Curling betting odds in 2026: how UK bookmakers price the sport

Updated October 2026

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Curling rarely fills the front of a betting slip, but the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina puts the sport on the screen and on the price boards from February 2026 onwards. The question this page answers is what a curling price actually is — who sets it, what sits inside it, and what it costs a bettor in real money. The picture has three parts: the shape of the sport itself (a short primer, because the markets follow the rules), the UK regulatory frame that decides which bookmakers can even offer a curling price in the first place, and the practical side — the markets that show up, the margin that sits inside the numbers, and the operators that hold a Gambling Commission remote licence and price the sport.

*Current as of 30 October 2026 · verified against the Gambling Commission’s public register and each operator’s own terms.*

The ten UK-licensed bookmakers that price curling

The comparison that follows looks at ten remote bookmakers that hold a Gambling Commission licence and offer curling markets, at least around the World Curling Championships and the Olympic Winter Games. Two things matter at this level of the page. First, a place in this list is not a ranking — every brand here has cleared the same Commission hurdle, and a Commission licence is the floor, not a recommendation. Second, the things that genuinely separate one from another are the conditions each operator attaches to its welcome package, the markets it actually prices, and the depth of its in-play product, and those are what the table and the reviews that follow it are about.

What the table cannot show is the difference between an operator that prices every end of an Olympic tie and one that publishes a single match-winner line. The reviews that follow that comparison close that gap.

BetMGM — broad winter-sports coverage and a four-leg welcome package

BetMGM runs under LeoVegas Gaming PLC, account 39198 on the Commission’s public register, and the site betmgm.co.uk carries a sportsbook that prices curling at the World Championships and at the Olympic Winter Games. The welcome offer for new UK customers who deposit £10 or more and place a sports bet within seven days is four £10 free bets — two football accumulators of four or more selections and two sports multiples of two or more — each valid for seven days, with minimum odds and an opt-in required. That structure says what the package actually is: a free-bet bundle, not a deposit match, and a free bet whose stake is not paid back with a win. For a curling bettor that lands an outright on the Olympics at, say, 12/1, four £10 free bets at that price are worth around £30 in expected value, not £120 in headline return. The rest of the offer — the seven-day window, the minimum-odds threshold, the opt-in — is what shortens that further if the reader does not use them in time.

On the markets themselves, BetMGM prices match winner, set winner, total ends over/under and outright tournament winner at the bigger events, and the in-play product is deep enough to follow a tie end by end. The verdict: suited to a bettor who wants winter-sports depth and is happy to read each free bet’s small print once.

Star Sports — a trader on the phone, and prices that show up where bigger books do not price

Star Sports runs under Star Racing Limited, account 9177, and the brand’s most distinctive feature is also the most old-fashioned in the book: customers can dial 08000 521 321 to open an account, place a bet or ask a question, or write to [email protected]. That trader desk is the reason curling shows up here when other books run an Olympic price and move on — Star Sports prices curling tour events outside the four big championships, and the trader can quote a price on a market the site does not list. It is also the channel for limits: customers with a phone relationship at Star Sports can ask for stake sizes the website would not offer, which matters if a curling outright is the kind of bet one backs seriously.

The trade-off is the welcome package. Star Sports’ headline offer is a small free-bet bundle attached to a first deposit, and the wagering and minimum-odds conditions on those free bets are typical of the segment: free bet stake not returned, minimum price on the qualifying bet, time limit on use. For the bettor whose edge is phone-trader access rather than bonus value, the operator’s value is in the price and the limit, not the offer. The verdict: the right choice for a customer who wants curling prices where the form book is thin and is willing to ring up to get them.

BetTom — a modest welcome offer and a sportsbook built around horse racing

BetTom runs under Bet Tom Limited, account 64959, and the welcome offer is “50% back as a free bet of up to £50”, matched by “50% back up to £50 as free slot funds” for the casino side. The two-track split is worth pausing on: a reader who only wants the sports free bet does not get £100, they get up to £50, and the casino half is a separate product with its own playthrough and game-weighting rules. On the sports side, the offer is a free bet — stake not returned with a win — and the headline figure is the gross refund, not the expected value.

