How to bet on football and win?

Before we check out our football betting strategies, the following is something you should always keep in mind:

You’re not going to win all your football bets – it’s just not possible!

Despite what others say, betting on football is not a guaranteed way to make money. There’s an incredible number of variables that go into football betting and there’s no way of predicting the correct outcome every time.

However, there are certain tips and strategies we can use to increase our chances of winning football bets.

BTTS: BTTS bet demands the punters to predict if both teams will score a goal or not. Most of the matches, where both teams are likely to score, see the meeting of teams which are arch rivals. They don't allow the opponent to take over so easily. Also, when two teams with similar capacity or strength lock horns, the match ends with goals marked on each team's side.

Over/Under: This bet can work in your favor when you have chosen a smaller figure as reference. In some matches where both teams are strong at hitting goals, you can peg the over/under figure at a low point of 0.5. In this case, you will lose the bet only if the match ends in clean sheet, which seems fairly impossible. Secondly, since you are not speculating exact figure but the range, the bet proves to be a bit easier.

Double chance bet: In this bet, you win money when any two from the three outcomes are obtained. It means, even draw match wins you money when you have placed money on the possibility of draw or lose. 1x2 betting with double chance proves easy when the strong team is meeting a weak team at home ground. Probability wise, too, the chances become 33.33% each instead of 50%.

Double Chance allows betting on two outcomes of a sporting event, increasing the chances of winning. This type of bet is commonly used in football matches. It's one of the easiest and safest bets on football because it involves two possible results. You can pick either a home win/draw; away win/draw; home win/away win.

An easy bet offers better opportunity to win without taking too many risks. Also, the bet is easy to guess as the results are quite obvious.

Here are some of the features of an easy bet:

• A strong team meets weak team at home ground
• Both teams are equal in strength and are happy sharing a point; thus, draw is more possible
• The bet does not demand predicting exact score
• Betting on a range of score such as over/under 3 and likewise
• Prop bets like those available during live betting have low odds and are easy to guess

Identifying an easy bet requires in-depth research. As a beginner, you may feel overwhelmed by the abundance of matches and opportunities. Hence, you may take help of a soccer tipster who can provide reliable opinion with more than 80% accuracy.

No matter how many sports you profess to know like the back of your hand, and despite the countless hours of dedication you put into honing your craft, betting on sports is hard because the markets we bet into are skewed in favor of the sportsbook.

• Carry out Extensive Research.
• Avoid Overconfidence.
• Make use of a Handicapper.
• Avoid Parlays.

Tips to Win on soccer betting:

• Follow a Tipster. Following a good tipster can increase your chances of winning.
• Try Matched Betting.
• Make use of a Handicapper.
• Take the small profits.
• Understand all betting markets.
• Never bet with your gut.

For a soccer match (soccer predictions 1×2) there are three potential outcomes that could happen. There is either going to be a home win, an away win or the draw. That’s it, so a 1X2 bet refers to that.
The numbers just represent an outcome:

• 1 represents a Home win
• X represents a Draw
• 2 represents an Away win

You will see a fixed-odds price attached to each of the three options in a 1X2 market for a game. These are representative of the probabilities that the bookmaker has assigned to each of the likely outcomes. For example, if the away side is at 2/1 then 2/1 odds (1×2 odds) means that the bookmaker has an implied probability of 33% on the Away win happening.
You take which one of the three outcomes in a 1X2 bet that you like (1x2 bet predictions) and place a single stake against it. If that outcome occurs, your bet wins. Remember though that you always have two opposing potential outcomes to your selected one. That’s the risk.

The term 2,5 goals is used because you are betting on one of the following:

• 2 goals or less being scored (The Under 2,5 goals market)
• 3 goals or more being scored (The Over 2.5 goals market)

The number 2,5 is used because it falls in the middle of both markets.

You either think a game will be a low scoring one with 2 goals or less or you think there will be goals a-plenty, with 3 goals or more.

If you bet on less than 2,5 goals and the game finishes 0-0, 1-0, 0-1 or 1-1 then your bet is a winner.
Yet if bet on less than 2,5 goals and the game finishes 2-1 or higher, then your bet is a loser.
And as the number of goals on average in a football game hovers around the 2,5 marker (although this varies based on trends, leagues and time of year) then its the usual market on offer.

The Over/Under 2,5 goals market isn’t the only option available to you though. If we look at the odds for this sample game, we can see a whole range of Over/Under goal lines:

• Over/ Under 0,5 goals means you want either 1 goal (over) or more or no goals (under).
• Over/ Under 1,5 goals means you want either 2 goals (over) or more or 1 goal or less (under).
• Over/ Under 3,5 goals means you want either 4 goals (over) or more or 3 goal or less (under).

