Daily Sports Betting Preview 8/5/2020: Icons of Darts, Russian Futsal, Snooker World Championship

• David Evans is a -161 odds favorite against Barry Keane in the Icons of Darts competition.
• Tyumen is a -130 favorite on the moneyline in the Russian Futsal Superleague.
• Martin Gould is a -1212 favorite over Stephen Maguire in the Snooker World Championship.

LAS VEGAS - Today, the Daily Sports Betting Preview gets back to its roots - covering the lesser-known sports around the globe.

First, in the world of competitive darts, the Icons of Darts competition is back, and features several interesting games.

Then, in Russia, there is an interesting futsal match worth that should provide some interesting betting opportunities.

Finally, the Snooker World Championship continues this week, as the event begins to build up to a crescendo.

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started!

Icons Of Darts Betting

The Icons of Darts tournament pits famed darts players against each other in a battle for supremacy.

Darts bettors are likely already familiar with this tournament, so let’s jump right into what is surely the most interesting match of the day.

In this matchup, David Evans is a significant favorite against Barry Keane, with -161 odds to take the win.

Why is this matchup so interesting? Well, directly before this one, both Evans and Keane face off against Martin Adams, who has been on a winning streak lately.

These matchups against Adams should give bettors a pretty good idea of how the two competitors are performing.

In addition, there is usually some knowledge to be gleaned from looking at odds against common opponents.

Unfortunately for any knowledge gleaning efforts, these odds basically make perfect sense in the context of the head to head.

Adams is favored against Keane, and unfavored against Evans, presumably because Evans is simply better, which makes sense given how favored he is against Keane.

That said, darts bettors could still take a look at these two matches before wagering on the Keane/Evans showdown, and gain some knowledge that way.

Russian Futsal Betting

Futsal is not a sport often associated with Russia, and Russia is not a location often associated with the sport of Futsal.

That said, Russia does have a league for Futsal play, the Parimatch-Russian Futsal Championship, generally referred to as the Russian Futsal Superleague.

There is an interesting match to look at in this Superleague today, a playoff matchup between Tyumen and Dynamo Samara.

Tyumen are serious favorites in this matchup, with -130 moneyline odds in a sport that includes the option to draw.

In other words, a Tyumen victory is expected to be more likely than the combined chances of a Samara victory and a draw.

Samara clock in with +228 odds on the moneyline, while the odds for a draw bring up the rear at +375.

This is the matchup between the four and the five seed in the quarterfinals of the Superleague playoffs.

However, their closeness in the standings belies their seriously different records - there’s a big dropoff after 4th place in the Superleague.

Tyumen had a record of 14 wins, eight losses and two draws in the regular season, while Samara put up 10 wins, 14 losses, and four draws.

Given this information, it makes sense that the odds in this four-five series are as lopsided as they are.

This match takes place at 12:00 p.m. EST.

Snooker World Championship Betting

There are two matches in the Snooker World Championship today - one close one, and one not-so-close one.

Let’s start with the close one, between Stuart Bingham and Mark J. Williams.

This one looks to be very competitive when the moneyline is taken into consideration, with Bingham as a small but notable -130 favorite.

However, the spread is where things really get interesting.

The spread of +/- 1.5 has successfully made the odds perfectly even on the major online sportsbooks.

Bingham -1.5 and Williams +1.5 both have -115 odds. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

The second matchup today is not nearly so balanced. It features Martin Gould and Stephen Maguire.

This is a heck of a line. -1212 odds are nearly prohibitive - a wager on Gould nets roughly an 8% return.

Maguire, meanwhile, has +737 odds, and, presumably, the low chances of winning that make the online sportsbooks feel safe offering odds like that.

Both of these matches are compelling in very different ways, and both are interesting to snooker bettors in different ways as well.

There’s always a lot to bet on when you look for it, so…

Happy Betting!