Curling is one of the most popular winter sports in Canada and the country has long boasted the most successful team in the world, easily leading the way in both World Championships and Olympic medals. Curling is one of the most popular sports to bet on online in Canada. Keep reading our guide to find out more!
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Read on to find our detailed curling betting guide tailored to Canadian bettors! Included on this page:
In recent years, as the global boom in online sports betting has gathered pace in Canada, curling has also become a popular sport to bet on.
Betting options on curling tend to be somewhat more restricted than those of the biggest international sports like hockey, football betting, horse racing, and basketball betting but they are growing steadily all the time on Canadian betting sites.
Sports betting is incredibly diverse and there are hundreds of ways to bet on sports, whether predicting the results of matches or predicting specific incidents within games or curling championships like the Tournament of Hearts or the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
While betting on the winners of matches or competitions is the most common way to bet on curling, many online sports betting sites like sports interaction or Spin Sports offer some more technical bets as well. The good news is we cover all the bases on this page.
Here you’ll find answers to all your curling betting questions, including:
Curling is a popular sport, but curling bets online is likely to be new to a lot of people. For this reason, we have made this page ultra simple and practical.
All the essentials to start betting on curling today are included here.
Once you’ve got a solid grasp of the fundamentals, you can check out the final section of this page. We got our experts to put together their best betting strategies to help you become a regular winner from betting on curling and in the biggest curling matches.
Everything you need to know to make the most of the exciting world of curling betting is right here.
Although curling is really popular in Canada, it hasn’t historically been a sport with tons of betting options. For this reason, simple betting markets on the winner of specific games, tournaments (like the Tournament of Hearts and the Scotties Tournament of Hearts) and Curling championship are the most common out there for Canadian betting sites.
That said, curling is a complicated tactical sport that is well suited to more technical bets (like handicap bets and total points), and such markets are starting to become more common. We’re going to cover all of them a little further down the page.
However, the first thing you will need to do to start betting on curling is to find a suitable sports betting site.
There are loads of sports betting sites out there that accept Canadian players, but some careful research is required before signing up to the biggest curling sites. The legal situation is a little murky, so it’s important you understand exactly what you are signing up to. There are several sports betting sites like Sports Interaction and Spin Sports. Of course, tcs apply no matter which site you bet at.
The short answer to that question is that betting on curling online is not illegal in Canada.
Let’s explain exactly what we mean by that.
Sports betting laws in Canada are very messy. Much of the gambling laws in Canada are still determined by the Canadian Criminal Code, which was written all the way back in 1892. If you’re thinking that a series of laws written well over 100 years ago might not exactly appropriately address the realities of online betting today, you would be right.
Although the Code originally broadly outlawed almost all forms of gambling, a series of amendments over the years have seen this considerably relaxed.
That’s before we come to the fact that each province in Canada has the right to determine its own rules around gambling, with respect to federal laws.
In short, the sheer variation in the country, along with the fact that much of the current legislation was written so long ago, means that Canada and British Columbia don’t simply have clear laws around online betting.
What we do know is that there is no law that explicitly forbids Canadian or British Columbian residents from placing a bet online.
This means that although there are very few Canadian online sports betting sites in operation due to legal restrictions, players are free to bet using sites from other countries which accept Canadian users.
Players from Canada, as well as British Columbia, have been using these kinds of sites for years without any legal issues.
Although not exactly black and white in Canadian law, you should have no trouble betting on curling using offshore sites, as long as you are using a fully licenced and reputable sports betting site.
There are lots of top curling betting sites from around the world that will allow you to sign up from Canada, but you need to choose carefully. Not every sports betting site that accepts Canadian players is entirely trustworthy, and signing up with a sketchy site can lead to seeing your money disappear.
There are two main things to consider when looking for a sports betting site:
1. Betting License
First of all, you need to make sure the sports betting site has a valid licence that enables it to accept players from Canada. Legitimate licences from Gibraltar, Alderney and the Isle of Man are all common, while it’s also a good sign when sites are regulated by the UK Gambling Commission.
