At this point LIV Golf has been around long enough to really settle in as both a competition format, and for bookmakers to start to understand how the shorter format impacts the odds of a tournament.
But it’s been a bumpy and controversy littered road to say the least, and even now sportsbooks are a bit wary of featuring the new tour, with only a handful of US betting sites listed on Bookies Bonuses US actually letting bettors wager on LIV Golf.
So how has LIV Golf changed the golf betting landscape, and what does the future look like?
Even without the course history and decades of play to appreciate handicaps, at its core the LIV Golf tour is still fundamentally stroke play golf (for now), which has somewhat eased bettors who like to wager on golf into seeing LIV as a real option.
That being said, there are only a few betting sites that actually feature LIV Golf right now, and states are slow on the uptake given the controversy behind LIV and the limited access to data and broadcasts of tournaments causing some pushback on featuring the events.
But the biggest immediate impact from LIV Golf on sports betting didn’t actually come from the new tour being featured on betting sites, rather from the departure of players from the PGA Tour shaking up tournaments like the Presidents Cup. This past year the US side went from favorites to win again to having an absurd betting line of -750.
The President’s Cup is an obvious example of how LIV is changing the golfing world, but the PGA Tour is bleeding top level golfers to the wealthy new tour, and this makes it tough for bookies to generate appropriate handicaps for major events, with either no clear favorites, or tournaments with one or two players likely to win.
Divergence from the standard format is LIV Golfs selling point
The limited history, and smaller field has forced LIV to look at different ways to pull bettors away from the PGA, but also to carve out their own identity away from just the controversial tour people still seem to view it as. The future LIV format also offers a very intriguing betting identity and is absolutely something betting sites in the US are trying to capitalize on.
The 48-man field, and 54-hole events are already a major departure from traditional golf tournament setups, but this is only the start of what LIV Golf is trying to do. The ultimate aim is to shift to a 12 team model, with a Team Championship at the end of the season, relying more on season long points to generate rankings.
When it comes to betting on LIV Golf, this is where sportsbooks can start to get excited, as this will basically make LIV an entirely different sport and may attract new bettors who want to test out betting in this new format.
It’s a very interesting time for sports betting in the US, and the addition of LIV Golf to the fray is just the most recent adjustment betting sites are needing to make to stay on top of everything bettors want. But more choice is never a bad thing, so it’s good to see LIV finally being more accepted onto betting sites, even if the tournament broadcasting is still an issue.
