Curling betting odds 2026: prices, margin and ten licensed bookmakers

Updated October 2026

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Curling is a small corner of the British sportsbook. Few bookmakers run a deep in-house

list for it; most relegate it to a handful of outright and match-winner lines when a

World Curling Championship, a Grand Slam event or the Winter Olympics is on. That

sparseness makes the price more important, not less — when only a handful of firms

quote a market, the spread between them widens, and the one who reads the field

carefully keeps more of every pound. This page is about reading those prices:

what the odds represent, how the margin inside them is built, which markets a

licensed bookmaker can reasonably be expected to carry, and how to verify the

licence the law actually requires.

The figures below are current as of 27 October 2026 and were checked against the

Gambling Commission’s public register.

A short safety net before the prices

Curling draws a particular sort of bettor — patient, often the same crowd that backs

in-running tennis or championship golf — and the long, sparse calendar lends itself

to sessions that run for hours. That is precisely the shape of play that GAMSTOP,

the national multi-operator online self-exclusion scheme, was designed for.

Registration is free, periods run from six months to five years, and every

bookmaker reviewed on this page is a participating operator. For day-to-day

support, GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline; GambleAware funds treatment

and education; the NHS runs specialist gambling clinics; Gamblers Anonymous runs

peer-led meetings. Each of those services sits a tap away from any licensed

account.

The law in Great Britain sets no deposit or loss ceiling on the bettor. The

controls the bettor does get — GAMSTOP, the operator’s deposit-limit tool, timeouts,

reality checks, the self-exclusion each licensed site also offers — are real, and

they work best when set before a session, not after one. Set them when the mind is

clear.

Curling in ten minutes: the rules a bettor actually needs

Curling is a four-a-side game of stones and brooms played on a sheet of ice 45.72 m

long and no more than 4.42 m wide. Each player throws two of the team’s eight

stones; in mixed doubles the team is two and each player still throws five stones.

Stones weigh between 17.24 and 19.96 kg under World Curling Federation rules. A

standard game runs eight ends; international competition goes to ten. Ties go to

extra ends.

Scoring is the part that surprises newcomers and that betting markets respect. After

all sixteen stones of an end are thrown, only the team with the stone closest to

the button — the painted rings at the far end of the sheet — scores. That team

counts one point for every stone it has sitting closer to the button than its

opponent’s nearest stone. A 4-0 blank is possible. A 6-0 end is not rare at senior

level. The “blanked end” rule, where every stone is swept out of play and no one

scores, matters tactically because the hammer — the last stone of the end — is

contested: the team that did not score in the previous end gets it; if an end is

blanked, the hammer stays where it was.

Two things follow for the bettor. First, a curling match is unusually front-loaded

with the team that has the hammer at the last end — the team that can score two

and force the opposition to take one, or vice versa. Second, the empty-netter of a

“blanked end” is a recognised tactic, especially in men’s play with the hammer in

the tenth. Markets built on totals and on the “winning margin” line have to absorb

that. The World Curling Federation governs the sport internationally; the Olympic

discipline dates from the 1998 Winter Games at Nagano, and mixed doubles joined

the programme at PyeongChang in 2018.

What a curling betting market looks like in practice

The market list a British bettor will find is narrower than for football, horse

racing or tennis. Most of the time, in the long months between major championships,

the only available market is the outright — who wins the tournament. Match-winner

and handicap lines appear once the World Championships or a Grand Slam of Curling

event gets close; total-ends over/under and “to win after X ends” are less common

but offered by a handful of firms; correct-score after the regulation ten ends is

rarer still. Live, in-play markets are the exception rather than the rule, and on

sites that do offer them the in-running offering is usually a single match-winner

line that updates end by end.

That is the shape of the calendar: long quiet, then a fortnight of intense action

when a championship runs. A bettor who treats curling as a year-round sport is

going to be disappointed. A bettor who treats it as a championship sport — the

same way championship golf or a major-snooker weekend is treated — finds enough

markets to make a careful price comparison worthwhile. The licence the bookmaker

holds is the first thing to check, and the way to check it is the same whoever the

operator is.

How to check a bookmaker’s Gambling Commission licence

Every operator named on this page is listed on the Gambling Commission’s public

register against a Commission account number. The register is the only place that

counts: a brand-stamped badge on a homepage is a marketing claim, and Curaçao,

Maltese or Gibraltar licences are not substitutes in Great Britain. The

Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 made it an offence to provide

gambling facilities in Great Britain without a Commission licence, wherever the

operator is based.