A valid licence means that the sports betting site is independently regulated, and very unlikely to just disappear with all its user’s funds.
2. Reputation
Reputation is a big consideration too. If a sports betting site is consistently mistreating its players, you tend to hear about it. You generally won’t need to search too hard to find out if a site has a dodgy history, so some simple research is always advisable. The bigger a sports betting site is, with lots of happy players and a trusted name in the industry built up over the years, the better.
The best way to make sure you are only playing on legitimate sites is to stick to the biggest curling sites that we recommend here at SuperLenny. Keep in mind tcs apply always.
Every site that we recommend has been reviewed and tested by our experts, and comes with our endorsement. If we had any concerns a site was not trustworthy, we wouldn’t recommend it. It’s as simple as that. Read about how SuperLenny chooses betting sites.
Making sure you are playing on a safe site is priority number one, but there are other things to consider too.
Every site is different and you will find variations in things like welcome bonuses, banking options, withdrawal fees and processing times, types of bets available (head to head, handicap bets, outright betting markets) and more.
It’s up to you to figure out what works best for your needs.
The sign-up process for most Canadian sports betting sites is largely similar to signing up at any online casino and is very simple.
It’s in the interest of the site to make the process fast and easy, and you can usually expect it to only take a minute or two.
To sign up at a Canadian Betting site, you will likely have to provide some or all of the following information:
You will also have to confirm your identity and accept the terms and conditions of the sports betting site. Once you’re signed up, it’s time to head to the cashier to deposit some money to bet with.
This is also often the moment you are given the opportunity to claim your welcome bonus. You can do this by typing in a bonus code when prompted, which will unlock your bonus once you have signed up.
The type of welcome bonus available varies with each sports betting site, but it’s common to receive either a free bet or a boost on your first deposit. It’s nice to remove the element of risk from your first bet. If you are totally new to curling bets online, a free bet is also a perfect way to test the waters.
Remember that if you sign up to one of our SuperLenny recommended online casino betting sites, you will always be eligible for the best possible welcome bonus.
The best sports betting site make depositing money fast and easy, and offer lots of different banking options for Canadian players. Depositing money into your sports betting site is just like making any other kind of online payment methods.
Usually getting money into your account to make curling bets online only takes a couple of minutes. You can expect the site to make it really easy, no matter what banking method you prefer. Of course, tcs apply.
For most banking methods, sports betting sites like Sports Interaction or Spin Sports won’t charge you for making a deposit and your money is usually available to bet with instantly.
Some of the most common payment methods at online casinos are below:
However you normally pay for things online, chances are you can find a high-quality betting site that accepts that payment method. It’s always a good idea to check out the banking situation for both deposits and withdrawals before signing up to a betting site, to make sure there is an option that works for you.
Withdrawing funds is generally quite similar to depositing, although it sometimes takes a little longer. It’s common for sports betting sites to have fewer options for withdrawing money, but you can still expect to find some or all of the ones above.
While depositing is almost always instant and free, withdrawing may have a mandatory processing period. It could be anywhere from one day to a week. Some sports betting sites also charge a small fee to withdraw, maybe a couple of dollars.
That said, you can also find sports betting sites that don’t charge anything and offer instant withdrawals.
Just like the deposit options, you should always make sure you understand and are good with the rules around withdrawing before signing up to your sports betting site.
Once all that admin stuff is out of the way, you are ready to start betting on curling.
As we mentioned already, curling does not quite have the same extensive betting options like basketball betting and some of the most popular sports, like horse racing, in Canada and around the world. But there are still easily enough curling markets out there to really get your teeth into. Curling is a young sport in terms of sports betting, but one that is growing all the time.
In this section, we are taking a close look at basically everything you can expect to find when it comes to betting on curling. If you need to know more about curling wagers or wagering requirements specifically, why not check out our expert guide?
As with lots of sports, betting markets on curling tend to open up around the time of the most popular global curling events and curling championships like the Tournament of hearts and the Scotties tournament of hearts. Although there are plenty of national and regional competitions happening all the time during curling season, it’s unlikely you will find sports betting sites taking bets on them.
