Asian Handicap Betting Guide with Bet365

Bookmakers, betting markets, etc.

This information is based on our personal experiences with the Bet365 cash out feature in year 2018 and represents solely our opinion.

With the growing popularity of Asian Handicap betting on football matches, we will take a look through the options that you can play with on this type of bet. Essentially the Asian Handicap works towards eliminating the amount of outcomes on which you can bet for a football match, by taking away the option to bet on a draw. Because of this, instead of having a win, draw, loss scenario where the chances would be about 33.3% on each of those outcomes happening, you can cut your odds to 50% on just two outcomes. A win or a loss. Therefore, you should be able to find better prices than fixed odd ones, and Bet365 is a great place to start  with Asian Betting. The advent of having a Handicap in a sporting match, such as the big football game, is to level the playing field in terms of betting. There is not much fun laying a straight bet on an underdog, because they rarely pull off big wins. With a Handicap in place, you can bet on the underdog, and still win, even if they lose. A Handicap, can be applied in a variety of ways, but in general, it is when one team (usually the weaker one) is given a “points” or “goals” head-start in a match, by the bookmakers. This gives the underdog the chance to produce a winning result for the bet, even if they don’t win on the field of play.

More about Asian Handicap at Bet365


Full Goal Asian Handicaps

There are “full goal” Asian Handicaps which need to be explored, but still the odds are generally more punter friendly than fixed odds. When teams are handicapped in football, a stronger team is given a negative goal value, while the weaker team will be given a plus goal value, so that they can essentially start the match even. Let’s use Chelsea v Watford in the forthcoming FA Cup tie on the weekend to look at full goal Asian Handicaps. Chelsea are the stronger team and can be handicapped in two ways with Asian Handicap betting at Bet365. With Chelsea being the stronger team, and therefore expected to win before they even kick off, they can start the game in a deficit with an Asian Handicap.

  • Scenario A. Chelsea can be taken at -2.00 goals with odds of 19/20 at Bet365, which will mean that in terms of the bet, Chelsea will start the game two-nil down. What the punter will be betting on here, is that Chelsea will overcome that handicap and therefore they would need to win by three or more goals for the bet to win. A 3-0 win for Chelsea would win the bet, as would a 4-1 win. A 1-0 win however would leave them a goal short of overturning the Handicap and the bet would be lost.
  • Scenario B. Watford, the weaker of the two teams, can be taken at +2.00 goals with odds of 9/10 at Bet365. This means that Watford will be starting the game 2-0 up in terms of the Asian Handicap bet. The punter will win the bet, if Watford hang on to that advantage, which they will do as long as they do not lose the match by more than one goal. So, if Chelsea win 1-0, the Asian Handicap will see the bet as Chelsea 1, Watford 2, which means Watford wins the bet, even though they lost the actual match.

Scenario A & B with a drawn match
Unlike fixed odds betting, the fact that a match gets drawn (tied) really plays no bearing in terms of the Asian Handicap. In both of the above scenarios, a drawn match would have produced a result. Scenario A would have lost the bet, because Chelsea didn’t overcome the 2 goal defecit they started with, and Bet365 would be happy. Scenario B however, would have won the bet, because Watford will have held on to the 2 goal advantage they started the match with, and therefore Bet365 pays the punter.

Level-Ball Asian Handicap
This is just given as a zero beside a team’s name when making a bet (as opposed to any other Asian Handicap option such as a +2.00 of a -1.00 for example). For all intents and purposes, if you see a 0, which is a level-ball, or so it is called, it is essentially a ‘Draw No Bet’ option. A win for the team you backed at 0, will pay out the odds, while a draw will refund your stake. A loss for the team you backed, will of course, give you nothing back. The Level Ball Asian Handicap is starting neither team with a goal advantage.

Half and Quarter Goals
This is the area where the Asian Handicap betting may look a little bit daunting, but it is not. No team scores a half goal or quarter goal of course, but when you see half points for example in betting, such as Chelsea -0.50 goals, it is another tool to cut out the event of a “push” or a “tie” when it comes to wagers. Asian Handicap betting with Bet365 uses these fractions and they can be played to great effect. When looking at bets, there is a long way between a handicap of -1 and -2. There are three intervals in between that which can be utilised to make the betting field more extensive.

For Example: The distance between -1.00 goals and -2.00 has quarter and half intervals as illustrated in the brackets..
0 (-0.25) (-0.50) (-0.75) -1.00

Quarter goals use the intervals to split the difference between the next closest two quarter bets. Sound complicated? It’s not as overwhelming as it may sound. When you bet a quarter goal, you are essentially splitting your bet (though not in actual practice), by putting half of your stake on one handicap beneath the quarter goal, and the other half the next handicap above the quarter goal. So, by using the example above, a bet on -0.50 goals would be betting half of your stake on the closest two handicaps either side of it, in this case -0.25 and -0.75.

Using our example, let’s look at Chelsea v Watford again.
A punter puts £100 on Watford for +0.75 with Bet365 at a price of 17/5. This bet, therefore, will essentially be putting £50 (half of the stake) on Watford +0.50 (a half goal) and $50 on Watford +1 (full goal).

How does this make a difference? Well, it covers a little more, as one would expect. A +0.50 Asian Handicap, needs a win or a draw for Watford to win the bet, because in either of those instances, Watford have already started with half a goal advantage.
A +1.00 Asian Handicap needs a Watford win or a draw for the bet to be successful too, but will also reward a stake refund if Watford lose by one goal (which would make the Asian Handicap score a tie).
The +0.75 bet therefore, which is between the +0.50 and the +1.00, will take the Watford win, a draw, and if Watford lose by one goal, you will lose half of your stake, but keep the other half.

So, in essence:
Watford lose: The +0.50 loss would pay nothing.
Watford lose by 1: The +1.00 refund the stake if lose match by 1 goal (total loss if Watford lose by more than 1 goal)
Sandwiched in between those two Asian Handicaps, the +0.75 bet covers half way between the two, by only losing half of the stake. So the +0.75 protects you more than the straight Watford loss of a +0.50 bet, but doesn’t reward as much as them losing on +1.00 bet.

Check out the Asian Handicap odds with Bet365, the weekend’s FA Cup fixtures will be a great time to dabble in this exciting betting field. If you get a little lost, first work by looking at the full goal handicaps and be guided by those before branching out into the quarter and half goal options. A quick rule of thumb to remember, is that quarter goals pays out half wins and half loses (depending on which way you bet).