Do you love your cricket, but have never had a bet in your life? Do you think you have what it takes to outsmart the so-called experts and make your knowledge of the game pay? Or do you keep hearing about this mysterious phenomenon called “trading” and want to know more? If so, read on, for a simple guide to betting on cricket...

Odds

To understand betting on any event, first you need to know about odds. There are two ways of quoting odds - decimal and traditional.

Traditional odds are much the same as you would see at a racecourse – for example England were about 5/1 to win the Ashes in 2005. This means that for every pound you bet, you win £5, so if you had a £1 bet, you would receive £6 back (your winnings plus your £1 stake).

Decimal odds, on the other hand, are used on betting exchanges (more about these later) and are an option on most regular bookies’ sites. These are quoted as a decimal number, and the equivalent of the bookies’ 5/1 (as above) would be 6.0. Simply put, this just means that decimal odds already include the return of your stake. This becomes important in the context of a cricket match, where one of the teams will be a strong favourite to win.

Let’s say team A is much the favoured team. The bookies might quote them as 1/2 (“one to two”, also confusingly described as “two to one on”) meaning that for every pound you bet, you win 50p, plus your stake returned. Decimal odds in this case would be 1.5; clearer and easier to use.

Markets

Markets is another term for “what can I bet on?” On any game there will be the