{"id":363,"date":"2016-10-07T15:34:40","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T15:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/?page_id=363"},"modified":"2021-09-16T13:58:02","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T13:58:02","slug":"handicap-betting","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/articles\/betting-guide\/handicap-betting\/","title":{"rendered":"Handicap Betting Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"
Many think a Handicap or Asian Handicap bet type is too exotic or too complicated for their tastes, although in reality, this is a very simple betting market with a lot of flexibility to suit how much risk vs reward you want to be factored in to your wagers.<\/p>\n
Though online betting handicap markets are now widely offered across a huge range of sports. In basic terms these bets do what the name suggests, they offer points handicaps on results in order to increase or decrease the odds for a given outcome.\u00a0 For this reason, they are commonly used to even up the odds in contests where there are strong favourites.<\/p>\n
A straightforward win-lose-draw bet is decided on the real-life final result of the game. With handicap betting it’s a little bit different. You could choose a team to win with a -1 goal handicap and get better odds than you would for a straightforward win bet under normal circumstances.<\/p>\n
Of course, the team would then have to win by two clear goals for your bet to win (2-0, 3-1, etc), which explains the better odds.<\/p>\n
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Handicap betting is most popular when the favourite is priced up at prohibitive odds. This can happen in football tournaments such as the Champions League or World Cup, when a top class team takes on a much lowlier opponent. Thanks to handicap betting the one-sided contest can suddenly become a lot more exciting.<\/p>\n
An odds on favourite may be 1\/12 to win a game (such as Barcelona in the screenshot above), perhaps shorter than that. Placing a bet on a straight Barcelona win isn’t going to win you a fortune (\u00a31 for every \u00a312 bet) and it is also a huge risk to stake so much with so little return.\u00a0 Therefore, for many in this scenario it is handicap time.<\/p>\n
There are a range of handicap options available. In this case, you might decide for the favourites to win with a -3 goal handicap. That means the outsiders – Espanyol in our example – are given a fictional three goal start in the game. For your selection to win they have to finish the game three goals clear of their opponents. With a -3 handicap however the odds are going to be a lot better, in this case 17\/10, so for every \u00a310 bet you will now win \u00a317.<\/p>\n
Of course, you don’t have to go for a handicap win. You could put the favourites on a -3 goal handicap and bet on the match to end in a draw. This would mean for your bet to be a winner Barcelona would have to win by exactly three goals, thus creating a draw for the handicap.<\/p>\n