With the PGA Tour’s continued growth, one tournament in particular stands out. The Masters is the most popular event in the sport every year, which likely will continue as legal sports betting expands in the US.
The Masters is the first of the sport’s four majors, followed by the PGA Championship, US Open and British Open. The event typically takes place in the first full week of April and always at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. People in Midwest states like Ohio may view the Masters as the unofficial start of spring, with the perfectly cut green grass and azalea flowers.
In this betting guide for the Masters, we will take you through the basics of wagering on the event, including the odds, what to look for when betting and more.
Odds to win 2023 Masters
How Masters betting odds work
It’s getting to a point where you can bet on just about anything, especially for an event as big as the Masters, because sportsbooks figure they can benefit from the significantly higher volume of bets. In this section, we’ll go over popular Masters bets and how the payouts work.
Predicting the winner of the Masters will almost always be the top betting option of the tournament. For some of the most popular events in sports, odds will be available year-round, and the Masters is one of those events. If you wish, you’ll be able to bet on the winner months in advance.
With so many players in the field, it is extremely difficult to pick a winner correctly. Many bettors will wager on multiple golfers at this point to give themselves a better chance at winning. Here’s what the betting board may look like for who will win the Masters with odds next to their names. For this example, we’ll just use the top five.
| Jon Rahm | +900 |
| Dustin Johnson | +1000 |
| Jordan Spieth | +1000 |
| Justin Thomas | +1200 |
| Rory McIlroy | +1400 |
Because there are so many potential outcomes, the payouts can be quite high. Here is how to calculate payouts using positive odds like those listed above. If you wanted to bet $100 on Jon Rahm to win the Masters, and he ended up being the winner at +900 odds, you would receive a $900 profit. For Jordan Spieth to win at +1000 odds, a $100 wager would result in a $1,000 profit and so on.
Sportsbooks often create a betting option that features a pair of golfers going against each other. In that case, you can bet on which player will perform the best between the two. This will give bettors a much greater chance at a winning wager with a smaller pool of outcomes to choose from, but the payout likely will be smaller than predicting the outright winner of the entire field. Here are some example odds for a head-to-head matchup:
| Dustin Johnson | -135 |
| Rory McIlroy | +115 |
When one side has negative odds and the other has positive odds (which is common), the option with negative odds is the favorite, and the positive odds indicate the underdog. In this scenario, we can tell right away that Dustin Johnson is the favorite at -135 with Rory McIlroy as a +115 underdog.
We know from the previous example that a $100 wager on McIlroy would result in a $115 profit with +115 odds. However, calculating the payout for negative odds is a bit different. The easiest way to explain this calculation is by using $100 but in a different way. To win a $100 profit on Johnson at -135 odds, you would need to wager $135. If his odds were -125, you’d need to wager $125 to net $100, and so on.
Other popular Masters golf betting examples include whether a golfer will make the cut, whether a specific golfer will finish in the top five, 10, 20, etc., and who will lead after the first round.
Masters prop bets
Outside of the typical wagering options, golf betting sites will offer additional props that can be fun to bet on. Some of the options could include whether a hole-in-one will happen at any point of the tournament, who will be the top golfer of a certain nationality, whether the tournament will end with a playoff, what the lowest score in any round will be and more.
Live in-play Masters betting
An increasingly popular way to bet on sports is live betting. You can pull out your phone and bet on the Masters as the tournament is going on. Live betting odds will move by the second based on the latest happenings, so you will need to be quick if you see some numbers that you like.
The live betting options are plentiful, as well. You can bet hole by hole on a specific golfer if you’d like. Odds could also be available just for the next hole. You can also make more traditional wagers like the overall winner of the tournament. Those Masters golf odds will be moving throughout the four days of the tournament.
Best Masters odds boosts at Ohio sportsbooks
Ohio betting apps will offer a variety of bonuses as they compete to add new customers. These promos could include bonus bets or boosting the odds for a wager you’d like to make. These promotions are most popular for big-time sporting events like the Masters. There should be plenty of odds boosts for this event regardless of which sportsbook you use. Below are some of the odds boosts that have been available in previous years via sportsbook apps.
- DraftKings Sportsbook offered an odds boost that said a $1 wager on any golfer to finish inside the top 10 would result in a $100 payout.
- FanDuel Sportsbook offered an odds boost that said a $5 wager on Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth or Rory McIlroy to just make the cut would pocket $100 in winnings.
- BetMGM Sportsbook offered bettors the option to choose the winner of the Masters, and no matter whom they chose, the odds would increase by 15%.
Tiger Woods Masters odds
Nobody has impacted the game of golf in the past few decades more than Tiger Woods. One could argue that he has meant more to his sport than any other athlete in recent history, as Woods is one of the reasons many current golfers picked up a club.
Many of the great moments of his incredible career came at the Masters. This includes winning for the first time in 1997 at 21 years old, becoming the youngest Masters winner ever. That was the year he won by 12 strokes for the largest winning margin in Masters history. Overall, Woods won the Masters five times, most recently in 2019.
Unfortunately, Woods was involved in a single-car accident in February 2021. He sustained major leg injuries requiring surgery and an extensive rehab process. It is uncertain whether he will be available to play anytime soon. DraftKings Sportsbook, however, lists Woods’ odds to win the 2022 edition of the Masters at +4000. This is tied for the 19th best odds as of early November 2021.
Key stats for betting the Masters
Sports betting information has never been more available than it is right now. Mainstream media companies continue to add more resources about the industry, so it’s important to do your homework. Here are three trends to consider before betting on the Masters:
- Avoid back-to-back champs: Only three golfers have ever won the Masters two years in a row, and they include some of the best golfers ever: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo.
- Previous top-five finishes: Ten of the last 12 Masters champions finished inside the top five in other events earlier in the year, so it’s important to check out how golfers are playing leading up to the tournament.
- Check the world rankings: Each of the last 11 winners of the Masters was ranked inside the top 30 of the Official World Golf Ranking.
Top Ohio golfer at the 2023 Masters
Jason Day was born in Australia but has since moved to the United States and lives in Westerville, Ohio. He has the best odds of any Ohio-based or Ohio-born player to win the Masters in 2023. Day has yet to win the event, but he has finished in the top five three times so far. A PGA Championship victory in 2015 is his lone major victory.
Greatest Ohioan moments at the Masters
It’s impossible to talk about the greatest moments at the Masters from an Ohio-based player and not talk about Jack Nicklaus, whom many fans regard as the greatest golfer ever. He was born in Columbus and attended Ohio State University for college. Nicklaus won 18 majors during his career, which is a record. Here are some of his best moments at the Masters:
- In 1963, Nicklaus won his first Masters tournament by a single stroke over Tony Lema.
- In 1965, Nicklaus won the Masters again, and he shot a 64 in the third round. He has since said that was his best complete round of golf in a major championship.
- In 1986, Nicklaus won his 18th major at the Masters at age 46 for his sixth and final green jacket. His iconic putt on hole No. 17 led to Verne Lundquist’s iconic “Yes, sir” call.
More PGA events you can bet on from Ohio
Bettors will not have a shortage of golf wagering options for the PGA Tour, specifically the four majors. In addition to the Masters, you will find odds for the PGA Championship, US Open and British Open.