Bowls Review

Introduction to Bowls Betting

Bowls is played indoors and outdoors in different formats. The basic skill is rolling two or more bowls towards the smaller target bowl, also known as the Jack. The player who projects one nearest the Jack wins points at the end. Commonwealth Games and The Waterloo are the most famous events of outdoor . The latter is an open knockout crown green tournament, and the preliminary rounds and final take place at the Waterloo Hotel in Blackpool. Those two events are the sum total of betting on outdoor bowls. The money and betting interest is mainly in indoor bowls. The sport plays on a rectangular flat carpet, and there is no crown or bias on the surface. The Professional Bowls Association administers and organises indoor events.

Betting Events

There is very little betting interest in outdoor crown green bowls. The extended nature of each match does not lend itself to television coverage and betting. The winner is the first to 21 points, and there are no sets. Indoor professional events have a more betting friendly scoring system. Matches play over the best of three or five sets and the first player to win seven points wins the set. An alternative scoring system is the winner of most of nine ends. The pinnacle of the sport and biggest betting event is the World Indoors Bowls Championships. There are open singles and pairs events for men and women. The event forms part of the World Bowls Tour. There are five tournaments on the Tour, and matches get live television coverage and generate a great deal of betting interest.

Betting Types

Bowls is not a huge pre-match betting sport. However, bookmakers issue odds on the winner of upcoming tournaments and individual matches. Media interest is limited to the five World Bowls Tour events, and there is very little coverage of any other indoor tournaments. The most betting interest is in live matches. The scoring system makes for fluctuations in the scoring and changes in the odds. The make-up of an end can change with one bowl so at any time each player can be the match favourite and underdog. Ante-post betting is limited to the winner of the World Championships. There are fewer familiar faces and names, so punters don’t have loyalty to one player who they back in each championship.

Bowls Markets

Live betting dominates indoor bowls betting, and there is very little activity in other types of market. The set scoring system provides more betting opportunities than in the past Customers can bet on the winner of an end, each set or the match. These are two-way markets because there is never a tie. The other popular betting markets are handicaps and totals. These two markets are related because if a set is close, there will be more points in total. Bettors can place multiple bets which combine the winner of two or more matches. A minor betting market involves predicting the finalists in a World Bowls Tour championship. The nationality of the winner also attracts some betting on indoor bowls.