
Author:
Ben Cain
Last Updated:
17/06/2022
Experiences:
Used to be a croupier on various cruise ships
Experiences:
Used to be a croupier on various cruise ships
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It is essential to have a quick and reliable way to check the golf betting odds to look for the best golf odds to ensure you get the best golf odds for today, tomorrow and every tour and major tournament.
If you’re looking to place a wager on the latest golf major, obviously you’re going to want to do it at the best golf odds possible. Visiting each sportsbook from each operator separately can work, but will take time – and, by the time you’ve looked at them all, the best golf odds you saw earlier may have changed.
If you are new to golf betting and have never done a golf odds comparison, you might be asking yourself why do a Best Golf Odds comparison at all? Why would the golf odds today be different from the golf odds tomorrow?
In reality, the best sportsbooks odds change according to so many factors (more on that shortly) and a simple check of the operators with the best odds will vary before a tournament, in the days leading up to the start, and more markedly as players fail to make the cut. Knowing this can make a huge difference to your profits from a winning wager. For instance, getting the $25 bet you want at 5 in decimal odds (more on that later as well) instead of 4 means you end up with an extra $25 in your pocket.
This might not seem like much, but that is from just a single bet. If you do the same at a few of the tournaments each year, you will be a few hundred dollars better off than you would have been, just because you compared the best golf odds for exactly the same bet you would have made anyway.
If you are new to betting online, or in fact not placed a wager on golf before, there are some important reasons to place a wager using online betting sites for golf rather than visiting an offline betting outlet. The first one that springs to mind is that you would have to make a trip to the betting outlet which can take time out of your day, but more importantly, could restrict the wagers that you can place and the odds available.
If you choose the online option, however, things can be very different. Reliable and established operators will have developed apps you can use on your Android or Apple device once you have downloaded it, so you can place a wager on the move in just a couple of minutes. This will allow you to respond quickly to changes in the best golf odds today, and make the most of any offers that operators offer as an online exclusive.
Something else to consider is that if you have the apps from the recommended sportsbook operators on your mobile device, you have the pick of the offers and odds from across several sportsbooks. If you made the journey to an offline outlet, you would be restricted to solely what was in front of you when you got there.
The real rise in legal golf betting started in 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed legal sports betting. By 2019 22 states including Nevada permitted legal sports betting, with most of the rest having legislation progressed to some level. In the first 12 months, this saw legal gambling on golf double.
Despite this, golf betting is still relatively ‘small fry’ compared to the amounts wagered on the NFL, NBA and baseball each year. This might lead you to think that many sportsbooks see golf as an afterthought. However, this is not the case. Operators know, as do all golf bettors, that the number of players who enter a tournament and the number of twists and turns it can take means that the opportunities for the knowledgeable bettor with the best golf odds can make big profits from a successful wager.
Golf betting odds are displayed in three different formats, which you can usually switch between using a toggle on the top right-hand corner of an operator’s website. The three formats that most operators use for displaying their odds of all types of event including the best boxing odds, the best cricket betting odds, F1 betting odds and even political betting odds are displayed in are decimal, fractional and American.
Calculating the best golf odds is a difficult task for that very reason. In general, you might expect the odds to be calculated in a similar way to which they might in another tournament event like tennis. To a certain extent, this is correct, as golf has so many additional things to consider, the defining factor is the operator’s expert knowledge of the sport in question.
A player’s initial odds of winning will depend on their standing in the world rankings, and how they have done in the last few tournaments. For example, if a player is top of the world rankings, and has won the last three tournaments by some distance, you would expect them to be the considerable favorite for the next one.
It is not quite that simple, however. The type, of course, the tournament is being played on, the conditions and how a particular player’s ‘game’ suits those factors will also strongly affect their initial odds.
The closer the tournament gets, and the factors such as the weather become known, the odds of a player can move quite quickly, especially if something is said to affect their game – for instance, Rory McIlroy in 2014 when he changed his clubs.
It is how different operators respond to these factors, or how quick they are on the uptake of a change, that causes the discrepancies in odds between different sportsbook operators. For savvy bettors, This presents an opportunity to place a ‘value’ bet, where the odds seem more favorable than is generally perceived by other operators.
Two of the most popular betting strategies are arbitrage and matched betting. They are sometimes confused as the same thing but they are not. They both involve placing several bets to create a profit regardless of the outcome, but there the similarity ends. The matched betting strategy does not currently work in the US as it involves using a betting exchange which does not currently exist in the US
‘Arb’ betting takes advantage of the odds discrepancies detailed above to place value bets on separate outcomes of the same event, where a small percentage profit is inevitable. Because of the large number of players who enter a tournament, this strategy is very difficult to pull off in golf, until the later stages are reached and there are realistically only two frontrunners (although this would still not count as a genuine ‘arb’) or more accurately in a play-off scenario where you have the head-to-head strategy where ‘arbing’ works best for novices.
The most popular betting strategies are for bettors not to bet on just one player, but five or six who they think have a chance based on their analysis of ranking, form, course, conditions and any outside factors that could distract a player (such as a scandal or a messy divorce).
As there are a large number of players at any one tournament, the odds of even higher ranked players would sit between 8 and 14 at decimal odds. This means a $25 on 6 ‘possibles’ will still bring a profit if any of them win. Clearly the better golf betting odds you can get these wagers at, the greater your profit will be if the strategy proves successful.
Other strategies will depend on what markets are available. The large number of players who enter a tournament, with five or six of them having a good chance of winning, means that the place market also has its benefits. This means that a player does not have to win, but instead just be in the top places for you to receive a playout.
The odds will be a fraction of the win price (normally a quarter) but it can mean small profits from several players in one tournament. Another popular market is the ‘hole in one’ market, where odds are given for a player to hit a hole in one at any point in the tournament.
This price can vary massively due to several factors, including the number of holes on the course where a hole in one is realistically possible. For this reason, this market is seen more as ‘fun’ rather than one that gets too much consideration.
As with other sports, parlay bets are also possible for golf tournaments on a golf betting games app as well as the website. But again, the number of players and factors involved make these even more long shots that you might see in other sports.
As mentioned before, golf stands apart from many other sports because of the number of entrants in any particular tournament, with the top[ five or six players having very little to choose between them. In a situation such as this, even the smallest factor can change the odds, so knowing where to find the best odds is absolutely crucial.
Firstly, knowing which sites usually have the best odds saves the time and energy you would spend looking through all of the different operators, comparing the various prices, and most likely missing the best ones. Secondly, narrowing down the number of operators will let you see the best golf odds today quickly, and act accordingly. A tipster today could even direct you into making a choice.
Lastly, having recommended and reliable operators means that you have no uncertainty if the price you found is legitimate, or if the operator will pay out if your bet wins.