Do's and Don'ts of Football Betting

£500billion a year and it’s thought that 70% of that is placed on football, so how do you make your football bets a success? Here are our 5 top do’s and don’ts of football betting # 1 – Do Look at different markets. Football is one of the sports that offers a whole range of different markets to bet in, the bigger the game, the bigger the range! With most English Premier League and International games will offering up to 200 markets for you. With this range, you no longer have to predict the result of the 90 minutes. I‘ve had considerable success betting on the total number of goals in a game whilst a colleague of mine likes to bet on anytime goalscorers. In play betting has now added another dimension to this and allows you to bet during the game even down to what will happen in the next 5 minutes. If you watching a match that is getting feisty then you can back the next event being a yellow card. This range of markets offers you great flexibility, if you believe a particular action will occur then you can more than likely back it. # 2 – Do Stick to what you know. You cannot be an expert on every league that bookies are offering odds on. Keeping on top of developments within just one league is hard and time consuming as you need to keep up to date with injuries, suspensions, signings, form etc. A couple of seasons ago I used to bet on Europa League games, mainly as there were no other games on a Thursday. The problem is that I had no real knowledge of the teams outside the UK that were taking part or more importantly how seriously they were taking the tournament. I lost heavily during this period as I was basing my bets purely on league position rather than an informed decision. #3 – Don’t Go too long. Accumulators are a great way of increasing your odds and a very popular football bet but don’t get carried away. A £1 treble made up of 3 bets at evens will result in a return of £8 if they all come in, this is also realistically possible. However too many people get carried away and build an 8 or 12 result accumulator. The odds look great, you could earn something like £5K from a £1 stake! But football is notoriously unpredictable and an accumulator only needs one result to fail and the bet is dead. If you are gambling for fun then going long is a good idea and adds excitement to your sport but if you are gambling to win money then going long means losing your stake! #4 Don’t bet on your team and don’t bet on your main rival … ever! Although we have said ‘stick to what you know’ if you are a football fan then don’t bet on the team that you love or the team that you hate as you will not be able to judge the bet correctly. I’m based in South Yorkshire and have a good knowledge of the local teams but never ever bet on either of the Sheffield clubs as my judgement is clouded by my passion. I know of many fans who bet against their team as a form of insurance to ensure a bad day has a silver lining. I understand the logic but this isn’t a successful long term betting model #5 Finally, Balance gut feeling and logic. Logic and form are vital, you need to look for trends and how teams play against certain opposition but football has more variables than any other sport so also listen to your gut. I often back a team on the first game when a new manager goes in regardless of the form as I believe the new boss will have an impact in that first game. I also look for goalscorers going back to old clubs as I believe they will up their performance to bag a goal against them. This isn’t logical but is based on gut feeling and works with football. Ultimately don’t be bullied into your football bets, concentrate on the market and league where you can regularly win!]]>