price, set in the margin. A punter who reads the cash-out number as a fair value is reading the wrong number.

Tennis predictions, form and the limits of a forecast

Tennis is the most individual of the major betting sports. The same two players face each other across a net, with no teammates to blame and no weather that affects both ends of the pitch differently. A prediction market on a tennis match starts with the head-to-head and the surface.

The four surfaces, hard, clay, grass and indoor hard, reward different skills. The four Grand Slams are the Australian Open (hard), French Open (clay), Wimbledon (grass) and US Open (hard). The grass season is short, the clay season is long, and a punter who treats the world rankings as a flat predictor of clay form is paying for the assumption. Wimbledon 2026 was played from 29 June to 12 July 2026; Jannik Sinner beat Alexander Zverev in the men’s final, and Linda Noskova beat Karolina Muchova in the women’s final, both on grass, neither of them the pre-tournament favourite in the betting.

Tipping services and free predictions are advertised at the top of every tennis search. The honest summary: a tipster who publishes picks has the same information a punter has, plus whatever model they have not disclosed. A tipster who claims a 70% strike rate on outsiders is either back-fitting or losing money; the bookmaker’s margin, on every bet, prices the difference. A punter who pays for tips is paying for the privilege of someone else’s confidence, and confidence is not a forecast.

Bankroll management is the only strategy that the math supports. A punter who stakes 1-2% of the bank per bet, varies stake by confidence, and keeps a record is the punter who survives the draw of variance. A punter who doubles stakes to recover losses is the punter who blows the bank in a single bad week.

A model that a punter can build themselves: rank every player on each surface, weight recent form, and price the match from there. The output will be close to the bookmaker’s output, sometimes ahead, more often behind. The margin is the gap; the punter who beats the margin on a consistent basis is a rare bird.

How tennis bet types and odds are built

A tennis match has three core markets: match winner, set winner and game winner within a set. Everything else is a derivative.

The match winner is the simplest. Back Alcaraz to beat Ruud at decimal odds of 1.80 means a £10 stake returns £18 if he wins, of which £8 is profit. The set winner is the same bet applied to one set. The game winner within a set is the same bet applied to one game, priced game by game.

A handicap, in tennis, is expressed in games. A -3.5 game handicap on a heavy favourite means the favourite has to win by four clear games over the course of the match. A -1.5 set handicap on the favourite in a best-of-three match means the favourite has to win in straight sets. The handicap is the bookmaker’s lever for turning a short-priced favourite into something with a price worth taking.

Over/under markets on total games and total sets work the same way as in any other sport. The bookmaker sets a line (over 21.5 games, for example) and the punter backs over or under.

A combination bet, the “acca” or accumulator, multiplies the odds of each leg into one price. Three legs at 1.80, 2.00 and 2.50 become a combined price of 9.00. The stake is on the combination; all three must win for the ticket to pay. The combination is where the bookmaker’s margin compounds. Each leg carries the margin; the combined ticket carries the sum of them.

The return on any winning bet is straightforward. Stake times decimal odds equals the total return, of which stake times (odds minus one) is the profit. A £25 stake at decimal odds of 2.75 returns £68.75, of which £43.75 is profit. The same arithmetic is the same in fractional odds: 7/4 (a-b returns a for every b staked, plus the b stake) is decimal odds of 2.75. British bookmakers quote fractional by default; the decimal form sits one tap away on every betting app.

The bookmaker’s margin is what the firm keeps of every unit bet on a market. The arithmetic: payout share equals one divided by the sum of one over each decimal price, and margin equals one minus payout share. An illustrative two-way market at decimal odds of 1.90 and 1.90, the kind of price a bookmaker might quote on a match between two players of roughly equal ability, gives a payout share of one divided by (1/1.90 plus 1/1.90), which is one divided by 1.053, or 0.95. The margin is 1 minus 0.95, or 5% of every unit bet. Across a full Grand Slam season of bets at that margin, the bookmaker keeps 5 pence of every pound staked. The price displayed on the screen is the price after the margin has been taken out; the bookmaker’s working price is the “true” probability, and the difference is the margin.

