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Welcome to OddsComparison.ca!  With the onset of web technologies, more and more tools have become available for people to instantly find the best available value for whatever it is they are looking to do.  When it comes to sports betting, the concept exists in essentially the same way, only it is not about what you save, it’s about identifying which betting site is willing to pay you the most for a successful bet.  

However, a lot of Canadians make the mistake of betting from a single online sportsbook account.  Think about how ridiculous that sounds if done in other areas of your life: Would you only buy your electronics from one store?  Would you only fly on one airline?  Would you only book your hotels through one travel site?  If you need a mortgage, would you only give your bank an opportunity to win your business?  If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these, you are paying way too much.

The reality is you probably said ‘no’ to all of these questions.  When you can save significantly and convenience is essentially not at issue, Canadians compare prices to get the best value. The same potential is available when you place your bets.  Odds are an expression of the prices that the online sportsbook offers to you to attract your bet.  From a rational perspective, they post the odds, you bet if you feel it is a worthwhile risk.  

Prime example of Canadian sports betting irrationality: Proline and lottery sports games

How can we be sure that a large number of Canadian sports bettors have a tendency toward irrationality?  Why else would Canadians continue to play with the various lottery sports games like Proline when Proline odds are so inferior to every major online sportsbook?  

Seriously, try it.  Go to Proline.ca, then open another tab in your browser and go to OddsJet.com.  Make a few picks on Proline.ca and make the same picks on OddsJet so you can see the difference in your odds and potential payouts.  Through OddsJet, you should see that the betting sites are offering significant odds premiums over Proline.  Here are some examples from December 20, 2017:

With ‘Point Spread’ on American Football, any 5-team parlay had odds of 20.00 regardless of the picks made.  So a $10 bet had a potential payout of $200.  When selecting the same games on OddsJet, the betting sites’ odds ranged from 23.952 up to 29.653.  That’s an odds premium that’s 20% to 50% higher than Proline.  Even the lowest paying betting site in this instance was 20% higher.

With Soccer, we randomly selected four results from the French Ligue 1 for matches on December 20. Angers, Monaco, Montpellier and Troyes.  Proline odds were 85.74 paying $857.40 on a $10 bet.  Odds from the OddsJet betting sites ranged from 102.552 up to 142.747.  That means that the betting site odds and potential payouts were 20% to 65% higher than Proline.  A $10 stake at the sportsbook with the best odds for these picks was willing to payout $1,427.47.  

With Basketball, we selected just three Over/Under results for a parlay: Over for Toronto/Charlotte, Under for Indiana/Atlanta and Over for Miami/Boston.  The Proline odds were 4.63, so a $10 bet paid $46.30.  Using OddsJet and the same picks, odds at the betting sites were shown to range from 6.296 to 7.301, meaning a $10 bet paid $62.96 to $73.01.  This means that OddsJet betting sites were offering odds and potential payouts that were 36% to 58% higher than Proline.

It’s pretty clear that if you need more than the feeling of being correct, and that you want the best value for your money as a sports bettor in Canada, you need to move on from Proline or Sport Select or whatever game you have in your province.  If you’ve already moved on from the provincial sports lottery games, that’s great.  We can move on to the discussion about betting site odds so you can ensure you get the best value from reputable betting sites.

How much can betting odds vary between betting sites?

Clearly, betting sites are in a league of their own, well above Proline and the provincial lottery sports games in terms of the available odds and how much they are willing to pay out.  However, between betting sites, odds can also vary significantly.  Yet, often times sports bettors might get comfortable playing with a single sports betting site account.  Simply put, if you enjoy parlay bets or Round Robin style bets, odds can vary between 10% to over 50% depending on the sports on which you bet and the number of picks that you make.  

Think of how often you make a bet in this fashion.  Every time you place that parlay bet, there is an opportunity to identify a provider that is willing to offer potential payouts that are perhaps 10%, 20%, 30% or even higher than that of your current provider.  Why would you not take the extra potential payout?  Some people might say they don’t want to have to sign up for a new account every time they find a new betting site with the better odds.   

That makes some sense, you don’t want 25 accounts.  However, if you have three to five different betting accounts from highly competitive, reputable betting sites, you can simply use OddsJet to make your picks, see the potential payout results, and identify which of your betting sites offer the best odds for your current picks.  It’s nearly instantaneous to make the odds comparison.

The reality is, you need to figure out why you bet.  Are you really just in it to be correct and irrational, taking any odds price?  Or are you in it to win as much as is available to you?  After all, if you bet fairly frequently, several times a week, isn’t it worth a minute of your time for a 10% to 50+% premium on your odds? You are already comparing prices in other ways in your life.  How does this 10% to 50+% premium in odds value stack up to the other ways you compare prices vs. the time invested to make the comparison?  Let’s have a look.  

Price comparison for consumer products: is it worthwhile investment in time?

