One of the most exciting sports in the world, rugby has also slowly become one of the most popular to bet on.
Each year, tournaments like the Six Nations, the Rugby Championship, the Champions Cup and Super Rugby take place, as well as domestic leagues of England and France, and the United Rugby Championship, which comprises teams from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy and South Africa.
Every four years (2027, 2031 etc.) the World Cup takes place, as does the British and Irish Lions tour (2025, 2029 etc.) of one of the Southern Hemisphere nations: New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
Interested in joining the millions of rugby fans who have become bettors? Here's everything you need to know, from important events to understanding odds, different kinds of bets, and more.
How to bet on rugby: Complete online betting guide for beginners
Understanding Rugby betting odds
The most important aspect to know in rugby betting is how to understand the odds. Rugby odds are pretty straightforward once you know the two basic terms:
- Result Market
- Handicap betting
These are bookmakers' projections for how a match will turn out, including win, lose or draw and margin of victory.
There are lots of other ways to bet on rugby, which we'll come to, but these are the main basic ones.
MORE: How to read and understand betting odds
Result Market
Rugby results markets are simple: it's a value — usually expressed either as a decimal or a fraction, depending on which type of odds you are reading (check out our full guide to understanding odds here) — assigned to each side in a match. That value represents each side's chances of winning the match, as well as drawing. When bettors wager on the straight-up winner of a match and put money on it, they're betting the win market/result.
If the odds value is 'short' (i.e. lower odds), this typically represents the odds for the favourite, also known as the side that the sportsbooks expect to win. The higher the number, or 'longer' odds, represents the odds for the underdog, or the side less likely to win the match.
Rugby bettors will always win less of a payout on a winning bet with lower odds, and profit more on the payout of a winning bet with higher odds.
We often see lopsided or uneven match-ups in rugby, even in the major tournaments. The win market odds allow bettors to pick straight winners while also enabling sportsbooks to limit their liabilities attached to the overwhelming favourites.
How to read rugby odds
Reading rugby odds is simple. Fractional odds are most commonly used in the U.K. and they’re expressed as a ratio, such as 5/1 (pronounced five to one).
Breaking it down, that means for every £1 you bet, you can win £5 in profit. In this instance, a £10 winning bet on a 5/1 play means you would receive £60, with £10 of that being your original stake.
So, in a rugby context, let's say you have some interest in betting on England over France. If England is listed as a 2/1 favorite, that means you would get 2x your money for every £1 you stake. If the bet wins, you'd also get your original stake back.
If you think France will pull off the upset, you could bet £10 on them at 4/1 and walk away with a £40 profit if they indeed do come through.
Rugby Handicap betting
Another way for oddsmakers to set odds for a rugby match is through the handicap. This is the process by which oddsmakers analyse both sides in a match-up, consider their strengths, weaknesses, and other factors, and assign a 'handicap value' that predicts how many points the favourite will win by.
Betting the handicap swaps out the winner odds for winner by over a set number of points. You can bet on a team to have a virtual advantage by having points added to their overall score, or taken away from it. This is shown by either a plus (+) or minus (–) before the odds on the bookmaker's site.
So, a positive handicap would give one team in a rugby match a virtual advantage, say for example +10 points.
A negative handicap would give one team in a rugby match a virtual disadvantage, for example -10 points.
When the match is completed, the handicap is then added or subtracted by the bookmaker from the actual match score to determine whether your bet has landed or not.
Let's go back to the hypothetical England-France match. England might be listed as available with a -10 points handicap at 11/10.
If England triumph by more than 10 pojnts over France, your bet wins. If England triumphs but the margin of victory is 10 points or less, you lose.
Accumulator betting in rugby
Accumulators have become a very popular way to gamble on rugby in recent years. In short, rugby 'accas' allow bettors to combine multiple bets (legs) in one big bet for a larger potential payout. The odds of winning are longer because all bets in the accumulator must win for the entire bet to cash out even a penny. Thus, the potential reward is greater.
Bettors only need to combine two legs to make an accumulator, but the most popular accas tend to be in the range of 3-5 legs. The more combined wagers bettors add to their bet slip, the greater the risk for the bettor, so therefore the bigger the potential payout.
Sportsbooks typically allow bettors to add between two and 12 matches in accumulators.
How to calculate an accumulator payout
Now that you know the definition of an accumulator, or 'acca', and how you can bet one, let's quickly break down how to calculate an acca bet value.
Once you figure out the odds for each match-up or bet, just divide what the total payout would be by the bet amount and add an initial unit stake of 1.
