Odds comparison for sports betting
An odds comparison site shows you the best odds for a bet across many bookmakers. The sites are free and the idea is simple. They just do not tell you how much of the market their own table covers.Odds comparison we’ve reviewed
OddsPortal
Odds comparison with a payout column, a price history on every selection and closing prices kept after the match. Free tools for dropping odds, sure bets and blocked odds. The bookmaker list is narrow, and part of it is locked.
Oddspedia
Odds comparison across a wide bookmaker list, with a payout percentage per book, movement history and five free tool lists. No account needed for the grid. The country version you land on decides which bookmakers you see.
We test every site on the same match and count the bookmakers ourselves. Oddspedia has the longest list so far, and most of its brands are mainstream European. OddsPortal has fewer, with more crypto brands, and it is the only one that names a closing price. No two lists are the same, so it is worth using more than one site.
What an odds comparison site does
The site collects betting odds from bookmakers and puts them in one table. There is one row for each bookmaker. You find the best odds for the outcome you want, click the price, and place the bet at that bookmaker.
Checking prices before every bet is called line shopping. Odds of 2.10 instead of 2.00 pay 5 percent more on every winning bet. Over a season that difference adds up to real money.
The site never holds your money. It takes no bets, no deposits and no payouts. The only risk is an old price. Live odds change all day, and the bookmaker may have moved a price since the table was last updated.
How many bookmakers an odds comparison site really covers
Every site says how many bookmakers it covers. The numbers do not match, even on one company's own pages.
Oddspedia has a counter on its home page with 179 sportsbooks. Its odds page says more than 70. Its widget site gives two more figures again. OddsPortal makes one claim, in its sign-up window: more than 45 major bookmakers.
You will not see any of those numbers. The list changes with the country you open the site from. We checked this with a VPN in several countries, on every site we tested, and the table changed every time. On OddsPortal it also changes with your account, because a signed-in user can choose which bookmakers appear.
The only count that matters is the one on your own match. Open the table and count the rows. That count still misses two things. The site may hide some bookmakers from you completely. And some rows repeat odds you have already seen.
One site promises more than 45 major bookmakers in its sign-up window. On our test match it showed 20.
Oddspedia and OddsPortal on the same match
We opened the same Champions League qualifier on both sites. Same day, same connection, a few minutes apart. Oddspedia showed 46 bookmakers. OddsPortal showed 20 with an account signed in, and 19 without one.
Both sites found the same three best odds, to the second decimal: 3.04, 3.30 and 2.58. Two of the three came from the same bookmaker on both sites. So the longer list did not find better odds here.
The reason to open a second site is the list of bookmakers, not the price. At least 8 of OddsPortal's 20 books also appear in Oddspedia's 46. That is 40 percent of the smaller list and 17 percent of the bigger one. The bigger list is mostly mainstream European brands. The smaller one holds a group of crypto brands, and the site has a filter just for them. These sites cover different parts of the market.
Rows are not the same as prices. Those 20 rows held only 14 different sets of odds, because several brands share one betting platform. Brands on the same platform always show the same numbers. A row shows you a brand name. It does not always show you new odds.
| Site | Bookmakers on our test match | Payout | Closing price | Free tool lists | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oddspedia | 46 | Checkbox above the table | Kept, but not named. No archive | 5 | 4.0 |
| OddsPortal | 20 signed in, 19 signed out | Permanent column | Named on every price, with a season archive | 4, limit of 10 free sure bets | 3.5 |
The table showed 20 rows but only 14 different sets of odds. Several brands share one platform, so their numbers always match.
What the payout percentage tells you
A good odds comparison site shows a payout percentage next to the odds. It shows how much of the money bet on a market the bookmaker pays back to bettors. The rest is what the bookmaker keeps.
On the match we tested, the payouts ran from 91.3 percent up to 97.5 percent. The bookmaker at the bottom keeps 8.7 percent of the money bet on that market. The one at the top keeps 2.5 percent. The sites we opened showed almost the same top figure.