The general rule: shorter prices carry a smaller absolute margin but a larger margin as a share of the punter’s stake at risk, and longer prices carry a larger absolute margin. The punter who wants the smallest margin bets on the match winner of a balanced contest, the market where the bookmaker has least room to load the price.

Tennis tournaments and what the calendar looks like

The tennis calendar runs from January to November, with a short off-season in December. The four Grand Slams anchor it: the Australian Open in January, the French Open in late May and early June, Wimbledon in late June and early July, the US Open in late August and early September. The ATP and WTA Tours run alongside, with Masters 1000 events on the men’s side and WTA 1000 events on the women’s side feeding ranking points into the Grand Slams.

Men play best of five sets only at the four Grand Slams; everywhere else on the ATP Tour the matches are best of three. Women play best of three everywhere. A punter betting on a men’s Grand Slam match is pricing five sets; a punter betting on any other men’s match is pricing three. The shape of the price ladder is different.

A set is usually won by the first player to win six games by a margin of two. At 6-6 a tiebreak is played, first to seven points with a lead of two. A match tiebreak, sometimes called a super tiebreak, is sometimes played in place of a deciding set: first to ten points with a lead of two. The deciding-set tiebreak rule has been adopted by Wimbledon since 2019 and by the other three Grand Slams since 2022; the rest of the tour is mixed. A punter betting the over on total games in a best-of-three match between two big servers should know whether a third-set tiebreak counts as one game or many.

A game itself runs 0 (called “love”), 15, 30, 40. The first to win four points with a lead of two takes the game; tied at 40-40, the score is deuce, and the next two points decide. A punter betting next-point markets in-play is pricing a sequence of coin flips from 30-30 onwards, weighted by server. The book’s margin on those markets is wider than the match-winner margin because the underlying probabilities are less stable.

The licensed bookmakers reviewed here

Ten operators are reviewed below. Each holds a Gambling Commission remote licence for real-event betting; each is a GAMSTOP member; each is described only from its own published terms and the Commission’s public register. The order is the order research gave, not a ranking. The table that follows is the licence and terms summary; the prose that follows is the per-operator read.

The licence number is the row’s load-bearing fact. Every operator above can be checked at the Gambling Commission’s public register by business name, trading name, domain or account number. A punter who sees a number quoted on a marketing page should check it; a punter who cannot find it should assume the worst.

London Bet — the app that does casino as well

London Bet (Gambling Commission account 66162) is the smallest of the ten reviewed operators by name recognition. The licence sits with Thistle Bet Limited. The product is a single app that combines sports betting (football, tennis, horse racing, greyhounds, darts, golf, cricket, NFL, NBA, MLB and snooker) with Pragmatic Play casino slots and live in-play betting. Tennis sits in the sports tab; the in-play tab carries live markets on the bigger events.

The verdict. London Bet suits a punter who wants one account for sports and a few slots, rather than two apps. A punter who bets mainly on tennis outright markets will find the in-play product useful on Grand Slams and thin on the smaller ATP events.

QuinnBet — the racing-led sportsbook

QuinnBet (Gambling Commission account 61011) is held by QuinnBet (Gibraltar) Limited and is best known for its horse-racing product. The headline offer for tennis-adjacent punters is the Best Odds Guaranteed concession on Irish and UK horse racing bets from 10:00am daily, on singles, multiples and system bets, with a maximum benefit of £150 per customer per race. Tennis markets exist but sit behind the racing tab.

The verdict. QuinnBet suits a punter whose week runs to horse racing with the occasional tennis punt. A tennis-first punter will find the in-play product thinner than a sports-first bookmaker’s and the welcome offer will look more valuable than it is once the qualifying terms are read.

Betfair — the exchange underneath the sportsbook

Betfair (Gambling Commission account 39439) is held by PPB Counterparty Services Limited and runs a sportsbook and an exchange under the same licence. The sportsbook offers in-play betting, Bet Builder, free live streaming of UK and Irish horse racing and football within the app, and the 90 Minute Payout market, which settles football bets as wins if the backed team goes two goals ahead. Tennis in-play is on the sportsbook; the exchange carries its own tennis markets where punters back and lay against each other.

