Football Betting Sites

Football – or soccer to some – is the world’s biggest sport, with the World Cup final attracting a television audience of around 700 million people. Unsurprisingly it is also the biggest sport for gambling, with punters all over the globe enjoying a bet on their local team or one of the giants of football such as Real Madrid, Manchester United or Boca Juniors.

Whether you are looking to place a bet once in a while for a bit of fun or want to know how to back your favourite side in the world of football betting, we have all the information you need right here.

How To Bet On Football

As said, football attracts more money than any other sport from a betting perspective and consequently the bookmakers cover a huge range of different events and offer many types of bets. Many of the big bookmakers offer bets on leagues in countries you might not even have heard of, let alone thought about betting on!

Football Bets

In addition to the massive number of countries covered, there is also a huge variety of bets (markets) on each match, with top bookmakers offering over 100 as standard on matches in the major leagues and even over 200 for some important games. Here we take a look at some of the most commonly placed bets.

Bet Types	Description
Match Result	This market has many names, including “match betting”, “90 minutes”, “1X2” and “to win” and is the most popular football bet going. It is simple as you have just three options: backing the home side will win, the away side to win, or the draw.
Correct Score	Another popular one and again very simple: what will the score be at full-time? Odds will reflect the likelihood of a result, with a correct score of 4-4 priced at much longer odds than, say, 1-1.
First Goalscorer	A bet on which player will score the first goal of the game. One can also bet on the last goalscorer and, at lower odds, for a named player to score at any time during the match. Backing “no scorer” is also available in this market.
Half-Time/Full-Time	Often written as HT/FT, this is a duel prediction of which side – if either – will be winning at half-time and at full-time. There are nine possible outcomes and your selection will be expressed in the form “draw/Man Utd” or “Man Utd/Everton” for example.
Over/Under	There are several different ways to bet on the number of goals a game will contain and the most common is by backing over or under a specified number. To avoid the possibility of a tie these are usually expressed in half goals and whilst you can bet on over or under 0.5 goals right up to 6.5 goals or higher, the most popular bet focuses on over or under 2.5 goals. If you think a game will have three or more you back “over” whilst two or fewer and you would bet on “under”.
Both Teams to Score	This is a relatively new bet but growing in popularity and gaining lots of attention from the bookies. If you think both teams will score at least one goal in the game you would bet “yes” or simply tick that match. Some bookies also offer the chance to bet against both teams to score, in which instance you select “no” and win if one or both teams fail to score.
Handicap	This is used to even out the odds, especially where one side is such a strong favourite that the result itself is deemed hardly worth betting on, so likely it is that one side will win. For example, if Barcelona play Bradford, the bookmakers might give odds where Barcelona have a handicap of -3 goals, whilst Bradford are +3.
Asian Handicap	Similar to the above but only two outcomes can be bet on, either side A to win or side B to win, but no draws. Asian handicaps usually use fractions of goals to eliminate the draw, so you may see Barcelona -3.5. This would mean that if they beat Bradford by three goals or fewer, Bradford have won, but four or more and Barca triumph, with no possibility of the draw. Asian handicaps can be more complicated as they sometimes involve two handicaps with your bet split between those outcomes.
Draw No Bet	Also called DNB this is another way of eliminating the draw (the concept of which is popular with US and Asian punters). This can be expressed by the Asian Handicap of “0” but is better known to most people as “draw no bet”. If the game is a stalemate you do not win but you do not lose – you get your stake back.
To Win to Nil	We’re back on the simple bets now. This is self-explanatory: you are backing one team to beat the other without conceding a goal.

Football Betting Rules

On the whole betting on football is a relatively simple matter but there are one or two questions that beginners often ask or rules that may seem slightly counter-intuitive. Whilst 99% of your bets will pass simply and effortlessly (and hopefully you’ll win 99% too!) it is worth knowing these basics to avoid disappointment. Some rules can vary from company to company so check to be sure but these general points are applicable to most bookmakers.

Own Goals

The first regards own goals. Whilst these can be massively crucial in football (indeed Colombian footballer Andres Escobar was killed because of one!) they do not count at all in player goal markets. So if you back a player to score first and he nets an own goal you don’t win but the next player to score a “proper” goal does. This also applies to last scorer bets.

Own goals do, however, apply to other markets such as both teams to score, correct score and, of course, match result. For this reason if a bookie offers 0-0 at the same odds as “no scorer” in the first goalscorer odds, always bet on “no scorer” as this will cover 0-0 and also any score that includes only own goals.

90 Minutes Only

The other main rule to be aware of is that almost all bets, unless clearly stated, apply to the full 90 minutes, plus injury time but not extra time or penalties. This is mainly relevant to cup games and applies to a huge range of bets, including first scorer, last scorer, correct score, match result… basically any bet that didn’t clearly state otherwise.

Reported Results

Another thing to note is that most bets are settled according to how the match is reported at the time. So in the case of a goal subsequently being awarded as an own goal, rather than given to the striker, or a red card being rescinded on appeal it will be the officially reported player/score/event that stands as the winner.

Postponement & Abandonment

The final thing to be aware of, though something that will apply even less frequently than the aforementioned quirks, is that bookmakers apply different rules in the event of a match being postponed or abandoned. Some will void all bets, others will allow the result to stand if it reached a certain point in the game or the match is replayed within a certain timeframe.

