Rugby is an exciting sport to watch – both due to its aggressive physicality and the fast-paced nature of the game. It’s also an exceedingly exciting sport to bet on. Many rugby fans are secretly seasoned veterans of the Sports Betting community. They aren’t the ones screaming at the television in the bar however, rather those who quietly record and analyse each game, endlessly adding to their vast knowledge of the sport, its history and its players.
To a passive fan, the knowledge that a key player has recently gone through some kind of personal turmoil might seem superfluous, but to a Sports Bettor, this information, as with all information, is vital. If this piques your interest, you might be wondering how to start out. We’re here to explain how betting on rugby works and why you should be interested.
The Basics Of Rugby Betting
The bookmaker will give the percentage chance of certain outcomes and you can bet on these outcomes. In traditional or fixed odds betting, the game is simple: the outcomes are displayed by the bookmaker in fractional or decimal forms.
You know the amount you could win or lose depending on the odds when you strike your bet. If you bet on a certain outcome (say the number of tries a player will score) and the bookmaker places the odds at 10/1, and you win, you know you’ll be winning 10 times your original wager, plus that wager returned. If you lose, you’ll simply lose your initial wager and nothing more.
Fixed Odds Vs Spread Betting
Fixed odds betting was for many years the norm, but as with all betting games, players are eager to up the ante, and so a new form of Sports Betting has emerged: Spread Betting.
In Spread Betting, the bookmaker will list different spread markets on different elements of the game. You can look at the market and decide if you want to ‘buy’ on the top of the spread (if the projected spread of the a team’s final score was 12-14 you could buy in at 5 dollars on 14) or ‘sell’ ( at 5 dollars on 12) depending on whether you think the final score will exceed or fall short of the spread.
Your wins or losses are then calculated by the difference between the actual points scored and where the spread predicted the points to be, multiplied by your initial stake. Say you bought at 5 dollars on 14 but the score was 20, you’d win 30 dollars. That’s the score of 20 minus the buy price of 14 which is 6, multiplied by your initial bet of 5 dollars. However, the same logic applies if you lose, and you could end up losing multiples of your initial investment.
We recommend that you hone your skills playing fixed odds, and then move forward to spread betting once your knowledge of the game has reached an advanced level. Start slow, keep learning, and you’ll be winning big in no time!