Curling markets at BetTom appear in the build-up to the World Championships and the Olympics; depth outside those windows is limited, and BetTom’s centre of gravity is horse racing rather than winter sports. The verdict: a respectable free-bet offer for an existing BetTom customer who fancies a curling price, but the page’s main takeaway is the matched 50/50 structure, which is not what a sports-only reader will end up using.

Betboro — a free-bet structure that demands three legs

Betboro runs under Webmedia Development N.V., account 44181, and the welcome offer is a 100% matched free bet of up to £25 on the first qualifying wager, with 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) or higher. That is three conditions sitting on top of each other: a deposit method, a stake band, and a minimum-odds condition. The minimum-odds condition is the one that bites first, because three legs at 1.60 each multiply to 4.10/1, and a curling bettor looking for a single match price on Norway-Sweden at the Worlds cannot use the offer at all.

The free bet is the standard type: stake not returned, settled when the qualifying bet settles, paid in the same currency as the deposit. Curling is priced at the World Championships and the Olympics; the value in the offer is the 100% headline figure on a small stake. The verdict: worth a look for a bettor who would have placed a curling three-fold anyway, expensive for a reader who would not.

Lottoland — a hybrid product: lottery, casino, sports, scratchcards

Lottoland runs under EU Lotto Limited, account 38991, and the UK app combines casino, lottery betting, sports betting and scratchcards. For a curling reader, that means the brand is on the Commission’s register as a general betting standard operator, and the sportsbook carries curling on the World Championships and the Olympics. The catch is the comparison: a sports-only specialist at a similar price will be a better fit for a curling bettor than a hybrid app, because the markets in the run-up to a championship are deeper, the in-play offer is broader, and the welcome package is shaped for sportsbook users.

Lottoland’s welcome offer is a free-bet bundle for new sportsbook customers, of the segment’s usual type: free bet stake not returned, minimum odds on the qualifying bet, expiry window. The verdict: a legitimate Commission-licensed bookmaker with curling prices at the right points in the calendar, but a curling reader will find the same prices at deeper books.

BetGoodwin — a £15 free-bet bundle in three £5 parts

BetGoodwin runs under Goodwin Racing Limited, account 2927, and the welcome offer is “Bet £10 & Get £15 in Free Bets”, split into a £5 sports bet, a £5 acca and a £5 Sub-Cover bet. Three free bets of £5 each is a structure the brand has settled on, and the Sub-Cover is the part that needs a glossary: it is a free bet on selected markets where one selection is allowed to lose without sinking the whole bet. For a curling reader, that is useful in a curling team event, where one bad result in the round robin does not knock the bettor out.

The terms on each free bet are the segment’s usual: free bet stake not returned, minimum odds on the qualifying bet, expiry. Curling markets are priced at the World Championships and the Olympics. The verdict: a clean, small free-bet bundle for a bettor who would have placed a curling bet anyway, and the Sub-Cover part is the part that earns the offer its keep.

Betfair Sportsbook — a deep book with exchange DNA

Betfair Sportsbook runs under PPB Counterparty Services Limited, account 39439, and the product is the fixed-odds book that sits alongside the better-known Betfair Exchange. The app offers in-play betting, Bet Builder, free live streaming on UK and Irish horse racing and football, and a 90 Minute Payout market on football. The Bet Builder feature is the headline product on football and the bigger sports; for curling, Betfair Sportsbook prices match markets and outright during the World Championships and the Olympics, and the in-play product is end by end.

The welcome offer for new sportsbook customers is a free-bet bundle, the segment’s usual type. The verdict: the right choice for a bettor who already uses Betfair Exchange and wants the book for curling prices outside the exchange’s selected events, or for a reader who wants the Bet Builder and free live streaming for other sports at the same account.

Fitzdares — a premium book with antepost and specials

Fitzdares runs under Fitzdares Limited, account 400, and the app offers cash out, accumulators, Lucky 15s, specials and antepost markets on horse racing, football, tennis, rugby, cricket, golf and American football, with in-play live odds. Curling is listed among the winter sports the book prices, with outright tournament and individual game prices during the major championships. The brand’s centre of gravity is horse racing — antepost, specials, and a customer base used to betting in larger unit stakes — and a curling outright fits that pattern: one price, a long horizon, a stake that does not need to be a tenner.

The welcome offer is a free-bet bundle. The verdict: the right book for a bettor who already has a Fitzdares account for horse racing and wants a curling price for a season-long outright.

