Working out betting sums to return a specific profit

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to work out a formula for an equation I currently do manually. When betting, I look to win enough to cover the original bet, plus a profit. The first part is easy: eg, to make $100 on odds of 2.5: 100/2.5=$40 bet. So then I want to bet enough to make $140 back (return minus bet). But 140/2.5=$56, so I need to raise the original bet again.

By trial and error, I can figure out that I need to bet $66.66 on odds of 2.5 to make back $166.66, which covers the bet and makes $100 profit. But it's a time consuming exercise to keep trialling and guessing how much to make the bet.

Is there a way for Excel to calculate this formula, given that there are effectively two unknown numbers - how much to bet, and therefore what the overall return is?

Cheers
Jesse

Jessie,

Let me see if I understand this....I think you are saying

stake*odds = desired return + stake. If we rearrange this equation we get
stake*odds - stake= desired return, rearranging again we get
stake = desired return/(odds-1)

so if you want to get $100 @ 2.5:1 put that in the equation and 100/(2.5-1) = $166.66

Have I understood what you are trying to do correctly? Does this help?

David

Hi David and Alphafrog - you've understood me completely (no easy feat!) and this solution works perfectly. Thanks so much, I very much appreciate it.

Cheers,
Jesse