Asian Handicap Explained: How Asian Handicap works

 One of the more popular forms of sporting bets we will explain and show you how it works is the Asian Handicap betting. With such a vast array of ways to place wagers on the football games at the online bookmakers, Asian Handicap may be a bit overlooked by the general punter, but almost every serious bettor will take advantage of this betting market. One of the reasons why Asian Handicap is not as popular as it should be is that it looks a tad intimidating to new punters on the betting forms and many of them simply discard it as an option, instead of leaning how to place Asian Handicap wagers. Here you will see Asian Handicap explained and you will realize that it's rather quite simple to make Asian Handicap bets, and quite profitable, as well.

 So what is Asian Handicap? Coming out from the Asian bookmakers initially, hence the name, the Asian Handicap is a bet on a football team which has been given goal handicap. This handicap will be positive for one of the teams (the one the bookmaker thinks it's the underdog) and negative to the other, more often than not, the handicap is not a whole number, i.e. +1.5 goals, instead of +2 goals. That's about is. Let's look at an example to make it easier to understand how Asian Handicap works. The online bookie has posted the following Asian Handicap for the Portugal v Spain Euro 2012 football game:

 Certainly it may look a bit confusing or complicated the first time one lays eyes on these numbers, but it couldn't be any easier to decipher. The number with the plus or minus sign is the actual Asian Handicap the bookmaker is giving that team and the other number is the odds the punter will be paid on, if their bet is a winner. In the above example we see that the Portugal football team has an added Asian Handicap of +0.5 goals. What this means is, that whatever the final result is between these two teams 0.5 goals will be added to the score of Portugal and if that makes Portugal the winner - the bettor will be paid on 1.9 odds. Thus if we say that the final score is Portugal 1-1 Spain, even though the game finishes in a draw (in regular time, of course), Portugal will be the winner, once the +0.5 Asian Handicap is added to their score, essentially making the final result Portugal 1.5 - 1 Spain. The same logic applies to the Asian Handicap for the Spanish national football team, but instead of adding to the Spain's final score, one would subtract 0.5 goals from it. Using the previous example, the final score will be Portugal 1 - 0.5 Spain. In this case, however, your bet on Spain will be a loser, since the Asian Handicap subtracted from Spain was enough to alter the final score in a way that Spain loses the game. But if we say that Spain won the game in regular time 1-2, your bet on Spain will pay out on 2.025 odds, since the -0.5 Asian Handicap was not enough to change the outcome. In other words, Spain still wins the game with a score Portugal 1 - 1.5 Spain.

 One needs to remember that when placing an Asian Handicap bet you are betting on who will win the game once the handicap for that respective team has been take into account. So whether you are betting on Portugal or Spain, to use the previous example, you are still picking a winner, once the handicap has been calculated. The great part about most of the Asian Handicap bets offered by the bookmakers is that it virtually eliminates the draw option, that is of course, if the bookmaker posts an Asian Handicap which is a fractional number, instead of a whole number. Sometimes bookmakers will post a whole number Asian Handicap, for example Portugal +1. In such case, clearly a draw could be the final score, if we say that the actual final score is  Portugal 1 Spain 2. Once the +1 handicap has been added to the Portugal's final score, the game will be 2-2, i.e. a draw. In such cases the bet is simply a push and the bookie will refund you the amount you wagered on that particular Asian Handicap bet. Another positive for the punter in Asian Handicap betting is that the payout odds are generally much much better than what you would get with s straight bet.