The check itself takes under a minute. Open the register, choose “Search by

business name, trading name, website or account number”, and type the operator’s

name or domain. The result shows the licence type (remote general betting standard

for real events is the one a sportsbook needs), the account number and the

licence holder. If the search returns no result, the brand is not licensed to take

bets from customers in Great Britain. A licensed operator’s licence is the test —

not a domain suffix, not a “UK” flag, not a marketing seal. The register is the

whole test.

Two small print-points that catch readers out. First, several British brands can

run under a single licence holder. Paddy Power and Betfair, for instance, sit with

the same parent group under different trading names; the account number is the

right thing to quote, not the trading name. Second, identity is verified before

the first deposit at a licensed site — name, address and date of birth — and that

is a feature, not a snag. A brand that promises to take a punt from an

unverified account is not a licensed one.

The bookmaker’s margin, and why it shows up in every price

Every price a bookmaker offers has a margin built in. The margin is the slice of

every pound staked that the firm keeps, on average, across all outcomes of a

market. It is the difference between the “true” odds — the odds that exactly

reflect each outcome’s chance — and the prices the bookmaker actually quotes, in

which the bookmaker has shortened every runner so the implied probabilities add up

to more than 100%.

A worked example shows the shape. Take an illustrative two-way curling market at

decimal odds of 1.90 on each side — an example, not a quoted price. The implied

probability of each side is 1 ÷ 1.90, or 52.63%, and the two probabilities add to

105.26%. The excess over 100% — 5.26% in this case — is the bookmaker’s margin.

The bettor’s payout share, meaning the proportion of every pound staked that

comes back across all outcomes, is 1 ÷ 105.26% = 95.00%. The margin is 1 minus

the payout share, so 5.00% in this example.

The same calculation with fractional odds confirms the shape. The conversion

1.90 → 9/10 is exact: 1.90 − 1 = 0.90, which is 9/10. The fraction describes the

profit on a unit stake; the decimal describes the total return, stake included.

Both are honest ways to say the same thing, and Britain uses both side by side

because the high street is fractional and the screen is decimal. The

margin is the same either way.

The narrower the margin, the fairer the price. A bookmaker quoting 1.90 / 1.90 on

a symmetric two-way market is taking 5.00% in the round; a bookmaker quoting

1.85 / 1.95 is taking more, and the asymmetry of the latter prices suggests

where the firm’s view diverges from the market. Curling markets are sparse

enough that comparing two operators’ prices for the same match is worth the

effort — the difference between a 5% and an 8% margin is more than a curiosity

on a sport where only a handful of firms quote a line.

The currency stamp: what the figures are, and when they were

The figures quoted in this article are snapshots. Decimal odds of 1.90 / 1.90

appear here as a worked illustration of the margin calculation, not as a price any

operator currently offers. The licence numbers named below are checkable on the

Commission’s public register and were verified there in the run-up to publication.

The market descriptions — in-play coverage, acca insurance, best-odds-guaranteed —

are taken from each operator’s own terms and the operator’s app-store listing,

both as they stood on the snapshot date. Markets age faster than licences, and

any single price carries a date of its own; check the price at the time of the

bet, not at the time of the article.

Ten bookmakers with a Gambling Commission remote licence

The order is editorial, not a

ranking; no single brand is “the only” licensed one, and being on the list is a

licence fact, not a recommendation. Each write-up closes on the operator’s own

profile — what it does well, what its welcome offer costs in real terms, who the

brand suits. The licence numbers are quoted as the Commission writes them, in the

form the register returns; the holder named is the legal entity on the licence,

not the trading name a customer sees.

BetMGM’s UK sportsbook is run by LeoVegas Gaming PLC under Gambling Commission

account 39198 (licence 039198-R-319450-029, remote general betting standard —

real events). The British welcome package for new customers who deposit £10 or

more and place a sports bet within seven days is four £10 free bets, broken into

two football accumulators with four or more selections and two sports multiples

with two or more. The four free bets are valid for seven days; minimum odds and

opt-in apply. A free-bet stake is not returned with a winning bet, so the value

of a £10 free bet at decimal odds of 3.00 is £20, not £30 — the stake is

forfeit. The four-bet split is also worth weighing: two of the four require

football accumulators, and a bettor with no interest in football is paying for

a structure that does not fit.

