Fundamentals
Asian handicap odds data, explained
Asian handicap gives one side a goal head-start, which lets a bet half-win or half-lose. For your data that makes the line a field, not an afterthought. Here is how to model it.
· 6 min read
Blog · category
Fundamentals
What odds data, odds APIs and odds feeds actually are — the vocabulary and the moving parts, explained for the people building on top of them.
Fundamentals
Bet builder and same-game multi data, for builders
A bet builder combines several selections from one event into one priced bet. The price isn't the product of the legs, because the outcomes are correlated. Here's what that means for the data.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
Bookmaker margin and the overround, explained
The overround, the margin, the vig: three names for the bookmaker's built-in edge. Here's how to compute it from decimal prices, and why comparing it across books tells you who to bet with.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
Decimal and fractional odds in data: what to standardise on
Decimal, fractional and American are three ways to write the same price. For anything you compute with, standardise on decimal, store decimal, and convert only at the point of display.
· 4 min read
Fundamentals
Football odds data, explained
Football is where odds data does most of its volume. This explains the main markets, how they're structured as event, market and selections, and how matched back/lay pairs work for football.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
How bookmaker odds data is structured
Odds data is a four-level hierarchy: event to market to selection to price, plus bookmaker, region and freshness metadata. Once the shape clicks, integrating a feed is straightforward.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
How odds comparison sites use odds data
An odds comparison site is a best-price table, and its data layer is the whole product. Here is what that layer has to do, and why normalisation, not raw prices, is the part that decides whether it works.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
How odds feeds handle suspended and void markets
Markets get suspended or voided constantly, and a feed that hides those states will hand your users a wrong price. Here is how a good feed represents them, and what your product should do with each.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
How to display odds data in your app
You have the odds data; now you need to render it. A practical guide to mapping the response to rows, formatting decimal prices, showing the matched pair, and keeping it fresh.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
How to get bookmaker odds data into your app
There are two ways to get bookmaker odds into your app: collect it yourself, or license a feed. Here's how each works, what to decide first, and the integration sketch for the faster path.
· 4 min read
Fundamentals
How to monitor an odds feed in production
Once an odds feed is live, three checks keep you honest: availability, freshness against the timestamp, and coverage of your books and markets. Here is how to build them so you catch a problem before your users do.
· 7 min read
Fundamentals
How to normalise odds across bookmakers
Different books name the same event and selection differently, so their prices don't line up on their own. This is how you normalise odds across bookmakers, and where it goes wrong.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
How to price a bet with odds data
Pricing a bet is four steps: implied probability, remove the overround, derive a fair price, then compare across books. Sharp books and exchanges give the best estimate of the true probability.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
How to store and version odds data
A feed gives you current prices; the history is what you persist from them. Here's a simple, durable model: timestamped snapshots keyed by event, market and selection, plus the retention trade-offs to decide up front.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
Integrating an odds feed with AI coding tools
Point an AI coding assistant at a public OpenAPI spec, describe what you want, and get a working odds-feed call to iterate on. Here's why a clean contract makes that work, and how to do it safely.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
Line movement: what odds data shows you
Line movement is how a selection's odds shift as money comes in and information arrives. This is how odds data represents that movement, and what you can honestly read from it.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
Live vs pre-match odds data: what's realistic
Live in-play and pre-match odds data are different problems with different costs. Here's how to tell which one your product actually needs before you shop, and why we ship pre-match and say so.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
Multi-sport odds data: football, racing, tennis and beyond
A full odds-data layer runs well past football and racing into tennis, cricket, rugby and basketball. Here is what multi-sport coverage really means, and why depth per sport beats a long list that thins out.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
Odds API vs odds feed: what's the difference?
Builders hit two terms for the same data and assume they're choosing between products. They aren't. Here's what each word stresses, and the distinction that actually changes your build: raw versus matched.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
Odds API vs sports data API: what's the difference?
A sports data API delivers scores, fixtures and player stats. An odds API delivers bookmakers' prices for outcomes. They're different products, they're often used together, and only one is what matched betting runs on.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
Over/under and totals odds data, explained
Over/under markets price whether goals, points or corners finish above or below a line. For data, the line is part of the selection: here is why that changes how you compare, match and arb totals across books.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
Polling an odds feed efficiently with ETag and 304s
How to poll an odds feed without wasting bandwidth or hitting rate limits: poll on the refresh cadence, send If-None-Match for a cheap 304 when nothing has changed, and accept gzip.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
The anatomy of an odds API response
What every field in a good odds API response is for, walked one at a time: the event/market/selection keys, the back and lay blocks, rating and qualifying_loss, and the envelope around them.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
Webhooks vs polling for odds data
Odds change continuously, not at discrete events, so polling with ETag/304 fits the data better than webhooks. Here's the plain comparison, and why OddsRelay is pull-based.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
What is an odds API? A 2026 guide for builders
An odds API hands your software bookmakers' prices as structured data instead of a human reading betting sites by hand. Here's what one returns, how raw and matched feeds differ, and what to check before you commit.
· 6 min read
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