In his weekly blog for the CitiGaming pullout of the Citizen, Brent Graham takes a look at why both punters and bookmakers love the IRB Rugby 7's

7’s rugby is growing wildly in popularity and we saw more action on the Goodforthegame forum for the PE 7’s than we would normally see in a Super Rugby week. Punters love the fact that there is a match every 15 minutes and no sooner have you placed your bet than the result is in and all going well the winnings are in your account ready for you to take aim at the next match.

Of course bookmakers love the “churn” as well and why not as they generally bet to between 105 and 110% (an acceptable 5-10% margin in their favour) so it stands to reason that the more frequent the games the better their chances of getting a portion of your bankroll. I guess you could liken it to a Casino where the house tries to spin that wheel as quickly as possible knowing that in the long run the odds are in their favour and they will come out in front.

That’s where the comparison with the Casino ends though because unlike Roulette where every spin is random and the odds never change in 7’s rugby there are factors which the knowledgeable punter can use to their advantage.

First up bookmakers have to set the handicaps and they do this without having a handle on team selections which are often only finalised 10 minutes before kickoff. A player like Cecil Afrika being excluded from the Blitzbokke would more than likely be worth 3-4 points and alert punters can wait and then pounce on a handicap before the market has time to adjust.

Bookmakers tend to differ slightly on their handicaps and by holding a range of accounts punters can make sure they always get the best deal on their fancy. The final in PE was a good example where New Zealand were -2 on some books and -5.5 on others. The final result was they won by 5 points meaning you could have backed either side and won as long as you had accounts with the relevant bookmakers. 

As a punter you can and probably should focus only on the 7’s when you are betting. This will allow you to focus and spot the value whereas the bookmaker still has to run a book on hundreds of different sporting and horse racing events.

These factors together give the 7’s bettor a very real chance of making money while at the same time getting his punting fix!

  This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 15th of December 2011.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and to get on his free weekly e-mail list just send a message to brent@goodforthegame.co.za titled “Best Bets”.