Clint Westwood
01-18-2009, 05:22 AM
Welcome to the Soccer Betting 101 summary; please feel free to add anything you think would help improve or clarify anything related to soccer betting.
Before getting started, be sure you know which team is playing at home; European books use the standard notation, namely the first team is the home team. This is obviously the opposite of the North American notation of the home team being listed second. Watch out for that!
WATCH OUT FOR THE DRAW!
I thought I'd get set out by pointing out the main differences between a money-line soccer wager and one on a regular NBA or NFL money-line wager, for instance. Almost all the major soccer leagues worldwide play regular season games to a set 90 minutes overall, and with the scores level at the end of regulation time, a tie is the result of the match; there is no overtime or shootout or any other deciding factor. This is obviously very important as the outcome of the game has three possibilities.
The Asian Handicap
'Asian Handicap' lines are used in soccer in much the same way as a point-spread line in North American Sports, to level up the two teams in any given soccer match by some degree. Depending on the matchup and overall disparity between the two sides, the Asian Handicap (AH) might be as high as 3.5 goals or as low as 0, or pick 'em. More commonly the AH will be in the region of 0.5 to 0.75.
When an AH is quoted as a quarter-goal, this means that the bookmaker is offering, in essence, half of the wager at pk and half at 0.5. Some bookmakers would express this line as 0, 0.5. For a three-quarter goal AH the wager would be settled at half the bet at 0.5 goal and half at 1 goal.
As an example, for Tottenham v Portsmouth, the AH line is -0.75 Tottenham. A final score of 1-0 to Tottenham and a wager at -0.75 Tottenham would see you win half your wager at -0.5 and push half at -1. Conversely, Portsmouth +0.75 would see you lose the +0.5 half of the wager but push the remaining half at +1. Therefore, with such an AH line, the underdog team must either draw or win outright to win the wager. The favourite must win by more than one goal to win the whole of the wager.
Asian Handicap and Regular Handicap differences
Take care not to fall foul of wagering on a 'regular' handicap line instead of an Asian Handicap line. Regular handicaps are playable mainly at Euro books and these lines will always be in full-goal increments because the tie (via handicap) is still a bettable proposition. For the [above] example, a regular handicap of 1 would see all bets on Tottenham -1 and Portsmouth +1 graded as a loss. The handicap tie would be the graded winner in this case, at Tottenham -1 or Portsmouth +1.
Under-Over/ Total Goals Lines
Under-over lines work in much the same way; the usual line is u-o 2.5 goals but lines of 2, 2.5 (or 2.25) or 2.5, 3 (or 2.75) are not uncommon, and the total may be even higher for some matches.
There are multitudes of prop bets available as well, ranging from correct score predictions through to over/under lines on corners awarded in the match, with just about everything in between. It is worth computing the hold on these markets as the vig imposed by the book may be ridiculously high in some cases.
Next: Odds-comparison sites and decent sites for score updates and information in general.
Before getting started, be sure you know which team is playing at home; European books use the standard notation, namely the first team is the home team. This is obviously the opposite of the North American notation of the home team being listed second. Watch out for that!
WATCH OUT FOR THE DRAW!
I thought I'd get set out by pointing out the main differences between a money-line soccer wager and one on a regular NBA or NFL money-line wager, for instance. Almost all the major soccer leagues worldwide play regular season games to a set 90 minutes overall, and with the scores level at the end of regulation time, a tie is the result of the match; there is no overtime or shootout or any other deciding factor. This is obviously very important as the outcome of the game has three possibilities.
The Asian Handicap
'Asian Handicap' lines are used in soccer in much the same way as a point-spread line in North American Sports, to level up the two teams in any given soccer match by some degree. Depending on the matchup and overall disparity between the two sides, the Asian Handicap (AH) might be as high as 3.5 goals or as low as 0, or pick 'em. More commonly the AH will be in the region of 0.5 to 0.75.
When an AH is quoted as a quarter-goal, this means that the bookmaker is offering, in essence, half of the wager at pk and half at 0.5. Some bookmakers would express this line as 0, 0.5. For a three-quarter goal AH the wager would be settled at half the bet at 0.5 goal and half at 1 goal.
As an example, for Tottenham v Portsmouth, the AH line is -0.75 Tottenham. A final score of 1-0 to Tottenham and a wager at -0.75 Tottenham would see you win half your wager at -0.5 and push half at -1. Conversely, Portsmouth +0.75 would see you lose the +0.5 half of the wager but push the remaining half at +1. Therefore, with such an AH line, the underdog team must either draw or win outright to win the wager. The favourite must win by more than one goal to win the whole of the wager.
Asian Handicap and Regular Handicap differences
Take care not to fall foul of wagering on a 'regular' handicap line instead of an Asian Handicap line. Regular handicaps are playable mainly at Euro books and these lines will always be in full-goal increments because the tie (via handicap) is still a bettable proposition. For the [above] example, a regular handicap of 1 would see all bets on Tottenham -1 and Portsmouth +1 graded as a loss. The handicap tie would be the graded winner in this case, at Tottenham -1 or Portsmouth +1.
Under-Over/ Total Goals Lines
Under-over lines work in much the same way; the usual line is u-o 2.5 goals but lines of 2, 2.5 (or 2.25) or 2.5, 3 (or 2.75) are not uncommon, and the total may be even higher for some matches.
There are multitudes of prop bets available as well, ranging from correct score predictions through to over/under lines on corners awarded in the match, with just about everything in between. It is worth computing the hold on these markets as the vig imposed by the book may be ridiculously high in some cases.
Next: Odds-comparison sites and decent sites for score updates and information in general.