Out of the winter sports that are played on ice, curling is the one that many people know about since it was reintroduced as an Olympic event recently.
Although its popularity is limited to Canada, it also has good following in America, Scotland as well as some parts of Europe and Asia.
On a sheet of ice, teams of four players each slide rocks towards a target at the other end. This target is also called a house in this sport.
Throwing eight rocks as a team, the team with the rock closest to the pin gets one point for each of their rocks that is closer to the middle than any opponent’s best rock. Scoring is the end of an “end” which resembles an inning in baseball.
Most matches usually consist of 8 ends; however, championship play is usually played in ten ends. If there is a draw, teams have to play an extra end to determine the winner. Unlike many sports, it is seen as reasonable to admit defeat when it becomes clear that a game cannot be won and therefore very many games do not go all the way.
When the match is over, the team with the highest points also known as rocks will be crowned victors.
Usually, curling wagers fall into two categories. The first is simply picking the winner of a game, and in that case you will see odds that reflect the relative strength of each team.
Furthermore, bets may be made on this sport in a different way. Several bookies offer running spread or handicap betting for instance where the favorite is docked by certain points to allow similar odds in both teams. Here is an example of such a line:
When betting on the Canada team, you only win if they win by at least four points. On the other hand, a bet on Germany can go in your favor, even though they lose by three or fewer points. Overall, both wagers are expected to pay at slightly under even odds.
Nowadays, a whole spectrum of activities occur, with competitive squads engaging in the World Curling Tour during ‘bonspiels’ and elite teams contesting at Grand Slam events.
But it is usually only some of the biggest ones that manage to attract attention from most betting sites. These are as follows:
It is the one tournament that captures the most interest of all the other games in the world, and for a few people, it is their only interaction with the sport. Even though it was included in 1924 and 1932, it was reintroduced to the Olympic Games as an exhibition sport in 1988 and 1992 before making a comeback to the official medal program in 1998.
Since then, both men’s and women’s competitions have been contested, usually having 10 teams’ fields playing in a round-robin of 10-end games that crown the top four to reach medal round. Additionally, a two-player discipline called mixed doubles will also be included in the program from 2018.
The tournament is contested in a format almost similar to that of the Olympics, but with a field slightly larger that has twelve teams. Each year, the best nations try to secure qualification for this competition.
Other world championships in tennis are mixed, mixed doubles, senior and junior events which usually attract large betting stakes just like Men’s and Women’s championship play.
The Canadian championships are among the most important world events because most of the curlers worldwide are Canadians. The Tim Hortons Brier is the name given to the men’s championship although the sponsor has been changed severally, and teams have to qualify from every province and territory as a chance of clinching a title that was established in 1927.
As a tournament, this is the women’s Canadian championship which has the same halo for female curlers as Brier has for men. It was first held in 1961 and now it is known as Scotties Tournament of Hearts or simply ‘The Scotties’ by virtue of its current sponsors.
Medieval Scotland is where curling began and it is one of the oldest sports that still take place today. It’s not known for certain when humans first played this game, but there are paintings, stones and other things to indicate that at least by 1500’s, people were playing it. Some of the world’s oldest clubs have existed for centuries with Kilsyth Curling Club founded in 1716 in Scotland still being active.
The game has evolved over the years, and this included improving the quality of the stones, ice and other equipment so that it has gradually moved from being a game of luck and power to one in which players’ skills are decisive, thus making it be known as ‘chess on ice’.
The game is named after the way a stone moves on ice – players turn the stones around to make them go in an arc, or curl, as they slide down the sheet – but it is also referred to as roaring game because of the weight and peculiar noise of traveling rocks.
The Federation presently runs the game of curling worldwide and was formed in 1966.
Did the popular winter sport get you interested by our piece about betting on curling? Would you like to join our top-ranked betting website and see all the recent odds given for some of such major events as the World Championships and Winter Olympics?
