For millions of sports fans, placing a wager on the action they are watching is something they do on a regular basis.
When it comes to rugby, the good news for fans is that the choice on offer is excellent. Every bookmaker out there will allow you to bet on rugby with them, and not only that but they will offer you many ways in which you can bet.
According to the Odds Manager: there are more rugby promotions than ever before, another positive for fans to look forward to.
Things are different from other sports, for example, football, where very different choices are there for fans and football also has more betting markets and offers available.
So, if you want to get to grips with rugby betting, what is on offer for you and where is the best place to head?
Is Handicap Betting the Most Common Way to Bet?
If you look at other sports, the most common betting market is the win line, however rugby is a little different.
Handicap betting in rugby is incredibly popular, and a great way to bet. For those that don’t know, the handicap line is something that bookmakers create themselves as a fictional line based on the result.
The reason for this is because the handicap line will even out the game. For example, a favourite will be long odds on to win the game but on the handicap line they are a bigger price because they have a 10 point fictional deficit to overcome.
A look at upcoming rugby union fixtures may show you some big favourites where you think that betting is not worthwhile but the handicap line will give you the opportunity to still place a bet.
Handicap betting is amongst the most common ways to bet, alongside the win market, and certainly has its advantages over that.
Betting Without Picking a Winner
One of the great advances with betting is the different ways in which players can bet on a game without actually picking a winner. Traditionally, betting is all about picking out who will win, but not all rugby markets offer that.
Perhaps the most commonly used of these is the total points market. This is another line created by bookmakers, just like the handicap line.
They set a number of points, which has .5 at the end of it to prevent a draw, meaning this is a two-way market.
So, if the market is set at 43.5 then you have two options for betting, 44 and over or 43 and under.
The recently launched Autumn Nations Cup will have some one-sided games in the tournament. If you don’t want to use the handicap line, using total points for betting can be a way of backing a team to win by a big margin, or a smaller team to keep things tight.
Betting In Play
One of the biggest changes we have seen with betting recently is the move to in play betting. This is where you can place bets during play, rather than before the game.
You can watch the momentum of a game and bet accordingly, rather than trying to predict what will happen based on past meetings.
The odds change as the game progresses, if a team goes ahead they will be strong favourites to win, especially if this is in the second half.
You can also break down the game into sections here, for example, you can bet on someone to win the first half or win the second half, rather than the entire game if you see them controlling a period.
All of this put together offers a fantastic service, and showcases some of the best betting markets out there for rugby fans.
