Golf Betting Markets

European Order of Merit

The winner is the golfer who has accumulated the highest European Tour prize money by the end of the season. Offered by many of the leading firms including Betfair, Betdaq and Ladbrokes etc. Obviously a long term bet but can easily be closed out with the exchanges mid season. Betfair also offer a First Four market with Dead Heat Rules applying.

Finishing Positions

Another spread betting market offered by Sporting Index and similar to the Tournament Index above. Here spreads are offered on which position players in a tournament will finish. The winning player is awarded 1 pt, second 2 pts and so on.

So if the pre-tournament spread for David Toms is 34-37 and you think he'll have a good week then you would Sell Toms at 34. Notice you Sell here when you want a golfer to do well, not Buy as is the norm. If Toms finishes second your make-up is 32 pts (34-2).

Again you can if you choose, close out your position in-running, though bear in mind if you do so you are paying the spread twice which can eat into your profits. The Maximum Make Up on this market is 50 points including missed cuts. So were Toms to miss the cut your losses would be 16 (50 - 34) points.

Golf Major Performance

Sporting Index run this book on players performance in the four major golf tournaments, the US Masters, US Open, British Open, US PGA during the season. The index works like this:- Win = 50pts, 2-10 = 25pts, 10.5-20 = 10pts, 20.5-30 = 5pts, Missed Cut = -5pts, All Others = 0.

Normal Finishing Position Rules Apply. A player must play in atleast two majors for bets to stand.

Group Betting

Sporting Odds, William Hill and others offer this market, with odds on which of 5 golfers in the group will perform best in a particular golf tournament. The overround on these markets is usually around 115%.

Make The Cut

An unusual market offered by Betfair and Victor Chandler amongst others. It's worth checking out the traditional fixed odds bookmakers on this market as they sometimes provide better value than layers on the exchanges.

To take a recent example Nick Faldo was recently on offer with Betfair at 1.2 (1/5 on in fractional odds) to make the cut at the 2004 Scandinavian Open . A backer placing £100 on Faldo would win £20 should he qualify for the final two days. Victor Chandler, in this instance were offering a much better 4/6 which would pay out £4 for every £6 waged.

Match Betting

There are two forms of Match Betting:

1) A spread betting market for head to head competition between two golfers over 18 holes. The scoring system awards 10 pts to the player shooting the lowest score plus 3 points for every shot he wins by. Here's an example:

Els/Singh is quoted at 2-5.

If you think Els will win you would buy at 5. Now suppose Els shoots an excellent 68 to Singh's 71. Els would be awarded 19pts here, 10pts for winning and nine for the 3 stroke margin. If you staked £5 per point, your profit would be £70 on a make-up of 14 (19 - 5) points. Sports Spread offer this market with a Maximum Make Up of 55 points.

However if you fancy Singh to win, you would sell Els at 2. If the scores were reversed and Singh shoots 68 to Els 71 the make-up would be 17 (19 - 2) producing an £85 win to a £5 per point stake.

2) 72 Hole Match Betting offered by a one or two fixed odds bookies. These tend to be closely matched pairings offered by the bookmakers. For example at the recent Scandinavian Open Sporting Odds were offering:

Lee Westwood ........................ 4/5

Michael Campbell ..................... Evens

Tie ....................................... 16/1

Outright

Very straightforward - the odds for a particular player to win a golf tournament. Most of the major fixed odds bookmakers aswell as the betting exchanges list odds for both the US and European Tours by the Monday before the tournament starts. It's often worth placing a request for the odds you want on a player with the exchange on the Monday rather than just taking what's immediately available. With 3 days before tee-off, there's plenty of time to match your odds request with a layer. Just remember to be realistic with the odds you ask for.

You can usually back Each-Way at 1/4 odds the first five (dead heat rules apply). Ante-Post markets are available weeks in advance on each of the four majors and offer excellent opportunities to trade on the exchanges to either lock in profits or generate greatly inflated odds on a player you fancy to do well. See Betting Exchange Tips under the Betting Strategy menu item for further details.

Top 5 Finish

Based on a golfers finishing position in a golf tournament. Offered by a few sites including BetFair. Dead Heat Rules apply. In a Dead Heat the stake money on a selection is divided by the number of golfers involved in the dead heat. The full odds are then paid to the divided stake with the remainder of the stake money being lost. Let's assume 4 players assume the top 4 positions but 3 players are tied in 5th position. If you wagered £10 on a player listed at 15/1 to finish in the top 5 the bet would work out like this:

£10 / 3 (3 players tied for 5th spot) = £3.33
The remaining £6.67 of your stake is lost.
£3.33 x 15 = £49.95
lost stake = £43.28

Total winnings = £43.28
Total incl. stake = £53.28

A few fixed odds bookmakers such as PaddyPower also now offer Place Only bets for a player to finish in the first five. The difference between Top 5 (Place-Only Bets) and Each-Way Bets is that the latter are two bets, one bet to win and one to be placed (usually in the first five). The place element pays out at a fraction (usually 1/5) of the win odds. So a place bet is cheaper but you only get paid out at place odds even if your selection wins the tournament. See also Outright

Tournament Index

The spread betting equivalent of the Outright winner fixed odds market in which the spread firms quote an index for the top 8 finishing positions.

So the player who wins the tournament would be given 60 points, second would receive 40, third 30 and so on down to 8th position. Generally the top 25 to 30 players will be given an opening spread before the tournament starts with other lesser known players introduced during play if they perform well.

As an example, Phil Michaelson might be given an opening spread of 24-27. If you think he'll do well, buying at 27 would mean Michaelson would need to finish in the top 3 for you to be in the money. This market is updated between each round.

On the final Sunday however, an in-running Tournament Index is often introduced with a 25 win, 10 second place index for the leading players. This is seperate to the main tournament index and obviously requires you have live access to the action.

US PGA Money List

Bet on who will top the US PGA Tour Money List at the end of the season. Victor Chandler, ToteSport, and many other sportsbooks offer this market. As with the Order of Merit, Betfair also have a First Four market with Dead Heat Rules applying. This season they've also formed markets without Tiger Woods but whether that will continue into 2005 is debatable, given that Tiger is no longer dominant.