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The Vancouver Winter Olympics begin this weekend and not surprisingly there’s plenty of wagering opportunities at various sportsbooks on the games.   In theory, the Olympics are a good opportunity for the betting public to take advantage of the books’ lack of familiarity with many events.  The problem is that with so many obscure sports there’s not many handicappers who have the know how to exploit this weakness.  This is particularly true in the Winter Olympics, where countless cross country skiing and curling type events are held–events that most Americans don’t even know the rules of, let alone who’ll win or lose.

We’ll look for opportunities to bet on the individual events as the games progress but we’ll start with a couple of prop bets on the final medal count of the Winter Olympic Games.  This is a little easier to predict even if we’re not intimately familiar with all of the sports since we *do* know which countries typically excel at them.  That, and applying some information right out of the sports section, gives us a couple of good positions on these bets.  Note that the wagers here are from Bookmaker and Bodog but other books are also taking action on the games so shop ’em around for the best prices.

WINTER OLYMPICS TOTAL MEDAL COUNT

Historically, there’s been a real ‘home field advantage’ for the host nation in the Olympic games and this year should be no exception.  Canada is pulling out all of the stops to make their athletes successful–most significantly, they’ve taken the somewhat unprecedented step of denying athletes from other countries access to the Olympic venues to train before the games begin.  While this may not be a big deal in some events (hockey, ice skating, curling) its a much bigger deal in events like snowboarding and skiing.

Canada would likely have been among the top medal winners anyway, but that advantage should push their medal count even higher.  They’re favored to take the most medals overall and its hard to argue with this.  Look for Canada to win the most overall medals.  Bodog has this prop, and here’s how we’ll play it.

PLAY CANADA TO WIN MOST TOTAL MEDALS +225

Canada is also the top choice to win the most gold medals.  Originally, it would have been a very tight competition with the US but American skier Lindsey Vonn suffered an injury in training and is unlikely to compete.  She was expected to dominate, winning two or three gold medals on her own.  Not only does her absence help Canada’s cause in the overall medal race it gives them a huge advantage in the competition to win the most gold medals.  This wager is from Bookmaker:

PLAY CANADA TO WIN THE MOST GOLD MEDALS +225

Look for more Winter Olympic betting updates in the individual sports later this weekend.