The AFL is the shortened version of the name given to the main Australian Rules Football League in Australia. The league plays a version of American football, but with fewer rules and more contact. Australian football is known as a high contact sport, with players often getting injured. The league has a main season in which it plays home and away games, as well as an off-season in which it plays preseason games which is known as the JLT Community Series.
The AFL is extremely popular in Australasia and New Zealand. Most of the Australian states, with the exception of Tasmania, have teams that take part on the league. The main season runs during the Australian winter that runs from March to September. The top eight teams then play off in a four-round finals series, culminating in the AFL Grand Final, which is held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year. The winning team of these four rounds is named the Premier team, and awarded the Premier Cup.
AFL Wagering
Placing a wager on a footy game can be done on a large number of AFL betting sites. These sites offer a number of different types of wagers that one can make as well
A head to head bet is a straight bet on who will win a match. This is a simple bet, and is easily made by beginners to the AFL betting world. In a head to head the favourites will always be priced lower than the underdog. This means that placing a bet on them will be cheaper, but the winnings will be less. Some games can be evenly matched however, which does not give the punter any indication on whom they should bet on. The odds on a team are set by a group of professionals who take into consideration how the team has been playing, who their players are and who they are playing against. Doing your own research is a god idea however, don’t just rely on what you read on the internet.
Handicaps
Handicaps are placed on teams by bookies. These are not real physical handicaps as are used in horse racing, but are rather points handicaps that have an effect on how well the team must win by. Handicaps are a very important thing to get to understand, as they will affect the way a wager pays out. Favourite teams get handicapped with a disadvantaged start, which means they begin the match on minus points. To win get a win on them with a wager the wining team will have to win by more points than they were handicapped in the beginning of the match. So for example team one begins the match with -11.5 points, thy have to beat team two by that many points. So if the final scores are 80 to team one, and 74 to team two, team two still wins at the bookies as team one did not beat them by the required amount.
Other Wagers
There are a number of other which one can place on a game. These include over under bets, futures betting and even prop bets. An over unders bet is a also pretty straight forward wager to make. Here a bookie makes a guess as to whether the final score of both teams added together will be over or under a total. To make this kind of bet however you have to have a working knowledge of the teams, and how they play against each other.