If you mention to non-punters things like ‘over 2.5 goals’ or ‘under 3.5 sets’, you can almost see their eyes swivel in their head as they try to wrap their mind around the possibility of there being a half-goal or half-set.
Of course, we’re not actually wagering on there being half-goals, it’s just an easier way for the bookmakers to present their over and under lines on various sports and markets.
If you thought explaining half-goal markets to your chums was hard enough, wait until you throw quarter and three-quarters of a goal into the mix.
That’s the premise behind Asian goal line betting, a market that enables you to hedge your bets when punting on how many goals there will be in a game.
It’s also one that takes some explaining…
How Do I Bet on Asian Goal Lines?
Like with standard over/under 2.5 goal (as one example) bets, in Asian goal line scoring you are trying to predict how many times either net will be breached.
But with the Asian lines, there’s a chance that your bet can win or lose, be ‘pushed’ (i.e. stake refunded) or you could win or lose half your stake.
Similar to Asian handicap betting, as soon as you have got your head around the different possibilities, it becomes much easier to wager on Asian goal lines.
Here’s an example from the Liverpool vs Manchester United game:
Here we have an Asian goal line of ‘2.5, 3.0’, which in real terms is 2.75 (i.e. the centre point between the two values).
So what does this mean? There can’t be .75 of a goal, can there?
Here, punters are ideally looking for four or more goals to be scored if they have backed the overs side. That clears this Asian line, and you will be paid out in full. On the flipside, two goals in the game would not be enough, and so our bet would lose.
The tricky part for the layman to understand is what would happen if there’s three goals in this game. Remember the line – 2.5, 3.0. With three goals, we haven’t cleared the top of our 3.0 mark but we’ve outstripped the 2.75 centre-point. Here we would win half, rather than the full amount.
If you had bet on the unders side, our wager would land if there are two or fewer goals in the contest, while we lose outright if there’s four or more.
But if there’s three goals, our unders bet yields a half loss – the mirror image of the overs side.
Here’s another example:
In this scenario, the line is effectively 2.25. So, those backing the overs will be hoping for three or more goals (full win) and crossing everything that there’s not one goal or fewer (full loss). If there’s two goals scored, overs bets score a half-win.
Conversely, unders punters will be looking for the exact opposite – they want one goal or fewer to trouser a full win. Three goals or more sees them lose outright, while exactly two goals will suffer a half-loss.
What Other Asian Betting Markets are There?
Quite a few.
As you start to become comfortable with the concept of quarter, half and three-quarter goals, the same logic can be applied to other Asian betting markets as well.
Corners, cards, first half goal line… there’s plenty of different options, alongside the popular Asian handicap markets.
Named because of their popularity in many parts of Asia, some – but not all – UK licensed bookmakers offer Asian betting lines.
More will hopefully follow as time goes on.