Handball

[BingBang]

Some betting sites have live in play handball games which I have been making a few quid on.

The most favoured bet that I use is the under/over on a game. handball is quite a predictable game with a goal being scored about once every minute - therefore the average score will be around 57-62. However the advantage for you the gambler is to monitor a game from it's inception and see how fast the goals are being scored in the first half (teams often start very fast and end the half with a flurry) - you often see a game start with a base score of 57 yet after 5 minutes the teams have scored 8 goals, the over/under bet will be on around 60 i.e. they are 3 goals ahead of where the handball software thinks it should be. Dont bet at this stage and wait to see what happens at the end of the half - they could maintain the 1 goal a minute and be on 33 at half time or more likely the team will have slowed down and be on 29 or 30 but monitor carefully whether thy had a flurry at the end of the half. Also worthy of noting is at what point in the first half did the scoring rate subside could be 7 minutes could be 10 maybe 15.

With that kind of knowledge, the 2nd half starts like it did in the first half with a flurry of goals - so if they started the half with say 31 by 8 or 9 minutes of the half gone the over under score could be at 65/66 and this is the time to look for a whole number to go under on - the betting sites will offer 64.5 or 65.5 - dont take these wait until 65 or 66 appears (note make sure you think that this is the high tide mark for the over/under bet - if you remember from the first half that the scoring flurry started to subside at 9 minutes, then it might be best to wait until 9 minutes, it maybe that it took 12 minutes, hence wait for what you consider to be the high over/under mark and then get in).

Now the beauty of this type of bet is that the score will start to slow down and from 66 the over/under bets goes down to 61 - this should be a safe score and nothing further needs to happen - however the teams may continue to score and the over/under stays at 63 to 66 - with about 7 minutes of the game you may decide to take a cover bet - lets say you think the teams could get to 66 or more and the original bet is in danger - if they are offering over 63,64,65 then you plave an over bet - this now gives you a good range of scores for you that will give you profit - lets say you took the over 63 then any final score of 63,64,65 and 66 are going to give you a profit - this is due to the fact that a score of 63 or 66 will give you a push on the over bet (63) and a push on the under bet of 66 - however if the score finishes on 64 or 65 you will win on both the over and under bets. If the score finishes on less than 63 or more than 66 then one of your bets will win and one will lose - the normal odds for the over/under is 1.85 so if this does occur then you will lose £1.50 for every tenner you original placed i.e. you lost the under (£10) but win on the over (£18.50).

Unlike basketball, handball does not have overtime.

General observations

- if the starting over/under is 57 or lower then the game is unlikely to be a game to monitor.

- try not to get involved with an under unless they are offer under 66 or more.

- teams do continue to score in which case getting an over might be impossible

- in which case you "cover bet" might be a further under at a higher score - lets say you went for an under of 64 and the teams continue to score and the under/over stays at 65,66,67 etc... you might want to take an under of under 69 in these cases but this is dangerous and can lead you to lose both under bets and double your losses.

- halftime team talks can have a huge effect (game last night started at 55 but by half time the score was already at 40!) The under at half time was under 72.5 - the teams scored a total of 26 in the 2nd half - the teams had only conceded 10 in the first 15 minutes - I think the coaches had an influence on the teams defenses.

- teams tire - handball is all about running and exertion and by the 50th to 55th minute both sides can be knackered, so yout underbet might be looking good but could get even better.

- betting sites will close the market with 3 to 4 minutes to go so if you haven't got a cover bet on then you might be wishing you had taken one earlier.

- exhibition matches - German league winners took on an all star team from the rest of the league as a season end finale - the score was something like 85 at the end - dont bet on them.

- if you can watch a match on eurosport or on the web then do it - you will get a good grasp of the game and your decisions will become easier to make i.e. a team is 8 goals ahead with 10 minutes to go and instead of the two teams running full blast from end to end, the team with the lead may deliberately start slowing the game down and shooting after an average f 50 seconds compared to an average of 30 seconds.

- if the over/under score reaches 70 or more then take the under - it loses occasional but not very often and if the scores are tight then you should be able to cover it with an over 68 or over 69 - but most games you will see the scoring slow down and the over/under bet will be 64 65 66 - remember with 10 minutes left to go if the score is at 57 then they will offer you 67 or 68 but the teams will have to score 13 goals in 10 minutes and they are starting to get very tired.

Well that's enough of the info - hopefully some will make use of it.

[Andy]

Wow thats an excellent post thanks, im going to be brutally honest and say i dont think i will have time to take full advantage of it but thanks a lot for posting anyway.

Have you been using that sort of system long, mainly at what sites and dont they limit you if you regularly profit? Do you regularly profit?

[BingBang]

Been doing this for about a year. Regular profits, no they dont limit me and regularly give bonuses, it's my main betting site and have a broad range of bets with them so the handball is just part of the regular bets I do with them.

I think they are very automated in some of their markets such as handball, basketball, soccer corners and with the automation of the markets they build in the profit margins - 1.85 Over 1.85 Under on what appears to be a 50/50 decision is just like betting exchanges charging commission and poker sites taking a rake from each hand - the knack is to apply built up knowledge, together with watching a game if possible and seeing that 1.85 is way too generous on an under or over and benefiting from this and with the knowledge that if you have made a tight decision you probably can cover yourself and accept small losses but ironically create middles that can see two bets win or or one bet win and the other push (money back on bet).

Corners is another market that can be exploited, the software looks at the time remaining and dictates what odds are offered on the number of corners - recently there was a football match (cant remember which but it was live on sky) that had something like 14 minutes of extra time due to a serious injury on the pitch - the software will at 80 minutes played offer whatever the score is plus 2 corners i.e. 7 corners so far another 2 means that the market centre around 9 corners - now with the game entering it's 90th minute the corners is what ever the corner total is plus 1 so lets say 7 plus 1 = 8 now with the game with the extra 14 minutes due to be played the software cant cope with it so still offers 8 when it should because there is still 14 minutes left to play offer 9 or 10 corners - so an over 8 bet and an exactly 8 bet will provide an arb whereas an under 8 will mean you lose the two bets - as it happens the game did finish on 8 and I had configured the bet to lose 2 bets if no more corners had been made, give me no profit if 1 corner is gained and a big profit if more than 1 corner was gained - as it happened it only provided 1 corner so I didnt gain and didnt lose any.

[Andy]

Is this at Bet365 by any chance?