Instead, betting on curling is generally concentrated on a few tournaments.
The Winter Olympic Games attract a lot of betting action, and curling is one of the staples of the Games. Ten countries take part in both the mens and womens events. There is also a mixed doubles event, which is a variation of curling with 2 players for each of the curling teams.
Winning an Olympic gold medal is just about the pinnacle of curling, so it makes sense that the Olympics have a lot of curling betting markets. The Olympic Games also tend to attract a lot of casual fans and bettors. This means leads to an increase in action and, for the smart bettors, an increase in opportunity. More on this in our strategies section.
The World Curling Canadian Championships have been played every year since 1959 (1979 for women) and feature mens and womens, as well as mixed, wheelchair and doubles tournaments. Along with the Olympics, the Curling World Championships are the high point of the international curling calendar, and unsurprisingly attract plenty of bets.
You can also bet on the European Championships which have been happening annually since 1975.
In Canada, you can find markets on The Tim Hortons Brier, the national men’s Canadian Championship, and The Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the women’s national Canadian championship, both of which run every year.
Outside of these tournaments, you are unlikely to find too many curling betting opportunities. As the sport continues to grow more popular with bettors we wouldn’t be surprised to see markets becoming available on the national US championship, national championships in European countries, and other international world curling competitions.
If you’re betting on curling from Canada, chances are you’ll see betting odds in the moneyline format. There are three main ways that odds are expressed, and we’ll take a brief look at all of them.
In North America however, moneyline odds are the most common.
Making sure you understand odds is the essential starting point before betting on anything, including curling.
Let’s take a look at an example of a betting line for a curling match in the moneyline format:
To win:
Canada -142
Sweden +375
With Moneyline betting odds, the team with the negative number, or the lower number, is always the favourite, and the team with the higher or positive number is the underdog.
If the odds are a minus value (-) , the number refers to how much you would need to bet to win $100.
If the odds are a positive value (+), the number refers to how much you would win if you bet $100.
You can always bet any amount you like; odds on the moneyline are just expressed in this way which uses $100 increments to express the information.
Here, Canada are the favorite with betting odds of -142. This value means that in order to win $100, you need to bet $142 for a total return of $242. If you bet $71, you would win $50.
Sweden are the underdogs. If you bet $100 on Sweden, you would win $375 for a total return of $475.
If this is all new to you and seems complicated, don’t worry.
First of all, you will be surprised how quickly you pick it up.
Second of all, your sports betting site will always allow you to type in different stakes to see how much you stand to win before you place your bet. It’s really easy to experiment by trying different types of bets with different stakes and curling wagers.
Third, lots of sports betting sites allow you to choose how the odds are displayed on the site – so if you prefer one of the other formats you can select that one instead.
On the whole, European-style odds are much easier for newcomers to understand. They are expressed as a decimal number, and to see how much your bet returns you simply multiply your stake by the number.
To see how much you win, you just subtract your original stake from the new number.
The same line expressed in decimal format looks like this:
To win:
Canada 1.70
Sweden 4.75
Betting $142 on Canada here would make it 142×1.70 for a total return of $242. Subtract your stake and you are left with a profit of $100 – just like our previous example.
In the UK, you usually see odds expressed as fractions. Our example line with those numbers converted to fractions looks like this:
To win:
Canada 7/10
Sweden 15/4
Although these lines are all expressed in a different format, the information is exactly the same in each one.
Modern sports betting is pretty incredible. There are whole galaxies of different ways to bet on sports, from the most simple bets on the winner of a match to complicated predictions about technicalities of the gameplay or player statistics and total points.
Because of the format of most curling competitions, one of the most common bet types are outright market bets. With outright market bets you will choose the winning team before the competition even begins. In this type of bet, you select your team and accept their odds before any action at the event happens.
Head to head betting, on the other hand, in curling world betting is very similar to single-game betting in other sports. In this type of bet, you will choose which team you think will win in any particular match. Throughout any competition, teams will face off against each other in head to head matches.
