What is handicap football betting?

You may have heard about handicap betting in one capacity or another over the course of your betting career. In football betting it is often particularly important for a few reasons. But what exactly is handicap betting?

It is not as easy to understand as you might at first think. Today, we’re going to look at handicap betting in football—what it is, what it means for you, and how to use it to your advantage. Combined with the extensive number of welcome offers you can find online at established football bookmakers, these tips can improve your chances of seeing a return.

Let’s get started.

What is handicap betting in football?

A handicap is a kind of virtual deficit, placed on party in a sporting event in the context of betting. A handicap means that one team, in the betting pool, is given this deficit so that the playing field is levelled for betting. It is essentially how bookmakers even out events if the two teams are, in their eyes, unevenly matched. If one team has an overwhelming likelihood of winning, this makes setting favourable odds quite difficult.

Handicaps are used in all sorts of sporting contexts. In football, one team might start with a goal handicap, so that when they score their first goal, that puts them at a score of 0. Again, there are many reasons you might do this, but usually it is to level the playing field.

Let’s look in more detail at why handicaps are used in football betting.

Why is handicap betting used?

Football is perhaps unique in that it is so widely discussed and there are so many with deep knowledge of the sport that the bookmakers must approach it in a different way. There is so much easily available knowledge on football that this can be a difficulty for bookmakers.

So, the team with the better odds is given an obstacle to overcome at the beginning of the event, to make it more interesting for the bettors, and indeed so that the operators can set good and advantageous odds in the first place.

If the odds were just based on the odds of two hugely unevenly matched teams to win or lose, then no one would benefit. Bettors wouldn’t take the odds so bookies wouldn’t make money, and winnings would be meagre even for those that did take the bets. So, how can you use handicap bets to your advantage?

How to use it to your advantage

In my view, it all starts with your knowledge of the sport, as I’ve mentioned. It’s vitally important in any sports betting that you understand and know the sport on a deep level to get the best results out of betting on it. This is particularly important for handicap betting.

Handicap bets can work out really well for you when you know deeply the teams involved and any special circumstances which might give one team the advantage. Winning against handicap bets can be really lucrative, so keep an eye out for bets where you think the handicap might not be able to be overcome.

The smart move in handicap bets is to learn to leave the bets you aren’t sure of as much as to take the bets you are.

Handicap betting is simply a neat way to level the playing field between two ill-matched teams in a single game. Without handicap betting, many games would simply not be worth betting on. The odds on the underdog would be good, but the chances of winning too much to risk—at the same time, the other team would have a real good chance of winning, but without the handicap, there’s not much benefit to betting on them.