European Handicap is a form of Win-Draw-Win betting where one team is given an advantage.
Betting on a team to win or draw a game is probably the most popular bet placed on football and other team sports. On Betfair, for example, the amount of money traded on ‘Match Odds’ tends to be much higher than on any other market.
Whilst the appeal of match result betting is obvious - there’s nothing more natural than betting on who you think will win a game - the odds aren’t always as appealing. Some teams are simply much better than their opposition, and are likely to win not just by one goal, but by several, leading to low odds for the favourite and high odds for the outsiders.
Here’s an example:
Although it’s perhaps tempting to see Arsenal as a ‘safe bet’, there’s obviously no guarantee they'll win the game. Even if they do, you’ll only make £17 profit from a £100 bet - a lot of risk for very little reward. On the other hand, betting on Leicester gives a fantastic potential profit, but it’s also a bet that’s much less likely to come in. Even the draw odds will be much too high for many to consider.
With mismatched games like this, European Handicap bets can be a great choice. They’re similar to Asian Handicap bets, but differ by also offering a ‘Draw’ option. European Handicaps, also known as 3-Way Handicaps, have the same Win/Draw/Win options as the Match Result market, but include a built-in handicap for one of the teams.
European Handicaps are 3-Way betting markets that give one team an advantage of a whole number of goals or points.
Let’s start by looking at this game between Liverpool and Bournemouth:
It’s obvious from the odds that Liverpool are clear favourites, and expected to win comfortably. With Liverpool’s 1.29 odds, you’d need to risk £100 to make just £29 profit, whilst the Bournemouth and Draw odds are both high odds bets that will lose much more often than they win. Many bettors will prefer something closer to a 50/50 bet, and this can be achieved by choosing a handicap bet.
In this European Handicap market, Liverpool are handicapped with a 1 goal deficit:
Here are a couple of ways to think about how this handicap works:
Since it’s harder for Liverpool to win the game after effectively starting 1 goal down, the odds for the Liverpool -1 European Handicap bet are higher than the Match Result odds for Liverpool. On the other hand, with the Bournemouth +1 bet, Bournemouth have a 1 goal head start over Liverpool, making it more likely for the bet to win, which lowers the odds.
It’s also worth pointing out that taking one goal off Liverpool is effectively the same as giving Bournemouth one extra goal (in each case, Bournemouth have a 1 goal advantage over Liverpool). This explains why there’s a negative Liverpool -1 handicap but a positive Bournemouth +1 handicap.
Here’s a breakdown of each of the three possible bets on the market:
The Bournemouth +1 bet is the same as ‘Bournemouth (Win or Draw)’ in the Double Chance market.
Bookmakers have two different ways of showing European formats.
When looking at the tie/draw bet, the handicap referred to is applied to the team with the same handicap next to them. For example, with the Tie -1 bet above, you know that the -1 handicap is applied to Leicester, as they are shown as Leicester -1.
Here, a starting scoreline is shown, with either the home or away team being given a head start. In football, the home team is always the first team listed in the fixture.
Home Team Handicaps
Away Team Handicaps
Sometimes, the starting scoreline is shown next to every bet in the market, as in 10Bet’s compact view here:
Another way of showing these scoreline format bets is to show the starting scoreline above, with just the team names and draw options below, as in 10Bet’s expanded view:
Here’s a comparison of the two different formats:
Bookmakers sometimes only list one European Handicap market, where the handicap is selected so that the odds for both teams are as close to each other as possible. More often though, they offer a range of handicaps, giving plenty of betting options.
When teams are negatively handicapped, the more goals they are handicapped by, the harder it is for the bet to win, and the higher the odds will be. On the other hand, for positively handicapped teams, the more goals that are added, the easier it will be for the bet to win, and the lower the odds will be. This is summarised below:
The market where the Arsenal and PSG odds are closest to each other is the -1 European Handicap, which also has the most likely to win tie odds of any of the markets (including the Draw bet in the ‘Full Time Result’ market).
Even though Arsenal are the odds on favourites, the bookmaker also has an Arsenal +1 market, which gives lower odds for Arsenal compared to the ‘Full Time Result’ market, alongside a PSG -1 market, giving higher odds on the outsider. Although this probably isn’t a very popular bet, it gives several other betting options, including the Tie +1 bet, where you can bet on PSG to win by exactly one goal.
