Football continues to be the most popular betting sport in the UK, with millions of people engaging with betting on football. With numerous matches taking place every day across the world, bettors now have more games and corresponding markets than ever before.
Understanding these markets, as well as the sport itself, is very important if you are considering betting on the sport. We aim to provide an in-depth guide to football betting so that you can have a better understanding of this sector going forward.
How to Bet on Football
Placing a bet on football is a very straightforward process. Firstly, you must select a reputable sportsbook in which you will go to place your bet. From here, you select or build your bet before selecting your stake and placing the bet. When choosing a sportsbook, it's always important to compare the odds between sportsbooks to find the best deals as well as take advantage of any welcome bonuses or promotions they may offer.
Betting Markets
As previously mentioned, football betting has a wide array of different betting markets. In this section, we will cover some of the most popular ones available so that you are fully aware of your options if you decide to partake in football betting.
Full-Time Result
This is one of the simplest bets you can place, and it simply refers to predicting which team you think will win the match or if it will end in a draw. Each team in this football betting market will have their own corresponding odds determined by a number of factors such as form, players and previous matchups.
Football Accumulator
A football accumulator, or acca, is one of the most common ways people bet in regards to football. An accumulator involves placing multiple bets within one stake. For example, instead of predicting one full-time result, you could build an accumulator of multiple full-time results. Accumulator bets such as this one often have higher odds; however, the difficulty of the bet also increases as if one prediction is incorrect, the entire bet fails.
Total Goals
This betting market involves predicting whether you think there will be over or under a prespecified amount of goals in a fixture. The prespecified amounts will be that of 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 and so on. You must then select a goal quota and predict whether you think there will be more or less than that amount.
Correct Score
This betting market is as straightforward as full-time result bets but much more specific. In this bet, you must predict the exact scoreline a game will finish. With how volatile football games are, guessing the exact scoreline is often very difficult.
Half Time/ Full Time
This football betting market involves predicting the result of a game at both half-time and full-time. Essentially, you must predict who you think will be winning at half-time and who you think will win by full-time. Only if both predictions are correct will your bet be successful, with these bets also incorporating draw options too.
Player Specific Markets
There are multiple markets that focus on the actions of individual players. There are goalscoring markets where you predict who you think will score at any time, first to score or last to score. There are also total shots markets, shots on target markets, and much more.
It's not all focused on attacking players, either. You can place over-under bets on the amount of fouls someone might make or whether or not a player will be carded. There are many, many different options while betting, so it is important to look through and understand them all so you can place a bet that is right for you.
Accumulator Bet Calculator
Online, there are multiple tools available to help you place bets with the best odds available and much more. One of the most popular tools bettors use to help improve their bets is known as an accumulator betting calculator. Betting calculators can help with almost any form of bet; however, with accumulators being one of the most common forms of betting in terms of football, we thought to focus on this tool.
An accumulator bet calculator is an online tool used to help figure out potential profits and losses that you could receive from a bet. To use these calculators, all you have to do is insert the information surrounding your bet, such as your stake, the odds and so on, and then the calculator will provide you with the amount your selections could return if your bet is to be successful. These betting calculators can help eliminate selections from an accumulator that are less profitable than others and allow people to finetune their betting strategy.
Betting calculators are particularly useful for those looking to engage in matched betting. Matched betting is a betting strategy that involves using mathematical formulas and free bets to lock in margins of profit by covering all potential outcomes when betting. Matched betting is a great strategy but a somewhat complex one to newcomers, and that is why using betting tools to help you apply the strategy could be important.