Midnite, by contrast, runs a single integrated product under the same parent

with a similar acca-led structure; the welcome bets on offer change with

promotional cycles. BetMGM suits a customer who will use the four-bet split

across a full week and who plans a four-fold football acca as part of the

package.

Star Sports

Star Sports is the trading name of Star Racing Limited, which holds Gambling

Commission account 9177 (licence 009177-R-104555-019, remote general betting

standard — real events). The brand’s distinctive feature is the trader

line — customers can call 08000 521 321 to open an account, place bets or

raise queries, in addition to email support at [email protected]. In a

market that has moved almost entirely to apps and live chat, the phone is a

genuine differentiator for a bettor who values a voice on the end of the line.

The trade-off is a smaller product catalogue than the largest brands: the

welcome offer and ongoing promotions are slimmer, and the platform’s range

outside horse racing is more limited.

Star Sports suits a customer who wants to deal with a person and who bets

mainly on racing and a handful of other sports — and who does not need a

deep curling menu, since the brand’s curling coverage is limited. The phone

is the asset, and the product catalogue is the cost.

BetTom

BetTom is the trading name of Bet Tom Limited, which holds Gambling Commission

account 64959 (licence 064959-R-339314-003, remote general betting standard —

real events). The sports welcome offer is a 50% matched free bet of up to £50,

paired with a matching 50% free-slot-funds offer of up to £50 for the casino

side. The structure is deposit-gated, the bonus is split between sportsbook

and casino, and the full terms carry the usual wagering requirements on the

casino side.

The promotion rules in force since 19 January 2026 cap wagering requirements

on bonuses at 10x and ban mixed-product promotions that require gambling on

two or more product types. A 50%-back offer split across sports and casino is

on the right side of that line because the two products are independent

opt-ins, not a single required action; the headline still reads as a single

number, and a bettor who only wants the sportsbook is paying attention to

which half of the offer they actually use. BetTom suits a customer who

deliberately wants a casino product alongside the sportsbook and who will

treat the two halves of the bonus as two separate decisions.

Betboro

Betboro is run by Webmedia Development N.V. under Gambling Commission account

44181 (licence 044181-R-324363-007, remote general betting standard — real

events). The British sports welcome offer is a 100% matched free bet of up

to £25 on the first qualifying wager, requiring a debit card deposit of at

least £10 and a first bet of £5 to £25 with at least three selections, each

priced at 3/5 (1.60) decimal or higher. The minimum price per leg is the

substantive condition: a treble at 1.60 / 1.60 / 1.60 sits at decimal odds

of 4.10, and the qualifier is a single first bet rather than the more

common two-bet pattern.

Three selections is a hard floor; the offer is not a single. The matched

amount is also a hard £25 cap, so a £100 first bet returns £25 in free

bets rather than a scaled match. Betboro suits a customer who has a

specific treble in mind — a curling match-winner, a football home win, a

tennis favourite — and who will treat the offer as a fixed structure

rather than a flexible matched amount.

Lottoland

Lottoland UK is run by EU Lotto Limited under Gambling Commission account

38991 (licence 038991-R-319408-020, remote general betting standard — real

events). The product mix is unusual: casino, lottery betting, sports

betting and scratchcards in a single app, with the lottery-betting heritage

showing in the brand and the menu structure. The sportsbook is a smaller

piece of a wider product, and curling is one line among many.

For a customer who already uses Lottoland for lottery bets and wants a

single-app home for occasional sports bets, the package is genuinely

useful. For a customer who wants a deep sportsbook with a wide curling

menu, the product is the wrong shape — sports is a feature, not the

focus. The bonus, where it is offered, is sized accordingly.

BetGoodwin

BetGoodwin is the trading name of Goodwin Racing Limited, which holds

Gambling Commission account 2927 (licence 002927-R-327985-008, remote

general betting standard — real events). The sports welcome offer is “Bet

£10 & Get £15 in Free Bets”, split into a £5 sports bet, a £5

accumulator and a £5 Sub-Cover bet. The £15 is paid in three pieces of

£5, and the Sub-Cover is a niche product — a partial refund if a

single leg of an accumulator lets the bet down.

