What Is Asian Handicap In Sports Betting? A Comprehensive Guide

What Is Asian Handicap In Sports Betting? A Comprehensive Guide

Asian handicap is one of the popular betting markets that originated in Asia and spread throughout Europe, America, Africa, and Australia. Today, punters utilize handicap wagers to make bets more exciting and hedge against possible draw results in events such as football and rugby. The name Asian handicap comes from the region of Asia because of the popularity of the sports betting market among Asian and Malaysian punters.

What Is An Asian Handicap?

Asian handicap is a betting market that enables punters to make wagers on altered score lines at the start of a game. In most cases, they give the stronger team a handicap, while the same number of goals gives the weaker team an advantage. Punters can place wagers at different levels of Asian handicaps, such as at 1 goal, two goals, five goals, etc.

Example: Consider a game between Hull and Liverpool. Most punters expect Liverpool to win the game by a considerable margin. An Asian handicap wager may give Hull a 3.5-goal lead at the start, making the game closer and more difficult to predict. For Liverpool to win the bet, it needs to score four or more if Hull scores 0 goals. For Hull to win the wager, they need to ensure they don’t let Liverpool achieve four or more goals without scoring any goals.

Features of Asian Handicap

Some of the key features of Asian handicap bets in sports betting include making wagers on unevenly matched outcomes, making wagers more interesting, sharing similarities with regular handicap wagers, and eliminating the possibility of drawing games.

1. Wagers On Unevenly Matched Outcomes

One of the features of Asian handicap wagers is to make games more attractive than they are by giving both teams an equal footing (i.e. by reducing the better team’s goals or by giving the underdog more destinations at the start of a game). Handicap wagers manage risk for bookies in games where too many punters bet on the same outcome. Bookies can attract more wagers on different outcomes by matching both teams in terms of goals before play.

2. Makes Wagers More Interesting

The primary purpose of a handicap or Asian handicap wager is to make a bet more interesting between two extremely unevenly matched teams. Asian handicap wagers make the chance more interesting for punters because it becomes harder to predict the outright winner of the match. Consider punters making wagers on their favourite teams. At times, their favourite team will be underdogs, and at other times, the same team will be the favourites to win. Asian handicap wagers enable punters to make wagers on the outcomes of a game with the opportunity to win a higher profit versus making a regular wager on the result of a match.

3. Similar To Regular Handicap Wagers

Asian handicap wagers are similar to regular handicap wagers. The weaker team has an advantage, and the stronger team is given a handicap before starting the game. By giving the weaker team a gift, both teams are equal, and a punter cannot predict the outcome of the handicap wager compared to a bet on the development of a match. Asian handicaps eliminate drawing results, while normal handicaps may not eliminate the possibility of a draw result. Since Asian handicap wagers can eliminate draw results, punters can make handicap wagers as alternatives to draw no bet wagers. Elimination of draw results makes Asian handicap betting a famous betting market over regular handicap betting.

4. Can Eliminate Draws

They eliminate draw results using decimal odds systems—decimals price odds infractions such as 1.5, 2.5, or 3.5 goals. At the same time, a team can’t score half a goal, an Asian handicap wager prices wagers in .5 decimal odds. With increments of goals in the decimals, it becomes almost impossible for the bet to end in a draw result. For example, if one team has a 2.5 goal advantage or disadvantage, the other team must score three goals to win, and anything below two goals will result in the team losing according to Asian handicap betting rules.