Online price comparison tools can help consumers find the best price on almost any retail product.  Most people tend to invest the time to compare prices when they feel that there is a chance for savings that is significant to them.  Some people may want to save every dollar they can on any purchase they make, even if it is just a savings of a few per cent.  Products that are under a hundred dollars in prices would come into this category.  After all, how much money can the retailer make on products at this price point?  At best you’ll likely save a few dollars on a relatively inexpensive product.  Retailers can only cut their prices so far on an item like book.

Price comparison can certainly be perceived as being a more worthwhile activity when Canadians want to make a larger retail purchase, such as a big-screen television.  If you’ve identified your desired model of choice, you can simply use any number of price aggregators to instantly find the available prices for your exact model.  For a TV, this might save you up to a couple hundred dollars if you happen upon to a sale.  Thus, a few minutes of your time invested for perhaps $200 received in savings is excellent by any standard.

Travel price comparisons: is it a worthwhile investment in time?

If you are looking to book a hotel room, there are several online aggregation tools that bring together hotel prices from various travel and hotel websites.  These tools are great because they allow you to narrow your hotel search by feature, rating or room-type and then instantly find the best price.  If you are staying for a single night, the prices are unlikely to be too different from site to site within the given aggregator - usually in the 10 to 15 per cent range.  So you might see a savings of $10 to $40 depending on the room rate.  However, if you might be staying in a certain place for several days, the savings can certainly add up to make the time you invest for price comparison worthwhile.

If you are looking to book a flight, depending on how flexible your flight dates and times might be, you can use flight price comparison tools to find the best bargains to travel to your destination of choice.  Airlines often fly at less than capacity for various routes at less popular times of the week.  If you just want to get away, these flight price comparison tools can get you to your destination with a significant savings, in some cases at less than 50% of the cost to fly at prime or popular times.  A flight at a prime time for $1,000 can be found for close to $500 to the same destination.  So even a half hour of your time invested in comparing prices can yield significant savings, especially if you need to buy more than one ticket.

Mortgage rate comparisons: is it a worthwhile investment in time?

If you are looking for a new mortgage for your home, there are mortgage rate comparison tools that help you find the best available lending rate for your preferred mortgage type, whether fixed-rate or variable-rate.  In addition, you can compare available rates for your desired term duration.  A home tends to be the largest investment for most people and as such, saving even a few tenths of a percent on one’s interest rate can save thousands of dollars a year.  This means less money paid in overall interest to your lender, which also means you may be able to pay off your mortgage and own your home in speedier fashion.  

With mortgages, sometimes people can get tricked by the numbers, even with knowledge of rate comparison.  If your existing bank is offering a 3.9% rate on your desired term, but you find that 2.9% is being offered by another lender, some people might think that this is just a 1% difference and getting the mortgage with their bank is just less hassle.  This is not correct!  The interest rate difference in this case is 34% (3.9 divided by 2.9).  Given this, why would anyone just walk into their bank and take their listed lending rate when you can find highly competitive mortgage rates to save thousands of dollars in interest payments?  Comparing for a mortgage takes very little time to know what the best current available rates might be.  

Why is odds comparison a worthwhile investment in time?  Some examples:

How often do you need to get a mortgage?  How often do you travel?  How often do you buy a TV?  Likely not that often.  Now, how often do you bet on sports?  You compare rates and prices when you can save significantly on these other items that you need fairly infrequently.  Sports betting is likely far more frequently a part of your life and you have the same opportunity to ensure you are getting significantly better value with OddsJet.

Here are some examples of how odds can really differ even between reputable betting sites.  These parlay examples were taken on December 20, 2017 with OddsJet.

5 NFL money line Favourites:  Odds ranged from 9.517 to 7.473 which is a 26% difference.  A $20 bet paid between $190.34 to $149.46.

4 NBA Spread, 2 Favourites, 2 Underdogs: Odds ranged from 14.571 to 11.536 which is a 26% difference.  A $20 bet paid between $291.42 and $230.72

6 Premier League Favourites: Odds ranged from 108.301 to 80.420 which is a 35% difference.  A $20 bet paid between $2,166.02 and $1,608.40.

1 NBA money line, 1 NFL money line, 1 Premier league result and 1 Serie A result: Odds ranged from 16.814 to 13.524 which is a 24% difference.  A $20 bet paid between $336.28 and $270.48.

8 UEFA Champions League results:  Odds ranged from 1,071.065 to 680.497 which is a 57% difference.  A $20 bet paid between $21,421.31 and $13,609.95.  That’s a cash difference of over $7,800.

Each of these parlays took a few seconds to check on with OddsJet.  Only the parlay with events from 4 different leagues required as much as 30 or 40 seconds to compare odds and potential payouts, having needed to navigate from league page to league page.  That’s a minute or less to identify odds premiums of 24% to 57% with each of these four examples.  That seems like a worthwhile investment in time if you enjoy sports betting.  

Now imagine the odds comparison help that OddsJet can provide if you enjoy Round Robin betting - exactly, multiple combination bets means the odds difference between providers can be extremely significant.  Given that Round Robin betting involves more bets and more stakes to be laid, you should want to see where you’ll get the best potential returns.  Be loyal to yourself, not your betting site.