The more complex of these betting options, by and large, have not reached curling yet. Nevertheless, you can still find a healthy number of betting markets for the biggest curling tournaments and curling events.
In this section, we take you through the different ways you can currently bet on curling, and also take a look at what we might expect from the biggest curling betting in the future.
Betting on the Moneyline is by far the most common way to bet on curling. While not all sports betting sites will have multiple markets on curling, if curling is an option it will have Moneyline bets.
A bet on the Moneyline is a straightforward bet on who will win based on the total points scored in the match. It can also be referred to as a match result bet.
Since curling tournaments and curling events do not allow for tied games and incorporate overtime, meaning that you win by having the most total points scored in the match, there are just two options with a Moneyline bet.
The line that we looked at earlier:
To win:
Canada -142
Sweden +375
Is an example of a bet on the moneyline. In this case, you are either predicting that Canada will win or that Sweden will win. Couldn’t be simpler.
There is a reason Moneyline bets are the most popular. They are a really straightforward way to use your curling knowledge to win some money, get to learn more about betting on the sport or simply just to add a little more spice to watching the games.
If you have some experience in sports betting chances are you will be familiar with point spread betting. In this case, you are not betting on which team will win the match, but rather on the margin of victory.
Each team is given either a positive or negative number of points: essentially an artificial head start or handicap. In order to win the bet, your chosen team must win the game with respect to their handicap.
Typical handicap bets might look like this:
Canada (-3.5) -110
Sweden (+3.5) -110
In a typical point spread betting the handicap is determined to make the teams something close to a 50/50 shot at winning the game, as is the case here.
What this betting line implies is that the sports betting site thinks Canada is the better team, and their superiority is worth around 3.5 points in the game. With a 3.5 point head start, Sweden have as good a chance as Canada.
In this case, to win a bet on Canada they need to win the match by 4 points or more. Even if they beat Sweden by 3 points, you will lose your bet as they did not cover the spread.
On the other hand, to win a bet on Sweden they simply have to not lose the game by 4 points or more. They can lose the game by 1, 2 or 3 points and you will still win the bet.
Betting on the spread is great for players who don’t like bets with crazy odds, since the handicap lines are always set as close to even money. A bet on the spread is very likely to be a close-run thing.
Again, if you are familiar with totals bets from other sports, they work exactly the same way in curling.
In this case, the winner of the game doesn’t matter. Instead, you are betting on how many points will be scored in the game overall.
Curling is well suited to totals bets since it’s usually fairly high scoring but also has the potential to be more tactical and low scoring too.
If you think you can predict how a match is likely to pan out in advance, either a cagey affair or a free-wheeling display of attacking, a totals bet is a great option.
A line might look like this:
Canada vs Sweden
Total Points (11.5)
Over -115
Under +100
The sports betting site sets the points total so that, again, they think it’s around a 50/50 shot whether it’s over or under.
In this example, if you bet on the over you need there to be at least 12 points scored in the game to win your bet.
If the final score is 9-5 or 13-0 or 6-7, you will win your bet.
If it’s 6-5 or 2-3 or 10-1, you will lose.
A futures bet is a bet on an outcome that will happen (comparatively far off) in the future. Usually, a futures bet is on the winner of a competition.
Futures in curling can be on the winner of the World Championships, or the gold medal winner in the Olympics, or even the silver or bronze medal winner. They are usually placed before a tournament starts, but you can also place a futures bet as the tournament progresses. This would be the equivalent of betting on say, the Super Bowl.
Futures bets generally need a series of variables to happen in order for you to win the bet, unlike the other bets we have seen so far which are just based on individual games. Due to this, futures generally have comparatively attractive odds.
A futures betting line might look like this:
To Win the Olympic Gold Medal
Canada +200
Sweden +500
Great Britain +700
Norway +1200
United States +1600
As you can see in this line, even though Canada are the favourites to win the gold medal you can still get them at a pretty good price.
In this way, futures can be very profitable even if you stick to betting on favourites. Of course, the downside is that it takes a longer time for your bet to come in.