The verdict. Betfair suits a punter who wants both products under one roof. A punter who learns the exchange will find tennis prices tighter than the sportsbook’s because the exchange’s margin is set by other punters rather than the firm. A punter who sticks to the sportsbook pays the firm’s margin.

Star Sports — the phone-trader sportsbook

Star Sports (Gambling Commission account 9177) is held by Star Racing Limited and is the smallest operator in this review by app footprint. The differentiator is the phone: a punter can call 08000 521 321 to open an account, place a bet or ask a question, with the trader on the other end of the line. Email support sits at [email protected]. The app carries the standard sports product.

The verdict. Star Sports suits a punter who would rather place a bet by voice than by tap, and who wants a real person at the other end. A tennis-first punter who lives on the in-play price ladder will find the app a smaller and less reactive product than the bigger firms.

BetUK — the four-free-bet welcome

BetUK (Gambling Commission account 39198) is held by LeoVegas Gaming PLC, the listed Swedish group that also runs the LeoVegas casino. The sports welcome offer is the headline: deposit £10 or more, place a sports bet within 7 days of registering, and receive four £10 free bets (two football accumulators of four or more selections, two multiples of two or more), valid for 7 days, with opt-in required. The punter has 7 days to claim and 7 days to use.

The verdict. BetUK suits a punter who wants four bites at the welcome cherry and is willing to bet on football accas to take them. The tennis market exists, but the free bets are earmarked for football. A tennis-only punter should weigh the headline against the restriction before opting in.

BoyleSports — the Irish-rooted sportsbook

BoyleSports (Gambling Commission account 39469) is held by Boylesports Enterprise and is one of the largest bookmakers in Ireland. The UK sports welcome offer is £20 in free bets for a £10 qualifying bet, with a separate €30-in-free-bets-for-a-€10-bet Irish offer. The app carries the standard sports product with a strong racing focus.

The verdict. BoyleSports suits a punter who straddles the Irish and UK racing calendars. The tennis product is present but not the headline; a tennis-first punter should look elsewhere for the broadest tennis market.

888sport — the feature-heavy sportsbook

888sport (Gambling Commission account 39028) is held by 888 UK Limited, part of the 888 group. The product list is broad: pre-match and in-play betting, Cash Out, Bet Builder, racing streams, BetFinder form tools, a live bet feed and daily boosted odds. The “boosted odds” feature carries a maximum-stake limit per boost; the punter should read the small print.

The verdict. 888sport suits a punter who wants every feature on one app. A tennis-first punter will find the boosted-odds market useful on outright markets and should treat the headline price with the usual scepticism about stake limits.

Spreadex — the fixed-odds-plus-spreads hybrid

Spreadex (Gambling Commission account 8835) is held by Spreadex Limited and is unusual in offering both fixed-odds sports betting and spread betting from one app. The licence covers the fixed-odds side; spread betting on financial markets is FCA-regulated, and spread betting on sports is FCA-regulated too, with losses that can exceed the deposit. The product list includes one-click, auto and partial cash out, Bet Builder across fixed odds or spreads, and live streaming of UK and Irish horse racing, greyhounds, tennis, NFL and selected football.

The verdict. Spreadex suits a punter who wants to mix fixed-odds and spread betting on the same account, and who reads spread-betting terms before staking. The tennis streaming is a point in its favour for in-play punters; the spread product is a separate discipline and the punter should not conflate the two.

DAZN Bet — the deposit-led newcomer

DAZN Bet (Gambling Commission account 48756) is held by DZBT Limited and is the sportsbook arm of the DAZN streaming business. The deposit terms are the headline: £5 minimum by debit card, Apple Pay, Paysafecard, Trustly and Skrill; £20 minimum by PayPal; no processing fees. The product is a standard sportsbook with the in-play and pre-match menus built around football, tennis and the major US leagues.