Generally speaking the following rules tend to apply, but do bear in mind that it will vary from betting site to betting site:

• Cancelled Events – Bets are normally made void.
• Postponed Events – Depends on the time frame and the policies of the bookie. If a match is rescheduled within a short timeframe – often 24 or 48 hours – then the bet stands, otherwise it will be made void.
• Abandoned Events – Bets that have not yet settled follow the same rules as postponed events and will be made void unless a rematch is rescheduled within 24 or 48 hours. For bets that have would have settled, such as the first half result (assuming the match was in the second half when it was abandoned), the bookmaker may choose to let the bet stand as is. This isn’t always the case though.

Football Betting Strategy

You could literally fill a book with all of the different strategies for betting on football and many people have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of scoring that net win in football betting. We can’t possibly cover it all here, but in this next section we’ll run you through the basic principles that you should bear in mind when betting.

Knowledge & Stats

There are two main secrets to betting on football and they are related. First of all, knowledge is power and the more you know about a match, team or player the better equipped you will be to decide which selection make a good bet. There is so much information out there these days that with a lot of research and study you can give yourself a real edge.

And it’s not even information that’s hard to come across – plenty of bookies have licensing deals with stats companies for their own use, and give their customers access to it as well. Below you’ll find a screenshot of the stats on offer for an upcoming match between Liverpool and Spartak Moskva – this is just a small portion of what’s actually available from the site.

Knowing the previous performance of both teams can help you spot weaknesses or strengths. Do both teams always score when they play each other? Have the home side not let a goal in for 10 matches? And so on.

Of course, the higher up the football ladder you go, the more information there is, the more the bookmakers will be aware of and the more your fellow punters will know too. This makes it harder to get a net win from betting on the Premier League than it is on the lower divisions.

Stats alone aren’t enough though – if it were, you could very easily slap together a computer program to analyse the data and predict the results. And whilst this does happen to some degree, it doesn’t give the whole picture.

Other Considerations

You’ll also want to look at team news – is the star striker out of action for any reason, or has the goalie recently had a baby (potentially resulting in sleepless nights). Managerial changes can have a big impact too, either sending the team into disarray or injecting new found confidence and enthusiasm into a team that was previously struggling. Other things that you may not have thought to consider include:

Considerations	Notes
Weather	The difference between a cool dry day and a windy wet one is massive when it comes to how a match will play out. For example, a strong wind will hamper teams that favour long passes more than it will teams with different tactics.
Pitch Size	Did you know that football pitches aren’t all the same size? There are rules relating to the minimum and maximum width and length of a pitch, but no defined standards. So, players who are used to a longer wider pitch will have an obvious advantage at home over players whose home ground is narrower and shorter. Think it can’t make that much of a difference? Think again – the premier leagues biggest pitch (Hull City’s KC stadium) is a whopping 10m wider and 14m longer than the leagues shortest (Stoke City’s Bet365 Stadium).
Schedules	Teams that have played more recently, especially if it’s been a few games on the trot, are more likely to be tired. And whilst leagues tend to take this into account when scheduling the fixtures, look for the impact of other competitions such as the FA Cup or Champions League. Likewise look at how much the team have been travelling recently, if the players have just flown back from Russia and have to immediately head to an away game they’re unlikely to be playing as well as if they’d been sleeping in their own bets and playing at home.
Game Importance	Looking solely at stats implies that all games are equally as important as each other, when in reality that isn’t the case. Matches that are less of a concern to the team are likely to have key players on the bench or holding back and not playing to their full potential. Make sure you take into account upcoming matches as well, as an impending big match may have the team saving themselves in the week before.

Value Betting

But what do we do with all this information anyway? Football, of course, is a highly unpredictable game and that is why we love it so much (and also why the bookmakers remain in business). If the favourites always won there would be no gambling (so thank heavens they don’t!). What this unpredictability means is that you can never know for sure who will win and the way to get a net win is not to try and find the winner at any price but to find the bet where the odds are higher than they should be.

This is called value betting and is the only real way to get a net win over the long term. If you are simply betting on football for a bit of fun or only occasionally this isn’t massively important but if you bet a lot, over a long timeframe then it is essential.

When picking a bet the odds are just as important as whether you think the selection will win or not. To give an example, whilst you would expect Chelsea to beat QPR practically every time they played, you wouldn’t want to bet on Chelsea at any odds at all, for example 1/20 (or 20/1 on). Too few gamblers fail to give enough weight to the odds, placing too much emphasis on the bet itself.

Finding value is hard but not impossible. As said, it’s easier with the smaller teams and the more information you have the easier it becomes. Is a striker injured this week so a defender playing up front? If you know this but maybe the bookmakers don’t then his first scorer odds will probably be great value. Have several key players been struck down by a virus? Has the manager just been sacked and will the new manager bring a boost to the team? Are the bookmakers ignoring some useful piece of information or a key statistic or have they simply got their odds wrong and favoured one team incorrectly? Get as much information as possible and look for value bets and you’ll soon be as rich as Wayne Rooney’s hair doctor!

Leagues & Tournaments

From the English Premier League to the FIFA World Cup, professional football is arguably the most popular sport on the planet. It’s certainly one of our favourites, not least when it comes to betting! The big European leagues usually run from August through to May. Meanwhile, on the international stage, there’s a World Cup and a UEFA European Championship every four years (alternating so there is a major tournament every two years).

The likes of the Premier League, La Liga and the Bundesliga are the biggest club leagues in Europe, if not the world, with several other leagues getting bigger and better as each year passes by. Let’s take a look at football’s best club and international leagues and tournaments.