QuinnBet — best odds guaranteed on the horses, curling on the side

QuinnBet runs under QuinnBet (Gibraltar) Limited, account 61011, and the operator’s headline product on horse racing is Best Odds Guaranteed, which applies to Irish and UK horse racing bets from 10:00am daily on singles, multiples and system bets, with a maximum benefit of £150 per customer per race. Curling markets are priced at the World Championships and the Olympics; the in-play product is end by end. The welcome offer is a free-bet bundle, the segment’s usual type.

The verdict: the right book for a bettor whose main interest is horse racing and who would like a curling price for the season, not the right book for a reader whose only interest is curling.

Bet Ahoy — a thin sportsbook that prices the big championships

Bet Ahoy runs under Bet Ahoy Ltd, account 100094, and the welcome offer is “Bet £10 & Get £10 in Free Bets”, made up of a £5 sports bet and a £5 acca. The brand is the smallest in this comparison by handle, and the sportsbook’s depth is thin outside the bigger UK sports. Curling is priced at the major championships; market depth varies by event, and a curling outright is the kind of bet the book is most likely to list during the run-up to the Worlds or the Olympics. The verdict: a £10-in-£10-out free bet is the kind of offer that suits a bettor who would have placed a small curling bet anyway, and not much more.

What “curling betting odds” actually means

Curling is a sport of stones on a sheet of ice, played in ends rather than sets, and that structure decides the shape of the market. A team has four players — two in mixed doubles — and each player throws two of the team’s eight stones, so a single end involves sixteen stones in total. After all sixteen are thrown, the team with the stone closest to the button (the centre of the target circles, called the house) scores one point for each of its stones that is closer to the button than the opponent’s nearest stone; only stones inside the house count. That is the scoring: per stone, per end, never a unit. Ties after the regulation distance go to extra ends, and the hammer — the last stone of an end, which is the one an end is built around — goes to the team that did not score in the previous end; if an end is blanked (no score, with the hammer deliberately taken out), the hammer stays with the same team.

The betting market takes that structure and offers it back as a set of lines. Match winner is the simplest: who wins the game. Total ends over/under asks whether the game finishes in fewer or more than the bookmaker’s stated end count, which matters because curling games usually last 8 or 10 ends, with international competitive games generally 10 ends. Outright tournament winner is the price on who wins the World Curling Championships, the Olympic gold, or the European title. Set winner appears at the bigger books, alongside a price on whether a specific end will be blanked, and at the very biggest books a price on which team holds the hammer at the start of a chosen end. The deeper the book, the more the markets split the game into its parts.

A consequence: the markets on a single game are thin, and the price on outright tournament winner is the price a bookmaker has to carry for the longest. That, more than anything else, is what shapes the margin on curling prices.

How the rules shape the price

Three rules shape the price the bookmaker posts. First, the hammer. A team with the hammer in the last end needs only one point to win; a team without it needs to either steal the end or blank it and keep the hammer. That gives the team without the hammer an incentive to blank, and a price on a blanked end reflects that. Second, the blanked end. An end with no score is a deliberate outcome, used to keep the hammer for the next end, and the bookmaker prices the chance of a blank in the last end of a regulation game as a separate market. Third, the extra end. Tied games go to extra ends, and the price on a tie after regulation reflects both the skill of the top teams and the structure of the game, where the team with the hammer in an extra end has the advantage.

Those three rules are why a curling match market is not just a winner market with a 1.90 / 1.90 line; the price on each team reflects the end-by-end structure, the hammer, and the chance of an extra end, and a bookmaker’s margin sits on top of all of that.

Curling as a betting market: where the prices come from

Curling became an official Olympic medal sport at the 1998 Winter Olympics, and mixed doubles was first held at the Olympics in 2018. The World Curling Championships have run since the late 1950s, and the men’s, women’s, mixed doubles and senior championships form the bulk of the year’s competitive calendar. Outside the Olympics and the World Championships, the World Curling Tour runs a series of events through the autumn and winter, and the European Curling Championships run in November and December.

The market for curling prices in the UK tracks those events. Match-winner and outright prices on the Olympics and the World Championships are standard at every bookmaker in this comparison; markets on the European Championships and the World Curling Tour are thinner, and only the bigger books price them. The consequence: a curling bettor’s calendar is not the year-round calendar of football or horse racing. It is two windows — the European Championships in late November and December, the World Championships in the spring, and the Olympic Winter Games every four years — and the price boards reflect that.