Some sites show the payout in every table. Others hide it behind a checkbox, and the checkbox is off until you turn it on. Our odds converter turns any price into an implied probability, which is the same idea for a single outcome.
The payout percentage is the simplest free way to see a bookmaker's margin. One site always shows it. The other hides it.
Closing odds and the price archive
Closing line value compares the odds you took with the odds at kick-off. It is the best free way to check if your bets were good, even when they lost. Our closing line value guide works through the sum.
Not every site names a closing price. OddsPortal does, on every selection, and it also keeps a season archive of old odds. Oddspedia keeps the history too, but it shows only an opening price, a highest and a lowest. The closing number is on the graph, and you have to find it yourself. So the data is there on both. Only one puts a name on it. That matters if you check closing odds every week.
Free tools: sure bets, dropping odds and value bets
Most odds comparison sites add free lists around the odds table: sure bets, dropping odds, blocked odds and value bets. A sure bet, also called an arbitrage, uses odds at several bookmakers at once. It covers every result of a match and still pays a profit.
Everyone sees a free list at the same time, and odds change within minutes. OddsPortal shows only 10 free sure bets and puts a paid plan above them. Oddspedia does not limit its list. The biggest numbers on it come from bookmaker mistakes, and a bookmaker cancels bets made on a mistake. Our arbitrage scanners section covers the paid tools built for this work.
Set the filters on every list before you use it. And when a tool advertises its own hit rate, check that number against the odds in the list.
Who pays for a free odds comparison site
These sites earn money from the bookmakers they send you to. So do we. It is worth knowing, because it shapes what the tables show.
Around the odds tables these sites run bonus pages, promo codes, free bet offers and bookmaker rankings. That is how they make money, and it pays for the free odds table.
On OddsPortal it also affects the table. The bookmaker settings hold a group of seven premium bookmakers with locked checkboxes, and you cannot remove them. The home page says that the odds shown are the highest across premium plus your preferred books, not across every bookmaker the site tracks.
So counting rows has a limit. The rows show what the site displays. They do not show what it left out. You can check any price yourself on the bookmaker's own site. You cannot check a ranking the same way.
How to choose between odds comparison sites
Bookmakers you can actually open an account with. A long list of brands that will not accept you is no use.
A payout percentage next to the odds, shown by default.
A closing price with a name on it, if you track closing line value.
A published method under each tool list. An example with real numbers is better than a percentage on its own.
How to compare odds across more than one site
Set your country and your odds format, decimal or American, before you compare odds at all.
Start with the site that lists the bookmakers you can open. If you do not bet with crypto brands, that is the longer list. Open the second site for the bookmakers the first one misses.
If you bet on a betting exchange, check how the site handles commission. An exchange charges a fee on your winnings, usually about 5 percent. One of the sites we tested subtracts it for you.
Write your bet down somewhere afterwards. These sites have coupons, and a coupon is only a list of selections. It does not record your stakes, your profit and loss, or the odds the market closed at. Our bet trackers section covers tools built for that. Our Kelly criterion guide covers how much to stake, and the rest of our betting calculators are in one place.
Odds comparison sites we have tested
Every site here is free, and we opened each one on the same match, so the numbers can be compared.
Oddspedia is the bigger table. It carries mainstream European books, a movement graph on every selection and five free tool lists. You need no account for any of it. We rate it 4.0. It suits a reader who wants the widest odds comparison in one place.
OddsPortal is the smaller one, and part of its list is fixed by the site. It is also the only site here that names the closing price and stores old seasons. We rate it 3.5. It suits a reader who tracks closing line value, or who bets with crypto brands.
If you use only one site, use the one with the longest list of bookmakers you can open. If you record your bets and check them against closing odds, add a site that names a closing price. A site gets a card here after we have opened it and counted its table ourselves.