Futures are also great for adding some extra interest over the course of a tournament. If you bet on a team to win gold at the start of the Olympics it means you’ll be watching and rooting for them throughout, like you would if you were betting on the Super Bowl, for example.
Parlays, also known as accumulators or multi-bets, are a type of betting which allows you to combine a series of bets in one. Each bet you add to your parlay multiplies the odds, meaning you can stand to win a lot of money from a single successful bet.
A parlay bet in curling, for example, could consist of predicting the winners of several matches, or combing a point spread bet on one game with totals bet on another.
A single parlay can have as many individual bets (or legs) as you want, with the curling odds growing considerably the more you add. To win a parlay, every part of the bet must be successful.
To create a parlay you can just add different bets to the bet slip on your sports betting site, and the odds will be updated automatically. You can test out different bets, adding and removing them and trying different stakes, to see how much you would win.
Although betting online options on curling are more limited than the top sports, like football betting, if you have a really in-depth understanding of the sports building parlay bets allows you to win a lot of money from a comparatively small investment.
Live betting or in-play betting online is very popular these days. Most sports betting sites allow you to bet on loads of sports as they happen, with the odds updating every few seconds.
While some sports have a full menu of live combo bets and props, live betting on curling and curling wagers are largely restricted to Moneyline bets on who will win the game.
But betting on curling in real-time still has some unique opportunities, even with limited betting options.
Curling is an incredibly tactical sport. Momentum is built up slowly over the course of the ten ends, with each team trying to gradually out-maneuver their opponent. However, it’s also true that the trajectory of a match can change in an instant with one well-placed stone.
If you are good at taking the temperature of a match, sensing what direction the tactical battle is moving before it happens, live betting can allow you to take advantage.
As betting on curling becomes more popular we can expect more and more betting markets to become available.
One style of betting that is very popular in many other sports like football, is to break up games into different sections and bet on them individually – like betting on who will make more yards in the first quarter in a football match, who will score more points in the final quarter of an NBA game, or the second half score of a soccer match or the Super Bowl.
Since a curling match is divided into ten separate ends, it makes these types of bets very well suited to the sport. We expect to see the ability to bet on each end of a curling match separately in the near future. It may even be possible already. This will open up a lot more betting opportunities.
Prop bets are another logical step for curling.
Proposition bets are bets on things that may or may not happen in a game, and don’t necessarily impact the result. In curling, you could bet on how many points one team or even one player will score, either in the entire game or during one end. You could potentially bet on whether or not any team lands a stone directly on the button, or whether a team burns a rock (illegally touches the stone).
There are loads of ways prop bets on curling could work, and it’s something we will be keeping a close eye on in the future.
Here at SuperLenny we take pride in our sports betting guides. We make sure that we include everything you need to understand before you start betting – but we also like to go that little bit further too.
That’s why we asked our experts to collect their top five tips for betting on curling. These strategies will help to guide you as you place your bets. Paying close attention to our tips will save you $$$, and help you to go from a sports betting fan to a sports betting winner.
Now, this may seem like an obvious piece of advice, but it is very relevant for sports like curling which are newly becoming more popular to bet on, with new markets being created.
Maybe you’re a long-term fan of curling who watches the Tim Hortons Brier and the Scotties every year and can remember the last 5 Olympic gold medalists in curling. OK, so you don’t need to worry about this tip too much.
But if you’re a fan of sports betting who just happened to notice a new sport available in that betting menu on the side of your online sports betting site, resist the urge to jump straight in without doing your homework.
Sports betting sites love casual bettors and casual fans making casual bets. Why? Because invariably these are the players who lose the most money.
If you are new to curling or new to betting in general, start out slow. If you got some free bets for signing up to a sports betting site, consider using them to try out a curling bet. Watch the games to get a good feel for them before dropping large amounts of money on bets. Make sure you understand how the different types of bets described on this page work in advance.
Like betting on any sport, it’s natural that there’s a learning curve at the beginning. Don’t fall into the trap of making expensive ill-informed bets just for the sake of betting. It’s a recipe to lose money.
