Beginners Guide To Football Betting

Football betting may seem easy, but there is a lot to learn. There are hundreds of betting markets and several online betting firms that advertise wagers everywhere. Knowing where to find the best football betting counsel is difficult.
Here’s what to expect from this article:
- You will discover the meanings of all the acronyms and where to locate information on all those wacky betting terminology.
- I’ll walk you through the basics of singles and accumulators, two of the most popular betting strategies.
- You will learn about some of the most common football wagers, such as double chance, both teams to score, etc.
- Finally, I’ll provide you some important pointers to help you start betting on football successfully.
Continue reading, and you’ll soon be placing confident bets.
Some Football Betting Terms
I figured I would start off with some football betting terms.
- Stake: This is the amount of money you place on a bet, in other words the amount of money you stand to lose if you don’t win.
- Accumulator (ACCA): A football accumulator is a collection of individual wagers gathered together; if all of the wagers are successful, the odds will increase collectively. Usually, accumulators are the reason you read about individuals betting five pounds on something and winning a few thousand. Despite the fact that they might be dangerous, every wager must win.
- Handicap: When one team is the overwhelming favorite, this wager is made. For example, Real Madrid vs. your neighborhood old guys squad! The underdog has a little edge because of the handicap. For instance, the underdog may be granted a one-goal advantage. Later in this post, We’ll go into further detail on handicapping.
- Half Time/Full Time (HT/FT): This type of bet involves predicting 1×2 outcome for the first half and then the entire game. So you could predict a draw at half time but for the home team to win by full time.
- Banker: This is basically a sure bet, the tipster is very sure that the bet will land if they consider it a banker. For example we give banker tips to our members.
- Scorecast: This is when you bet on a player to score the first goal along with predicting the correct score.
- 24 Hour Rule: Most betting websites have a rule like this where if a match is postponed the bet only becomes void if the match doesn’t get played within a 24 hour period.
- Wincast: Very similar to a score-cast but you bet on a player to score and then predict the winner of the game.
- Singles: The simplest of all bets, with a single bet on a football match. For example, you can bet on the team to win. Singles betting odds are usually available for most football games.
- Double Chance: when a bookmaker reduces the usual three outcomes of a match (win, draw or lose) to just two (win/draw or lose); this is known as a Double Chance bet. If the backed team wins or draws, the bet wins; if the team loses, your bet fails.
- Correct Score: Correct score betting is popular with football, where you bet on the score at the end of the match. The total number of standard scores to select is limited, though.
- Both Teams To Score (BTTS): You bet on each team to score at least one goal during the match. When each team scores doesn’t matter; you can get higher odds if you bet on both sides to score in either the first half or the second half.
- Over/Under: Overs and Unders are when you bet on the amount of goals being scored, normally it will be over or under an amount, for example Over2.5 means if there are 3 or more goals. Under2.5 would be 0, 1, or 2 goals being scored.
- DrawNoBet (DNB): This means if the score is a draw, you get your money back. It can seem like a safer option, but the odds are usually lower.
- Bankroll: How much money you have to bet with.
- Arbitrage Betting: A system where you can use the highest odds from different bookmakers on one sporting event to create a situation of guaranteed profit. Regardless of the outcome of a match you can ensure, by hedging your bets, that you will be getting win. It just takes a bit of work, some calculations and some shopping around to create an arbitrage situation, but the benefits of it can be huge.
- Betting Exchange: An exchange is a peer-to-peer betting network, enabling you to place bets and ‘match’ wagers placed by your fellow punters.
- Bookie/Bookmaker: A company who is licensed to accept bets on the result of an event based on their provision of odds to the customer.
- Correct Score (CS): Correct score betting is popular with football, where the total number of typical scores is limited. The odds are dependent on the actual match odds between the two teams.
- Dutching: Dutching is where you take your planned stake and then use it to spread over more than one outcome on an event. For example if you had a Ksh100 stake and you spread it on two outcomes. You could use Ksh40 on a home win, Ksh60 on a draw. This is based on the same amount of winnings coming back should either of the outcomes happen.
- Goliath Bet: A Goliath consists of 247 bets involving 8 selections in different events. The bet includes 28 doubles, 56 trebles, 70 four-folds, 56 five-folds, 28 six-folds, 8 seven-folds and an accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.