A further consequence: the bigger books (Betfair, BetMGM, Fitzdares, QuinnBet) carry the most curling markets because the events drive the most handle. The smaller books (Bet Ahoy, BetTom) carry the markets only at the bigger events. A curling bettor who wants a year-round price will use one of the bigger books; a curling bettor who wants a price on the Olympics will find a price at most of the books in this comparison.

The legal frame for a UK curling bettor

A bookmaker serving customers in Great Britain needs a Gambling Commission licence wherever it is based. The Commission’s public register is the whole test of who holds one, and every operator named in the comparison above is on that register against a remote general betting standard (real events) licence, which is the category that covers curling. 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; a Curaçao, Maltese or Gibraltar licence is not a substitute, and Gibraltar-based operators in this comparison (QuinnBet, Unibet elsewhere in the Commission’s portfolio) hold their GB licence as a separate Commission account on top of their home jurisdiction. No statutory list of permitted bets or markets exists: an operator holds a licence for a category and offers markets under its own rules and the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP).

Betting exchanges run under a betting intermediary licence, which is a separate category. Spread betting is split: financial spread betting is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and other spread betting (including on sport) sits inside General Betting Duty. The minimum age is 18, and name, address and date of birth are verified before a customer can deposit or gamble — since 7 May 2019, including with a free bet or bonus. There is no state monopoly and no cap on the number of licences.

A consequence: a curling bettor in Great Britain who picks a Commission-licensed bookmaker from the comparison above is in the regulated market. The operator has cleared identity, age, source-of-funds and affordability checks, and the offer is governed by the LCCP and the 10x wagering cap on bonuses that came in on 19 January 2026. The bet is not anonymous, and the offer is not unrestricted, and that is the point of the frame: a price the bookmaker cannot easily walk away from once it is on the board.

What the licence does and does not guarantee

The licence guarantees a Commission-licensed bookmaker has met the LCCP’s social responsibility code, runs a financial vulnerability check (LCCP condition 3.4.4, in force since 30 August 2024) when a customer’s deposits minus withdrawals exceed £150 in a rolling 30 days (since 28 February 2025), and is signed up to GAMSTOP. It does not guarantee a curling price on a given event, the size of the margin on a curling market, or the depth of the in-play product; those are the operator’s commercial decisions. The credit-card ban (in force since 14 April 2020) means a curling bettor cannot use a credit card for the deposit; a debit card or a bank transfer is the standard route. The “whistle-to-whistle” rule (since 1 August 2019) keeps live betting advertising off UK television around the watershed, but does not restrict the markets on a curling tie.

A further consequence: a licence is the floor, and the price and the offer sit on top. A Commission-licensed bookmaker can still price a curling match with a wide margin, still offer a free-bet bundle with a 9x or 10x wagering factor, and still exclude a customer who wins too often. The licence sets the conduct; the bettor still has to read the price and the small print.

What a curling price actually costs: the margin inside the number

A bookmaker’s margin is the cut it keeps of every unit bet on a market. It is the difference between what the bettor pays in and what would be paid out in a fair market, and it is the same number as the “overround” or the “book” on a market. The way it shows up is that the prices on every outcome of a market sum to more than 100% of the implied probability — and the gap between the sum and 100% is the margin.

The arithmetic is the same on every market. On a two-way market with decimal odds 1.90 and 1.90, the implied probability of each outcome is 1 ÷ 1.90 = 52.63%, and the sum across the two outcomes is 105.26%. The payout share — the share of every unit bet that would be returned in a fair market — is 1 ÷ 105.26% = 95.0%, and the margin is 100% − 95.0% = 5.0%. That is the cut the bookmaker keeps on a market priced at 1.90 / 1.90: 5 pence in every pound bet. The same odds on a one-sided market — a heavy favourite at 1.20 and an outsider at 5.50 — produce a different sum of implied probabilities and a different margin, and a three-way market (the 1X2 of football, or a curling match with the draw as a separate selection at the bigger books) carries a wider margin than a two-way market at the same prices.

