How to Bet on Football without losing
This article on football betting advice is meant to serve as a starting point for readers, offering advice as well as mistakes to steer clear of when placing bets.
You must adhere to recommended betting guidelines and hone your betting skills in order to truly profit from your bets.
In our 'how to bet on football' guide, we teach how to bet for as well as against your favourite team. We also explain how to use mathematics to win football bets.
We have provided detailed explanations of football bet types. These include accumulators, double chance, draw no bet, handicaps, half time-full time, outrights and over/under markets. We go on to explain how to hedge football bets as well as how to exploit betting odds.
Important Tips for Football Betting
In football betting, adhering to some golden rules will always help. In this section of our tips on how to bet on football, we show you what they are:
1. Rely on football predictions of an expert
Those who win football bets rely on their experience and knowledge. How can you figure out such a winning strategy if you don't have prior experience?
Find a professional tipster and follow his advice rather than trust your own gut instinct. Using such a bet tip, win the wager, and bank your winnings.
Many knowledgeable tipsters offer free football betting tips online. They corroborate their claims with verified results accompanied by such stats as monthly profit, ROI, and average amount of stake.
2. Use matched betting
Matched betting can help eliminate risk by placing two opposite wagers -- the first with a bookmaker and the second with a betting exchange. The bets cancel out each other. It's a zero-risk strategy.
Both new and existing customers of most online betting sites are offered bonuses. Matched betting will make your betting experience exciting thanks to free bets and promotions offered by bookmakers. The process is quite simple and involves a few easy steps:
1. Create an account with a bookmaker offering a free bet
2. Make a qualifying wager to grab the offer
3. Make a second wager: a lay bet
4. Use the free bet to place a second lay bet
5. Bank your profit
3. Maintain a record
Maintaining betting records will help you to win more regularly. Your records should include:
- the bets won and lost by you
- what amount you staked on bets
- how much you won or lost on every bet
- the betting site(s) you used to bet with
Set a betting target. A record of betting gains will help decide whether you are on track to achieving your betting target. If you are making a profit, you can stick with the current betting strategy. If not, find out which bets are causing most losses and tweak your betting tactics accordingly.
4. Use different bookmakers
Don't stick with betting on just one betting site. Keep visiting different bookmakers' sites. There are more than a hundred great football betting sites to choose from. All bookmakers will try to convince you to bet on their sites. However, you need not be loyal as you will find many other opportunities with other sites.
From time to time, bookmakers offer their new and existing customers numerous promotions including free bets. Take advantage of these offers that can vary every day. Among the best promotions for customers are sign up offers.
Look for differences in odds offered by various bookmakers. These are more commonly seen in less frequented markets such as over/under goals, or anytime goal scorers. These differences can be attributed to varying information a bookmaker may receive with regard to pricing a market. Alternatively, some bookmakers may offer better odds -- such as a price boost -- to attract more customers. You can take help from price comparison websites such as oddschecker.
5. Make objective rather than emotional betting decisions
You can remain in control by analysing the merits of each bet. An emotional betting decision could cloud your betting judgement, leading to losses. You may have a favourite team.
Keep your emotions aside and refrain from betting on the team if your research and football analysis show that the team is unlikely to win. If you sense that your emotions are beginning to influence your betting decisions, take a break from betting. Return to betting only when you feel more analytical.
6. Arm yourself with knowledge
You must have complete knowledge of the current form of the teams in both attack and defence. You must also analyse their recent results, and team selections including injury lists. Such In-depth knowledge will make for a more enjoyable football betting experience. You can boost your knowledge by watching as many live games as possible.
Importantly, you must also know your markets very well. You must be aware that there are more markets other than popular ones such as Win/Draw/Win. These include team to win both halves, number of yellow cards, and so on. In such markets you can get better odds.
Mistakes to avoid during football betting
In this part of our tips on how to bet on football, we focus on common football betting mistakes. Our tips how to bet on football for beginners include teaching how to avoid these common mistakes must be :
1. Avoid backing favourites blindly
Bookmakers are aware that punters will stake more money on a favourite in a game. Accordingly, the punters will be given little value for their bets regardless of the match outcome.
Further, punters often bunch favourites together in an accumulator bet. They fail to analyse whether all the favourites are likely to win their respective games.
2. Don’t engage in speculative punts at large odds
Often, a football bettor is tempted to stake a large amount, just because a bookmaker offers huge returns. For instance, a bookmaker may quote odds of 8/1 on a team. If that team won, a punter would receive an eight-fold return on his stake.
The punter must not be lured unless he genuinely thinks the odds offered misrepresent the team’s winning chances. Bookmakers will not quote big odds without a good reason for the price. A punter must consider an alternative bet unless he is genuinely convinced that the team will do well.
3. Don’t neglect to consider every available market
Many punters prefer to place wagers on the 1X2 market. Some place accumulators involving numerous football teams. In the process, they might fail to find the value available in a more obscure football betting market.
Also, you could benefit by analysing for yourself how a match could pan out before reading the odds offered. For instance, if you expect a high scoring game, ‘both teams to score’ could be the best market for you. Likewise, if you expect a low scoring match, you can opt for an over/under bet.
4. Minimize your losses
Keep a daily or weekly record of bets placed. After a number of wagers, analyse to find out which bet type is proving better. Finetune your betting strategy. You would want to be able to limit the damage on losing bets. A well-thought-out strategy can help you optimize your football bets.