OK, so you know a lot about football, and you’d like to turn that knowledge into hard cash. So football betting seem a good way to go. But you can do even better if you have some basic strategies that you can employ to increase your odds. Remember, it’s not about the occasional win, but increasing your success rate incrementally. Put simply, great football betting is improved by treating it as a marathon, not a sprint.
Here, we’ll review some strategies you can apply to your sports betting to improve your odds and increase your winnings. This isn’t about the knowledge of the sport – we’ll assume you’ve got that covered – but ways in which you can improve your application of these in practice.
Value Betting
This is where you use your knowledge to beat the bookies at the odds they offer. Bookies will usually make use of models, statistics and other data sources and your aim is to exploit any shortcomings in this process by applying your own knowledge against their’s. So if you have odds of 6/5, for team A to win, but you calculate that Team A has slightly better odds to win, say at 7/5, you will make an average winning in these odds. So your first job is to find those bets where the odds are slightly better than what is suggested by the bookies and use this to gain an edge.
An important component of this is to understand the overround, which is the margin that bookies place on their odds. The odds are not simply what has been calculated, they are designed to be balanced in the Bookies’ favour. A low overround means a better potential profit for you, so having a look for the besgt sites that offer you the best overround will help increase the value of your bet. Shopping around is key to improving your overall profit.
Matched Betting
Matched betting is a way in which you can counteract risk by placing two wagers on opposite sides of an outcome; for example, you can bet for a team to both win and to lose in a match. Because of the overround, it could be that you might not make a profit because the odds will not cancel each other out exactly, but if you use promotional offers and free bets, you might find ways to improve your odds.
So, for example, if you find a bookie offering a free additional bet, you can lay a wager on the positive outcome of a game, and then use the free bet to qualify for the negative outcome. You can then shop around for another bookie, or you might find that you then qualify for a loyalty bonus with the first one, allowing you to place another bet for free. Alternatively, you can take advantage of different odds between the bookies depending on where they are offering bets or better odds.
What to Avoid
Don’t back your favourite team blindly. Certainly bet for fun if you like and you may well be surprised, but if you want to win more consistently, betting isn’t something you do just to show your support or expectations for your childhood heroes. It is also a good idea to avoid simply backing the favourites to win in any game. Bookies are aware that punters might be more likely to stake a claim on these kind of games, and so these outcomes are often lower value. So last year, it seems you can be the most ardent supporter of Valletta FC, yet you should still have bet on them to be relegated for the first time in their history if you could see the writing on the wall.
At the same time, it’s a good idea to avoid being attracted by good odds for unlikely outcomes. It might have been well worth betting on Leicester FC to win the Premier League in 2016 as you could get amazing odds at the beginning of the season, but no matter what it looks like in hindsight, it was one of the most outside wagers available at the time. The only reason to be drawn to these kind of bets is if you genuinely think that the odds misrepresent the possible outcome of the team, and it is likely to be a slight advantage rather than something obviously wrong. If you genuinely think that the odds misrepresent the most likely outcome, rather than this being just something you want to happen, you should place the bet.
Keep Records and Follow the Profit
The most important practice is to compare odds, keep records, and improve your experience and knowledge. Your knowledge of the game is your secret weapon, not which team you want to win. Focus is important, in that you should play to your strengths, so if you know a lot about a handful of teams, focus on them and improve your knowledge of them. Experiment with different models for calculating odds, compare the results, and see how you get on.
One approach to achieve this is to test models before you apply it in practice, and then see how well you do. If it turns out that you have a reasonable success rate after a certain number of practice rounds, then it’s time to start putting your money to the test. Don’t wait too long, or you might miss some amazing wins. Once you start gambling for real, make sure that you maintain your records, so that you can monitor how well you’re doing.
The important thing is not to be too easily dismayed by a run of poor wagers when the model is good. You can’t expect to win all the time, but you should aim to get it right above 50 percent of the time. Likewise, be wary of a lucky run of results giving you false confidence in your abilities. Think of it as though you were trying to predict tossing a coin; you’d not expect to do any better than a 50 percent success rate over time. But there will be periods when you might get it right nine times out of ten, or get it wrong 75 percent of the time. Be sure that these kinds of fluctuations are ironed out when you’re judging the success of your approach. Consistency is key.
To Win at Football Betting, you have to Play
Above all, the level of preperation you might make are only the homework for the real business of football betting. You don’t win if you don’t play, and at some point you just have to go for it. So why not scroll through the available partners, have a look at what the odds are for your preferred outcome, and go for it. There are excellent opportunities to test your mettle at Spinanga or some great chances at InstantCasino, with promotional bets that make it worth your while. So don’t miss any more opportunities to develop your expertise, have a look and make football betting your own.