This is a very straight forward bet used on football matches. It is a straight 50/50 choice for punters whether to select both teams to score in the match, or not.
This is also referred to as a BTTS bet for short. Will both teams hit the back of the net in a game? Yes or no? That’s all that this bet is about.

The simple BTTS bet requires just the one unit stake against it and you simply make a Yes or No prediction for the fixture. The No option means that the bet will win if the game ends in a goalless draw or if just one of the teams scores. The Yes option will only win if both teams score in the match.

The half-time/full-time bet, which is also simply referred to as HT/FT, is a forecast of the half-time and full-time results in one match. Even though this is just a bet with a single stake unit against it, it requires both predictions to be right in order for the bet to win. If just one of the predictions are wrong within it, the bet loses.

It’s important to note that this bet isn’t the results of two individual halves of the game. For example, if you have taken a Man City/Chelsea HT/FT bet, that’s not suggesting that Man City win the first half and Chelsea win the second half. It means that Man City are winning at half-time and Chelsea will win the match outright at 90 minutes.

So in a Man City/Chelsea bet for example, the Citizens could be leading 3-0 at half time, but lose the second half 2-0. The bet still wins as City would win the match outright by a 3-2 scoreline.

You will see a half-time/full-time bet option presented as something like Manchester City/Manchester City or Draw/Manchester City. For a given football match there are nine different combinations of HT/FT bets that can happen.

• 1/1 = Home/Home
• X/1 = Draw/Home
• 2/1 = Away/Home
• 1/X = Home/Draw
• X/X = Draw/Draw
• 2/X = Away/Draw
• 1/2 = Home/Away
• X/2 = Draw/Away
• 2/2 = Away/Away

A Draw No Bet means simply that the bet which you have struck for backing the winner of a football match becomes void if the game ends in a draw. The entire stake gets refunded in such an instance.

The basis of the Draw No Bet is still the same as picking a winner in a 1×2 market. You pick the team that you want to win. However, with backing the team as a Draw No Bet option you have the coverage of the stake coming back to you if your team does not win or lose.

In a 1×2 market, you back the Home Win (1). That means the other two outcomes will cause your bet to lose. However, because in a Draw No Bet the draw would return your lost stake, it leaves you with the scenario of only the other team winning to totally cause the bet to lose.

So basically, only one outcome (instead of two) would cause the loss of the stake. Because of that extra insurance which rides on the bet, the odds are naturally going to be shorter as opposed to backing them in the match outright. Here is an example.

The odds in the match outright are:

• Manchester City 2,25
• Manchester United 3,10
• Draw - money back

You think that Manchester City will produce a win in the game but they are away from home and it is still a tough fixture for them. So you’re a little unsure about them pulling out a victory but they still looked the more likely of the two to do so. So in backing a Draw No Bet on Manchester City at 4/6 odds, it means you have a small contingency. If Man City win, you are paid out at the 4/6 odds, if they draw you get the full stake refund. If they lose the stake is lost.

Handicap betting is where things start to get a little more complicated. You should be able to understand this easily enough if you’re used to betting on the major US sports though, as it’s essentially the same as betting point spreads.

The driving force with handicap wagers is that the teams are awarded extra goals or deducted goals for the purposes of the betting. Most bookmakers allow you to choose how many goals are awarded or deducted, and offer different odds depending on your choice.

This is another wager that makes more sense with an example, so here’s how the handicap market might look for the Tottenham versus Norwich game:

• Tottenham (-1) / 2,70
• Norwich (+1) / 2,20
• Tottenham (-2) / 5,25
• Norwich (+2) / 1,45

There are three distinct options to choose from here. Tottenham are the clear favorite, so the options on that team all involve deducting goals. Norwich are the underdog, so the options on that team all involve awarding extra goals. This is standard practice, but some bookmakers do offer handicap markets where the favorites are awarded goals and the underdogs are deducted goals.

Let’s say you decided to go with Tottenham (-1) on this game. Tottenham would have to win by at least two goals for your wager to win, as they’re going to be deducted a goal. So if they actually won 2-1, the result would technically be 1-1 for the purposes of the betting. This is a draw, so you lose the wager. If Tottenham won 3-1, though, then the result is 2-1 after the handicap is applied. So you’d win the wager.

A bet on Tottenham (-2), would need Tottenham to win by three or more goals. When wagering on the underdog for the handicap, the opposite rules apply. A bet on Norwich (+1) then only needs Norwich to draw the game. If the actual result was 1-1, then the result with the handicap applied would be 1-2. This is a victory for Norwich, so the wager would be successful. With a bet on Norwich (+2), Norwich could lose by a single goal and you’d still be successful.

Handicap betting is a good way to manage risk versus reward when betting on soccer games. You can choose selections that are more likely to be correct but come with lower odds, or you can choose that selections that are less likely to be correct but come with higher odds.