How to Bet On Football | ProTipster Academy
Do you want to know how to bet on football and win? Here at ProTipster we’d love to promise guaranteed profit from football betting, but we just can’t do that. What we can do is to give you some advice we’ve learned from talking to professional gamblers and tipsters who earn money from football betting to help you.
How to bet on football: The Key Principles
It’s easy to feel bewildered when it comes to betting on football. The sheer number of football matches available from online bookies is huge and each of those will have a huge number of markets available. Some players will take the plunge at the deep end by themselves and get stuck in to their bets straight away. For those of you who are a little bit more cautious, there are some basic rules you can follow to learn how to bet on football.
- Stick to what you know. While it’s exciting to bet on exotic leagues with teams that you’ve never heard of, betting on these kinds of matches is somewhat of a lottery. If you are serious in your aim to make money from betting on football in the long-term, then it’s best to stay with matches, teams and tournaments you are familiar with.
- Research. Find out everything you can that affects the match you want to bet on. Are there any injuries to key players? Are there trends in recent form that you can analyse? Is the head-to-head record lopsided in favour of one team? While football is more than just a sport of statistics, trends can help you understand why the odds in a betting market are at the price given – and can help you identify value.
- Bet on value. Value is defined where the odds of an outcome happening offered by the bookmaker are better than the odds of it actually happening. For example, if the odds against Manchester United beating Arsenal are given as 2.20 but they should be 2.00, then that bet is value and you should consider betting on it. This is where research can really help you with your betting because you might have spotted something that the bookies have missed.
- Manage your bankroll. One of the biggest problems a player will have is knowing how much to bet. There are specific strategies available to work out how much should be staked, but the most important thing is to track it all. Keep a spreadsheet of your bets and understand where you are making money and where you are losing it. Most importantly, don’t chase streaks – either winning or losing – because they will cause you to lose control of your betting. One good way to understand value is to use the Kelly Criterion.
How to bet on football: Understanding the markets
The number of markets available on football matches has grown exponentially with the growth of internet betting. With online bookies able to track more and more data within a game it’s become possible to bet on many different outcomes within a game as well as the outcome of the game itself. Part of the skill of how to bet on football is understanding what these markets are and how they work. These are some of the more popular ones.
- 1X2 market. This market is the most basic and fundamental in all football betting. This market involves betting on which team is going to win the game. The name comes from the three outcomes in the market – 1 being a home win, X being a draw and 2 being an away win. You can read more about betting on the 1X2 market here.
- Handicaps. There are two varieties of handicaps offered by bookmakers. The standard (or European) handicap is where one team has a goal (or multiple goal) handicap applied. For example, a +1 handicap market will be betting on the outcome if a team has a goal head-start. Asian handicaps make use of quarter and half goals to create two-way markets. These are slightly more complicated but offer a better edge for the more experienced gambler.
- Total Goals markets. These are a simple over/under market where players can bet on if there will be more or less than a set number of goals in a game. The standard line in this market is over/under 2.5 goals, as most football matches will have between two and three goals. However, this can move depending on the teams involved. It’s also possible to bet on the number of goals one team scores in the game
- Both Teams To Score (BTTS). This market is simple to understand, as it’s betting on whether both teams will score in a game. This bet can often be combined with the 1X2 market for those players looking for big odds in a game.
These markets can be played as a 90-minute market, where the whole match decides the outcome of the bet, or as a 45-minute market where one half decides the outcome. It’s even possible to bet on small portions of the match in the pre-match market, or on the next outcome to happen when betting in-play.
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