Rugby has some of the most loyal and passionate sports fans. The first official rules of the game came from the Rugby School where William Webb Ellis first picked up a football and ran with it in “fine disregard for the rules.”
The action starts with choosing the right rugby betting sites. There is no shortage of rugby bookmakers who will gladly accept your wagers, but we urge caution because not all rugby betting websites are alike.
Below is a list of rugby sportsbooks that cover both League and Union matchups from around the world.
Best Rugby Betting Sites
Even more important, these are all safe places to bet on Rugby. All rugby betting listed here have been in business for a long time (most since the 90’s) and have a well-established history of treating punters fairly.
Rugby League and Union Betting
Rugby is categorized into two distinct disciplines: Rugby Union and Rugby League. Although the fundamentals of the games remain the same, the rules and regulations for each are unique.
Rugby League (NRL) is most popular in Australia and the northern cities of England. The National Rugby League in Australia is very popular in the country and culminates in a Grand Final which is considered a major sporting event. There is also the Europe Super League, featuring teams from England, Wales and France. This one was founded in the 1990’s and responsible for a noticeable increase in the popularity of the game. Internationally, there is also the Rugby League World Cup.
Rugby Union (RFU) has a number of domestic league and cup competitions in several countries. At international level, Test Rugby is considered among the most prestigious matches in the sport and there is also a Rugby Union World Cup. Every year England, Scotland, Wales, France, Ireland and Italy compete in the Six Nations tournament.
Betting on Rugby Online
After you choose a rugby betting site, sign up for an account and make a deposit to get started. You’ll find an assortment of wagers for both Union and League games. You can bet on who will win a match, who will win a major tournament or league championship, which player will score the most points, the number of tries, and more.
A good starting point for anyone new to betting on rugby online is the match bet, predicting who will win a match. The main thing to keep in mind when wagering on rugby matches is that the bookmaker wants to get an equal number of wagers on each side of every matchup. That way, the bookmakers takes no personal risk. When both sides of a wager have action, the bookmaker can pay the winners with wagers collected from the losers.
Rugby betting sites accomplish this by handicapping one side or the other with a moneyline wager. In some cases, the team that is perceived to be the underdog (less likely to win) is given odds that warrant higher payouts for people who back that team. The team that is perceived to be the favorite (more likely to win) is given odds that warrant lower payouts.
An alternative handicapping method is the point spread. If a point spread is in effect, the underdog is given points. For example, a spread of +1.5 means that your wager on that team would win if they either win the match outright or lose by fewer than 2 points. A spread of -1.5 would mean that your wager only wins if that team wins the match by 2 points or more.
If you’re unable to identify value in either side of a match, you can always consider the total bet. Before the match, rugby betting sites will offer a line for the total number of points to be scored in the match. Your bet is a simple prediction of whether the actual number of points scored in the match will be greater than or less than that number.
Prop bets and specials cover everything else not related to picking the winner. These are especially popular among high profile matches in which the rugby bookmaker anticipates a lot of action. Examples of rugby prop bets would be wagering on the first scorer, last scorer, highest scorer, number of tries and so on.
Major Rugby Betting Events and Competitions
Betting on the Rugby World Cup – The Rugby World Cup has been played every four years since the first tournament was held in 1987. The format has changed a few times over the years and the tournament currently features 20 twenty teams that are divided into four groups of five. In the group stages, each team plays the other teams in its group once. The winner of each group and the runner up both progress through to the knockout stages. The two winning semi-finalists progress through to the final, while the losing semi-finalists get to compete in a third place play-off.
The Rugby World Cup has been dominated by teams from the southern hemisphere, notably New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. In fact, the only other team to have won the tournament is England, who won it in 2003 in the most dramatic of fashions when Jonny Wilkinson kicked a last minute drop goal to win the competition. Jonny Wilkinson also holds the record for the most points scored in the knockout stages, while Grant Fox of New Zealand has the record for the most points scored in the whole competition.
The Rugby World Cup has been dominated by teams from the southern hemisphere, notably New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. In fact, the only other team to have won the tournament is England, who won it in 2003 in the most dramatic of fashions when Jonny Wilkinson kicked a last minute drop goal to win the competition. Jonny Wilkinson also holds the record for the most points scored in the knockout stages, while Grant Fox of New Zealand has the record for the most points scored in the whole competition.
Getting Started
With two distinctly separate disciplines and a variety of different club and international competitions, rugby can be a bit daunting for novice bettors. The best strategy to get started is to limit yourself to a specific league or two with which you’re already familiar. This way, you can put your knowledge to use and make intelligent wagers rather than emotional or hopeful wagers.
The single biggest piece of advice I can give you is to start small and pick your spots carefully. If you limit yourself to only gambling on rugby games you know and when you can spot a legitimate value play, you’ll start off on a positive note.
Finally, remember that the goal isn’t to pick the winner of the match every time. If that was the case, nobody would ever bet on the underdog. The goal is to find value. That means finding rugby betting odds that don’t match reality. Bookmakers tend to be sharp on the high profile matchups, but you can find nice spots in the smaller matches that don’t generate as much attention. This is where it pays off to be very familiar with one league rather than to have passing familiarity with a bunch of leagues.
If sports betting isn’t your think or it isn’t legal where you live, fantasy rugby serves as a nice alternative. With fantasy rugby, you can draft a team of athletes from around the world to build your ultimate lineup and then compete against the teams assembled by other players for real money payouts.
Wes Burns has more than a decade’s worth of experience as a writer, researcher, and analyst in the legal online betting industry and is co-founder of OnlineBettingSites.com. Wes approaches his work from the viewpoint of players.