Curling Betting in Canada: Markets, the Hammer and What Happens When a Team Concedes

Curling is a two-way sport with a built-in advantage that changes every few minutes, and that is exactly what makes it interesting to bet on. Every price you see on a match, whether it is the moneyline, the handicap or the total, is really a price on who holds the last stone in each end. Understand that one mechanism and the rest of the market stops looking like guesswork.

This guide walks through the markets Canadian sportsbooks typically post, what the rulebook says about scoring and early finishes, and a worked example in Canadian dollars. It is a guide to how the game and the bets fit together, not a tip sheet. Provincial books and private operators write their own house rules, so always read the terms of the book you are using before you stake anything.

The markets you will actually see

For the biggest events, books post a small menu. The core is the match winner, a two-way bet, because a game that is tied after the scheduled ends goes to an extra end and someone always wins. Beside it sit a handicap (a team at -1.5 has to win by two or more), a total points line on the combined score, and sometimes a prop on whether the game goes to an extra end. Outrights on a whole event are common for the Olympics and world championships.

Not every book bothers with curling. When the Canadian Press looked at betting around a 2022 world championship qualifier, it noted that many Canadian sportsbooks did not offer odds on the event at all. Expect thin menus outside the marquee events and plan on shopping around. Our curling betting page covers where the markets tend to be deepest.

Why the hammer sets every price

The hammer is the last stone of an end. Under the World Curling rules, the team that scored most recently delivers first in the next end, which hands the opponent the last stone. Scoring is simple: a team gets one point for each of its stones in or touching the house that sits closer to the tee than any opposing stone. Only one team scores in an end. The team without the hammer is therefore always playing from behind, trying to keep the end clean or stack the house with guards, while the team with the hammer can usually get at least one point.

That is why a team scoring a single point with the hammer is often a bad trade. Taking one hands the opponent the hammer back. Teams will frequently give up the single and keep the last stone instead, which brings us to blank ends and steals.

Blank ends, steals and the extra end

If neither team scores, the end is blank and the same team keeps the hammer. That is a deliberate choice: you throw away a point you could have taken because holding the last stone for a bigger end later is worth more. A steal is the reverse. It happens when the team without the hammer scores, which flips the last-stone advantage to the other side for the next end. A steal is rare compared with a normal score and swings a match more than almost any single event, so live prices move sharply after one.

Games run to 10 ends in most major competitions and 8 in some formats, including mixed doubles. A tie after the scheduled ends goes to an extra end, and under the World Curling rules the team that scores first wins. This matters for the hammer in two ways. A hammer team that is two points down in the last end needs two points to force an extra end and three to win outright, and a team with last stone in an extra end only needs a single point to win the game, while the other side has to steal.

That is also why an extra end is a strong signal for live bettors. The side with the hammer is usually favoured, so the price on a team in that position is rarely generous. Read the live line against the hammer, not against the scoreboard.

When a team concedes: the rule that changes your bet

Curling has a tradition of handshakes. A team that knows it cannot win offers to concede instead of playing out the remaining ends. The rulebook sets limits. A team may concede only when it is the delivering team, and a minimum number of ends must be played first: in competitions scheduled for 10 ends, at least 8 ends in play-off games and at least 6 in all other games, and at least 6 ends where 8 ends are scheduled. The World Curling rules also say the result of the game is decided when a team concedes victory, provided that minimum has been reached.

For a bettor, that means the sport itself treats a concession as a finished game with a winner. For the moneyline that is usually straightforward. The trouble is totals and handicaps, because a conceded game has fewer ends in which to score. A game that would have gone over the line in ends nine and ten can finish under it. The Canadian Press example shows how fine the margin is. At a 2022 Pan Continental final, Canada led South Korea 11-2 after eight ends, South Korea picked up one more point and the game finished 11-3. Against a total of 13.5 at one sportsbook, that single point moved the bet from under to over.

How a book grades a conceded game is a house-rule question. I could not find a curling-specific concession clause published by PROLINE+ or Mise-o-jeu+. What I could verify is the general principle on PlayNow, BCLC's betting site: its help page says that enhanced-odds parlays are voided if any event in them is not completed, defines a voided bet as neither won nor lost, and points to the BCLC Rules and Game Conditions for the full rules. Whether a handshake counts as a completed game for a totals bet is exactly the sort of detail you should confirm in writing before the match. If the answer is unclear, ask customer service and keep the reply.

A worked example in Canadian dollars

Say a book posts Team A to win at 1.80 and Team B at 2.10, with a total of 12.5 points at 1.91 on both sides. The 1.80 price implies about a 55.6 percent chance (1 divided by 1.80), and 2.10 implies about 47.6 percent. The two add to more than 100 percent, and the gap is the book's margin.

You stake C$50 on Team A at 1.80. If A wins, the return is C$50 x 1.80 = C$90, which is C$40 profit plus your stake back. If A loses, you lose the C$50. Now add a second bet: C$40 on Over 12.5 at 1.91. A full game finishing 9-4 is 13 points and you collect C$40 x 1.91 = C$76.40, a profit of C$36.40. But suppose the game is 9-2 after eight ends and the trailing side shakes hands. That is 11 points, which is under the line, and your over loses even though the winner you picked won. The match-winner bet and the total moved in opposite directions because of one handshake.

That is the practical lesson. If you like overs on lopsided matches, consider whether the favourite is likely to be conceded to before the late ends, especially in round-robin games where six completed ends are enough. Unders on mismatches have the opposite exposure: a concession helps them. For help working out value rather than just probability, see our sports betting strategy guide.

The events worth watching

The Brier is the men's national championship. It was first held in 1927 in Toronto with eight teams, has been played at 10 ends per game since 1977, and now has 18 teams, with Ontario sending two. The Scotties Tournament of Hearts is the women's national championship. The Grand Slam of Curling is a series of bonspiels that began in the 2001-02 season for men and in 2006-07 for women; its majors are the Masters, the Open, the National and the Players' Cup, and each offers a purse of at least C$100,000. Then there are world championships and the Olympics, where the odds depth is greatest.

Single-event sports betting has been legal in Canada since the federal change that took effect in August 2021, and provincial operators such as OLG's PROLINE+ and BCLC's PlayNow now take bets on it alongside private operators in Ontario. See bet types explained if you need the basics on moneylines, handicaps and totals before you start.

A short checklist before you bet on a curling match

• Check that the book lists curling for that event at all, and compare prices across at least two books.
• Read the house rules on abandoned, incomplete and conceded games before you bet a total or a handicap.
• Find out who has the hammer in the first end, and how the book is pricing it.
• Think about the format: number of ends, round robin or play-off, and the minimum ends before a concession is possible.
• Keep stakes small on live markets, where a steal can reprice a game in seconds.
• Set a limit first. Our responsible gambling page has tools and helplines.