A £5 free bet at decimal odds of 4.00 returns £15, not £20, because the

stake is forfeit. Three £5 free bets in three different formats is a

useful structure for a customer who will actually use all three. It is

a poor structure for a customer who only wants a single bet: the

effective free-bet value is reduced by the chance that one of the

three formats is never used. BetGoodwin suits a customer who likes

accas and will make a deliberate Sub-Cover selection.

Betfair

Betfair Sportsbook is run by PPB Counterparty Services Limited under

Gambling Commission account 39439 (licence 039439-R-319330-013, remote

general betting standard — real events). The product set is large:

in-play, a Bet Builder, free live streaming of UK and Irish horse racing

and football within the app, and a 90 Minute Payout market on football.

Curling coverage is a thinner slice of a much larger pie. The depth of

the product is the asset; the menu for niche winter sports is a known

weak point relative to the racing and football lines.

The 90 Minute Payout market is a football-specific structure: a bet on

the team leading at half-time pays out as a win if that team is still

ahead at full-time, regardless of the final score. It is named in the

operator’s own materials and is the kind of feature that signals a

football-first product. Betfair suits a customer who will use the

exchange and the sportsbook together and who treats curling as a

championship-weekend activity rather than a year-round pursuit.

Fitzdares

Fitzdares is the trading name of Fitzdares Limited, which holds Gambling

Commission account 400 (licence 000400-R-103839-030, remote general

betting standard — real events). The brand describes itself as a

“premium” bookmaker; the product is positioned at a high-end customer

with antepost markets on horse racing, football, tennis, rugby, cricket,

golf and American football, and a feature set that includes cash out,

accumulators, Lucky 15s and specials. In-play live odds are available.

Curling sits at the edge of the menu. A premium positioning carries a

premium price for niche sports, in the sense that the firm will lay

what it will lay and decline what it will not, and a curling match not

in the antepost list may not be available on the day. Fitzdares suits a

customer who bets mainly on horse racing and a handful of mainstream

sports, who will use the antepost structure, and who treats the smaller

catalogue of niche markets as a feature rather than a bug.

QuinnBet

QuinnBet is run by QuinnBet (Gibraltar) Limited under Gambling Commission

account 61011 (licence 061011-R-335683-004, remote general betting

standard — real events). The headline product feature is Best Odds

Guaranteed on Irish and UK horse racing, applied from 10:00am daily on

singles, multiples and system bets, with a maximum benefit of £150 per

customer per race. Best Odds Guaranteed means the operator pays the

higher of the price taken and the starting price if the SP is bigger —

a long-standing British racing feature.

The curling menu is a small slice of a much larger product, and the

QuinnBet product is racing-first in the same way several other

British-licensed brands are. For a customer whose betting life is

centred on UK and Irish racing and who treats curling as a once-a-year

bet during a World Championship, the racing features are the asset.

For a customer whose primary interest is curling, the product is the

wrong shape.

Bet Ahoy

Bet Ahoy is the trading name of Bet Ahoy Ltd, which holds Gambling

Commission account 100094 (licence 100094-R-341742-003, remote general

betting standard — real events). The sports welcome offer is “Bet £10

& Get £10 in Free Bets”, split into a £5 sports bet and a £5

accumulator. The structure is plain: a single first bet of £10 unlocks

two free bets in two formats. The free-bet stake is not returned on a

win, so a £5 free bet at decimal odds of 4.00 returns £15, not £20.

The split into a single and an acca is a standard two-bet pattern; the

total value is modest. The bettor pays in commitment — the £10 first

bet is at the customer’s chosen price and selection — and gets back

two £5 free bets whose total value depends on how the bettor uses

them. Bet Ahoy suits a customer who wants a clean two-bet structure

and who is happy to be guided toward an acca as the second of the

two bets.

The legal framework for an online sports bet in Great Britain

The Gambling Act 2005 governs the commercial market in Great Britain —

England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is outside the Act and has

its own older law; a “GB licence” regulates Great Britain, not the United

Kingdom as a whole. The Gambling Commission is a non-departmental public

body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the

Commission licenses operators, sets the Licence Conditions and Codes of

Practice and publishes the public register that lists every licence

holder.

Since the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, an operator

whose remote facilities are used in Great Britain needs a Commission

licence wherever it is based. Sections 33 and 36 of the 2005 Act, as

amended, set the test. A Curaçao, Maltese or Gibraltar licence is not a

substitute in Great Britain. There is no state monopoly and no cap on the

number of licences; the limit is commercial, not statutory.

