Betting on Six Nations

Just getting into wagering on Rugby Union?  Then you know that the big event if the year is Six Nations.  The Six Nations Championship is sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland and replaced the Home Nations Championship.  Whereas Home Nations only included four UK countries, Six Nations includes six European countries: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, and Italy.

How does it work?  Each of the six teams will compete against one another over the course of five weekends.  Some of these matches fall one week after the next; for others, there is a two-week gap.  As every team plays five matches, there is going to be an uneven distribution of home and away games.  Every other year, this is switched around to even things out.  So one year, England might play two home games.  The next, it will play three.  The year after that, there will be only two home matches again, and so on.

Interestingly enough, there are some differences in scoring for the Six Nations Championship.  There is one point for a draw and two points for a win.  Whichever team concludes the tournament with the most points emerges as the winner for the year.  For a tiebreaker, point difference is used first, followed by tries scores.  If everything is perfectly even, the title is shared between two teams.

Here are some of the different types of tournament bets you can place during the Six Nations Championship:

• Outright.  This is a futures bet on the Six Nations Championship.  You are attempting to make a guess as to which team will win the entire championship.  The earlier in the tournament you make your wager, the higher the payout will be.  This is because it is harder to determine the outright winner at the beginning when you have less information.  Here is an interesting fact.  Since Six Nations started, only four countries have won: France, England, Ireland, and Wales.  Italy and Scotland are still waiting for their moment.

• Grand Slam.  To win the Grand Slam, a team needs to win all five of its games.  So far, this has happened a little more than half of the time.  So the odds are not all that slim—but they are longer for the Grand Slam than they are for a simple outright bet.  You can of course place both wagers (and in fact there would be no reason not to if you are sure about the Grand Slam).

• Triple Crown.  This is a prize which is open only to the UK countries competing in Six Nations: England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.  Any team that wins all three games against their fellow UK countries will receive the Triple Crown.  Obviously any team that wins the Grand Slam has also won the Triple Crown.  Since the Triple Crown requires only three wins and the Grand Slam requires five, the odds are lower for this bet.

Here are some additional types of wagers that you can place on Six Nations tournament matches:

• Match odds.  This is a simple bet on which team will win a match or whether there will be a draw.

• Halftime result.  This is a wager on the position of a team at halftime. 

• Winning margin.  With this type of bet, you are wagering that a certain team will win by a certain margin of points.

• Total points.  You are wagering on how many points both teams will have accumulated at the end of the match, added together.

• First try scorer.  With this bet, you are wagering on which player will be the first to score on their first try.  You also can wager on which team will achieve this first (an easier bet to win than wagering on a specific player).

• Last try scorer.  Think you know which player or team will be the last to score a goal on a try?  This wager gives you a chance to win a hefty payout on a specific player.  The payout is lower for a team, but your odds of winning are better.

Read my other article on the different types of rugby bets you could place on the best british betting sites to find out more.

Betting strategies for Six Nations can be quite complex; you obviously will do a better job picking a winner if you have a method than if you do not.  Intuition is not enough to go on; you need to handicap the tournament based on past meetings, home advantage, weather, injuries, and other factors.  Make sure that you leave emotion at the door.  That can be hard to do with such a big event, one where your patriotism can get involved.  But it is important to make sure that your betting decisions are based on your knowledge of the teams and the players, not on sentiment.  Have fun and good luck wagering on Six Nations!

And if you are looking for other rugby events to bet on read my article on that topic.