Asian Bookies

Asian bookies are betting websites that support Asian odds formats, currencies, languages and offer banking options for China, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea and Singapore. Most specialise in live in-play betting, mobile betting and low-margin Asian handicap odds. In this article I’ll discuss these betting sites, but first here is a list of the three most popular.

Understand you do not need to live in Asia to use the websites listed above. Each supports GBP, EUR and Asian currencies, and each has low margin odds on football, basketball, tennis and American sports. Many Europeans prefer Asian bookies over their UK counterparts due to the superior odds offered. An oddity, though a great option for Asians, these websites do not service residents of Hong Kong or Philippines and most do not offer Japanese Yen or Indian Rupee currency. If you live in Hong Kong, Philippines, Japan or India I suggest clicking the links I just provided.

It is worth mentioning the internet bookies referenced on this page are licensed in either Philippines or Isle of Man. The Philippines is the 12th largest country in the world. Isle of Man, as a British Crown dependency, is practically the UK. This means in the event of a dispute you can contact their regulator or local police, or you can even file a lawsuit. I tell you this only for additional piece of mind. These are all massive corporations that spend millions on marketing. This includes television ads and shirt sponsorships of top level football clubs. These are NOT websites you’ll ever have a problem collecting from when you win.

Online Betting Basics

If you’re experienced with online betting you may want to skip this section. For everyone new, understand web bookies do not operate on credit the same way many local bookies do. You can only bet how much is in your account.

Example: You have an account balance of 5000 of your local currency. You place a wager at even money odds of 500 to win 500. Right away, 500 is deducted from your account balance making it 4500. If your bet wins, the 500 stake and 500 winnings are added to your account. Your account now has 5500.

This means to get started you need to make a deposit. There are many options for this. In China you can use Chinese debit cards. In Vietnam www.188bet.com accepts local wallet (baokim). In Thailand and Malaysia you can deposit with online banking or at the ATM. www.dafabet.com has direct bank transfer for Malaysians. If you live in Singapore you’ll have no trouble making deposits.

If you can’t find an easy method for deposit you can use www.entropay.com. Registering an EntroPay account is free and gets you a Virtual VISA. You can then load funds on to this VISA using your credit or debit card. They accept cards from all over the world while bookies do not. The one tip is you will need to complete Verified by VISA or MasterCard Secure Code verification. If you don’t do this your attempt to load EntroPay will be declined. Once your EntroPay account is funded, use its VISA number to deposit to any Asian bookie by selecting VISA from their cashier.

When you want to get paid all or part of your account balance, request a payment from the website’s cashier. Almost all Asian bookies offer direct bank transfer payments. This means you give them your bank account details and 1-3 days later the money is in your home bank account.

ISP Blocks

In some countries the internet is censored. Korea blocks access to many online gambling sites. Thailand and China blocks access to some, and Vietnam blocks many bookie websites. If a site you want to use is blocked mirrors are available. You can use a search engine to attempt to find a mirror site. If this doesn’t work, purchasing a VPN is a good idea. This is a good option and will give you a Singapore IP address.

Asian Odds Formats

At Asian bookies there are many different ways to bet sports. You can match winners, draws, over/under, correct score and many unique propositions. Each of these bets has a price called odds. If you stake 100 on a really good team you’ll get paid less on a win than if you stake 100 on a poor team and win. What’s important to understand is while the price remains the same, odds can be listed unique ways. At Asian sportsbooks you can change the odds to view as decimal, Hong Kong, Indonesian, or Malay format. In this section I’ll explain how each odds format works.

