Asian Handcap Football Betting
Asian handicap football betting is a football betting market that has the favourite handicapped so that the betting market is more even. It is called Asian handicapping because it is very popular over in Asia and is by far the most popular football bet over there. It is a relatively undiscovered betting market over in the UK, yet many bookmakers offer odds every week and punters are starting to wake up to the fact that bigger profits can be made betting against the handicapper than in the normal fixed odds on the betting coupon. If you fancy your team to play well, perhaps not win but do better than expected you can win backing them in the Asian handicap market.
To give a clear example what the difference between normal football betting and handicap betting let’s look at a hypothetical example. A match between a team such as Manchester United and Lincoln City may have an outright match market looking something like this.
Manchester United 1.10 Draw 7.00 Lincoln City 15.00
The most likely result is a win for Manchester United, but in order to win £10 you would have to risk £100! This is not a bet that has a lot of long term value for the punter due to the risk involved. However, with the utilisation of the Asian handicap into the market you can bet on a more even market. It may look something like this.
Manchester United (-2.5 goals) Lincoln City (+2.5 goals) with the odds much more even.
The bookmakers are basically giving the weaker side a head start, and if you backed Manchester United in the Asian football handicap bet you would need them to win by 3 goals or more in order to win the bet. If they were to win 2-0, Lincoln had 2.5 goals head start and the bet would be in Lincolns favour by half a goal. The excitement of the bet is that you are cheering on your team to score goals, or not concede goals rather than for the full time result, which is often something of a formality between a strong and weak side.
I am surprised that this sort of betting has not caught on more. You can enjoy much better odds than in the normal football betting markets by utilising the offers made with the handicap. There is often big value to be had in the Asian handicapping. This season in particular has seen lots of high scoring games with the top teams like Arsenal, Manchester, Chelsea and Liverpool all having won a match so far scoring five goals or more. You can see how this type of handicap betting can be lucrative.
Some punters are frightened off by the Asian handicap ‘split balls’ concept.
Bolton (0,-0.5) Aston Villa (0,+0.5)
This looks extremely complicated, but what you are betting on is half of your stake placed on the 0 – 0 spread and half of your stake on the -0.5 – +0.5 spread. It allows the market makes to accurately give spreads in denominations less than 0.5 goals. The type of example above works out at a -0.25 +0.25 goal spread.
This type of handicap betting allows you to be very flexible on how you bet on football. Taking on the handicapper is very popular both in Asia and in America where the handicapping of NFL, NHL and NBA games is a national contest between the handicappers and the sporting fans across the country. This is the version we can use for Premiership football. If you think you understand football, search for value using the Asian handicap betting and see if you can beat the bookmakers compiling the spreads.
Bwin.com offer a variation of this bet giving the away team a head start of 0-1. This is a really exciting market. I will incorporate these tips into my football betting advice each week.
By Malcolm Clarke
