Asian Handicap Guide - all you need to know about Asian Handicap Betting in one place!

How Asian Handicap works on Total Goals markets
Introduction to Asian Goals

Apart from Home-Draw-Away market, Total Goals is the most popular market to bet on football, also known as Over-Under. Here, you bet on number of goals to be scored in a match - whether there will be more or less goals than specific line.

The following paragraphs explain how to settle various Over/Under bets, based on knowledge gathered in previous articles about Asian Handicap on Home-Draw-Away markets; so, if you don't find yourself familiar with certain terms you meet here, please read previous pages, and try to understand how Asian Handicap works and how bets are settled.

In an average match, you can usually expect 2 or 3 goals; hence the most popular Total Goals line is Under 2. 5 goals and Over 2.5 goals; sometimes reffered to as "0 - 2 goals" and "3 or more goals" or "3+".

Of course, all other lines are available - Over/Under 0.5 goals, Over/Under 1.5 goals, Over/Under 3.5 goals, Over/Under 4.5 goals, etc.; but they are less used.

Bet is simple: you bet whether there will be 2 or less goals (Under 2.5) or 3 or more goals (Over 2.5).

We saw that Asian Handicap bets get void in case of a draw after including handicap line. Though, bet on Over 2.5 or Under 2.5 goals cannot be drawn - there are either 2 or less, either 3 or more goals in your match, so this bet is not an Asian Handicap, and there's no outcome to be void - you either win or lose your bet. The same applies to other lines mentioned above.

However, what if you placed a bet that there would be over or under 3 goals in the match? Obviously, if there are exactly 3 goals, the outcome does not fall into any of two categories.

Similar to Home-Draw-Away handicaps, bookmakers will offer you two options to bet on various outcomes:

First option:
Bet on under 3 goals,
Bet on exactly 3 goals,
Bet on over 3 goals.

Second option:
Bet on under 3 goals,
Bet on over 3 goals.

First option resembles European Handicap from our previous reading - all three possible outcomes are covered, so your bet will be either won or lost. This type of total goal bets is not really popular; since it's not easy to predict exactly 3 goals in the match, there will not be many takers on this.

Second option resembles Asian Handicap that we have already learned - it allows your bet to be void (pushed) when there are exactly 3 goals in the match.

If you bet on Under 3 goals, your bet is won if there are 2 or less goals; bet is void if there are exactly 3 goals; and bet is lost if there are 4 or more goals.

If you bet on Over 3 goals, your bet is won if there are 4 or more goals; bet is void if there are exactly 3 goals; and bet is lost if there are 2 or less goals.

The same logic applies to other Asian Goal lines - Over/Under 1 goals, Over/Under 2 goals, Over/Under 4 goals, etc…

Obviously, there is no real handicap in this type of bet, no team is given headstart advantage; hence they are called Asian Goals rather than Asian Handicap, although you will regularly meet both descriptions.

Proceed to Quarter-goal Asian Goals