Asian handicap in sports betting

The Asian Handicap is a type of betting used in football that is designed to level the playing field between two teams by giving a “handicap” to the team considered to be the weaker side.

This is done by awarding goals to the weaker team before the start of the match or depriving the stronger team of goals. Like the running line in baseball or the puck line in hockey, the football handicap offers ways to level the playing field when the two sides are far apart in talent.

An example of an Asian handicap in football betting

When a team like Argentina plays against a team like Saudi Arabia, bookmaker operators will give Saudi Arabia a +1.5 goal handicap. This means that if a client bets on Saudi Arabia and wins the match or loses by less than 1.5 goals, they will win their bet.

On the other hand, if the client bets on Argentina and wins by more than 1.5 goals, he will win his bet. While it shouldn’t scare off customers every time, Saudi Arabia crushed Argentina in the group stage at this last World Cup in what was one of the biggest defeats in World Cup history. Saudi Arabia’s chances of winning were around +1800 before the game started.

How the Asian Handicap works

The main difference is that the Asian Handicap introduces fractions of goals such as 0.25 and 0.75 into the spread. When a client bets on a team with a number like +1.25, he splits the bet between two spreads: +1 and +1.5. If the team bet loses by one goal, the client clicks on +1 and wins +1.5. If a team bet on a 0-0 draw, the client wins both bets.

If a team placed a two (2) goal loss bet, the client loses both bets because they did not cover any of the spreads. Although this bet is treated as one game in the betting ticket, it is essentially two bets in one that do not affect each other. So here’s an example of a $20 bet in an Asian Handicap market for a team getting +1.25 at odds of -140. The final score of the game is 1-0.

On the other hand, the client can bet on the team at -1.75. If the team secures a 2-0 win, the client wins -1.5 of the bet and pushes -2. If the team secured a 3-0 win, the client wins both bets.

Customers can also use the Asian Handicap method for football match totals. So, for example, a $20 bet was placed on the Asian market with a handicap per goal of less than 1.75 at odds of +165. The final score of the game is 1-0.

The Asian handicap is unique in football

Football is different from other sports. It spawns multiple levels of club teams in different leagues around the world, and that doesn’t even include national teams for major tournaments like the World Cup. With so many teams at different levels of competition, there are many matches that bring two teams that are at different levels of play closer together.

With such strong favorites against high chance underdogs occurring frequently, it is difficult to bet on these football matches with regular money lines because the buyer would have to risk such a large amount of dollars.