Powerful Beginner’s guide to betting on football
Betting on football has always been the most popular form of online sports betting. This also holds for betting amongst beginners. The domestic betting industry has grown to allow punters to place a wager on a broad range of markets, with many bookies in the UK offering special promotions and very competitive odds.
Every week there are thousands of players betting on football . A huge number of different outcomes and they all share the same goal: they want to beat the bookie. As online bookmakers do their upperbest to make sure they win, it can become very difficult to find out where to start and how to bet on football. Do you consider yourself a beginner bettor that still has a lot of questions that need to be answered? Good news! Here’s your guide to betting on football – but first. let us show you a few beginner friendly betting sites.
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Introduction to Betting on Football
Betting on football has never been as popular as today. People all over the world enjoy betting on football, just as much as they enjoy football itself and that’s exactly what makes sports betting so popular amongst players. Sports betting, and football betting in particular, have managed to become so popular, simply because of the fact that sports themselves are very popular. Another advantage of sports betting is that it’s very straightforward. Placing wagers doesn’t involve any rocket science and with some knowledge of the sport your betting on, you can actually make a difference.
Betting on Football explained
If, however, you are completely new to the world of betting on footbal, then there are a few things you need to learn before you start placing your first bet. Obviously, you will need to understand the basics of what sports betting is all about, and how to place your wagers. The latter is pretty straightforward, so it doesn’t take a lot of time to get yourself ready for your first bet.
Becoming familiar with the sport you’re wanting to bet on does require some preparation. Let’s assume that you’re actually a football fan which should speed up the learning process. We’ll therefore focus on the following topics in our guide to betting.
- Know the different sorts of wagers.
- Understand how odds work and how to calculate payouts.
- Make selections and place wagers.
1. Know the different sorts of wagers
There’s quite a lot of information when it comes to the different types of wagers. You might not know the difference between a moneyline wager and a point spread wager? A lot of beginners won’t be able to answer this question, but bookmakers offer all sorts of wagers, leading to a lot of questions amongst beginners. One of the first steps should therefore be to familiarise yourself with the different wagers. Let’s give you a few examples:
- Win/Draw/Win: this is the basics in betting on football and it doesn’t get easier than this. You simply wager on the final outcome of a fixture and that’s it. The first win means the home team is going to win, the second means a draw, and the third win stands for the away team winning.
- Both Teams to Score: often abbreviated as BTTS, which means that you place a bet on both football teams scoring a goal. In this case you will have a winning bet if both teams make at least one goal each.
- Draw No Bet: this means that if the game ends in a draw your stake is automatically returned. Let’s say you’re not completely sure if your team wins and you bet on a Draw No Bet, also keeping some space for a possible draw. In this case you will get a (lower than average) return in case your pick wins, and you’ll receive a full return in case they draw. Do expect lower odds prices in case you go for this wager.
2. Understand how odds work and how to calculate payouts on football betting
One of the most important components of any sports wager is the odds. Odds show you how much money you can win in comparison with your stake. Odds give you an indication of the likelihood of a certain outcome happening. Do note that odds in football are pretty difficult to express as there are a lot of factors that play a role in the final result of a football game.
Odds can also be expressed in different ways as mentioned in our top 10 football betting tips and help us to decide whether a bet is of good value or not. We consider a good understanding of odds crucial for those interested in betting on football, while the same can be said about the ability to calculate potential payouts.
3. Make selections and place wagers
Once you understand how the different wagers and odds work it’s time to place your first bet. Most sportsbooks in the UK make it possible to combine different selections, giving you more flexibility and increasing your potential wins. The idea behind making selections via the so called football accumulator bets is that you use your knowledge of a certain football league or team to your advantage.
If you have followed everything Liverpool does and know they perform well at home, while Mo Salah is having his best days and has scored in the last 4 games, while the defense has conceded a goal over the last 9 games, than you could place a selection betting on:
- A home win for Liverpool.