- Hedging: This involves placing a bet on opposing outcome to the punters original selected outcome in order to guarantee winnings or cut losses.
- Heinz Bet: A Heinz consists of 57 bets involving 6 selections in different events. The bet includes 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 four-folds, 6 five-folds and an accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.
- Lucky 15 Bet: A Lucky 15 consists of 15 bets involving 4 selections in different events. The bet includes 4 singles, 6 doubles, 4 trebles, and 1 fourfold. If only one selection wins, as a consolation returns are paid to double the odds. If all four selections win, a bonus of 10% is added to total returns. For the bonus to apply, all selections must win (none void or non-runners). For each-way bets the consolation is paid only on the win part of the bet. Lucky 15 bets are accepted on horse racing and greyhounds only. Also Lucky 31 and Lucky 63 exist.
- Odds: Also referred to as the price. The returns a bookmaker offers for a selection to win.
- Parlay: The US term for an accumulator.
- Patent Bet: A Patent consists of 7 bets involving 3 selections in different events. The bet includes a single on each selection, plus 3 doubles and 1 treble. Just one successful selection guarantees a return.
- Punter: The individual who puts on a bet.
- Round Robin: A series of three or more teams in 2-team accumulators. A Round Robin means 3 selections in 3 (different) races, in 3 doubles, 1 treble and 6 single stakes about bets.
- Super Heinz Bet: A Super Heinz consists of 120 bets involving 7 selections in different events. The bet includes 21 doubles, 35 trebles, 35 four-folds, 21 five-folds, 7 six-folds and an accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.
- Treble Bet: A Treble consists of 1 bet involving 3 selections in different events. All must be successful to get a return.
- Trixie Bet: A Trixie consists of 4 bets involving 3 selections in different events. The bet includes 3 doubles and 1 treble. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.
- Value Bet: Simply put, if you believe the odds taken are better than the mathematical chance which the team involved has of pulling off the outcome, then you have a value bet. This means, that if a tennis player has an actual mathematical 50% chance of winning a match, and the odds on that player are above Evens, then bet value is better than the mathematical odds, so that is a value bet.
- Yankee Bet: A Yankee consists of 11 bets involving 4 selections in different events. The bet includes 6 doubles, 4 trebles, and an accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.
Accumulators vs Singles
These are the two most common way to place bets these days so I wanted to cover them in a little detail.
A single bet is a bet placed on only one selection or market. Only that one selection will determine the outcome of the bet. If you win your bet, you will win your stake back plus the profit determined by the odds. If your bet loses, you will lose your stake.
An accumulator is a bet placed on multiple selections; on two or more matches or markets. Usually spread out across multiple football matches. To win your bet, you will need all of your selections on to win. The reward for an accumulator bet is much higher than a single bet; however, there is a much greater risk of losing your stake.
The more selections you choose, the smaller your chance of winning; it only takes one of your choices in the accumulator to lose, and your bet will fail.
Football Betting Tips
A guide to football betting wouldn’t be complete without sharing some good tips! These will help you to be successful at betting. These are:
- Don’t bet with your heart, bet with your head. Don’t bet because you want a team to win, bet because you think they will win! Likewise, don’t bet against teams you don’t like simply because you don’t like them. Bet against them because you think they are going to lose.
- Don’t be greedy! That 100 odd accumulator with 13 teams would be great to win, but they rarely win and are not a viable betting strategy.
- Have patience. You are not going to win every bet, if you want to become successful at betting on football you need to be patient and pick the right bets for you.
- You must never bet money that you can’t afford to lose; use only disposable income.
- Seek help if football betting is becoming a problem. GambleAware might be worth a visit!
- Don’t bet on friendlies. They are unpredictable in every way. The teams may put out their reserve players, star players may not be too motivated or may be unwilling to risk injuries.
- Factor in team motivation. A team that has already won the league may look good on paper, but they may be on auto pilot, just waiting for the league to end. Similarly a poor team fighting off relegation may spring unexpected results against more favored opponents.
- Have a staking plan, and stick to it.
- Keep a record of your wins, losses and the individual teams in your singles or accumulators. This will help you spot patterns and also gauge how much you have earned or lost in a given period.
If you feel confident enough to start your football betting journey, then i would suggest you sign up as a member and benefit from well analyzed football betting tips.
You may also check out our free tips.