Elsewhere on the site, you can read about the -1.5 or +1.5 wager in betting. That is one that you might think about placing on occasions when one team is slightly stronger than the other. The bigger the difference between the two sides, the greater the handicap you can opt for on the stronger team or the more help you can give to the weaker. That is what the -2.5 and +2.5 bet offers punters: the chance to place a bet that will, in theory at least, even things out a little whilst also removing the draw from the list of possible results that can happen.
-2.5 Bets: If One Team Is Stronger, Handicap Them More
The better one team is in comparison to the other, the more you’re going to want to handicap them in order to increase your chance of getting better odds whilst still seeing a successful bet. Imagine a world in which Tottenham Hotspur are playing Forest Green Rovers, for example. The difference in quality between the teams means that bookmakers are unlikely to offer generous odds on the chance of Tottenham winning, with those odds unlikely to shift all that much if you were to opt for the -1.5 option that some bookies will offer in the handicap betting market.
As a result, you can instead consider the -2.5 market, which will see the odds on Tottenham increasing to something more akin to what you might consider to be a good bet to place, on account of the fact that Spurs would need to score three goals more than Forest Green Rovers for your bet on them to be a winner. It is really the sort of bet that you should only consider placing when there is a clear difference between the two sides for precisely that difference, with anything less than a three goal cushion meaning your bet will lose and the bookies will take your money.
Examples
In order to get a good sense of how real-world scorelines might impact your bet on the -2.5 market, it is worth having a look at some example scores to see what they would be considered as being by the bookmakers. We will take a look at the score if the home team had been given the -2.5 and if it had been given to the away side. Whilst we’re obviously not going to cover every possible scoreline, it will at least give you some sense of what other scores would be if the handicap was placed on the stronger team.
Because having to write something like 2- -1.5 would look quite confusing in the event of the handicap being imposed on a 2-1 score, we’re going to adopt the American style of writing the scoreline. That means that it would instead be 2:-1.5 and therefore easier for you to get your head around.
| Score | Match Result | -2.5 Adjusted Home Result | -2.5 Adjusted Away Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0:0 | Draw | Away Win (-2.5:0) | Home Win (0:-2.5) |
| 1:0 | Home Win | Away Win ( -1.5:0) | Home Win (1:-2.5) |
| 0:1 | Away Win | Away Win (-2.5:1) | Home Win (0:-1.5) |
| 1:1 | Draw | Away Win (-1.5:1) | Home Win (1:-1.5) |
| 2:1 | Home Win | Away Win (-0.5:1) | Home Win (2:-1.5) |
| 1:2 | Away Win | Away Win ( -1.5:2) | Home Win (1:-0.5) |
| 2:2 | Draw | Away Win (-0.5:2) | Home Win (2:-0.5) |
| 3:0 | Home Win | Home Win (0.5:0) | Home Win (3:-2.5) |
| 3:1 | Home Win | Away Win (0.5:1) | Home win (3: -1.5) |
| 3:2 | Home Win | Away Win (0.5:2) | Home Win (3:-0.5) |
| 3:3 | Draw | Away Win (0.5:3) | Home win (3:0.5) |
| 0:3 | Away Win | Away Win (-2.5:3) | Away Win (0:0.5) |
| 1:3 | Away Win | Away Win ( -1.5:3) | Home Win (1:0.5) |
| 2:3 | Away Win | Away Win (-0.5:3) | Home Win (2:0.5) |
There is a bet that is about the Over / Under market, in which you might be asked to decide whether a team will score more than 2.5 goals. This isn’t the same bet, so don’t get them confused.
2.5 Bets: Lifting the Weaker Team Up More
It might well be that you think that the ‘weaker’ team still has the ability to cause the ‘stronger’ team problems, meaning that you’d like to give them a helping hand to get the win. You can do this by placing a bet on the +2.5 market, which says that the stronger team will have to score three goals or more more than the other side in order for your bet to be a losing one. You need the scoreline after the +2.5 has been taken into account to result in the so-called weaker team to still be winning in order for your wager to be paid out on by your bookmaker of choice.
Where the -2.5 bet takes 2-5 goals away from the stronger team and needs them to still be winning on order for your wager on that matter to be a winning one, a bet on the +2.5 is a bet on the ‘weaker’ team effectively winning the match when the advantage has been added. The real scoreline doesn’t matter, apart from to inform the adjusted score to help decide whether your bet is a winning one or otherwise. Of course, by giving a side +2.5 goals, you’re making it easier for them to ‘win’ and therefore the odds that you’re offered by the bookmaker will be shorter.
Examples
Just as with the -2.5 bet, it is helpful to take a look at some possible scorelines that might well come across in the real world to see how the bet in question would impact them. It is worth looking to see what would happen to the score if the +2.5 was given to the home side, and if it was given to the away side. For the purposes of consistency, we will continue to use the American way of writing the score:
| Score | Match Result | +2.5 Adjusted Home Result | +2.5 Adjusted Away Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0:0 | Draw | Home Win (2.5:0) | Away Win (0:2.5) |
| 1:0 | Home Win | Home Win (3.5:0) | Away Win (0:2.5) |
| 0:1 | Away Win | Home Win Win (2.5:1) | Away Win (0:3.5) |
| 1:1 | Draw | Home Win (3.5:1) | Away Win Win (1:3.5) |
| 2:1 | Home Win | Home Win (4.5:1) | Away Win (2:3.5) |
| 1:2 | Away Win | Home Win (3.5:2) | Away Win (1:4.5) |
| 2:2 | Draw | Home Win (4.5:2) | Away Win (2:4.5) |
| 3:0 | Home Win | Home Win (5.5:0) | Home Win (3:2.5) |
| 3:1 | Home Win | Home Win (5.5:1) | Away Win (3:3.5) |
| 3:2 | Home Win | Home Win (5.5:2) | Away Win (3:4.5) |
| 3:3 | Draw | Home Win (5.5:3) | Away win (3:5.5) |
| 0:3 | Away Win | Away Win (2.5:3) | Away Win (0:5.5) |
| 1:3 | Away Win | Home Win (3.5:3) | Away Win (1:5.5) |
| 2:3 | Away Win | Home Win (4.5:3) | Away Win (2:5.5) |