Head-to-head (win betting)
The simplest market: pick the winner. In two-outcome sports (tennis, NRL without a draw price) one of the selections must win; in AFL and soccer a draw is usually its own priced outcome, and if you did not back it, a drawn match loses. Head-to-head prices are where our odds guide maths applies most cleanly.
Line betting (handicap)
The bookmaker levels the contest by giving the underdog a head start — the line. Example: a favourite at −12.5 points must win by 13 or more for line bets on them to pay; the underdog at +12.5 "wins" the line if they lose by 12 or fewer, or win outright. The half-point exists specifically so the bet cannot push (tie). Line markets are priced close to 50/50, which is why they are popular — and why the margin inside them matters so much.
Totals (over/under)
A bet on the combined score of a match relative to a set number — total points in an NRL game, total goals in soccer, total runs in cricket. You are not picking a winner at all, just whether the game runs hot or cold against the bookmaker's line.
Multis (parlays / accumulators)
Several selections combined into one bet: all of them must win for the ticket to pay, and the price is the selections' odds multiplied together, which is exactly why the payout looks exciting.
The second half of that sentence is the part advertising leaves out. Three selections each with a fair 50% chance give the multi a 12.5% chance of winning — before the bookmaker's margin, which is applied to every leg, so the multi compounds the margin as fast as it compounds the price. Multis are the highest-margin staple product in the Australian market. Treat them as a lottery-flavoured extra, never as a strategy.
Same-game multis
The same structure restricted to one match — for example, a team to win + a player to score + a points total. Because the legs are correlated (a high-scoring game makes several legs more likely together), the bookmaker reprices them with modelling rather than simple multiplication, and the margin is typically the richest on the page. Understand the product for what it is: entertainment engineering.
Racing: win, place and each-way
- Win — your runner must finish first.
- Place — your runner must finish in the paid placings (the number of places depends on field size).
- Each-way — two bets in one: half your stake on the win at full odds, half on the place at a fraction (commonly a quarter) of the win odds. You are buying insurance at a priced rate, not getting a discount.
Field size quietly governs all of it: an eight-runner race pays three places; a five-runner race may pay only two, and small fields shorten every price. Our racing guide covers how to read the form behind the prices.
The pattern to notice: the simpler the product (head-to-head), the thinner the margin and the easier it is to understand. The more legs, conditions and "bonus" framing a product carries, the more of your money is margin. Complexity in betting products is priced — and you are the one paying.
Whichever products you ever touch, the protection is the same: a bankroll system with hard limits.