How to bet using Asian Handicap odds – AH Betting 101:
Before we start, in case you don’t know anything about football betting, you may want to check our beginners’ guide to football betting.
Asian Handicap betting is a rather advanced system used for specific purposes. Professional bettors enjoy this system because of some peculiarities that we’ll learn here.
The subject will be covered with our series of Asian Handicap betting guides.
You may have heard some people saying that AH betting is complicated. It’s not that hard, all it takes is to learn step by step, but once you grasp it, you’ll enjoy the benefits of the markets of the professionals, even if you just bet for fun.
Handicap Betting 101: balancing sports advantages
There are different systems of handicap, but the essence of this form of betting is to balance the difference of quality between teams.
Teams like PSG, especially when they play in their domestic Ligue 1, don’t have great odds in the 1×2 market. The reason is simple: the expectations for a victory of PSG are always high.
The last PSG game in their domestic league ended 0-0, but the odds for a victory on the road against Reims last weekend would have been of just 1.34.
Professionals focus on high odds, preferentially over 2, because of the way they bet.
But how could you find such odds to bet on PSG? The Asian Handicap is the perfect solution.
Why AH Odds for big teams are bigger
The chances of Paris Saint-Germain winning their upcoming game are big. The market had an expectation of 74.62% according to the odds of 1.34 (100% / 1.34 ~= 74.62%).
But trying to guess the advantage of PSG in the score as of the end of the game makes things more interesting.
Professional bettors have precise methods to calculate the chances and odds in the leagues that they focus on. That said, they are capable of calculating the chances, or let’s say, PSG winning the next game by 2, 3, 4, or more goals.
It depends on several factors including the adversary, whether the match will be a home game or an away game, and other facts including the weather, and injuries, just like 1×2 betting.
Example of an Asian Handicap betting market: expectations of lots of goals
We’re using the situations that affect PSG handicap odds the most, but games between teams of similar quality also have odds in the AH, but we’ll leave this lesson for the next guide, Asian Handicap betting 202.
Let’s analyze the odds that were available for Reims 0 – 0 PSG last weekend in the Asian Handicap markets.
Reims +1.5 @1.94
PSG -1.5 @1.93
These were the average AH lines available. A handicap of -1.5 goals works this way.
If PSG had won the game by two goals or more, the final betting score would be +0.5, a positive number, and the bet would have been profitable.
As PSG failed to win the game, the betting result in the handicap scenario was -1.5, so Paris Saint-Germain -1.5 was a lost bet.
On the other hand, Reims could have lost the real-life game by 1 goal, and their betting handicap would still be +0.5.
In other words, if PSG had won by just one goal, Reims +1.5 @1.94 would still have paid a prize of 94% in profits.
The markets were estimating chances of circa 50% for PSG to win by 2 goals or more!
So a victory by just one goal wouldn’t have been enough. This is a very typical scenario in the AH markets for big names like PSG, Real Madrid, or Manchester City, for example.
For more information about football betting, keep an eye on our betting guides. Our next AH betting guide is also coming soon!