Let’s imagine a £10 accumulator bet on these match-ups:
England to beat France (4/6)
Ireland to beat Wales (7/5)
Scotland to beat Wales (11/8)
Those odds can be broken down like this:
England: 4/6 means £4 payout for every £6 staked + 1 = 1.67
Ireland: 7/5 means £7 payout for every £5 staked + 1 = 2.4
Scotland: 11/8 means £11 payout for every £8 staked + 1 = 2.38
Each of those three numbers we calculated is your multiplier. Now, just multiply those numbers to get your accumulator odds. 1.67 x 2.62 x 1.83 = 9.53904.
That final number is 9.5, meaning your winnings would work out to be £8.50 for every pound you bet on that particular accumulator. Translation: your £10 bet just turned into a £85 win.
If you hate maths or just don't want to go through the bother of calculating your accumulator odds manually each time, have no fear. Most sportsbooks do the legwork for you, and you can also find a load of independent acca calculators all over the Internet.
Rugby player stat/prop betting
Rugby prop or stat betting has also become wildly popular. Props allow you to bet on a team or player going over or under a statistic, margin of victories, half time results and more.
You can bet over/under team props on all sorts of statistics, including total points, total tries.
In terms of players, you can bet on first try scorers, anytime try scorers, as well as total points scored by a certain player, usually the goal kicker.
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Rugby futures betting
Another fun method of betting on rugby is the futures market, which allows fans to bet on whether or not something will happen in the future. Rugby fans can place futures bets on teams to win future tournaments.
What are some common rugby betting terms?
- Action – Any wager, or any bet you have on any match.
- Bonus – Funds or free bets rewarded or gifted via promotions run by a sportsbook.
- Book/Bookmaker – A sportsbook, AKA an establishment that accepts bets on the outcome of sports events.
- Favourite – "Betting the favourite" is putting money on the projected winner.
- Cover – When the favourite wins by more than the required number of points or when the underdog loses by less than the required number of points (or wins outright).
- Underdog – The team projected to lose, always getting points and usually yielding plus odds.
- Futures – Bets placed on the outcome of something in the future, like an award, a championship, or a scoring title.
- Handicapper – Someone who studies and bets on sporting events.
- Handle – Total amount of bets taken on a sporting event.
- Hold – The percentage amount the sportsbook makes.
- Hedging – Betting the opposite team or side of your original wager to either try to middle the game, or to reduce the downside exposure of the original wager.
- Hook – A half-point, used by sportsbooks to avoid a push (no betting win or loss).
- Laying the Price – To bet the favourite by laying odds.
- Limit – The maximum wager accepted by the sportsbook on a particular loffering.
- Long shot – A team heavily expected to lose.
- Outright bet – A bet on the straight-up winner of a game, underdog or favourite.
- Over/Under (total) bet – A bet that applies to the final score/total points in a given contest.
- Acca/Accumulator – A combination of straight bets to increase the potential payout. All selections must win for the bet to win.
- Price – The odds of a game or wager.
- Prop bet – A wager on a specific event happening or not happening in a game, usually stats. Examples: Will Maro Itoje score a try in the match? Will there be a red card in the match?
- Spread bet – A bet on the forecasted point differential between two teams. A minus (-) indicates the favorite and a plus (+) is the underdog.
Frequently asked questions for how to bet on rugby
What do the plus (+) and minus (-) mean in rugby betting?
The plus (+) and minus (-) in rugby betting refer to either the point spread or betting odds, when using American odds. They are also used to indicate whether a handicap is virtually adding, or subtracting, from a player of duo's overall match score.
Odds
Favourites will often have shorter odds to win the longer a tournament goes on, unless an event is too tight to call, and several players have low odds. Those teams less likely to win will have longer odds.
What is a "unit" in rugby betting?
A unit in sports betting is a measurement of the size of a given bet. It's mainly used because everyone's bankroll is different and a unit refers to the percentage of a bankroll, AKA the amount of money they are using to spend on sports betting. One unit is usually equal to one percent of a bankroll, though it's not the same for everyone.
All rugby bettors — especially new ones — should establish bankrolls. You should always bet within your means and with an amount that you are comfortable or capable of losing.
Here's an example of a unit: If your bankroll is £1,000, one unit would be £10 or 1%. In this situation, if someone puts three units on a wager with a sports betting app, it would be a £30 bet. When someone recommends betting 3-5 units on a wager, they are saying they are quite confident in the win probability of that wager.
What is the 2-5 rule in betting?
Many bankroll management theories exist, so it's up to you to decide which theory or strategy works best for you. The Kelly Criterion, AKA the 2-5 rule, suggests that bettors should never risk more than 2-5 percent of their bankroll per wager.
Example: If you're starting the football season with a £500 bankroll, the 2-5 rule would dictate that your largest bet should be no greater than £25. Your bet size would then decrease as your bankroll does.
What is a good return on investment (ROI) in rugby betting?
Even a professional will say that simply doubling your money on a bet is a positive. Others prefer lower-risk, lower-reward wagers in which they walk away with 10 percent or 20 percent profit. Everyone's different, just like every bankroll is different.