The page’s example is illustrative: a two-way market at decimal odds 1.90 / 1.90 is a typical curling match-winner line at the bigger books, and the margin of around 5% is in the band a bookmaker’s sportsbook holds on a major-event market. Real curling prices carry a wider margin on a smaller event, a narrower margin on the World Championships and the Olympics where the handle is bigger, and the in-play price is a separate margin again. The reader who wants the real number on a real event should check the price on each outcome of the market on the operator’s site, divide 1 by each decimal price, sum the reciprocals, and subtract the result from 1. That is the margin on that market, at that moment, and it is the only number that tells the bettor what the bookmaker is keeping.

What a 5% margin means in real money

A 5% margin on a curling market is the same cut the bookmaker takes on a Premier League match market, and it is the same number, expressed differently, as a payout share of 95% on the same market. It is what separates a sharp book from a soft book: a sharp book at 5% on the World Championships, a soft book at 8% on a regional event. The consequence for a curling bettor: the price on the bigger events is the price to use, and the price on the smaller events is the price to read carefully, because the margin is wider and the bookmaker’s edge is bigger.

A free bet’s expected value is the same number, scaled. A £10 free bet at decimal odds 6.00 on a market with a 95% payout share is worth 10 × (6.00 − 1) ÷ 6.00 × 95% = 7.92p for every pound of free bet, or around £7.92 in expected value — and that is the number the headline “£10 free bet” actually means in expected return, not £60 in headline payout. A bettor who treats the headline as the expected return is treating marketing as analysis, and that is the wrong direction.

Markets on a curling tie: what each one means

A bookmaker that prices curling at the World Championships or the Olympics offers a standard set of markets. The shape of the set is the shape of the sport.

Match winner and outright tournament winner

Match winner is the simplest market: a price on each team, settled on the final score after the regulation ends, with extra ends counting. The price reflects the team sheet, the hammer in the first end, the recent form, and the surface. Outright tournament winner is the price on who wins the championship: pre-tournament (where the field is the full draw, the prices are long, and the margin is wide) and in-running (where the price shortens on a team in form, the field narrows, and the margin is the same shape at a different point in the cycle).

Total ends over/under

Total ends over/under is a market on whether the game finishes in more or fewer ends than the bookmaker’s stated line. The line is typically 9.5 for a 10-end game, so an over-10 bet wins if the game goes to an extra end or finishes blank. The market is shaped by the blanked end, the extra end, and the possibility of a mercy rule (a team conceding when the score is too far apart), which is rare at the top of the game but does happen.

Set winner and end-specific markets

Set winner at the bigger books is a price on which team wins a specific end: the first end, the last regulation end, or a stated end in the middle. End-specific markets at the deepest books include a price on which team holds the hammer at the start of a chosen end and a price on whether an end will be blanked. Those markets are shaped by the strategy of the team with the hammer — the team with the hammer in the last end of a close game will guard a one-point lead rather than risk losing the hammer, and a price on a blanked last end reflects that.

Bet Builder, accumulators and outright multiples

Bet Builder at the bigger books combines markets from one event into a single bet, and at the deepest books a curling Bet Builder combines match winner, total ends and a stated end’s outcome into one price. Accumulator pricing on curling is rare at the bigger books because the field is small, and outright multiples (a curling outright combined with a football outright into a double) are offered at the wider sportsbooks. The margin on a curling Bet Builder is wider than the margin on a curling match winner at the same book, because the Bet Builder’s individual markets each carry their own margin and the combined margin is the sum.

The responsible-gambling frame for a curling bettor

A bookmaker on the Commission’s public register takes part in GAMSTOP, the national multi-operator online self-exclusion scheme, and GAMSTOP is a mandatory licence condition for online operators since 31 March 2020. The exclusion periods are six months, one year, five years, or five years with auto-renewal, and after the minimum period the exclusion stays in place for a further seven years unless the customer asks GAMSTOP to remove it. A curling bettor who wants to stop betting on curling — or on anything — registers with GAMSTOP once, and the exclusion covers every Commission-licensed online bookmaker and casino.

A second safeguard is the deposit limit. Operators must offer a gross deposit limit on a fixed time frame; the first changes applied on 31 October 2025, a second phase is announced for 30 September 2026, and the limit is the customer’s choice rather than a state-set ceiling. The Commission’s financial vulnerability check (LCCP condition 3.4.4, in force since 30 August 2024) applies to licensed remote betting when a customer’s deposits minus withdrawals exceed £150 in a rolling 30 days (since 28 February 2025); it is a public-record check (for example bankruptcy or county court judgments), not an income check, and not a credit reference check. A further round of financial risk assessments is announced in a staged plan (a Commission article of 7 July 2026), with no start date.

