NRL 2018 Grand Final betting guide

Played at Sydney’s iconic Olympic stadium, the NRL Grand Final is one of the biggest sporting events in Australia. As a night-time decider that leads into the NSW Labour Day holiday, it is a pub and nightlife institution – the perfect setting for fans who want to have dinner and drinks over a quality game of footy.

Online bookmakers go all out for the GF. Odds for major markets such as head-to-head betting, first try scorer and the Clive Churchill Medal go live almost as soon as the prelims are finished, while any bookie worth its salt will open a plethora of betting options on carries, tackles and other key statistics once the line ups are confirmed.

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What are the best bookies for NRL Grand Final betting?

There are a litany of sports betting agencies on the market right now competing for your hard-earned cash, and they all claim to have the best deals just in time for the football codes’ culminating matches.

How can you tell who you can trust? Luckily, you don’t have to go through the painful – and often costly – process of trial and error to figure out which bookies are legit and which are crooks.

The bookmakers we feature on BettingSite.com.au are licensed, reputable operators that meet the highest industry standards for market value, user features, digital security, bonus offers and customer service. When we bet online, we bet with these guys.

To ensure maximum value on your NRL Grand Final bets, we recommend opening accounts with each of the bookmakers featured on this page. Bookies very rarely offer the same odds from market to market, meaning you are guaranteed to find a better price if you check five or six sites instead of one.

NRL Grand Final outright odds

Head-to-head odds and line betting

A head-to-head to bet on the NRL Grand Final is a simple bet, all you have to do is select the team you think will win the premiership.

Because the match pits the two best teams in the NRL against each other, the odds are invariably closer than they would be in a regular season game.

Line betting gives a team a head start, or a handicap depending on who enters the match as the favourite. Similar to the head-to-head market, the line betting market is much tighter than a regular season match up.

Clive Churchill Medal

The Clive Churchill Medal is awarded to the player adjudged best afield in the NRL grand final by the Australia national team selectors, and is atypically the most bet upon exotic in the biggest match of the year.

Bets on the Churchill are most often placed as a futures option prior to the commencement of the game. Live betting markets are also available throughout the 80 minutes, but Australian residents can only access these by ringing a bookmaker over the telephone.

Try scorer markets

Outside of the Churchill, the try scorer betting markets are the most popular NRL bet type for the grand final. The simplistic nature of the market is exactly what makes the investment so popular.

The first try scorer market is as easy as picking the player to cross the stripe first in the grand final. Bookies often run special promotions for these bets, such as a cash-back bonus if your man scores any other try in the first half.

A bet can also be placed on a player to score a try at anytime, as well as on players scoring multiple tries throughout the 80 minutes.

NRL Grand Final facts

• 107,999 fans packed into Sydney’s Olympic Stadium for the 1999 grand final between Melbourne and St George Illawarra. As of 2018, it is the largest crowd in rugby league history.

• In 2015 4.4 million Australians tuned in to watch the NRL grand final, a record for the rugby league, which also defeated the next best football code in the country – the AFL – by almost half a million viewers.

• While 1887 reads more like a year that something incredible happened, it was actually the record amount of metres ran by the Melbourne Storm in the 2007 hammering of the Manly Sea Eagles 34-8.

• Only three men in NRL history have won the Clive Churchill medal in a losing grand final side. Bradley Clyde in 1991, Brad Mackay in 1993, and Daly Cherry-Evans in 2013.

• Former Raider and Bulldog Bradley Clyde is the only man to win the Clive Churchill medal on more than one occasion, both in 1989 and in 1991.

• The quickest try in NRL history was scored in just two minutes and eight seconds by Canberra Raiders back-rower David Furner in 1994.

• In 2009 Parramatta Eels brute Nathan Hindmarsh laid an NRL record 64 tackles against the Melbourne Storm including an incredible 13 in the opening 10 minutes.

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