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Football
betting is certainly the most popular form of wagering, both
on the web and at the local betting shops, and today we will
take an in-depth look at how the football odds work and
attempt to explain football betting odds to punters new to
wagering on this great sport. As we always do, we will give
you plenty of examples and write everything as simple as
possible to help you understand the basic concepts of
football betting and the different odds offered on the
football games. If you still have questions about how
football odds work after you read this article - email us
and we will amend it to reflect anything that may have been
left unanswered. That said, let's see how football odds
work:
We are going to begin our explanation of how the football
betting odds work with the simple 1x2 set-up and for the
examples we will use decimal odds, just so we can make
calculations easier. Don't forget that every online
bookmaker offers and easy way to change the way betting odds
are displayed via a simple drop-down menu. And let's
remember the meaning of "odds" - the likelihood of an event
to occur.
Now, let's look at the
very basic of the football odds - the "win outright" bet,
i.e. betting on a team to win the game or end up a draw. As
you can see from the example to the left of the Barclays
Premier League posted by the
, for
every football game there are three betting options: "1",
"x" and "2". This is among the most important things you
will learn first when engaging in betting the football
odds - knowing how the odds correspond to the possible
outcome. And in football betting, when wagering on the
outcome of the full time result of a game there are three
possible outcomes:
"1" -
the home team will win the game. In football betting,
the first team is always the soccer team hosting the game.
In the case of the odds table to the left, if we look at the
first football game, Liverpool v Chelsea, Liverpool F.C. is
hosting the game at Anfield. You don't need to keep up with
the football leagues to know this (although it trully helps
if you are going to bet them) - the simple fact that
Liverpool is listed as the first team indicates that they
host the game. The odds on the home team therefore to win
the game are listed under the "1" column. So Liverpool's
odds to win the game in the example are 2.10, i.e. you will
get 2.10 back for every 1 you wager on Liverpool to win the
football game in question.
* A fun fact here - in America the visiting team is always
listed as the first team, contrary to the UK style of
display. Thus one should be very careful if they bet at a
sportsbook, which caters mainly to US bettors.
"x" -
the football game will be a draw. The "x" column shows
the odds on the games finishing with a draw, i.e. there is
no winner. Example of a draw is 3-3. A draw is generally
very hard to predict and the odds are always quite generous
for this bet. Even when the teams are equally matched
(relatively speaking), as in the example of the Stoke v
Bolton on the picture, the odds on the football game to end
up in a draw are still pretty high. Both Bolton and Stoke
are listed with the same 2.60 odds to win, yet the betting
odds on a draw are high at 3.40, despite the common sense
that if two teams are equally good, the best chances are
that the game will be a draw.
"2" -
the visiting team will win the game. The column
indicated by "2" shows the betting odds on the visiting team
to win the football game. Generally the hosting team is
thought to have the advantage of home turf and audience,
thus the odds on the visiting team are often long, i.e. they
pay more money. Of course, there is the case of Sunderland v
Man Utd (see odds example table), where the visiting team is
believed to be much better and the simple fact that they
don't have home advantage is discounted by the bookmakers.
Now that
we have explained the "1x2" system of football betting odds,
you should have a basic knowledge of how football odds work.
You can apply this new knowledge not only to betting at the
online bookies, but when filling your slip at the local
betting shop, as well. When it comes to football and betting
the odds on the outcome of the football games, the 1x2
method of indicating the odds rules all over the world.
Now that we have the basics covered, let's look at some
other bets on football and the possible odds. With the
popularity of football betting, it's only natural that the
bookmakers will offer more bets that just which team will
win the game. Those additional bets are often referred to as
betting markets and are simply wagers available to be
placed on certain events in a football game, other than
which team will be a winner.
As you
can see from the example to the left of football odds on the
betting markets on the Liverpool v Chelsea game, there are
plenty of other bets you can place on just this one game
alone. As a matter of fact, there are 103 different betting
markets on the Liverpool v Chelsea football game, even
though we have not shown all of them.
So how do
the odds work on these football betting markets? Quite
simple, actually. For every possible outcome of an event
during the football game there are odds shown and the bookie
will pay out on those odds, if your wager is a winner. As we
mentioned earlier, there are plenty of match betting you can
do on every single soccer game at any good online bookmaker.
For example, you can predict the correct score of the game
and each possible outcome has odds posted on it. The smaller
the odds number - the better chance of it happening. For
example, looking at the match betting odds on the Liverpool
Chelsea game, under the "Correct Score" table one can see
that the outcome 1-1 has the smallest odds, thus according
to the odds makers it has the best chance of occurring. If
the game finished 1-1, Bet 365 will pay you
�6.50 for every �1 you bet on this to happen. On the other side,
Chelsea beating Liverpool 5-3 will pay the most money with
401.00 odds, thus has the smallest chance of actually
happening.
Other
popular football betting markets include:
"half
time/full time", where the punter tries to predict which
team will win the first half and which one would be the
overall winner.
"total
goals" - a very popular football bet, where the bookmaker
sets a total of goals (i.e. the goals of the home team + the
goals of the visiting team) and the punter has to predict if
the actual total of the finals score will go over or under
the one predicted by the bookmaker. The odds here are very
good and many bettors take advantage of this option. We also
recommend it as the first step for people who are new to
football betting to wet their feet with the betting markets.
"Goalscorer"
- odds on the players to score goals, whether first, second
or anytime goals.
"Asian
Handicap" - another very popular betting market on the
football games. The bookie gives a handicap to one team and
takes away from the other and the punter must bet on the
odds on which team would be a winner after the handicap is
added/substracted.
There are
many more ways you can bet odds on football games. We will
look into the most popular of them in much more detail in
another guide of ours. For now, they have served their
purpose to further explain how football odds work and to
help new punters become familiar with betting on the
football games. Which you should be very comfortable doing
by the time you've read this guide and looked at all the
examples provided.
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