Which brings us to…
The Olympic Games, winter and summer, are big occasions for sports betting. The Games attract a lot of bets, and they’re not exactly all from sharks. Suddenly, millions of people are watching sports that, for most of the previous four years, they might not have seen at all.
This creates a situation with tons of people betting on sports that really, they might not fully understand – exactly the situation we told you to avoid in tip #1. There is also the fact that people are way more likely to bet patriotically during the Olympics (as opposed to analytically).
So, how does this help us?
Well, the answer lies in the fact that betting lines move in reaction to how the public bet. The more money is placed on one side of the bet, the more the lines move in favour of the other side. If you recognize that the public, in general, are betting badly, you can exploit them by betting against them.
Let’s imagine a scenario. Take this fictional line at the Curling World Championships:
Norway -350
United Kingdom +270
Norway are favourites and sure enough, let’s say they end up beating the UK.
Now fast forward a few months to the Winter Olympics, and the two teams are set to face each other again. Although the line might open at something similar to the above, it can move in response to public betting.
Now, sports betting is very popular in the UK, even though curling is not especially. There are also 66 million people there, and lots of betting interest in the Olympics. Plus, everyone wants to support their own country’s athletes.
By contrast, there are around 5 million people in Norway.
With a lot more action on the UK, we could easily imagine the line at the Olympics ending up looking like this:
Norway -170
United Kingdom +140
Now Norway are still favorites, but there is way more value on betting on them. This would be a classic time to bet against public hype, and bet on Norway with their artificially reduced odds.
No matter what sport you are betting on, analyzing the teams and individual players is important. With curling, the most important player to consider is the skipper or skip.
The skip is the last player to throw for each team and the tactical leader of their team.
Just like a quarterback in football, every skip has different skills and weaknesses, and different styles of play. Analyzing how these styles match up and go a long way to predicting how the match will develop.
Some skips prefer a more chaotic game, with the potential for swings in scoring, while others are more defensive. Identifying these trends allows you to make informed predictions, and place a suitable bet.
The last stone thrown in every end of a curling match is known as the hammer. The hammer is the key to controlling a game, and it is only passed on to the opposing team if points are scored.
Possessing the hammer is the key to both preventing your opponent from scoring points and from maximizing your own scoring. For example, it’s a common tactic for a team to intentionally score no points in an end in order to retain control of the hammer in the next, rather than register some points but lose it.
The way the hammer is used is a massive consideration for analyzing a game in real time. If it becomes clear that one team is getting the better of the other and using control of the hammer to maintain their superiority, you can exploit this through in-play betting.
Similarly, a team could be narrowly losing but have just regained the hammer – making them favorites in your eyes.
Curling games can turn on lots of little pieces of strategy, and control of the hammer is a big one. If you are smart and quick, live betting is the best way to exploit this information.
As we mentioned earlier, there are a few different variations of curling including men, women, wheelchairs and mixed. However, the youngest variation is the mixed doubles format, in which two curling teams of one man and one woman competing.
The first World Mixed Doubles Championship took place in 2008, and the sport has been growing slowly but steadily since. 2018 saw the Olympic debut of mixed doubles curling, which in turn brought a sharp increase in both interest and global funding.
A young, fast-growing sport with an injection of cash typically means volatility and unpredictability, which creates value in the betting markets.
The less predictable a sport is, the harder a sports betting site will find it to set their lines. In the short term at least, you could easily find a lot of value if you can identify winning curling teams in doubles curling.
One reason we are so excited about curling betting here at SuperLenny is that we know that the current situation is just the start.
We are predicting big things for betting on curling in the future, as the sport becomes even more popular around the world and new markets and ways to bet are created. This is the perfect time to get in on the ground floor – with a small enough menu of betting options to really get to grips with before expansion arrives.
But more importantly, betting on curling is just really fun. Curling is a really thoughtful, tactical sport. There is plenty to study and analyze, and lots of tactical nuances to understand, which makes it great to bet on.
Try it out yourself today.
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