The Best Football Betting Strategies ⚽⚽⚽⚽⚽⚽⚽

The Best Football Betting Strategies

Betting for Money or Fun

There are two different types of football bettors – possibly more, but in general two main types. There are those who bet for fun and passion, and those who make a wager to make a profit. The latter type are the bettors using football betting strategies. The biggest difference between the two types is ‘rationalisation’. With the World Cup upon us, more people will be betting than ever. Success won’t just depend on getting the best Champions League odds, but also employing the best strategies.

Punters who bet for fun and passion normally bet on their favourite team and their favourite players to score and don’t really weight up the real chances of success. For example, a hard line West Brom fan would never bet against their own team, even if it was playing away to Man City. Now, you can admire their loyalty, but the chance of this bet being successful is pretty slim (although if it does come off, it could reward quite handsomely). This is a fun way to bet, for sure, but unless you support the best team on winning form, it’s unlikely to lead to constant success.

The Over/Under 2.5 Strategy

Next to match betting, this is one of the most popular ways to make a bet on a football match. This is similar to the boxing betting strategy Over/Under. Statistically, the average number of goals scored in a match, in leagues all over the world, is 2.5. This is where this strategy comes from. Your job here is to make an educated guess – preferably with research involved. You decide whether you believe there will be more or less than 2.5 goals scored in a match.

This strategy has a huge number of advantages and can offer some great ways to make a profit. Obviously it is impossible for 2.5 goals to be scored in any match, but when all matches are added together and the goal number divided equally between those matches, this is the number produced. This is perfect, as there is zero chance of it being 2.5, so it is an evens bet. It’s either under or over, there are simply no other outcomes possible.

So, if you should decide to bet Under 2.5, then ideally your game will not be one of the more exciting games, as the only outcomes allowed in order for you to win are: 00-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 2-0 or 0-2. As soon as there is any other score line, you’re out. The problem with this is that you want teams not to score and are holding out for a boring game. This is why many people bet Over 2.5. Here, every goal counts and no matter who scores the goal you can get excited. Needless to say, betting on over 2.5 is just much more fun.

Betting on Over 2.5

Clearly, betting on Over 2.5 comes with advantages. Firstly, this is a strategy that you tend to get very decent odds on. Obviously, different leagues come with different odds. If you bet on over 2.5 in La Liga, with teams such as Barcelona and Real Madrid, then your chances of winning are pretty high. These are generally high scoring games, so expect odds of around 3/10. However, if you bet on Over 2.5 in France’s Ligue 1 or Greece’s Superleague, then your odds will be as high as 3/2 as these are generally lower scoring clubs. The best part about betting on this is the thrill of watching a game. You just want goals to be scored. You don’t care who scores them, but balls in the back of the net means money in the pocket.

There are some disadvantages on betting on Over 2.5 though, although not many. There are the options in some bookmakers of betting on Over 1.5 or Over 0.5 and obviously these others have a higher chance of success. Also, because it is the average score, around 50% of your bets will win and about 50% won’t. Also, you might find yourself getting highly frustrated waiting for that prized third goal… that just never quite crosses the line!

Getting it right

If you’re going to have more chance of success, then don’t just pick Over or Under from out of thin air. As in most football betting strategies, it doesn’t pay to go in blind. If you want to bet on an Over 2.5 then you want to research a team that often finishes by scoring 3 or more goals. This is where consistency is key. It is better to take a chance on teams that regularly score around 3, than teams that vary between scoring 6 and 0, depending on the form; these should be avoided. Any goal after 3 is completely irrelevant, so forget about that – getting 3 more often is much better. It’s so easy these days to check out the form of a team and the scoring history, so do it. The better informed you are, the more chance of success in this popular football betting strategy.

Betting on a Draw

Football betting strategies, unlike tennis betting strategies, can focus on draws. Homework needs to be done on this system for sure. This is one of the football betting strategies where you need to look out for patterns. That pattern needs to be the regularity in which a team finishes a game on a draw. For this strategy you need to focus all your attentions on a particular team. If you notice that there’s a team that you’ve seen many times and most of the results are a draw, then this would be a good team to pick. You could also do research into the historical results of teams, in fact the more research, the better. Generally there are some leagues that are better than others for this strategy. Avoid La Liga like the plague and opt for leagues like French Ligue 1 or the German Bundesliga, both have less goals and more draws in comparison to others.

Pick that one team and then make sure you follow it throughout the season and be sure that you always bet on it for a draw. If you should choose Marseille, for example, then make a £10 bet on a draw. If the bet is lost, then raise the stake by 50% the next game – so bet £15 on a draw. It won’t be long before you’ll come up trumps, and because you have progressed your bet, then not only will you minimise your losses, but hopefully, by the end of the season, you’ll have a pretty decent profit.

As you can imagine, betting on a draw is a little tedious. Betting on games that are low scoring and draws is not the most exciting past-time. However, if it’s a money making football strategy that you want, then this isn’t a bad one to try out.

The Asian Handicap Strategy

This is a great strategy to use if you want to make a bet on a game that looks as though the outcome is obvious and its odds reflect that. If Man City plays Southampton at home, the chance of Southampton winning is minimal. So, you could either put your money on Man City, which is rather pointless, as the odds will be so negligible that you’ll probably just about get your wager back, or you could bet on Southampton that may have high odds, but the chance of winning is pretty remote. This is where Asian Handicap Betting Strategy comes into play.

The best online bookmakers offer Asian Handicap odds and this makes the game much more exciting to bet on. Simply put, it will put a goal handicap on the teams. So, where Man City v Southampton is a pointless bet, if a handicap of -2.5 is placed on Man City, it becomes much more interesting. Then, if you place a bet on Man City to win the match, it is effectively starting the game with -2.5 goals, so in order to beat Southampton it would need to win by 3 clear goals. Conversely, if you put your money on Southampton, as long as Man City don’t beat them by 3 clear goals, Southampton wins with this strategy. This makes it much more even and because of this you’ll get better odds for Man City and more chance of a win for Southampton.

So, what if the handicap is -2 and Man City win by 2 goals? Then, according to the handicap, it’s considered a draw. Another benefit of this strategy is that if the outcome is declared a draw, the bookmaker will simply return your stake, making it a completely even bet.