Why do betting odds vary so widely?

The reality of the situation is that sports betting sites are looking to make a little bit of money on every event.  The odds are set and then fluctuate based on how the money has been laid on the event participants.  In the end, the betting site is looking to balance things out so that they can cover off the winning bets from the overall money laid on the event, whatever money is left over can be counted as revenue.  In a simple example, think of a basketball game and the point spread betting market at one betting site.  The odds posted for either team to win are 1.90.  In an ideal world for the betting site, an equal amount is bet on both teams.  

For simplicity, let’s say $100 comes in on each side, perfectly balanced, for a total amount bet of $200.  The betting site needs to pay the winners.  The winners’ bets are $100 multiplied by 1.90 for a total of $190.  The lost bets are lost, no return.  The betting site is thus left with $10 or 5% of the overall amount wagered as revenue.  ($10 left over divided by $200 wagered = 0.05 or 5%)  This 5% is called the betting site’s ‘margin’ or ‘juice’.

The reality is that betting sites are constantly managing this balancing act based on how the money has flowed from their customers onto the given event participants.  Each sportsbook will adjust their odds to help balance out their exposures.  They will lower the odds to discourage bets on the side that has seen lots of action and increase odds to encourage bets on the other side that has received little action.  This is the main reason that odds can differ from betting site to betting site.  Each betting site needs to react to the money flows at their own site.

Another reason odds can range widely is the amount of margin a sportsbook tends to work with.  Some betting sites work at around 5% or 6% as shown in the example above.  Other betting sites might work at around a 2% margin.  While this might not sound like a lot in these terms, The reality is that a 6% margin is 200% more than a 2% margin.   When you start looking at your potential payouts, you will see that the betting sites that tend to work with lower margins will most often have very competitive potential payouts for you.

In the end, this is why a service like OddsJet.com can be so valuable.  Simply select your picks just like at a betting site then use the Bet Slip inputs and controls to find which sportsbooks are offering payouts toward the top of the range.  You don’t really care about how the betting site has had to adjust their odds for their given money flows, nor do you necessarily care about the margins they are working with on a given event.  All you should care about is that you are getting the best value for your hard-earned stake money.

Why OddsJet? Are there other odds comparison sites?

Sure there are.  OddsJet however is the only one that has a version dedicated to Canadian bettors.  Other odds comparison sites are focused on markets like the UK, Germany, Sweden, France or Australia or the world at large.  The problem with that is two-fold for Canadian bettors.  Every betting site around the world serves a unique mix of countries.  For example, several of the sites that you may have seen advertised on the side boards of English Premier League games will not accept Canadian customers.  Big brands like Ladbrokes, Coral, Paddy Power and SkyBet won’t accept your registration - so why would you want to see their odds?  Exactly.  That would be a waste of your time and screen space.

Secondly, there are betting sites that will accept your registration but do NOT offer Canadian dollar accounts - meaning you’d have to lose money exchanging funds every time you deposit or withdraw funds.  These fees can reach 5% of the amount transacted.  There is no need to play in another currency and pay these fees.  Plenty of great betting sites offer Canadian Dollar accounts.  OddsJet only shows you odds from betting sites that will accept your registration and offer Canadian Dollar accounts.  

Odds sites that mix in US Dollar-only betting sites like BetOnline.ag, 5Dimes, Bookmaker.eu among others are not really targeted to Canadian players, though they will position themselves as being ‘For Canadians’.  Avoid sites that promote these to Canadians.

Furthermore, OddsJet does all the odds comparison for you.  Most sites still use massively wide grids with tiny fonts, so they are super hard to read and find the best odds.  OddsJet is automatic.  Just set your picks for singles, parlays or round robin bets, view your results and you’re done.  Most people can check the odds for their picks on OddsJet in under a minute.  

Simply put, OddsJet is the odds comparison site for Canada and Canadian sports bettors.  It’s fast, free and private as there is no sign up, so no data or personal information is held by them.

Please take care of yourself: Problem Gambling Help Resource

Sports betting should be fun and for recreation.  While OddsComparison.ca is hoping to educate Canadians about the possibility to get better value through better odds and potential returns for your picks, sports betting in and of itself is risky and should be for entertainment only.  Please only ever risk what you can afford to lose.  You likely have people that are relying on you for your financial support.  Please keep these people in mind.  If you feel you have a problem with gambling, you may find this helpful:

Visit the Responsible Gambling Council for help in your province

The unfortunate reality is that many people fall victim to an emotional position that is only based on the picks, not on the odds related to those picks.  People fall into the trap of just wanting to feel smart with the correct picks more than they want to get the best value on their bets.  Perhaps some people simply don’t realize that between betting sites, odds and lines can vary significantly.  So much so in fact that it likely makes sense to use an odds comparison site: OddsJet.com.  OddsJet is meant specifically for Canadians as it only compares odds from betting sites that accept Canadian customers and offer Canadian Dollar accounts.  I’ll discuss how much odds can differ between betting sites, but first let’s discuss this bit about a large proportion of Canadian bettors acting irrationally.