Still unsure about how do you bet, how do you bet on football matches or how do you understand football odds?
Well, first learn how to bet on sports in general by studying a beginner’s betting guide and then move on to the more advanced topics, such as the Asian handicapping betting prediction models and the likes.
Then you can start to learn how to bet on football and win once you’ve got the online betting basics under your belt.
The good news is we’ve prepared this short football betting guide just in case you want to start winning your football bets but you’ve only got a few of minutes on hand.
We’ll quickly cover the betting strategies used by the pros: flat staking on single bets and a lot of Asian handicap betting. We’re not going to discuss complicated football betting systems, but just the basics you need to master in order to stand a chance to beat the bookies. That’s a promise!
Best money management on even bets
Betting like the pros is easier than you might have thought. Well, for starters, you must be aware that the most proficient tipsters out there wager solely on single bets, so if you want to follow this path you’ll have to say goodbye to those long bet slips and to accumulator betting.
Although some of the betting experts employ the Kelly method as their money management scheme, most people that are making a living sports betting aren’t very fond of that.
The best staking plan is known as Flat Staking or Flat Betting: It is all about picking a percentage between 0.5% and 5% of your bankroll and using that as the stake for all your future bets. The flat stake can be readjusted at the end of the season or when you deposit/withdraw a consistent amount of money. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, does it?
This method is considered to be the best of the sports betting money management strategies due to a few reasons:
- The punter does not require a huge bankroll, as it can be easily scaled to any extent, hence making your betting bank management a simple matter
- It is very easy to learn and can be used as a basis for many sports betting strategies, besides spread betting, including in-play betting
- There is no progression involved so chasing losses won’t leave you bankrupt in an instant
- Good luck and bad luck cancel each other in the long run
- It requires very little effort from the punter, therefore saving him a lot of time
How to find value bets in football
If you’re familiar with online betting and a bit passionate about the subject you have surely heard of value betting.
But what are value bets?
A straightforward value bet definition would state that: “Betting on value means to wager on odds that are better than they should.”
First of all, you must understand how does a bookie make a profit: A coin toss has two possible outcomes – heads or tails – each with a probability of 50%, which represents 2.00 in decimal odds. If the bookie were to offer you odds of 2.00 in that scenario, they wouldn’t be sure to make a profit in the long run, so in order to fix that they’ll retain a commission between 3% and 20%, depending on the market.
That is the bookies’ margin, the betting payout or the house edge and the reason why you’ll find spread betting with 1.90 odds for both possible outcomes.
Because most punters pick the favourites, bookies set the odds slightly in favour of the underdogs, so as a general rule of the thumb, it is more likely to find value in the odds offered for the outsiders.
Do not wager on the football tips with the most chances of winning – this is the key to making the switch from going with the crowd to betting where the value is.
Stop wondering how to win a bet every time, as you only need to win as much as your average odds suggest to make a profit. As an example, for even bets (decimal odds of 2.00) you have to win just 50% +1 bet to land a profit. Accept losses thinking about the bigger picture.
How to efficiently analyse football matches before betting
When surfing around to find inspiration or just to collect relevant information you’ll often come across betting previews: football match analysis and predictions are pretty much tied together, as betting tipsters will try to point out only the arguments that back their picks, and not the cons; hence why you should never blindly wager on betting picks provided by football betting tipsters on the internet.
There are many punters looking for the best value bet of the day, especially value bets on football. Well, if you want to learn how to bet on sports successfully, always track a tipster’s record for a few months before wagering on any of his betting picks.
You might also find a value bets finder whilst surfing the web for ideas; Same applies here: make sure it’s something viable and worth your time and money before losing money on betting sites due to following lucky tipsters or betting systems that do not work.
There are quite a few football analysis resources you can access freely online. These can make your life much easier. In fact, a proper bet analysis can vary from 30 mins to a few days in length. There is no right or wrong. For example, if you’ve got an automated betting prediction model that does most of the work for you, you can afford to spend close to no time on the football match analysis and focus solely on team news.
Of course, there are quite a few factors that can influence the outcome of a football match, besides the stats and metrics. Everybody looks at the league table, head to heads and recent run of results, but not many inspect the pitch conditions, the weather, the style of the referee and most importantly, the locker room morale.
Do your team news research after you’re done with the stats, but be careful when weighing this sort of information. Sometimes, an injury might not necessarily be a bad thing for the squad, as the replacement might be more motivated to prove himself etc.
Now you know how to win money on football bets: it’s all down to the staking plan and how well you stick to it, the match analysis model and your ability to spot value on a regular basis!