- With 0 goals conceded.
- And at least one goal made by Salah.
Placing a bet, whether it’s a single or multi bet, isn’t very complicated, once you know how your preferred sportsbook works. Most sportsbooks work more or less the same.
Get the most out of the sign up bonuses
The betting market is a highly competitive one and that especially holds for bookmakers focussed on the UK market. British punters will therefore have a lot of bonuses they can make use of when signing up at a bookmaker. We therefore recommend you to always make the most out of your first bet by using the bonuses bookmakers have to offer.
These sports bonuses are specially meant for new bettors and range from free bets to match bonuses, while cash backs are very common as well. Before you pick your sportsbook bonus we do urge you to always check the terms and conditions of your preferred bookie. In our different sports betting guides on our site, we try to list the terms and conditions as much as possible.
Find yourself a football bookmaker
The bookmaker you eventually choose does make a huge difference on the betting experience, so make sure you make the right choice. In the United Kingdom, there are a lot of bookmakers to choose from and most of them do an excellent job. Do make sure though that you only play at a bookmaker that holds a valid license issued by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) and that the terms and conditions are actually reasonable. At BetBuilder.com we also pay a lot of attention to the user-friendliness of the website just as much as a nice welcome bonus. Our recommended bookmakers for 2021 therefore are:
Betting on football FAQ’s
What is the best strategy for getting on football?
Betting on football can become just as strategic as the game itself. There are some tips and tricks, however, to increase your winning chances. Football betting explained in a few steps:
1. Pick the right odds: these odds help you to decide whether a wager is actually worth going for a not. Probability plays an important role when talking about odds which are eventually by the bookmaker. Your choice for a certain bookie should therefore also depend on the odds they have to offer.
2. Pick a league and team(s): unlike many other games of chance, betting on football gives the experts amongst us a lot more probability to win than those who don’t know a thing about the game. One of the most interesting challenges is to get familiar with a league and/or team so you know exactly what’s going on. You might already be a big football fan and know everything about the game, but you might just want to stick to a certain league and a small selection of teams.
3. Master accumulator bets: while sports betting traditionally focused on wins, losses and draws only, accumulator bets give you the option to pick multiple selections and place your bet. This gives you the opportunity to bet on various elements of the same game, which experts use to their advantage. We advise you to stick to a maximum amount of 5 selections as this usually gives the best risk to reward ratio.
How do you become an expert in football betting?
In order to become an expert you will need to know everything about the game and the odds of football betting. A lot of people forget that being a good bettor also involves a strong mindset. While you continue to augment your knowledge about the game in our guide to betting, we would definitely advise you to also:
– Perform analysis on both your bets as the league or team you are betting on.
– Control your emotions.
– Refine your strategy on a continuous basis and become a consistent punter.
– Manage your money like a professional banker.
How do you bet on football online for beginners?
There are a large number of sportsbooks that try to attract bettors based in the UK and the first step would be to pick a bookie that fits your needs and offers a nice bonus to its new players. Once you have found yourself a bookmaker, you would need to get to know more about the basics of sports betting. These basics involve knowledge about the sport, but also require you to make decisions about the budget you want to use for your bets. You would also need to familiarise yourself with odds, probabilities and the possibilities that football accumulators have to offer. Luckily one of the easiest things is to find out how sportsbooks work themselves as they are pretty self explanatory.
How do you read sports spread?
A point spread in football betting is a way for bookmakers to come up with a matchup between 2 rather unbalanced teams. The idea of this is to make them more balanced by giving points to or removing points from each team involved in a bet. Let’s say the favourite in a match up is indicated with a minus symbol (-) and will have some points subtracted, while the weaker team can be recognised with the plus (+) symbol and will have a few points added to the end result. This way the teams will need to win by the point spread of the bookie. The punter wins in this case if this team wins the match outright or loses by a smaller amount than the point spread suggested by the bookie.
