Curling, Ice Hockey and Olympic Betting Update

Are you enjoying the action at Vancouver in the Winter Olympics? I know I am but I must drag myself away from my TV to update you on the various betting opportunities for the games using sports betting odds from our friends at bwin.com. The longer competitions like Curling and Ice Hockey are well underway and you should get your bets on now whilst the compilers are still to work out who the heavy favourites are for each event. The value will not last forever!

The woman’s Great Britain curling team always gets great coverage since the team led by Rhodi Martin grabbed gold medal at the Olympic Games in 2002. The current skipper, Eve Muirhead is only 19 years old but she led Britain to shock opening day victory over China who were not only the pre-tournament favourites but the current World Champions. Britain still have a long way to go before emulating the Gold from 2002, but they have made a positive start to the games. They are 1/2 to beat their next opponents Russia, who have odds of 7/5 to win this match. If you enjoy handicap betting, the Great Britain team -1.5 are 17/20 to win as are Russia who has a +1.5 handicap for this bet.

In the Men’s Ice Hockey tournament Canada remained on course to be amongst the medals at the end of the competition by posting a solid 8-0 win over Norway. It was not so easy for the USA, with a 3-1 over Switzerland looking laboured at times. USA faces Norway next and their result will be an indicator whether they are matching Canada. It is really a case of how much the USA team wins by, with match odds of 1/100 for the victory.

There is a variety of special bets for this match available including a nice bet on the USA to win the match with a -5.5 handicap. Even though they struggled against the Swiss there is just too much quality in their line-up with players like Chris Drury, Ryan Callaghan and Brian Rafalski to expect the Norway team to be able to contain them in this match. At 19/20 with a -5.5 handicap I think this is a good bet for this match and this is the best I would make out of all available on bwin right now.

Canada plays Switzerland and has odds of 3/100 to win their match. Their handicap bet, which offers a better return than the single bet, is 13/10 at -5.5. My recommended bet for the Ice Hockey is a handicap double on the USA and Canada to both win their matches at -5.5 handicap. If you placed a £10 bet on that you would get odds of 19/20 and 13/10 giving you a return including your stake of £44.85. This would be a great way to enjoy the flowing Ice Hockey play of both USA and Canada.

Events including Speed Skating, the Skiing and the team events continue this week and at bwin there are many betting opportunities on many different aspects of the events including special handicap betting, first scorer and time bets on when goals are scored including various over/under betting across the winter Olympics programme.

Continue to enjoy the action and get your bets on early at bwin.com.

By Malcolm Clarke