Football Betting Guide For Beginners

 
Football Betting Guide For Beginners Average ratng: 9,7/10 7484 reviews

Football Betting Strategy for Beginners 1. Understand Each of Your Betting Options. The first thing you need to do before betting on football is make sure that. Be Aware of the Key Numbers. Think all points in a point spread are created equal? Due to the unique.

  1. However, football betting can be extremely challenging if you want to achieve a profit and beat the bookies, so we’ve prepared a brief guide to help get you started! Understand the Lingo Whenever you first visit a gambling operator online, you may well find yourself overwhelmed by the terms used to describe different types of wager, market.
  2. Beginners Guide to Football Betting This is a beginners guide to football betting, written by a beginner! You might not know this about me, but whilst Ian is a football betting expert with a long history of placing football bets, I am not! I know the web and how to make things on it, but I don’t know a lot about football.
  3. Within this football betting guide, we’ll try to help you remove these biases from your thought process. This will help you make better picks on every market – particularly the 1-x-2. With significantly lower odds than the market above, double chance allows you to cover two of the three outcomes in a football game.

Last Updated: 10/05/2019

Common Terms used in FootBall Betting

What/Who is a Bookie?

Bookie is often used to refer to a bookmaker.

Football betting guide for beginners

The job of a bookmaker or bookie is to accept and pay off bets from gamblers, the wagers are usually on sporting events, but, bookies also accept bets on horse racing and casino games.

Football

They also have the responsibility of setting the odds which is capable of yielding profit if set correctly but can also lead to great loss to the bookmakers if not properly set.

The Complete Guide to Football Betting

It is very necessary to get conversant with betting in order to learn how to predict football matches correctly

It is our duty to help you in understanding the football betting terms / abbreviations that are commonly used in the free tips section of this sure prediction site or any other soccer prediction site

The Three Way Option (1X2)

This is usually the easiest betting option / market and also the most popular in use. It can be found on all betting sites. It has just three options: 1 X and 2

1

This simply means HOME WIN. It can also be represented with H.

So for a match like Chelsea vs Man Utd in the English Premier League, if you select and bet on 1, it means you are betting on a Chelsea Win, thus for outcomes like Chelsea 2:1 ManUtd, Chelsea 1:0 ManUtd, or Chelsea 5:2 ManUtd, it is successful and the bet is won. For outcomes like Chelsea 1:1 ManUtd, Chelsea 1:2 ManUtd or anything that is not a Home WIN (Chelsea win in this case) is a failed or lost bet.

X

This is Draw. If you select this option, it means that both teams must score the same number of goals or score no goal at all for the bet to be successful. Using the sample match above, anything that does not look like 0-0, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5 etc is a lost bet.

2

This simply is AWAY win and can also be represented by A. For the Chelsea vs Manchester match, Manchester is required to score more goals than Chelsea for the bet to be successful; thus, when we bet on 2, we expect outcomes like 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 1-4, 2-3 etc

Goals

Over/Under Goals

Over simply means more than specified while Under means less than or equal to specified.

That said, let us start with Over 0.5; Over 0.5 Goal means there must be a total of 1 or more goals scored in the match for the bet to be successful. Also, over 1.5 as frequently used in our German Bundesliga Predictionsmeans 2 goals and above. Over 3.5 means 4 Goals and above, etc.

For Unders, Under 1.5 Goals means 1 goal or less, anything above 1 Goal in the match is a lost bet. Again, Un 2.5 Goals means the total goals in the match should be exactly 2 Goals or less. See Table below:

Total GoalsOver 2.5Under 2.5
0LostWon
1LostWon
2LostWon
3WonLost
4WonLost
5WonLost

Both Teams to Score (Yes or No)

This is often represented by BTTS or GG (Goal Goal). This is pretty much straight forward because obviously, when selecting this option, you already should know you should expect.

BTTS-YES (GG)

Both Teams to score. Examples of successful outcomes include: 1-1, 1-2. 6-1, 4-2 etc. Both teams have to score for your bet to be successful.

BTTS-NO (NGG)

One or Both teams MUST NOT score. Examples of successful outcomes include: 0-0,0-1,4-0,0-2,3-0 etc. At least one of the teams must score NO GOAL in the match.

Double Chance

This betting option is quite easy to learn and master. The double chance is a great options because it provides extra security. The double chance option is of three major types: 1X, 12 and X2.

1X

Selecting this option means you are betting on the Home Team to Win or at least DRAW the match. If somehow, the away team wins the match, the bet has been lost.