Betting licence types include remote general betting standard (real

events), remote general betting standard (virtual events), remote general

betting limited, remote pool betting and remote betting intermediary

(the licence for betting exchanges). An operator holds a licence for a

category and offers markets under its own rules and the LCCP. There is

no statutory list of permitted bets or markets. In-play betting is

offered by GB bookmakers and the controls are the operator’s licence

conditions and customer-protection duties. Esports are treated like

any other event; virtual events are a separate licence category. Spread

betting that is not a financial product sits inside General Betting Duty;

financial spread betting is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority,

not the Commission.

The minimum age is 18, and identity is verified before a customer can

deposit or gamble — name, address and date of birth — including with a

free bet or bonus. The Commission’s financial vulnerability check, in

force since 30 August 2024 under LCCP condition 3.4.4, applies to

licensed remote betting when a customer’s deposits minus withdrawals

exceed £150 in a rolling 30 days, with the first checks live since 28

February 2025. It is a public-record check (bankruptcy, county court

judgments), not an income check and not a credit reference check. A

separate announcement of staged financial risk assessments (the

“affordability checks” of the press) was made by the Commission on 7

July 2026, with no start date — write the rule as announced and staged,

not as in force. Deposit limits are an operator requirement: customers

are offered a gross deposit limit on a fixed time frame.

The player pays no tax on betting winnings in Great Britain; this is

general information, not tax advice, and a professional gambler should

ask HMRC or an adviser. General Betting Duty is the operator’s tax on

gross profits, currently 15%; from 1 April 2027 a new remote betting

rate of 25% applies within it, while remote bets on UK horse racing,

bets on self-service betting terminals, pool betting and in-person

betting stay at 15%. Spread betting has its own rates (3% financial,

10% other). Until 1 April 2027 the remote rate stays at 15%; whether

operators pass duty on through odds is not established, and the

customer is not charged duty.

Bonuses, free bets and the promotional rules in force

A “free bet” is a token the operator credits to a customer’s account;

the stake is usually not paid back with a winning bet, so a £10 free

bet at decimal odds of 3.00 returns £20, not £30. A “matched free

bet” or “bet £X, get £Y in free bets” is a deposit-gated package: the

customer places a first bet at their own money, and the operator pays

free bets in return. A “boosted odds” or “enhanced price” offer is a

single price raised above the operator’s normal market for a stated

period. A “price boost” or “acca boost” is a percentage added to the

return on a winning accumulator. A “cashback” offer refunds a portion

of a stake on a losing bet, usually as a free bet rather than cash.

“Bet insurance” or “acca insurance” refunds a stake as a free bet if

one leg of an accumulator lets the bet down. Each of these is a

different shape, and the rule of thumb is the same: read the small

print, because the headline is rarely the whole story.

The promotional rules in force since 19 January 2026 cap wagering

requirements on bonuses at 10x and ban mixed-product promotions that

require gambling on two or more product types — for example “bet on

football to get free spins”. A £10 bonus with a 50x wagering

requirement was previously common; under the cap no more than £100 of

bets is required to clear a £10 bonus. Whether the cap applies to

free bets with no wagering condition, and any cap on the money value

of a bonus, are not established as a single rule; the headline cap is

on the wagering requirement itself.

“Risk-free” bets are usually free bets credited on a losing first

bet, not a refund in cash. A “100% bonus” is a matched deposit

bonus, with the wagering requirement sitting in the small print. A

“best odds guaranteed” offer applies to horse racing: the operator

pays the higher of the price taken and the starting price. A “bet

builder” or “same-game multi” combines markets from one event into

a single bet. None of these is free money; every one of them is a

trade of the customer’s first bet, deposit or stake for a stake-

forfeit token or a constrained price.

What an unlicensed site costs the bettor

A GB licence is compulsory at the point of consumption. Providing

gambling facilities in Great Britain without the licence the Act

requires is an offence under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 —

on summary conviction up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment, a fine up to

level 5, or both; six months in Scotland — and is aimed at the

operator. No offence aimed at a customer who merely bets on an

unlicensed site was found. The honest framing is what the bettor

loses: no GAMSTOP coverage, no Commission complaints route, no

approved dispute-resolution body, no British consumer redress if

funds are withheld, and no binding to the 10x bonus cap or the £150

vulnerability check. The customer is not “committing an offence”;

the customer is giving up every protection the Act provides.

