Cricket Betting Guide: How to Bet on Test, ODI, and T20 Cricket
How Test, ODI, and T20 cricket price differently, which markets deserve your attention, how the toss, pitch, dew, and rain move odds, and how to shop decimal prices across books.
By
Eric Pauly
9 min read
Cricket Betting Starts With the Format
Cricket betting is really three betting sports sharing one name. A five-day Test match, a 50-over One Day International, and a three-hour T20 game in the Indian Premier League use the same bat and ball, but they produce different results, different markets, and very different prices. A Test can end in a draw. A tied T20 usually goes to a Super Over. Rain can shorten either one, and the rules for settling your bet change when it does.
This guide covers how each format prices, which cricket betting markets are worth your attention, the conditions that move odds (the toss, the pitch, dew, and weather), and how to shop decimal prices across books and exchanges. Cricket also has a growing US angle: Major League Cricket has played in the US since 2023, and T20 cricket is on the program for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
article Summary
Cricket betting changes by format. Test matches carry a draw and heavy weather risk, while ODIs and T20s are two-way markets shaped by the toss, the pitch, and dew. Learn how each format settles, convert decimal odds to implied probability, and shop every price, because fewer books post cricket and the gaps between them tend to be wider than on major US sports.
How Cricket Formats Change the Bet
Test Cricket
Tests run up to five days, with each side batting twice. The match result is a three-way market: either team can win, or the match is drawn if time runs out before a result is reached. Weather, pitch quality, and scoring rate all feed the draw price. A flat pitch with rain forecast for days four and five pushes the draw shorter. An aggressive batting side on a surface that breaks up pushes it out.
One Day Internationals
ODIs give each side 50 overs. The result market is two-way, and the longer innings gives the stronger team more time to recover from a poor start, so ODI favorites tend to be shorter than the same matchup in T20.
T20 and Franchise Leagues
T20 gives each side 20 overs, and it is where most of the betting volume lives. The franchise calendar runs nearly year round: the IPL in India, the Big Bash League in Australia, SA20 in South Africa, the Pakistan Super League, the Caribbean Premier League, The Hundred in England (a 100-ball variant), and Major League Cricket in the US. Shorter games mean more variance. One big over or one collapse can flip a result, which keeps prices on T20 favorites longer than a casual fan expects.
When I set up a cricket card, I group bets by format first and by team second. A bettor who prices a Test the way they price an IPL game will keep misreading the draw.
Cricket Betting Markets Explained
Cricket books list far more than the match result. These are the markets you will see most often, and what each one actually asks you to predict.
Match winner: two-way in ODIs and T20s, three-way in Tests. Check how your book settles a tied limited-overs match that is decided by a Super Over.
Draw no bet: a Test match winner market with your stake refunded on a draw. Our guide to draw no bet walks through how the price is built from the three-way line.
Innings runs: an over/under on a team's first-innings total, often split into a powerplay line (the first six overs in T20) and a full-innings line.
Top batter and top bowler: who scores the most runs or takes the most wickets for a team. Dead heat rules apply when players tie.
Player runs and wickets: individual over/under lines, the cricket version of player props.
Total sixes, fours, and boundaries: match or team totals, driven heavily by ground size and the pitch.
Method of dismissal and next wicket: mostly in-play markets, usually with high margins.
Series and tournament futures: series winner, correct series score, and outrights for the IPL or ICC events.
Where the Softer Prices Tend to Sit
Match winner markets on high-profile games attract the most money and get corrected fastest. Player runs, top batter, and total sixes markets are smaller, and books often build them from templates rather than ground-specific data. That is where knowledge of conditions (boundary size, a slow pitch, a lineup change at the toss) has the most room to matter.
Top batter markets deserve extra care. Openers face the most balls, so they usually head the market. When a team's top order rarely collapses, its middle order sees fewer deliveries, and books do not always shade those prices enough.
What Moves Cricket Odds: Toss, Pitch, Dew, and Weather
The Toss and Team Sheets
Captains toss before play, and the winner picks whether to bat or bowl. Playing XIs are typically confirmed at the toss as well, so two pieces of news land at once. Betting before the toss means taking a price that knows neither. Betting after means a sharper price with less hidden information left to exploit.
