Matchups Betting

Introduction to Matchups betting

A matchup is a virtual head-to-head competition of two players who are in the same tournament. These are sometimes called match bets or 72-hole match bets, in order to emphasize that they are match-ups for the duration of the event, not just an 18-hole round. The player who ends up higher on the leaderboard is the winner. To deal with issues in which a player quits or is not qualified, the Vegas rules say that the player who will win is the one who has taken the same amount of turns and if this is the same, then the person who has the lowest score is the one who wins. In this case, a player who makes the cut, but is disqualified will, indeed, beat a player who failed to make the cut.

The advantages of matchups

There are a lot of benefits associated with matchup betting, such as the advantages of matchups. While direct betting just requires study of all other players who are likely to be placed, however match up betting, similar to spread betting, lets one study just two players. In a similar fashion, outright betting only involves supporting players whom you expect to perform well, but matchup betting is like spread betting in that it allows you to oppose a player whom you suspect won't perform well.

And now there is an option. It's not always easy to find many different players of fairly equivalent talent to compete against each other in matchups each week, (and books, would in fact, rather have balanced matchups), but the books do attempt to offer matchups that are different from those available anywhere else. This certainly holds for books published outside North America; furthermore, while Don Best matchups are still most common in North American books, there are several exceptions that make The List. This means that there are usually more than 300 PGA Tour event matchups and more than 100 European Tour event matchups, listed here and here. Since there are so many choices, there are typically many chances to support or go against the player you choose. There are usually a few chances for 'scalping/'arbing' during the PGA Tour match ups weekly, since some more well known match ups will come at certain amount of books and introductory prices will change according to the books.

Matchup disadvantages

This market has one simple drawback: you need several accounts at different books to have the maximum matchups possible. If you don't intend to fund every account, the question of transferring cash will be involved. For those who live in the UK, this is a simple process, since UK debit cards are accepted by all the UK books, therefore funds can be transferred into and out of them at no cost and with minimal delay. It is a bit more challenging and possibly costly for those not residing in the UK, or UK residents making deposits with non-UK books. The main choices are to use a credit card, although VISA and MasterCard have become more confined with their rules for using credit cards to gamble, or a bank transfer which requires a few days of waiting, and there might be fees applied to receive funds.

NETeller is your other choice, if it's offered. Every North American book on The List uses NETeller, and several UK books have begun to use this choice for transferring money also - Bet365, Sportingbet and BetInternet. This is an online money transfer service that provides a fairly quick method of transferring funds to the books from a central NETeller account, (or vice-versa), usually with no fees involved. There are a variety of methods of depositing monies with NETeller which are revealed on the site. Increasing the options for UK customers to submit funds with them, which includes utilizing debit cards, is something they plan to do.

If the players just happen to tie, what happens?

In case of a tie, rules vary across the different books. If players should tie, American books view the matchup as a push. This indicates that the bet is invalid and the stakes are turned. By the UK books, the tie is given as a different bet and in the case of a contest ending up in a tie, a bet on either player to win would be treated as a loss. It is obvious which books view ties as losses from the third set of odds on the matchup listing (often listed between 14/1 and 18/1). Grade ties as dead-heats are the last set of books (includes Centrebet and Expekt). That is, you do not get stakes returned as you do with a push, but that the return on the wager is figured out at half the value of the first bet. Should an odds-on player tie, only a small loss will be incurred and conversely for odds-against players.

Interops is the only exception to these basic rules. Even though they do not offer tying as an optional bet, they do not gauge a tied match as a event match or dead-heat. They establish the winner as the player with the least score in the last round, and if this is the same, the person with the next to the last lowest score and so forth. A push can only be called when there are two players who have the same exact score for every round.

What if the published odds for a player are not available?

Usually, the matchup play is still legit so long as there exists no greater than a 25-cent divergence between the posted odds and those that you are able to unearth. This is done taking odds up to a maximum of -135 on a -110 play. The odds of -135 represent a probability of 57.4% whereas the odds of -110 represent a probability of 52.4%. This is a significant jump in the success rate required to break even; don't go more than 25 cents from the original odds at the same number of units or points.

However there is a significant difference between not going beyond a 25-cent change for a 1-unit play versus a 6-unit play. So, we'll call the standard unit/pt per Tour, 'Tour units/pts'. That would mean 1 unit/pt for the PGA Tour and 1.5 units/pts for the European Tour (of, course this will be the opposite in 2004) etcetera. Simply examine the standard stakes for outright plays on the various Tours to figure out the relevant 'Tour unit/pts'.

Currently the rules are:

We have presented general rules that you may wish to adjust within tighter ranges. This is very lucrative for betting on golf where the only constraint in the total number of accounts you have. As a result, the books on The List are organized in order of frequency of matchup and outright plays. For golf betting, having accounts and funds available for the books at the top of the list is much more important than having accounts and funds available for those at the bottom of the list.