Chess Betting – Where Can I Make A Bet on a Chess Match?

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As a fan of chess you may follow the International Chess Federation calendar of events. You may follow specific chess players and note a really good match coming up and you consider one player to be far better than the other. Where can you make a bet on a chess match like this?

Betting on Chess is available online and popular in Europe whilst in the US we await legislation to be passed. Whilst legal online sports betting has begun in some states, Chess needs state regulators’ approval. We may be looking at 2021 for chess betting to finally become available.

Join me as I delve deeper into chess betting, what type of bets you can make, where to go to make that wager and some tips on what to look out for.

Online Chess Betting

Thanks to the recent publication and screening of the TV series The Queens Gambit, Chess is seeing a huge surge of interest once again, both off and online.

As a side aspect betting on chess is also seeing growing interest, as the advent of online sports betting in the US continues to grow at a pace.

To make a bet online on a chess match would be just the same as making an unofficial wager with a friend, in that a sportsbook will offer betting odds on the result of the match.

There may be other betting market possibilities, but in each scenario, the sportsbook offers odds that you can buy, and win if your predictions of events within the chess match are correct.

What Type of Bets Can you Make on Chess

The type of bets ade available will depend on the online sportsbook. It will also depend on the type of the event betting is being made available. If it is a tournament, you will b able to bet on the outright winner, as well as each individual match.

The tournament may be a rapid game tournament, in which case you may be able to wager in advance, on which player will win a specific rapid game too. This is not advised as a good wager generally.

Keeping to the simple betting markets is best if you are considering betting on chess.

Win/Lose/Draw

Predicting either player to win, is the most straightforward bet you can make. Like betting a horse to win or a football team to win a match, you are simply predicting which player will be victorious at the end of the match

Double Chance

With the Double Chance bet you can predict a win for either player but also cover the draw. Effectively the bet is predicting one player will not win, and you have both win and draw [hence double chance] predicted for the named player.

Odds will be much lower for this type of wager, but the probability also rises of making a correct prediction.

Method of Victory

It may be possible to bet on the method that an individual game or match will be won. This could be Checkmate or Resignation, with odds being offered on predicting the exact method

First player to make a specific move, or capture an opponent piece

A very risky bet to make but one that could be good if you have specifically studied a particular player and understand how they are most likely to play in any given situation.

You may be offered odds on which player is the first to castle in a game.

What Chess Events Can I Bet On

In 2020 there were more and more chess events made available for betting purposes across Europe, including international and regional events.

World Championships will always be available match by match, and as I write, things like the Airthings Masters and local Norwegian Chess matches are showing as available events.

Where Can I make a Bet on Chess?

Finding an online sportsbook is the first course of action if you want to make a bet on a chess match online.

It is important to ensure you are making bets with a legally licenses sportsbook, if available in your state

Not all states permit online gambling on sport but in 2021, whilst New Jersey, Colorado, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Nevada and more have begun to legally license online sportsbooks, New states like Illinois, Iowa and Tennessee are coming on board.

Expect even more states to legalise and license sportsbooks in the coming months and years and always try to use one of these, rather than an offshore online sportsbook where you have no protection over your money should they disappear or refuse to pay out on a big win.