Pitch and Venue
Surfaces in India, Sri Lanka, and the UAE tend to help spin as a match goes on. English conditions, with the Dukes ball and cloud cover, favor seam and swing. Australian pitches usually offer pace and bounce. In T20 totals, venue matters a lot: grounds with short boundaries and flat surfaces, like the Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru, regularly post bigger scores than larger grounds. My first check on any T20 total is the venue's recent first-innings scores this season rather than its long-run average, because pitches and playing rules change.
Dew and Night Games
Evening matches in parts of India and the Middle East can bring heavy dew in the second innings. A wet ball is harder for bowlers to grip, spinners especially, which tilts the game toward the side batting second. Toss winners in those conditions often choose to bowl first, and the match price moves with that decision.
Rain and the DLS Method
Rain shortens limited-overs matches, and the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) method resets the chasing team's target. A result usually requires a minimum number of overs per side, 20 in an ODI and five in a T20 under standard playing conditions. If that minimum is not reached, books generally void match winner bets, but settlement for innings runs and player markets varies, so read your book's cricket rules before betting into a wet forecast.
Reading Cricket Odds and the Margin You Pay
Cricket is priced in decimal odds across most of the world, and a lot of cricket coverage and exchange pricing is quoted in decimals even when your US book shows American odds. A decimal price is your total return per dollar staked, so 2.50 returns $2.50 on a $1 bet, stake included. Implied probability is 1 divided by the price.
1.25 (-400): 80% implied
1.50 (-200): 66.7% implied
1.80 (-125): 55.6% implied
2.00 (+100): 50% implied
2.50 (+150): 40% implied
3.00 (+200): 33.3% implied
4.00 (+300): 25% implied
6.00 (+500): 16.7% implied
For prices in between, an odds converter handles decimal, American, and implied probability in one step.
Why the Margin Matters More in Cricket
Add the implied probabilities of every outcome in a market, and anything above 100% is the book's margin. High-profile IPL and international games can carry competitive two-way margins. Lower-profile domestic matches and player markets often run wider, and fewer books post them at all, which is why line shopping carries more weight in cricket than in the major US sports.
When I pull a cricket match up on an odds screen, the obvious difference from an NBA game on the same night is depth: fewer books carry the market, and the distance between the top and bottom price on the same side tends to be wider. Taking the top number is an edge you collect without needing to be right about the match.
Exchanges as a Reference Point
Outside the US, Betfair's exchange carries deep cricket liquidity, and its prices are widely used as a reference for what a fair cricket line looks like. Exchanges match bettors against each other and charge a commission instead of building a margin into both sides. If you want to see how exchange pricing works for US bettors, start with our betting exchange reviews.
Line Shopping Cricket Odds With the Right Tools
Most odds tools are built around the NFL, NBA, and MLB, and plenty of them do not price cricket at all. Before you pay for anything, confirm the tool covers the leagues you bet and the books you can actually use.
OddsJam
OddsJam lists cricket among its niche sports alongside esports and table tennis, and it compares real-time odds across 150+ sportsbooks, exchanges, and prediction markets. For cricket, the main use is a side by side view of every book posting a match so you can take the top price. It is priced as a professional tool, with the entry tier landing close to $200 a month, so it fits best when cricket is one part of a wider betting routine.
Bet Hero
Bet Hero scans 400+ sportsbooks across 22 sports and 500+ leagues for +EV and arbitrage, with books from Europe, Australia, and Canada in the mix. That international reach lines up with how cricket is priced, since most cricket books operate outside the US. The tradeoff for American bettors is that many of those books are not available to you, so confirm your leagues are covered and count the listed books you can actually bet at. Our Bet Hero review breaks down the coverage and the three pricing tiers, which start around $36 a month on annual billing.
For a wider look at scanners beyond these two, our ranked list of +EV betting tools compares the field on price, speed, and coverage.
Where to Bet Cricket in the US
Cricket availability at regulated US sportsbooks varies by state and by book, and menus usually fill out around the IPL and ICC tournaments. Our FanDuel overview covers how its markets, parlays, and live betting work, and FanDuel lets you switch its odds display to decimal, which makes cricket prices easier to compare against other sources. Holding accounts at two or three books gives you something to shop between.
Final Thoughts
Cricket betting rewards preparation because so much of the useful information is about conditions: the format, the pitch, the toss, the dew, and the weather. Learn how each format settles, read decimal odds as probabilities, and treat the toss as the moment the market reprices.
The other half is price. Fewer books post cricket, and the ones that do disagree more often, so shopping across accounts and using a tool that actually covers the sport can do more for your results than any single match prediction.
Cricket Betting FAQ
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