The verdict. DAZN Bet suits a punter who wants a low minimum deposit and a clean mobile product. The tennis market is present and growing; a tennis-first punter should check the breadth of the in-play product on the smaller ATP events before settling in.

NetBet — the boost-heavy sportsbook

NetBet (Gambling Commission account 39170) is held by Netbet Enterprises Limited and is best known for its casino product. The sports side lists Daily Boosts, Profit Boosts and free bet offers, a Bet Builder with instant dynamic odds, and sports stats for major leagues. The Bet Builder’s “instant dynamic odds” feature is the differentiator: the price updates as the punter adds or removes selections, rather than at the end of the build.

The verdict. NetBet suits a punter who likes a bet builder and wants the price to update as the bet is assembled. The tennis market is present; a tennis-first punter should weigh the boost-heavy product against the welcome offer before opting in.

Tennis odds in Great Britain: how the market is regulated

A bookmaker taking bets from customers in Great Britain needs a Gambling Commission licence. Since the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, an operator whose remote facilities are used in Great Britain needs a Commission licence wherever the operator is based, under sections 33 and 36 of the Gambling Act 2005 as amended. A Curaçao, Maltese or Gibraltar licence is not a substitute for a Commission licence at the point of consumption.

The Commission is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The framework is the Gambling Act 2005, which covers Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales); Northern Ireland sits outside the Act and runs under older law. There is no state monopoly and no cap on the number of licences. A punter who sees “UK-licensed” should check whether the licence covers Great Britain and whether the licence category includes sports betting.

The licence categories relevant to a tennis punter are remote general betting standard (real events), which is the category every operator reviewed here holds, and remote betting intermediary (the exchange licence held by Betfair). Virtual events are a separate category; esports are treated as real events. There is no statutory list of permitted markets or bets; an operator offers what its licence allows and its own terms define.

The Commission’s public register can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number, and is the whole test of whether a brand holds a licence. A punter who wants to verify a licence checks the register; the verification costs nothing and takes a minute. A punter who bets at a site that does not appear on the register has no Commission complaints route, no approved alternative-dispute-resolution body, and no British consumer redress if the operator declines to pay out.

The player protection rules sit in the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP). Identity verification before the first deposit is a licence condition; a punter cannot bet anonymously at a licensed site. The financial vulnerability check (LCCP condition 3.4.4) applies once a customer’s net spend crosses £150 in a rolling 30-day window; the check is a public-record check, not an income check. Deposit limits are offered under Remote Technical Standard 12; the first changes have applied since 31 October 2025 and a second phase was postponed to 30 September 2026, with no confirmed start. The 10x wagering cap on bonuses has been in force since 19 January 2026, and mixed-product promotions are banned as of the same date.

Advertising is not licensed by the Commission; it runs through the CAP Code (non-broadcast) and BCAP Code (broadcast), enforced by the ASA. CAP Code section 16: marketing must be socially responsible, must not be of strong appeal to under-18s, and no one who is or seems to be under 25 may feature in gambling advertising. The rule concerns who may appear in the ad, not who may bet. The whistle-to-whistle ban on TV betting ads around live sport has been industry code since 1 August 2019; the Premier League’s shirt-sponsorship phase-out from 2026/27 is voluntary, not law. A punter who sees an ad with a £100 free bet offer should check the small print, because the headline is the marketing and the terms are the contract.

The player pays no tax on betting winnings in Great Britain; that is general information, not tax advice, and a professional gambler should ask HMRC or an adviser. General Betting Duty is the operator’s tax, currently 15% on gross profits; from 1 April 2027 a new remote betting rate of 25% applies within it, while remote bets on UK horse racing, pool betting, in-person betting and self-service betting terminal bets stay at 15%. Spread betting has its own rates. Whether operators pass duty on through odds is not established; never write that the player is charged duty.