A third route is the help available outside the bookmaker. GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline, GambleAware funds treatment and research, the NHS runs gambling clinics, and Gamblers Anonymous runs peer support. A curling bettor who feels the sport is the route into a problem has those four routes open; a curling bettor who does not want to bet at all has the GAMSTOP route and the deposit limit.

A consequence: a Commission-licensed bookmaker is the safer book by design, and the safeguards are a Commission-licensed bookmaker’s price for the licence. The bettor pays for that with identity verification, a deposit limit the customer sets, and a vulnerability check at a stated spend threshold. The bettor gets in return a bookmaker that cannot easily withhold winnings, a GAMSTOP route out of the market, and a Commission complaints route if a dispute goes wrong.

How to check that a bookmaker holds a Gambling Commission licence

A bookmaker on the Commission’s public register is the whole test of a GB-licensed operator. The register can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number, and the entry for each operator lists the licence holder, the licence type, the licence status, and the date the licence was issued. Every brand in the comparison above is on the register, and the licence numbers in the comparison are the numbers the reader enters to confirm the licence. Domains are not the test: licensed operators use .com as well as .co.uk, so a .com does not mean unlicensed and a .co.uk does not mean licensed.

A consequence: a curling bettor who is unsure about a brand can run the check in two minutes, and the check is the only protection against the unlicensed site that takes a deposit and never pays out. The bettor who bets on an unlicensed site loses the GAMSTOP route, the Commission complaints route, the 10x bonus cap, the £150 vulnerability check, and the British consumer redress if funds are withheld. None of that means the bet is illegal in the sense of being an offence the customer commits; the offence under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 sits with the operator, not the customer. It does mean the bet is unprotected.

How a bookmaker builds the price on a curling match

A bookmaker’s price on a curling match is the output of three things: the bookmaker’s view of the probability of each outcome, the margin the bookmaker wants to keep, and the handle the bookmaker expects. The probability is the trader read of the form, the team sheet, the hammer, the surface, and the recent results. The margin is the cut the bookmaker wants to keep on the market — wider on a small event, narrower on a big one, and wider on a one-sided match than on a close one. The handle is the volume the bookmaker expects, and the bigger the handle the narrower the margin the bookmaker can afford to run.

The consequence is a price the bookmaker can move. A bet on Norway in the men’s final shortens the price on Norway and lengthens the price on Sweden, and the bookmaker’s margin stays the same. A bet on a smaller event with less handle moves the price further, and the bookmaker’s margin can widen if the book is unbalanced. A bettor who watches a curling price move knows whether the book is sharp or soft, and the move is the bookmaker’s verdict on the bet.

A second consequence: a price on a curling market is the bookmaker’s read of the probability, plus the margin. The bettor who reads the price as a probability is reading marketing as analysis, and the margin is the gap between the read and the real.

The arithmetic the page’s worked example turns on

The page’s worked example is a two-way market at decimal odds 1.90 / 1.90. The implied probability of each outcome is 1 ÷ 1.90 = 52.63%, and the sum of the implied probabilities is 105.26%. The payout share is 1 ÷ 105.26% = 95.0%, and the margin is 100% − 95.0% = 5.0%. The result is a band: 5% on a market of this shape, with a wider margin on a smaller event and a narrower margin on a bigger one, and the same arithmetic gives a different result on a one-sided market and a different one again on a three-way market.

The point of the worked example is not the number 5%. The point is the method: divide 1 by each decimal price, sum the reciprocals, and subtract the result from 1. That method works on every two-way market in the bookmaker’s price board, and it is the only way to read the margin the bookmaker is keeping. The price is the marketing; the margin is the reality.

How fractional odds convert to decimal odds

A curling bettor who reads a bookmaker’s site in fractional form and the comparison’s table in decimal form needs the conversion. A fractional price a/b means a profit of a for a stake of b, and the decimal price is a ÷ b + 1. So 5/1 is 5 ÷ 1 + 1 = 6.00, 11/4 is 11 ÷ 4 + 1 = 3.75, and 9/10 (the example used above) is 9 ÷ 10 + 1 = 1.90. The bookmaker’s site has a setting that toggles the price between fractional and decimal; the conversion is the same either way.

