How are odds different from probability?


Both are measurements for how likely it is for an event to occur. Odds are commonly used in gambling, which probability is a measure that is commonly used in mathematics/statistics. In statistics, probability measures the number of outcomes in which a particular event occurred divided by the total number of possible outcomes. For example, the probability of rain on a given day would be based on, historically with similar conditions, the number of rainy days divided by a total number of days. The odds are measured as the number of events divided by the number of non-events. To contrast, probability would be the number of events divided by the sum of events and non-events.