The Olympic Games are a dream come true for international betting fans thanks to the huge number of Olympic betting odds.
The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, marking the city’s third time as host, offer a wide array of betting opportunities. Top sites for Olympic betting accessible to US bettors include Parimatch, GGBet, and Betwinner, which feature odds for all 45 sports. This includes newer additions like surfing, breakdancing, skateboarding, and sport climbing. The event venues, numbering 34, are distributed across three primary areas linked by the Seine River.
The Olympic festivities kick off at the Stade de France, presenting numerous betting possibilities for the 2024 Games. Bettors have the chance to wager on the victors across every sport, predict the country with the highest medal count, and place bets on the total medals won by particular nations. For those wondering where to place bets on the Paris 2024 Olympics, Parimatch offers a mobile-friendly platform that caters to US players, enabling bets on the action from any location, without needing to be present at the Grand Palais or any other iconic Parisian venue.
The 2024 Summer Olympics will feature competitions in 45 distinct sports, with all of them open for betting by US residents. New additions to the 2024 games include sports climbing, skateboarding, break dancing, and surfing. Conversely, karate, baseball, and softball have been removed from the roster for the Summer Games.
| Football | Boxing | Basketball | Gymnastics | Cycling |
| Tennis | Aquatics | Canoeing | Triathlon | Handball |
The 2024 Summer Olympics will utilize 35 venues, categorized into three primary clusters: within Paris, in the Ile-de-France region, and across France. The diversity in venue locations means spectators could go from experiencing badminton at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena to enjoying surfing competitions in Teahupo’o, which are separated by a considerable distance of over 15,000 km, showcasing the extensive geographical spread of events along the Seine River. This is an illustration of how varied the distances between venues can be.
In Paris Venues:
In The Ile-De-France Region Venues:
Throughout France Venues:
Betting on the overall medal tally is among the favored options for Olympic wagering. The USA is the leading contender to secure the highest number of medals, with odds starting at -850. This is a logical expectation, considering the US’s dominant performance in securing the highest totals of both medals and golds across the previous three Summer Olympics.
The question of whether betting on the 2024 Paris Olympics is legal for US residents has a positive answer: yes, it is legal. Online betting platforms such as Parimatch and Betwinner, which operate under licenses and regulations from jurisdictions outside the US, legally provide betting opportunities on all 45 Olympic sports to individuals aged 18 and above.
Olympic Odds at most sportsbooks will be presented in one of three ways: American (moneyline), British (fractional), or European (decimal). Most books catering to US customers will use regular moneyline odds, but you will definitely come across fractional odds as well. Decimal odds tend to be fairly rare, but it’s considered a sports betting best practice to understand all three varieties. Most foreign markets for Olympic countries will use European fractional odds.
The American moneyline is based, as its name implies, on the moneyline. Moneylines are presented as positive or negative numbers, and these are the “price tags” for the bets on the boards. While straight bets use the moneyline to represent the odds themselves, other bet types typically include their associated moneylines (or prices) in parentheses beside the wagers in question. With the moneyline, a negative number (-) typically represents the favorite, while a positive number (+) represents the underdog. However, in a field of more than two contestants (as is so often the case in the individual Olympic events), the favorite will often also have a positive moneyline. In this case, the favorite will have the smallest positive line, while other contestants will have higher positive lines in line with their comparative longshot status.
When it comes to understanding what the moneyline actually means, it’s simple: a negative number shows how much you have to wager to win $100, while a positive number shows how much money you stand to win on a $100 wager. For example, if the US Men’s bobsled team is listed on a head-to-head matchup at -210 odds against Team Spain (at +140), a $210 bet on the American team would win $100, while a $100 bet on the Spanish team would win $140.
All odds work the same general way as the US moneyline, in that they all show the payout amounts. With British odds, you’re shown the wager’s payout ratio as a fraction. For example, if the Jamaican 100-meter relay team is on the boards at 2/5 odds, it means that a wager on the club would pay out $2 for every $5 wagered. A sub-1 fraction denotes a favorite, while a fraction greater than 1 denotes an underdog. A fractional underdog might have odds of 5/1, meaning that $5 is won on a $1 bet. As long as you remember that the numerator (the first number in the fraction) shows the amount to be won while the denominator (the second number) shows the amount wagered for said winnings, you can easily read and understand British odds. You will almost certainly come across fractional odds during your Olympics betting activities.
European decimal odds are rare on most betting boards if you live in the US or the UK, but they’re reasonably simple to understand. Decimal odds already include your stake, so whatever the posted decimal is, you simply multiply your stake by that number to get your winnings. For example, if some team or individual has 3.0 odds to win, that means that a $1 bet would yield $3 (3.0 X $1) and that a $5 bet would yield $15 (3.0 X $5). Because your stake is included, odds that are between 1.001 and 1.999 show a favorite, while odds of 2.0 and greater indicate underdogs.
