Betting on Chess

While most people are familiar with the idea of people betting on chess games in parks around the world, few think of chess as something they might gamble on in the way one bets on professional sports. Surprisingly, though, there is actually a market for such bets, especially when it comes to major competitions.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say only when it comes to major competitions. Unlike soccer, baseball, or American football, you can't bet on every game being played anywhere in the world.

Chess betting is definitely a niche market at best, so bookmakers aren't looking to let individuals place big bets on every national championship or major open tournaments. Instead, chess betting regularly pops up for the Chess World Championship, and then occasionally for other major invitational events, the World Cup, or matches that capture the public's interest (such as the Garry Kasparov vs. Deep Blue matches).

Despite these limitations, betting on chess still manages to get plenty of attention when these big events are going on. You'll find that online sports betting sites will have chess sections with odds on each game, and sometimes even prop bets such as which piece will be captured first or when the first check will take place. Experts will even offer advice on how to bet on major matches and tournaments.

If you'd be interested in placing a bet on a major chess event, and you live in a jurisdiction where sports betting is legal, you might be able to find a few bookmakers offering odds on an upcoming tournament or match.

Here's a quick guide to how you can bet on such events.

Reading Chess Betting Odds

There are three major systems for displaying sports betting odds (and several minor ones), including US odds - which are popular in America - and fractional odds, which are mainly used in the UK. For this article, however, I'll be talking about odds in decimal form, as this is the format that is used primarily in Europe, Canada and Australia, and are also fairly easy to understand and generally recognized by those familiar with sports betting in the US and UK as well.

In decimal odds, you'll be told how much you can win as a ratio of the payout to the initial stake. For instance, if you bet $10 on a bet with odds of 2.50, you'll be paid $25 should you win. However, remember that this includes your original $10 bet, meaning that you've only profited by $15. Decimal odds never go below 1.00 (or realistically, 1.01, as there's no reason to bet if you can't possibly win anything), and 2.00 represents an even money bet.

When betting on a match or tournament, you'll normally be wagering on who will ultimately win the event. The odds in a match will be listed in a format similar to the following:

Bobby Fischer: 1.50
Wilhelm Steinitz: 3.00

In this case, Fischer is the favorite, and Steinitz is the underdog. If you're betting on a tournament with many players, you may instead see betting options such as the following:

Bobby Fischer: 3.00
Magnus Carlsen: 5.00
Garry Kasparov: 5.00
Alexander Alekhine: 8.00
Field: 20.00

That final bet, "Field," would cover all other players participating in the tournament. This is usually done to group together many players who are unlikely to win (or unlikely to attract many bets) to make them a more attractive option, since if any of them win, the field bet will pay out.

Once a match or tournament is in play, other betting options may be offered. Most notably, you may now be able to bet on the results of individual games. These bets are usually offered with three-way betting, meaning that you can bet on either player to win or for the game to end in a draw. The first player listed is usually playing with the white pieces, and the odds may look something like this:

Jose Raul Capablanca: 4.00
Draw: 1.70
Anatoly Karpov: 6.50

In elite competitions, a draw is usually the most likely outcome (and thus offers the lowest odds), while - assuming that the players are evenly matched - the player with the white pieces will be considered more likely to win than the second player.

Basic Chess Betting Advice

If you want to bet on chess, realize that these bets aren't offered year round, so this isn't exactly something you'll want to try to make a living at. In addition, since the bookmakers also know that they're not really experts on setting chess odds, the amounts they'll be willing to let you bet will also be limited, so it's best to just look at chess betting as something to do to add a little personal investment to a major chess event.

As far as who to bet on, that will come down to the odds being offered and the players involved. Keep in mind that in a long match between two players, a significantly stronger player may really be a massive favorite, even if they are only slightly favored in each individual game. Speaking of individual games, you may want to take the match or tournament situation into account when making bets; after all, there are situations towards the end of a match (and to a lesser extent, in tournaments) where a player in the lead may be very likely to take draws rather than take even a small risk of losing a game.