12
Betting on this option means there must be a win. Either the Home Team or the Away Team must win the match. The match must not end in a draw.
X2

When you come across this otion in prediction sites on on betting sites, it means betting on the Away Team to Win or at least DRAW the match. If the Home team wins the match, the bet has been lost.

Home/Away

Sometimes we see prediction tips like Home Score, Home Win either half etc in top prediction sites

Home Score / Home Ov 0.5

This simply requires the Home Team to score at least one goal.

Away Ov 1.5

This betting option simply means the Away Team has to score 2 goals and above in the match.

Betting on Home No Score / Home Un 0.5 means that you do not expect the Home Team to score at all.

Away Un 1.5

This option means the Home Team is expected not to score more than 1 goal in the match.

N.B: Check the Overs/Unders section if you do not understand the terms Ov 1.5, Un 0.5 etc very well.

No Bet

Sometimes, we see Football betting tips like HNB, DNB or ANB in top prediction sites and we keep wondering, what do these things even mean? Well:

  1. HNB means Home No Bet
  2. DNB means Draw No Bet
  3. ANB means Away No Bet

The HNB, DNB and ANB have major options which are 1, X and 2

HNB (Home No Bet)

When considering this market and its options, you have to bear one thing in mind; if the Home Team wins, the bet is canceled and the stake is refunded (for singles). For accumulators, other games on the slip need to be accurate so that the accumulator slip will not be lost. The major betting options for HNB are: X HNB and 2 HNB.

X HNB

When you bet on X HNB;

  • If the match ends in a DRAW, the bet is won.
  • f Home wins, bet is canceled and stake is refunded.
  • If Away wins, bet is lost.
2 HNB

When you bet on 2 HNB;

  • If Away wins, bet is won.
  • If Home wins, bet is canceled and stake is refunded.
  • If the match ends in a DRAW, the bet is lost.

DNB (Draw No Bet)

Just as the name implies, Draw as the final result of the match simply means your stake is refunded. The options available in DNB are: 1 DNB and 2 DNB

1 DNB

When you choose 1 DNB;

  • If Home wins, the bet is won.
  • If the match ends in a draw, bet is canceled and stake is refunded.
  • If Away wins, bet is lost.
2 DNB

When you wager on 2 DNB;

  • If Away wins, the bet is won.
  • If the match ends in a draw, bet is canceled and stake is refunded.
  • If Home wins, bet is lost.

ANB (Away No Bet)

When selecting the options from this market, you have to remember that if the Away Team wins, the bet is canceled and the stake is refunded. The available betting options for HNB are: X HNB and 2 HNB

1 ANB

When you select 1 ANB;

  • If Home wins, the bet is won.
  • If Away wins, bet is canceled and stake is refunded.
  • If the match ends in a draw, the bet is lost.
X ANB

When you bet on 2 DNB;

  • If Away wins, the bet is canceled and stake is refunded.
  • If the match ends in a draw, bet is won.
  • If Home wins, bet is lost.

HANDICAP

This is the type of bet market that is very common and is mostly used by the masters of Contrarian Betting. It involves adding a number of points / Goals to the Underdogs by way of giving them a Head Start before the game starts as well as subtracting the same number of points or goals from the favorites before the match starts. The Handicap Market is of two types: The European Handicap and the Asian Handicap.

European Handicap

The European Handicap is the most common in use and can be represented in various forms.

Examples:
England -1 X -1 Spain 1 is the same thing as (0:1) 1H (0:1) XH (0:1) 2H
AND
England 1 X -1 Spain -1 is the same thing as (1:0) 1H (1:0) XH (1:0) 2H
Likewise
England -2 X -2 Spain 2 is the same thing as (0:2) 1H (0:2) XH (0:2) 2H
AND
England 2 X -2 Spain -2 is the same thing as (2:0) 1H (2:0) XH (2:0) 2H

Now, selecting England -1 from the first example is the same as selecting (0:1) 1H and it means England has to win the match by 2 goals or more for the bet to be won.

What do you mean?

In the above selection (England -1 or (0:1) 1H), we are giving Spain ONE GOAL ahead before the match is started, thus; we are assuming that England is loosing the match by 1 goal before the match is started and then we are betting on England to come from behind, from that one goal deficit to win the match.

Examples of the outcomes we expect are: 2:0, 3:1, 4:2 etc. England must win by 2 goals or more for the bet to be won. Anything less than 2 goals is a lost bet.