Enforcement is disruption rather than blocking: cease-and-desist

notices, search-engine referrals, work with registrars, hosts and

payment providers. The Commission has been given, or is about to

receive, court-order DNS blocking powers; never write that ISP

blocking is currently in operation. The honest framing for a

comparison: licensed means checks, limits, GAMSTOP, the bonus cap

and the £150 vulnerability check; unlicensed means none of those

protections and the realistic possibility that funds are not

returned if the operator declines to pay. Neither is “the safe

choice” by default.

The terms worth reading on every licensed account

Three clauses matter more than the welcome offer and are worth

finding before the first bet.

First, the credit-card rule. Credit cards are banned for gambling

in Great Britain (since 14 April 2020, LCCP condition 6.1.2),

including credit-card-funded payments through an e-wallet. Debit

cards and bank-based payments are not covered by the ban. A

licensed site that asks for a credit card is either in breach or

is asking the customer to do something the Act forbids.

Second, the verification process. Identity is verified before the

first deposit at every licensed site — name, address and date of

birth. A licensed site that allows an unverified account to place

a bet is in breach. The check is a feature: a brand that promises

anonymity is either unlicensed or describing itself inaccurately.

Third, the time and money limits. Operators offer deposit limits

on a fixed time frame as a regulatory requirement. The customer’s

choice sits inside that frame. The default is the operator’s

house default, and the default is rarely the right number for a

customer who has thought about it. Set the limit when the mind

is clear.

Markets and bet types: a curling bettor’s vocabulary

A “single” is a bet on one selection; a “double” on two, a

“treble” on three and an “accumulator” — acca — on four or more.

The odds of the legs multiply into one price. A “each-way” bet

is two bets of equal stake: one on the win, one on the place.

The stake doubles. Place terms vary by race and operator; for

curling, where there is rarely an each-way market, the term

sits unused.

A “handicap” line is a notional advantage applied to the

underdog: Team A is -1.5 ends, meaning Team A starts the match

with a 1.5-end deficit, and the bet is on whether Team A covers.

A “total ends” over/under is a line on how many ends the match

will run. A “winning margin” line is on the size of the win.

A “correct score” line is on the final score after the

regulation ten ends. A “to win after X ends” line is on the

leader at end X — a curling-specific market that reflects the

front-loaded nature of the game.

In-play markets are the exception rather than the rule on

curling. Where a bookmaker offers in-running, the line is

usually a single match-winner that updates end by end, and the

in-play margin is wider than the pre-match margin because the

bookmaker has less time to manage the book. A bettor who can

read the on-screen action — the hammer, the swept stone, the

blanked end — has a sharper eye than the model that updates

the price. The market for that edge is small, but the edge

itself is real.

Advertising, sponsorships and the “whistle-to-whistle” rule

Advertising is not licensed by the Commission; it runs through

the CAP Code (non-broadcast) and the BCAP Code (broadcast),

enforced by the ASA, alongside the LCCP marketing conditions.

CAP Code section 16: marketing must be socially responsible,

must not be of strong appeal to under-18s, and no one who is

or seems to be under 25 may be featured gambling or play a

significant role, with an exception for marketing placed where

a bet can be made directly. That rule is about who may appear

in the advertisement, not about who may bet. The minimum age

to bet is 18.

“Whistle-to-whistle” is an industry code rather than law:

since 1 August 2019 betting advertisements are not shown on

TV from five minutes before a live sporting event to five

minutes after it, before the 9pm watershed, with horse and

greyhound racing excluded. The Premier League clubs’

withdrawal of gambling sponsorship from the front of

matchday shirts from 2026/27 is voluntary, not law; sleeves

and hoardings remain. Operators are responsible for marketing

by their affiliates, and a customer signing up through an

affiliate link has the same protection as one signing up

directly.

The odd language of British odds

British odds are read in two formats. Fractional odds — 5/1,

11/4, evens — describe the profit on a unit stake, with the

stake returned in addition. Decimal odds — 6.00, 3.75, 2.00 —

describe the total return, stake included. The conversion is

exact: a/b in fractional form is (a ÷ b) + 1 in decimal form.

