Online gambling continues to go from strength to strength, providing punters with a more convenient and comprehensive betting experience, with live odds updated all the time.
Globally, the online betting market was valued at $66.72b, and is expected to see incredible growth over the next few years. It’s estimated that the market will see an average growth of 11.4% each year from 2021 to 2028, meaning by the latter it will sit at a staggering $158.2b.
In the UK, football is the most popular sport for betting, with more than 40% of the money spent by bettors wagered on it.
It’s no surprise that online football betting is so popular, given how it is one of the most followed sports in the world. However, with so many options, it can be difficult to know where to place your bets.
The most important thing is to find an online betting site you can trust, and that is clearly a safe and reliable option. Established names like 888 Sport will always fit this bill. Plus, you want to make sure these sites are offering the best odds and deals, so keep your eyes peeled.
When it comes to actually placing bets on football, the main options you’ll be presented with are the outright winner and correct score. For the former, you are simply selecting who you think will win a particular match. For example, Manchester City might be offered at 1/2 against West Ham, who are priced at 3/1. This would mean you’d need to bet £20 on City in order to win £10, while a £10 bet on the Hammers would net £30. Of course, a draw is also a possible outcome and will also have its own odds, which are typically longer.
Outright winner odds are also offered for competitions and tournaments, like the Premier League or FA Cup. Here, all the teams involved in said competition will have available odds, and you put money on the team you think will win the entire thing. As it’s obviously a lot harder to win a whole competition rather than just one game, these odds are longer.
Correct score betting offers more options but is much harder to get right. Bookmakers will offer various different potential score lines for a match, each with corresponding odds. For example, Man City to win 2-0 against West Ham might be priced at 2/1, while West Ham to win 3-1 might be 6/1. A £10 bet on the former would return £10 while the same stake on the latter would win £60.
To boost those odds even further, you can bet on a scorecast. This means not only are you betting on the exact score line, but you’re also selecting a goal-scorer. A potential bet for this would be Man City to win 2-0 and Sergio Aguero to score at odds of 4/1.
Like most sports, football also offers over/under betting, where you bet on the amount of times a certain event happens in a game. The most common bet for these is to wager on the number of goals scored in a game. Bookmakers select a baseline number for the event, and you can bet on the total number of times it is happening are under or over that baseline.
For example, for the Man City vs West Ham game, the baseline could be set at 2.5 goals. If you bet under, then you win if there are zero, one or two goals scored in the game, and lose if there are three or more. If you bet over, your stake wins if there are three or more goals, and loses if there are zero, one or two.
Accumulators are also a very popular method of betting on football. Instead of betting on the outcome of one game, you are selecting the outcome of several, and they all need to be correct for your bet to win. Accumulators offer excellent value off small investment, because all of the individual odds for each game you select are combined to create one set of odds that your bet will be priced at. The reason the reward is so high is because accumulators are hard to get right; you need to predict every result correctly.
A man from Scarborough found out just how valuable accumulators can be when he won over £45,000 from a £1 bet. His bet relied on the outcomes of eight games in total, culminating with Barcelona’s La Liga win over Osasuna.
Of course, if you’ve put on an accumulator, you should pay attention to the games involved in it. This might seem obvious, but a punter from Edinburgh placed a 10-fold accumulator with £1 at stake, winning £50,000 in the process, but he hadn’t cashed it in with the bookies.
There are various different options for online football betting, each with differing values and benefits. If simpler bets like outright winner or correct score aren’t appealing, consider other options like an over/under or even an accumulator. Finally, remember to have fun and know your limits.