Selecting X-1 (or (0:1) XH) means England has to win the match by exactly 1 goal. If England wins by more than one goal, the bet is lost. Also, if the match ends in a draw, the bet is lost too.

Picking Spain 1 (or (0:1) 2H) requires Spain to Win or at least get a Draw from the match. If Spain looses, the bet is lost.

Asian Handicap

The Asian Handicap is very common in soccer picks sites like picksmachine.comA typical example is:

Say Italy vs France and the Asian Handicap odds are listed as follows:Italy (-1.5 at 2 odds) and France (+1.5 at 1.86 odds)

After the match, the 1.5 goals are added to France score to determine winning and losing bets.

For instance, a scoreline of Italy 3 : 1 France in this betting option actually means Italy 3 : 2.5 France and in this case, the bet is won.

1.5 Handicap bet requires Italy to win by 2 or more goals but if eventually, France wins the match or looses by less than two goals, the France (+1.5) wins.

Other Types of Handicaps

Split Handicap, Over/Under Handicap.
Over/Under Handicap

This is another very nice handicap option.

Take a look at a very practical approach to Over/Under Handicap.If you bet on Over 2.25 or Under 2.25, here are the results and the winning / loosing possibilities.

Total GoalsOver 2.25Under 2.25
0LostWon
1LostWon
2Half LoseHalf Win
3WonLost
4WonLost

Here is same for Over 2.75 or Under 2.75; please notice the differnce in values.

Total GoalsOver 2.75Under 2.75
1LostWon
2LostWon
3Half WinHalf Lose
4WonLost
5WonLost

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That being said, we’ve watched football betting become quite the international phenomenon. Brick and mortar bookmakers are found at almost every street corner all around the world, online football betting sites are becoming more and more popular, and we almost all know somebody who hit a big jackpot betting on their favorite team.

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1. How to choose a good betting site?

After understanding how to place bets and knowing what you want to bet on, you will face the hard task of selecting a partner which will provide you with games, odds and possible winnings. Choosing the best betting site to place your bets on is no easy task, but there are some things you should consider.

First off, try opening your first account with a big, reputable online bookmaker, not a local bookie. These sites usually have millions of customers who both win and lose money on a regular basis. They surely have good customer support, good offers and are also beginner-friendly.

Next, you should carefully look at what kind of bonuses these websites offer you. Most betting agencies have promotions like sign-up or deposit bonuses, of up to 200% on your initial deposit. It’s something to start your betting career with twice the money you’d be willing to invest, isn’t it? Also, look at what free bets they have the habit of offering or what other exclusive betting offers they have, like bigger odds or cash back prizes.

Last but not least, there are a couple or more things you should look at. Compare the odds they offer against the competition, and see how they stack. Are their odds in line with the competition? Are they significantly smaller? You surely want the best odds for your money, and your betting site should help you here. Also, if you want to use cash outs on your bets, look for a betting site which offers this possibility – not a lot of them do.

2. How to bet on football matches

Betting on football is, in essence, quite easy. You either go to your local bookie or open his website, find a game you think you can predict the outcome off, and check the odds the bookie gives you. If you’re satisfied with the odds, place your wager, go home, watch the game and then go and collect your winnings. Even if you know all those betting terms, we’d like to make a small dictionary:

Wager = also called stake, it’s the amount of money you bet on any given betting slip

Betting slip = can contain one or more bets. If it contains more bets, the odds can either be played as single or accumulator.

Odds = the money your bookie pays you for the event you put a wager on if the bet is won. These odds can be presented in decimal format (1,50), fraction (1/2) or American (-100). Those three numbers are all the same.

The most common presentation format is the decimal format, which has the following meaning: If you bet £10 on a 1,50 odd selection, you win 10 * 1,50 = £15. If you retract your initial wager, you earn a profit of £5.

Accumulator = If you have more than one bet on your betting slip, you have the possibility of accumulating odds, either by simple multiplication (odd of bet 1 x odd of bet 2 x odd of bet 3 … etc) or by using a system.

HT/FT = Half time / Full Time

DNB = Draw No Bet. If you placed a DNB bet and the game ends in a draw, you get your money back.

Free bet = A bonus from your betting site – if you lose this bet, you’ll get your wager back.

Cashout = The possibility of closing a bet before the end of the game. For example, you bet that Real Madrid wins against Barcelona and Real lead 2-1 in the 75th minute. If you have the option to cash out, you could withdraw from the bet, mark it as a winner and win a fraction of the total prize.