So 5/1 is 6.00, 11/4 is 3.75, evens (1/1) is 2.00. “Odds-on”

is shorter than evens — 4/6, 1/2, 1/3 — and the decimal

price is between 1.00 and 2.00. “Odds-against” is longer

than evens.

The starting price (SP) is the price at which a horse is

finally traded at the start of a race, set by the on-course

market. Best Odds Guaranteed (BOG) pays the higher of the

price taken and the SP, on a stated set of meetings. The

“Rule 4 deduction” is a bookmaker’s rule applied when a

runner is withdrawn from a race: the odds of remaining

runners are shortened in line with a published table. A

“non-runner” is a horse withdrawn before the start. None

of these terms is foreign to curling, but all of them are

foreign to a bettor who has only ever bet on team sports,

and a bookmaker’s terms section is the place to find them.

A “Trixie” is four bets (three doubles and a treble); a

“Patent” is seven (three singles, three doubles and a

treble); a “Yankee” is eleven (six doubles, four trebles

and a four-fold); a “Lucky 15” is fifteen (four singles,

six doubles, four trebles and a four-fold); a “Heinz” is

fifty-seven (fifteen doubles, twenty trebles, fifteen

four-folds, six five-folds and a six-fold); a “Goliath”

is two hundred and forty-seven. The total stake is the

unit stake multiplied by the number of bets, and the

stake on a Lucky 15 at a £1 unit is £15. The system bets

have a use on horse racing and on team sports; on curling,

where a typical match has a single match-winner market,

they sit unused.

Frequently asked questions

How do you bet on curling?

Place an account with a Gambling Commission-licensed

bookmaker — BetMGM, Star Sports, BetTom, Betboro, Lottoland,

BetGoodwin, Betfair, Fitzdares, QuinnBet or Bet Ahoy on this

page — and find the curling tab in the sports menu. The

typical market is the outright winner of a tournament; match

winners, handicap and total-ends lines appear when a World

Championship or a Grand Slam of Curling event is close. Place

a single, double, treble or acca at the displayed price;

the bet is settled at the conclusion of the match or

tournament. The licence check is the test that the firm is

allowed to take the bet from a customer in Great Britain.

Can you bet on curling in Great Britain?

Yes, at any bookmaker licensed by the Gambling Commission

for remote general betting standard (real events). The set

on this page is the established set, not the only set; the

Commission’s public register lists every licensed operator.

No statutory list of permitted sports exists; an operator

offers curling under its own licence conditions and the LCCP,

and the markets available are the markets the operator has

chosen to price.

How is it checked that a bookmaker holds a Gambling Commission licence?

Open the Commission’s public register and search by business

name, trading name, website or account number. The result

returns the licence type, the account number and the licence

holder. A licence is the test; a domain suffix, a homepage

badge, or a marketing claim is not. The register is the

whole test, and it is the only place the question has a

single answer.

How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?

The return is the stake multiplied by the decimal odds. A

£10 stake at decimal odds of 3.50 returns £35, made up of

the £10 stake and £25 profit. The net profit is the stake

multiplied by (odds − 1), so £10 × 2.50 = £25 in the same

example. For an accumulator the odds of the legs multiply

into one price, and the calculation is the same against

the multiplied odds.

What is the bookmaker’s margin and how can it be seen in the odds?

The margin is the slice of every pound staked that the

bookmaker keeps, on average, across all outcomes of a

market. It is the excess over 100% of the implied

probabilities, where each probability is 1 ÷ decimal

odds. An illustrative two-way market at decimal odds of

1.90 on each side implies 52.63% per side, adding to

105.26%; the 5.26% excess is the margin. The bettor’s

payout share across both outcomes is 95.00%. A market

with a 5% margin is fairer than one with an 8% margin;

the narrower the margin, the fairer the price.

How do fractional odds such as 5/1 convert to decimal odds such as 6.00?

The conversion is exact: a/b in fractional form becomes

(a ÷ b) + 1 in decimal form. So 5/1 becomes (5 ÷ 1) + 1 =

6.00, 11/4 becomes (11 ÷ 4) + 1 = 3.75, and evens (1/1)

becomes (1 ÷ 1) + 1 = 2.00. The fraction describes the

profit on a unit stake; the decimal describes the total

return, stake included. Both are honest ways of saying

the same thing, and Britain uses both side by side.

Content created by the «Best Betting Tips» team