When people bet on a race — horses, dogs, sometimes a runner — they look at the odds. Odds tell you: if this one wins, how much extra money do I get for the money I put down? Evens is a simple kind of odds. It means the chance looks about fifty-fifty: this one is as likely to win as to lose. The money is simple too. You put down ten pounds; if you win, you get ten pounds of profit, and your ten pounds back. People also say even money for the same thing. You will hear evens a lot in British racing talk, at the track and on the radio. Americans more often say even money than evens. Though actually, in a maths class, the evens can also mean the even numbers — two, four, six — so the same spelling has that other life. This write-up is the betting one. It is informal racing English, not a word for a school essay.