Over/Under = In football betting, “over” a certain number means “more than”, while “under” means “fewer than/less than”.

This a part of the jargon you’ll need to get used to.

3. Popular markets

Now that you understand how to place your bet, you’ll start looking for teams and games on which to bet on. Surely, you have your favorite team and league, but what if there are better possibilities out there? In the football betting world, there is a simple rule: the more popular the event, the better the odds and the more options you have.

Football

If you want to bet on a famous game like Barcelona – Real Madrid, you’ll surely have lots of special offers, good odds and lots of possible bets to choose from. If you want to bet on a local Romanian derby like Chindia Targoviste – FC Arges or a local Maltese rivalry, you might have a hard time.

Here are the most popular football events which you should have on your radar:

World Cup, European Championship, Copa America

These events happen once every few years but are usually followed by football fans from all around the world – meaning that bookies will be looking to attract customers. Moreover, it’s a good idea to bet on national squads in general, because the difference in player’s value is a lot more visible than in the case of clubs. While these competitions offer lots of betting possibilities, they only happen every so often.

Champions League, Europa League, Copa Libertadores

Continental cups are a joy to watch, putting teams from all around the continent against each other. While these games occur fairly often over the course of the year, they are very unpredictable at times. Picking the winner of this kind of games might be hard at times, but there are many other possibilities to look into for these games.

Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1

The domestic leagues are the bread and butter of any betting enthusiast because teams have to deliver consistent results here, weekend after weekend. This is where their form will rise or drop, where surprises and good results will happen – this is where we’ll be making the most of our bets.

Moreover, aim to bet in the biggest league on the continent, like the English Premier League(read more about Premier League betting here) and Championship, the Spanish La Liga, the Italian Serie A, the German Bundesliga or the French Ligue 1. Sure, there are more options on the continent, but you can safely stick to these and make a decent sum of money each weekend.

Domestic Cups

Each country has at least one domestic cup, which runs each year. We usually avoid picking winners in these cup games, because it’s very hard to predict if teams treat this competition with the respect it deserves or view it as just another place to rotate their squad. Even if we can’t pick winners, there are things to be played in cup games.

4. Betting types

Finally, now that you’re settled and have your account and money ready, it’s time to start placing some bets. There are lots of kinds of bets you can look into, but the most important ones you need to know are the following:

Final result/halftime result

This is the easiest and most common bets. You are simply putting money on either the final (FT) result of the game or the halftime (HT) result of the game. For these bets, the home team is always marked with the number 1, the away team is marked with the number 2, and the draw is marked with X.

Say you want to bet on a game between Manchester United and Manchester City, played at Old Trafford (United’s home ground). You will see something like: 1 – 1,90 ; X – 3,20; 2 -5,50. This means that United’s odds to win the game are 1,90, making them favorites, while City’s win will bring you 5,50 times your initial investment.

These bets are called outright bets – because you’re only betting on the fulltime result. You can make the same kind of bets on the halftime result, or combine both HT and FT predictions for better odds.

For example, a bet like “HT/FT 1/1” means that you believe United will lead both at half-time and at the end of the game. Some of these selections like “HT/FT 2/1” have huge odds – around 30 – but they’re very hard to predict.

Furthermore, if you think United are in poor form and City should at least avoid defeat, there are a couple of ways to bet on this. First, we have the “Double Chance” type of bet, which has three options:

1X – Either the home team wins or the game ends in a draw

X2 – Either the away team wins or the game ends in a draw

12 – Either team wins, no draw

If you believe Manchester City avoid defeat in the previous example, X2 is the way to go. Also, you have the opportunity of going for a “DNB” bet explained in the glossary above. “DNB” here means that if City wins, your bet is a winner, but if the game ends in a draw, you get your money back.

Number of goals

Sometimes, you don’t want to bet on the final result of the game, because it can easily be influenced by factors which are out of control. For example, Chelsea might play a minnow in the FA Cup, and has the odds to win of 1,20 – a sure-fire bet, right? In the 10th minute, a Chelsea defender commits a professional foul, he gets sent off, the opponents receive a penalty and score. Things suddenly are much harder for the Blues – and for you, if you went for an outright bet.

One of the other options is to bet on the number of goals scored in a game. In this case, most betting websites have the “over/under” system, built around -.5 numbers. For example, an “over 0,5” goal bet means that you believe at least one goal will be scored in the game, regardless of the team. 2,5 is the most famous number here – most bets are placed whether we’ll see over 2,5 goals in a game or under this number.

