Disclaimer:- This article nor the author promote or advise gambling and/or sports betting, this is just for entertainment purpose only. Readers are advised to be responsible and check the legal status or sports betting in their country.

World Cup is starting

And by world cup I mean the football world cup (or Soccer for my American & Canadian friends)

The opening match is this Sunday at 19:00 local time (Arabian Standard Time)

And then we have rest of the 48 group matches, followed by the knockout matches

Here's a snapshot of the schedule:

Here's the link to the larger PDF file

Qatar as a host

Now there are a lot of problems with FIFA including corruption scandals and a whole lot of mess.

And Qatar is really a controversial host

With alcohol banned from this year's world cup to the accommodation at the stadium

Human rights violation and all host of things are there.

But this is the world cup we got and have no power over.

Only a World War could stop a World Cup but since that didn't happen here we are, and it is still football and we should play the best to show strength in values.

Betting with Crypto

A lot of time I have written about different platforms where one can safely play a few bets, one of them is now closed. Exodus wallet offered decentralized way to bet from desktop wallet through SportX, however that service has been shutdown.

I believe because Exodus integration with the service was just bad.

Another that I have written about is Thunderpick.com

Now both of them I have used and only after actually using them I had written about them.

But this time I am going to be a different site called CloudBet.com

Not because it is better or something but simply because I have some funds stuck there, I was experimenting with the site to get their sign up bonus, which I didn't get, and now my funds are stuck there till I play the amount equal to my deposit.

Note: I do not recommend CloudBet as my own funds are stuck there, if you have to use a site I will say go for ThunderPick instead

This is the problem with centralized platform, once you transfer your Crypto it no longer your Crypto.

Hopefully after all the matches are done I am able to get my funds out but that is not a guarantee at this point.

The matches

One of the ways to bet on matches is just go with the normal odds that you see on the top

For example let's take the opening match of Qatar vs Ecuador

Note: I am using decimal odds system because that's what I am comfortable in and you can change the odds type from the settings

We have 3 out comes:

1. Qatar wins

2. Match is a draw

3. Ecuador wins

Each event has a certain odds of happening and according a bet will have more or less payout of success outcome

The way odds (at least decimal odds) works is say you bet $1 on Ecuador to win then if they win you get $2.38 as return, which is your initial $1 bet returned and $1.38 profit.

If they lose you lose you $1, obviously

But this is not the only type of bet you can make

Lets say there is a draw then in that scenario you lose as well

One way to remove Draw outcome is by going for the Draw No Bet option

This is the way to remove draw option completely and in case the match is a draw then the bet is voided and money is returned to you.

Here you see that the odds are reduced, now if you bet on Ecuador and they win you get only $1.62 with a profit of $0.62

Ideally this is a great way to reduce the risk in matches where teams are equally matched

Another way to remove or rather negate the draw option is by going for Handicap at 0

Asian Handicaps are a way to introduce conditions on how a bet is won

At Asian handicap at 0 a draw will mean refund of the bet amount

What's the different?

Effectively nothing as at draw you get you money back but technical at Draw No Bet an outcome of draw is voided and Handicap at 0 means at draw money is refunded.

Sometimes there is a little bit of difference in the odds as here Ecuador odds are 1.63 which makes $0.01 cent more than the previous option.

Asian Handicaps

So all the other handicaps mean different things and most of the time it is better to leave them alone, but in a scenario you want to bet on a team that has a low chances of winning you can improve your bet chances by selecting a handicap.

General rule is is the number is in + positive then it improves the chances and - negative increase the risk

Generally the betting sites don't give all the handicaps on all of the matches as it can become unfair.

For example lets say if the most likely team to win keep getting all the positive handicaps the at +2.0 it will mean the bet will payout even if that team loses by 1 goal.

Handicaps works by further dividing the match outcomes and assigning under which scenarios a bet will be considered a wine or a loss.

Reference Table:

For example let's take England vs Iran match

The normal bet odds are:

You can see that Iran is very unlikely to win

But let's say you still want to bet on Iran, then you can look at the handicaps to improve your chances

Here we find that handicap at 0 isn't available, so here Draw No Bet is the only option to remove remove draw as an outcome.

Now the odds for Iran to win has improved from 11.5 to 8.8 also so did England

What if we want to improve our odds further lets look at a few handicaps

Handicap at -0.5 & +0.5

Now the have improve but what does this mean, from the chart we can see:

At handicap +0.5 for Iran you get $3.35 from a $1 bet if Iran wins or if the match is a draw so your bet is a success at 2 outcomes, at Draw no bet you only get your $1 back but at handicap +0.5 you get $3.35 even if the match is a draw

So you might have noticed that we don't have +0.5 handicap for England, that is because since they are already so high in the likelihood of winning this match that +0.5 for them is not an option.

What about England at -0.5 handicap

Here you find that the outcomes are just same as a normal bet, you only win the bet if the team wins the match.

Therefore the odds are almost similar to normal bet, which is 1.36 for normal bet and handicap -0.5 at 1.35

Handicap at -1.0 & +1.0

Here are the odds:

And here's the chart:

Now here's the interesting set of outcomes

Since Iran is so unlikely to win you are allowed to play handicap at +1.0

Which means you can also win the bet if the team Iran loses with a few conditions

If you bet $1 on Iran at handicap at +1.0 then you get $2.45 if situations if Iran wins or the match is a draw, but you also get you bet of $1 back if Iran loses by 1 goal

Lose by 1 simply means that they were short of one goal from victory, so if the outcomes of the match are:

England 1 - 0 Iran

England 2 - 1 Iran

England 3 - 2 Iran

and the like

as long as the difference is only 1 goal.

If the result is

England 2 - 0 Iran

than that's a lose by 2

and then you lose the bet

Similarly at -1.0 handicap

If England wins by 2+ goals only than you will get the winning outcome of $1.60 on a bet of $1

And if they win by 1 goal than you only get your bet amount of $1 back, lastly at draw or England loses

Here you are taking on more risk so you have a chance for higher reward.

Here it is worth nothing since England has such high probability of winning that it might make sense to improve your winning odds by going for handicap at -1.0

Similar to normal bet you lose you bet if England loses or the match is a draw

But in a situation where England wins, you will ether get your bet money refunded or get a better profit.

• Refund of $1 bet if England wins by 1 goal

• or if England wins by 2 goals Profit of $0.6 along with $1 bet for a total of $1.60 return

There are other handicaps as well but I don't want to go so further down the list, but if you are curious you can check them out at this link.

Honestly it depends on the situation and the risk appetite

That was all about the Asian Handicaps in Football betting, there are other types of bets as well but let's leave them for now.

Hope you enjoyed the article.