Some bookmakers only offer either European Handicap or Asian Handicap markets, but many offer both types. It’s important to know the differences between them, and these are summarised below:
Each European Handicap bet has an equivalent Half Asian Handicap bet, as follows:
+1 European = +0.5 Asian = Double Chance (Win or Draw)
+2 European = +1.5 Asian
+3 European = +2.5 Asian
-1 European = -1.5 Asian
-2 European = -2.5 Asian
-3 European = -3.5 Asian
In general, to get from a European Handicap bet to the equivalent Asian Handicap bet, just subtract 0.5.
Draw/Tie European Handicap bets are the same as ‘Winning Margin’ bets. In each case below, the Winning Margin bet is placed on the team with the negative handicap:
Draw -1 = To win by exactly 1 goal
Draw -2 = To win by exactly 2 goals
Draw -3 = To win by exactly 3 goals
Team -2 = Team to win by 3 or more goals
It would make sense if bookmakers had the same odds for these identical markets, but this often isn’t the case. This means it’s worth checking to see which of these equivalent bets has the best odds.
Here are the ‘Full Time Result’ odds on 10Bet for West Ham v Chelsea:
The Chelsea -0.5 Asian Handicap bet is the same as betting on Chelsea to win the game in the Full Time Result market, but the odds are worse, so you should just bet on Chelsea to win the game to get the best odds.
The Draw odds of 3.70 are not as good as the identical Draw odds in the Winning margin market, where you can get odds of 3.80. The Winning Margin market is quite a niche market, and easily overlooked, but it’s worth checking to see if you can get better odds there:
The other Winning Margin odds are the same as for the equivalent European Handicap markets, so it doesn’t matter which market you bet on:
In the Handicap Match Result + 1 market, the West Ham United +1 European Handicap odds are only 1.75. These are the same as the equivalent Double Chance - West Ham United/Draw odds. However, you can get better odds of 1.80 on the identical West ham United +0.5 Asian Handicap bet:
You’ll often see Whole Asian Handicap bets at bookmakers, and these can look identical to European Handicap bets. It’s important to realise that they’re not the same.
Here’s an example of some European Handicap markets for a Newcastle v Man City game on NetBet. You can tell it’s a European Handicap by the Tie option:
NetBet also have Whole Asian Handicap markets for the game. The lack of a Tie or Draw option shows that it’s an Asian Handicap:
You’ll notice that the European Handicap bets have higher odds than the similarly named Asian Handicap bets. For example, Newcastle United -1 European Handicap has odds of 10.0, whereas Newcastle United -1 Asian Handicap has odds of 7.50.
The difference is because of what happens if the result is tied after applying the handicap:
You can see the difference in the odds in this side-by-side comparison:
Some examples of European Handicap bets, and what results you’d need for your bet to win, are shown below.
Note that for the ‘Draw’ handicaps, the handicap is applied to Leicester (so a Draw -2 handicap means that 2 goals are deducted from Leicester’s scoreline).
Note that for the ‘Draw’ handicaps, the handicap is applied to Leicester (so a Draw +1 handicap means that 1 goal is added to Leicester’s scoreline).
This section has reference tables for positive and negative handicaps of 1, 2 and 3 goals. The ‘Bet Name’ doesn’t include the name of the team. If you were betting on Chelsea with the ‘+1’ option, this would be a Chelsea +1 European Handicap. The ‘Team Result’ relates to the team you're betting on (in this case, Chelsea).
In the Draw section, the team that is positively handicapped is the one mentioned in the ‘Team Result’ column. For example, if Manchester United had a +1 Handicap in the market, they would be the ‘+1 team’ referred to in this section.
At the top are several bookmaker groups, for example Aspire Global Group and Kambi Group. All of the bookmakers within these groups will have sites that are pretty much identical apart from the colour schemes and some minor organisational differences.
Underneath are all the other bookmakers, listed individually. A few of these might belong to the groups listed in the top section but, since they are organised differently, they are listed separately.
Like their close cousins Asian Handicaps, European Handicap bets are a really important bet type to understand. You can use them to:
European Handicap bets can be a great choice for value betting or arbitrage. If you’d like to lock in profits on your bets, rather than leaving your bets to chance, Matched Betting is a very profitable side hustle that’s definitely worth a look. Outplayed.com offer a free 7-day trial, where you can access all of the Sportsbook Sign-Up Offers, worth hundreds of pounds. The even better news is that these are only just the start!
Updated: 25 Sep 2024
Simon has helped thousands of members profit from Matched Betting using both his passion for writing and desire to understand how things work. He has used his mathematical and analytical skills to create several guides, calculators, betting and casino tools to make the process of Matched Betting easier for newcomers and experienced members alike.
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