• European Odds – When viewing the odds in European, also known as decimal, format the odds shown are how much is returned on a win for each unit staked. If you’re betting in dollar and the odds are 1.84, every dollar staked returns $1.84. In this case, a bet of $100 returns $184. Of this $100 is the stake and $84 is the profit.
• Hong Kong Odds – In this odds format the odds shown are how much “profit” you’ll make if a bet wins. If the odds are 0.84, and you stake $100 you’ll be paid $84 “profit”. You also get back your $100 stake. Understand Hong Kong odds are the same as European odds -1. The difference is European odds include the stake and Hong Kong odds keep stake to the side.
• Indonesian Odds – In this odds format odds can be a positive number or a negative number. Negative Indonesian odds tell how much you’ll need to stake to make 1 unit profit. For example -1.23 means risk 1.23 to win 1. To calculate your payout on negative odds use stake/odds = payout. Rp 300.000 staked on -1.23 is 300.000/1.23=243.902,44 profit. Positive Indonesian odds tell how much profit you will make per 1 unit staked. For example +1.44 is risk 1 to win 1.44. The math is stake*odds=profit.
• Malay Odds – In this format the odds can also be positive or negative. When the odds are positive they match the format of and work exactly the same as Hong Kong odds. When Malay odds are negative you’re dealing with a bet paying greater than even money. Negative Malay odds are how much stake is required to win 1 unit profit. For example odds -0.25 is stake 0.25 to win 1.00.

Understand no matter which odds format you use the actual winnings per stake remains the same. If you’re betting $100 to win $50 profit(total return of $150), that will be listed as 1.50 European | 1/2 Fraction | 0.50 Hong Kong | -2.00 Indonesian | -200 American | +0.50 Malay |. If you’re betting $50 to win $100 that will be listed as 3.00 European | 2/1 Fraction | 2.00 Hong Kong | +2.00 Indonesian | +200 American | -0.5 Malay |. The actual odds don’t change; unique formats are similar to a language issue.

Football Betting

Asian bookies offer odds on many sports such as tennis, basketball and volleyball, but none more popular than football. The World Cup and Euro see Asians who don’t bet any other time of the year get bets on these competitions. Many others from around the continent follow Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 so closely it is almost a religion.

Asian bookies offer betting on all the top divisions and even second and third divisions from Europe. Of course they also cover top level Asian leagues. These include Chinese Super League, Thai Premier League and a Premier League and Super League in both Indonesia and Malaysia. Also included is V-league from Vietnam, i-League from India, J-League from Japan, S-League from Singapore, and K-League from Korea. This names only some of the Asian domestic leagues that can be wagered on.

Understand it is the football coverage that draws even punters from Europe over to American bookies. Our Asian handicaps offer the lowest margins for betting football and our live-in play betting options rival those of any of the top UK bookmakers.

Asian Handicaps Explained

Asian handicaps are a method of betting where the frequencies of ties are eliminated or reduced. In some cases the handicap is straight forward. If Chelsea is -0.5 against Manchester City +0.5 no ties are possible. This is a handicap where Chelsea needs to win by a goal or more otherwise Manchester City is the winner for betting purpose. Asian handicaps are wagers on regulation time only, so a draw declares a team +0.5 the winner.

If the handicap was instead -1 and the favourite wins in regulation time by 1 goal, this is a push (tie). In this case bets are refunded and it is as if they never happened. Note this is a big difference from European handicaps where ties on the handicap lose. This is because with the European counterpart betting -1 draw is an option, where Asian handicaps are a 2-way market.

The part that confuses many punters new to Asian handicaps is the use of ¼ and ¾ lines. If the betting odds list the handicap as -0.25 / +0.25 it means that half the stake is wagered on a handicap of 0 and the other half is wagered on a handicap of 0.5. If the handicap is -0.75 / +0.75 it means half the stake is wagered on a handicap of 0.5 and the other half on a handicap of 1. This is done because Asian bookies attempt to create betting markets where pushes occur less frequently, but they also want to maintain their industry leading low margins.

The real draw to Asian handicaps is the Asian bookies operate with a far lower margin on this market than any other sport offers period. Often times the bookmaker’s theoretic hold is as low as 1.2%, compared to about a 5% hold most bookmakers have on 1X2 markets. This creates arbitrage opportunities, allows sharp punters to bet earlier looking to buy back, and just gives talented handicappers a stronger chance at profit.

Closing Thoughts

Asian bookies offer far more than just Asian handicaps on football. In fact all the other football markets like Home Draw Away (1X2), over/under, total goals, draw no bet, correct score, first goal scorer and much more are covered. They also have a vast number of odds on basketball, tennis, volleyball, F1, rugby, darts, handball, American football, baseball, snooker, golf, boxing, cricket and many other sports. Just, when compared to what cannot be found for other markets it is their football odds for both prematch and in-play that bookmakers from other part