Of course, you can also bet on a certain team to score over a certain number of goals or under it. For example, Barcelona to score over 1,5 goals is a winning bet if they win 5-0 or lose 2-3 – making it a flexible investment. Some bookies also give the opportunity of betting on scoring intervals. You can bet that you’ll see between 1 and 4 goals in a given game. The narrower the interval, the bigger the odds, in that case.

There is another special mention here: the “both teams to score bet”. This bet is one if each team manages to put the ball in the back of the net. 1-1, 3-2, 5-4, 6-1 are all winners here. A very nice way to abuse of this bet is to play it when a very big team meets a small one. The favorites are likely to score 3 or 4 times, but they’ll lose their focus and concede a goal.

Correct score

There’s not a lot to explain here. The odds betting websites offer for correct score bets are usually big, but these are very hard to predict and rely a lot on luck. One way to abuse of these correct scores is to combine them. Let’s say a solid defensive team meets a much weaker team at home. They will likely win the game and avoid conceding, but won’t score much. Placing three bets on correct scores like 1-0, 1-1 and 2-0 will give you better odds than going for an “under 2,5 goal” bet.

Handicap betting

Most people believe Handicap betting is a complicated thing to understand. They’re very far from the truth. Simply put, the number you see near a team’s name is the number of goals (or cards, or anything else) they have as “bonus”. Let us explain.

In the game described above between Manchester United and Manchester City, in the Asian Handicap section of your betting website’s list of bets, you will see something like Manchester United +1.

This means that United start the game with a one-goal advantage. If the final score is 0-0, United are the winners because of their initial +1 bonus. If the final score is 0-1, the bet is drawn (1-1, with the initial bonus), the you get your money back. A +0,5 Asian Handicap is the same as a 1X bet, while a -1,5 Asian Handicap would mean that you expect United to win by at least 2 goals. If you betted United -1,5 and the game would end 1:0, you would lose the bet, even though United won.

A +0,75 bet is nothing more than a halfway bet between +0,5 and +1. Your bet is divided between a +0,5 bet and a +1 bet. If the final score is 0:1, you’d lose the +0,5 bet, but get your money back on the +1 bet, limiting the amount of money you lose.

Asian Handicap bets are also available for number of goals scored, cards, corners, possession, etc.

Special bets

Speaking of cards and possession, you have the opportunity of betting on these things as well. You can bet that one team will be booked more than their adversaries, that they’ll have more possession, you can bet on the player who will score one goal, more than one goal, the first goal – the opportunities are endless. Remember though, the more complicated the scenario, the less likely it is to happen.

On paper, a bet like United to win by 2 goals, Zlatan to score once and Pogba to be booked while City has more overall yellow cards sounds rather easy. Seeing it, in reality, is a lot harder.

Acca – Accumulator bets

The last thing you need to know here is about accumulator betting. We recommend that you stick to one, two or maybe three events on your betting slip. We’ve seen in practice that the chances of winning when you bet on more events drop dramatically. Even if you bet on favorites, just look across Europe’s main leagues for two or three weekends, and see how many of these favorites lose points against weaker clubs.

Football Training For Beginners

Of course, you will see on an almost daily basis that some guy won £50,000 with a £5 wager, after placing 22 selections on a betting slip and miraculously winning them all. Nobody tells us how many people lose £5 bets every single day, and how many times that guy played a £5 selection before he won that great prize. If you dream of hitting it big without having to work, you might be better off playing the lotto.

Conclusions

In the end, we hope we’ve managed to cover the basics of football betting and sent you well on your way to earning money from this activity. There are a couple of things we want to state before closing off:

– Only bet what you can afford to lose. Never bet hard-earned money that you need for something else. Treat betting as a side income at best, if not just a hobby.

For

Football Betting Guide For Beginners Classes

– Always document your bets. This will help you understand where you win, where you lose and how you can improve your overall percentages.

– There will always be bad days. There will be weekends when you’ll win every single bet you make, and weekends when you’ll lose a bet which had a 1,04 odd.

– Be consistent. Develop your betting system from the beginning, and stick to it for at least 6 months so that you can test it in real, live conditions.

– Avoid betting at the start of each season, on early cup stages and on friendlies. Outright bets are to be avoided here – look for better ideas.

In the end, we want to thank you for reading this article and wish you good luck in your betting career. Stop by to read our weekly game analysis and feel free to pitch up any ideas you might have – we love nothing more than making money and winning bets.

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