The consequence is that the price on the slip and the price in the table are the same number, and the margin calculation is the same calculation. A 5/1 shot on a curling tournament is a 6.00 decimal shot, and a market of 6.00 / 6.00 carries a margin of 1 ÷ (1/6.00 + 1/6.00) − 1 = 1 ÷ 33.33% − 1 = 200% − 1 = 100% overround, which is a 33.33% margin. A 9/10 shot on a two-way match at 9/10 each is a 1.90 decimal shot, and the margin is the 5% the page’s example turns on. The reader who learns the conversion reads every bookmaker’s price in one form, and the margin is the same number in either form.

What the reader checks before placing a curling bet

Three things to check, in order, before placing a curling bet at any of the bookmakers in this comparison. First, the licence. The Commission’s public register is two minutes’ work, and the licence number is in the table above. Second, the price. The decimal price, the implied probability, and the margin. The conversion is one sum, the margin is one subtraction, and the result is the cut the bookmaker is keeping. Third, the offer. A free bet is a free bet, and a free bet’s expected value is the free-bet amount times (odds − 1) divided by odds times the payout share of the market. The headline figure is the gross refund; the expected value is the number to use.

A consequence: the three checks together take five minutes, and the bettor who does them every time is the bettor who reads the page rather than the marketing. The bookmakers in the comparison are all Commission-licensed, all price curling at the bigger events, and all run a free-bet welcome offer of the segment’s usual type. The differences are in the conditions on those offers, the depth of the in-play product, and the margin on the curling market. The page is the comparison; the checks are the decision.

Frequently asked questions

How do you bet on curling?

Betting on curling in Great Britain means opening an account with a Gambling Commission-licensed bookmaker, depositing by debit card or bank transfer (credit cards are banned for gambling), passing the identity and age check, and selecting a curling market at the World Championships, the European Championships, the World Curling Tour events, or the Olympic Winter Games. The standard markets are match winner, total ends over/under, outright tournament winner, and at the deeper books set winner and end-specific markets. Each bet is settled at the conclusion of the event under the operator’s settlement rules.

Can you bet on curling?

Yes. Curling has been an official Olympic medal sport since the 1998 Winter Olympics, and the World Curling Championships, the European Championships and the World Curling Tour all carry match and outright markets at the bigger UK-licensed bookmakers. The market is thinner than football or tennis outside the bigger events, and a bookmaker’s price on a regional event may not be available, but the sport is offered by every brand in this comparison around the four big championships.

How can you check that a bookmaker holds a Gambling Commission licence?

The Commission’s public register can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number, and the register’s entry for each operator lists the licence holder, the licence type, the licence status, and the date the licence was issued. The licence number printed in this comparison is the number to enter, and the licence type the entry should show is remote general betting standard (real events). A registered book is the whole test; a domain is not.

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

Return is stake × decimal odds, and net profit is stake × (decimal odds − 1). A £10 bet at decimal odds 6.00 returns £60, of which £50 is profit. For a combination bet the odds of the legs multiply into one price, and a £10 accumulator of three legs at 2.00, 3.00 and 4.00 has a combined price of 24.00, a return of £240, and a profit of £230. The arithmetic is the same on every market, single or combined, and the bookmaker’s margin sits inside the price before the bet is struck.

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

The bookmaker’s margin is the cut it keeps of every unit bet on a market. The way it shows up is that the implied probabilities of every outcome (1 divided by the decimal price on each) sum to more than 100%, and the margin is the sum minus 100%. On a two-way market at decimal odds 1.90 / 1.90 the sum of the implied probabilities is 105.26% and the margin is 5.0%. The method works on every market in the bookmaker’s price board, and the margin is the only number that tells the bettor what the bookmaker is keeping.

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

A fractional price a/b means a profit of a for a stake of b, and the decimal price is a ÷ b + 1. So 5/1 is 5 ÷ 1 + 1 = 6.00, 11/4 is 11 ÷ 4 + 1 = 3.75, and evens (1/1) is 1.00 + 1 = 2.00. The bookmaker’s site has a setting that toggles between fractional and decimal, and the conversion is the same either way; the margin calculation is the same calculation in either form.

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