WRC
Motorsports are hugely popular among bettors. WRC (World Rally Championship) is one of the biggest forms of motorsports in the world, though it’s considered a niche sport by many. WRC has millions of fans who watch the races, and no shortage of bettors who won’t shy away from wagering on their favorite drivers via different options, including point spreads.
If you’re a newcomer to WRC or rally in general, betting might seem tricky. Still, it’s not difficult to learn the basics, mainly since there aren’t many betting markets available.
Bookmakers generally offer as many betting markets on rally races as possible. It ends simply, however. Drivers sit in their cars, trying to complete the track as fast as possible. As such, there are only a handful of possible bets.
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WRC Betting Odds & Examples
PICKING THE WINNER
Picking the winner is the most common and simplest wager. As it would suggest, it’s a bet on the winner. There’s nothing more to it.
BET ON THE WINNER
An alternative way to bet on the winner is a wager on the winner of a sector. A rally race is divided into portions, similar to skiing, meaning you can bet on any driver to win a particular leg.
Note that the race winner isn’t someone who completes one part the fastest, rather the driver that finishes the entire course with the fastest time. Even though one driver can finish most of the part with the quickest time, that doesn’t guarantee him a victory.
OUTRIGHT BET
The third bet you can place on a rally is an outright bet on a driver to win the WRC championship. As with the first two, this is very simple and familiar to anyone who has previously bet on sports. It’s a typical outright bet on which driver does the best over the course of the season.
PROPOSITION BETS
Besides the aforementioned bets, bookmakers will also offer special proposition bets for each race in a bid to expand the menu. Prop bets can realistically include anything imaginable, and can be as exotic and unusual as determined by the bookie.
You can bet on whether there’s a crash involved, type of puncture, a crash-ending (or not) race by a driver or other wager. Besides the more exotic props, there are wagers that are very similar to point–spread betting.
POINT SPREADS BETS
It’s tough to find a bookie offering point spreads on a rally, since this is not a bet type that is very common in motorsports in general. Still, more adventurous bookies might include some variations of point spreads with proposition bets.
If you’re wondering what point spread bets cover, the answer is very simple. Point spreads can be associated with anything in the race that can be measured with numbers. As such, the most common point spread bet in WRC will be associated with the driver’s race time.
For example, a bookie can offer point-spread (time) betting markets on a head-to-head market, allowing you to predict how much faster one driver completes the race as compared to another driver. Since the only figure in rally is time, the spreads will be in minutes or seconds.
How to bet on WRC​
Many different factors come into play when you want to bet on WRC, and while having a good knowledge of the sport and the drivers is important, it’s not the most crucial thing. Instead, you have to have a solid strategy and approach WRC betting the right way from the start.
- It all begins with selecting a good bookmaker that will not only accept your bets but also provide you with quality odds and deep enough betting markets to allow you to bet on whatever you want. After you find a bookmaker that meets the criteria, you’re set to make your first bet.
- To do so, you need to select the track you want to bet on. Each WRC season has over a dozen events, and each event can last up to three days. Moreover, these events are spread all over the world, so you can expect each track to be different.
- With that in mind, you have to do the needed research on which driver does well on certain surfaces and in certain events, as only this way you can then decide who to bet on. You also need to consider the driver’s past form and how well he does on certain surfaces.
- But if you’re unsure which driver will win, there are always proposition bets available, which you can use to predict instead whether something will happen in the race or not, rather than the final result.
- But beyond all, you need to have a good strategy and, most importantly, manage your bankroll. You need to know how will you approach betting on WRC, how much money you’re willing to risk, and have a budget with which you will work.
Tips, Tricks And Advice For WRC Betting
No matter whether you’re betting with point spreads or the traditional bet types on rally, there are a few things you need to know. However, most apply for all other sports, so experienced bettors should be well aware of the factors, but let’s take a look at three key tips and tricks for betting specifically on WRC.
The Type Of Track
Unlike Formula 1 or NASCAR, where the drivers will drive in similar conditions in each race, rally is the complete opposite. There are no purposely-built tracks for rally drivers to compete. Instead, rally races take place on off-road tracks, which can feature snow, sand, gravel and anything in between.
Each of the rally races that take place is unique due to its conditions. For example, winning a Rally Sweden requires an entirely different skill set than what’s needed to win a Safari Rally Kenya or Rally Japan.
Scandinavian rally drivers are historically the most successful in Scandinavian rally races since these races are always covered in snow. A Finnish or Swedish rally driver knows his way around snowy terrain much better than a Spanish rally driver.
Conversely, a Finnish driver won’t be as comfortable driving in the Safari rally, where the snow gets replaced with sand, again providing entirely different conditions.
Knowing what type of considerations a certain rally race will have and which drivers usually do well on that surface is essential if you want to be successful betting on WRC.
Driver’s Form
Driver’s form is crucial to consider before deciding on whom to bet. Even if a particular driver is known to do well on the next track, perhaps avoid betting on him if he has not been performing well in the past WRC races.
Obviously, a couple of poor races do not necessarily mean a driver can’t win, as other factors might contribute to his poor placements. However, if you watch the races and see that he’s struggled recently, it might be wiser to avoid betting on him.
The Cars
As in Formula 1, some car manufacturers in rally have advantages over others, as some drivers tend to perform better on asphalt tracks than their opponents. Understanding the pros and cons of each car and how they usually perform on specific tracks is just as important as knowing which driver excels in certain conditions.
If you combine these two factors and mix them into the driver’s form, you have a perfect recipe to make a smart bet on a WRC race.
WRC HISTORY​
The World Rally Championship (WRC) was formed as a combination of all of the most popular international rallies to form the first formalized rally championship that would hold the tag as rally’s most prestigious competition of the year. That included nine of the previous International Championship for Manufacturers and the European Rally Championship.
The inaugural WRC race was held in Monte Carlo on January 19, 1973, which has since become a date that forever changed the competitive rally scene. Since then, the WRC went through many changes, although the most important happened just four years after the first race, in 1997 when WRC introduced the World Rally Car regulations, intended to replace Group A.
While Group A has had its fair share of historical moments, the Group B era in the 1980s took the cake as one of the most important eras of rally.
It featured some of the powerful, fastest, and most dangerous cars the rally world had and would ever see. As a result, rally racing became extremely popular, and while it had its dark moments, the Group B era was the catalyst that helped the rally enter the mainstream.
Group B pushed the cars and drivers to the limit, and something had to give. Following Henri Toivonen’s death in 1986, which happened after Joaquim Santos crashed into the crowd, killing three spectators, led to Group B being banned.
Nowadays, the WRC is not nearly as dangerous as the notorious Group B of the 1980s, though WRC-spec cars used today are widely known as the fastest and most advanced the rally scene has ever seen.Â
conclusion
If you can find a bookmaker that will offer point-spread bets on rally, there isn’t a reason not to try it. The idea behind point-spread betting on rally isn’t that much different from point-spread betting on any other sport, and it can provide more ways to place a wager.
Unfortunately, point-spread markets on WRC races are hard to come by, and mostly come in the form of prop bets. Still, if you can find a bookie that regularly provides rally point spreads, definitely consider adding them to your betting strategy.