The unlicensed route. A GB licence is compulsory at the point of consumption. Providing gambling facilities in Great Britain without the licence the Act requires is an offence under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005, aimed at the operator; no offence aimed at a customer who merely bets on an unlicensed site was found. The loss for the customer is the protections: no GAMSTOP, no Commission complaints route, no approved ADR body, no British consumer redress, no 10x bonus cap, no £150 vulnerability check. The Commission’s enforcement is disruption rather than blocking: cease-and-desist notices, search-engine referrals, registrar and host work, payment-provider pressure, and the court-order DNS blocking powers it has been given or is about to receive. A punter who bets at an unlicensed site has none of the protections a licensed site offers and may lose funds.

Calculation: how the bookmaker’s margin shows up in the price

The arithmetic below uses an illustrative two-way market at decimal odds of 1.90 and 1.90 (fractional 9/10), the kind of price a bookmaker might quote on a match between two opponents of roughly equal ability. The figures are examples, not quoted prices, and no price on this page is taken from a real market on any specific date.

Payout share is one divided by the sum of one over each decimal price. With both prices at 1.90, the sum is one over 1.90 plus one over 1.90, which is approximately 1.053. One divided by 1.053 is approximately 0.95, or 95%. The margin is one minus the payout share, which is approximately 5%. The band that follows is a function of the price; a market at 1.85 and 1.85 carries a margin closer to 8%, and a market at 1.95 and 1.95 carries a margin closer to 2.6%.

The condition for the band: the price is the price the punter sees, in decimal odds, on a two-way market with two outcomes. The margin is the share of every pound staked that the bookmaker expects to keep, averaged over a large number of bets at that price. It is not the margin on any single bet and not the punter’s expected loss on a single bet.

The consequence. Across a season of bets at a 5% margin, the bookmaker keeps 5p of every £1 staked. A punter who bets £100 a week on tennis for a 40-week season stakes £4,000, and the bookmaker’s expected take is roughly £200. The margin is the price of admission; the punter’s edge, if any, comes from being on the right side of the margin more often than the market expects. A punter who cannot beat the margin on a consistent basis is paying the bookmaker for the privilege of placing the bet.

Frequently asked questions about tennis betting odds

What is draw no bet in tennis?

Draw no bet is a market where the stake is returned if the match ends in a level outcome after the deciding set. In tennis, “draw” means a tie at one set all in a best-of-three match or two sets all in a best-of-five match where no further play resolves the winner. The market removes the third outcome and shortens the price on both players; a punter who backs the favourite pays for the insurance.

What is an Asian handicap in tennis betting?

An Asian handicap in tennis is expressed in games, not sets. A -3.5 game handicap on a heavy favourite means the favourite must win by four or more games over the course of the match; the half-game eliminates the push. A -1.5 set handicap on the favourite in a best-of-three match means the favourite must win in straight sets. The handicap is the bookmaker’s lever for turning a short-priced favourite into a price worth taking.

What is double chance in tennis betting?

Double chance is a market where two of the three outcomes are bundled into one bet. In a tennis match the three outcomes are player A wins, player B wins, and (in best-of-five at a Grand Slams) the match reaches a deciding set. A double chance on “player A or player B” removes the third outcome and shortens the price; it is the same shape as draw no bet, with different wording.

How can a punter check that a bookmaker holds a Gambling Commission licence?

The Commission’s public register can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number. The search is free and takes a minute. The register is the whole test of whether a brand holds a licence; a brand that does not appear on the register is not licensed for Great Britain.

How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?

In decimal odds, return equals stake times odds. A £10 stake at decimal odds of 2.75 returns £27.50, of which £17.50 is profit. In fractional odds, the return for a stake of b at odds of a/b is stake times (a divided by b plus 1). The two formats describe the same bet; decimal is the easier arithmetic, fractional is the British default.

What is the bookmaker’s margin and how can it be seen in the odds?

The margin is the share of every unit staked that the bookmaker keeps, on average. It is the gap between the true probability of all outcomes and 100%. For a two-way market, payout share is one divided by the sum of one over each decimal price, and margin is one minus payout share. A market priced at 1.90 and 1.90 carries a payout share of approximately 95% and a margin of approximately 5%. The margin is the price the punter pays for the bet.

Content created by the «Bookies Trust» team