One of
the more popular forms of sporting bets we will explain and
show you how it works is the Asian Handicap betting.
With such a vast array of ways to place wagers on the
football games at the online bookmakers, Asian Handicap may
be a bit overlooked by the general punter, but almost every
serious bettor will take advantage of this betting market.
One of the reasons why Asian Handicap is not as popular as
it should be is that it looks a tad intimidating to new
punters on the betting forms and many of them simply discard
it as an option, instead of leaning how to place Asian
Handicap wagers. Here you will see Asian Handicap
explained and you will realize that it's rather quite
simple to make Asian Handicap bets, and quite profitable, as
well.
So what
is Asian Handicap? Coming out from the Asian bookmakers
initially, hence the name, the Asian Handicap is a
bet on a football team which has been given goal handicap.
This handicap will be positive for one of the teams (the one
the bookmaker thinks it's the underdog) and negative to the
other, more often than not, the handicap is not a whole
number, i.e. +1.5 goals, instead of +2 goals. That's about
is. Let's look at an example to make it easier to understand
how Asian Handicap works. The online bookie
has posted
the following Asian Handicap for the Portugal v Spain Euro
2012 football game:
Portugal +0.5 1.9 |
Spain
-0.5 2.025 |
Certainly
it may look a bit confusing or complicated the first time
one lays eyes on these numbers, but it couldn't be any
easier to decipher. The number with the plus or minus sign
is the actual Asian Handicap the bookmaker is giving that
team and the other number is the odds the punter will be
paid on, if their bet is a winner. In the above example we
see that the Portugal football team has an added Asian
Handicap of +0.5 goals. What this means is, that whatever
the final result is between these two teams 0.5 goals will
be added to the score of Portugal and if that makes Portugal
the winner - the bettor will be paid on 1.9 odds. Thus if we
say that the final score is Portugal 1-1 Spain, even though
the game finishes in a draw (in regular time, of course),
Portugal will be the winner, once the +0.5 Asian Handicap is
added to their score, essentially making the final result
Portugal 1.5 - 1 Spain. The same logic applies to the Asian
Handicap for the Spanish national football team, but instead
of adding to the Spain's final score, one would subtract 0.5
goals from it. Using the previous example, the final score
will be Portugal 1 - 0.5 Spain. In this case, however, your
bet on Spain will be a loser, since the Asian Handicap
subtracted from Spain was enough to alter the final score in
a way that Spain loses the game. But if we say that Spain
won the game in regular time 1-2, your bet on Spain will pay
out on 2.025 odds, since the -0.5 Asian Handicap was not
enough to change the outcome. In other words, Spain still
wins the game with a score Portugal 1 - 1.5 Spain.
One needs
to remember that when placing an Asian Handicap bet you are
betting on who will win the game once the handicap for that
respective team has been take into account. So whether you
are betting on Portugal or Spain, to use the previous
example, you are still picking a winner, once the handicap
has been calculated. The great part about most of the Asian
Handicap bets offered by the bookmakers is that it virtually
eliminates the draw option, that is of course, if the
bookmaker posts an Asian Handicap which is a fractional
number, instead of a whole number. Sometimes bookmakers will
post a whole number Asian Handicap, for example Portugal +1.
In such case, clearly a draw could be the final score, if we
say that the actual final score is Portugal 1 Spain 2.
Once the +1 handicap has been added to the Portugal's final
score, the game will be 2-2, i.e. a draw. In such cases the
bet is simply a push and the bookie will refund you the
amount you wagered on that particular Asian Handicap bet.
Another positive for the punter in Asian Handicap betting is
that the payout odds are generally much much better than
what you would get with s straight bet.
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