In this article we want to write a little bit about some of the most basic elements of betting on football matches. When beginning your journey into betting on football it can be quite daunting. If you go to an online bookmakers and open a particular match they can often have 600+ different bets available on a single match, trying to wrap your head around that can be scary for a beginner.

We’ve been there so we want to help and give a few pointers that will help you make better sports betting decisions.

Win/Draw/Win

The main market for bookmakers in football is the Win/Draw/Win market. Unlike many sports, football can end in a draw, because of this the market can be split three ways; the home team can win, the match can end in a draw or the away team can win. We call this the Win/Draw/Win market, it can also be called the Home/Draw/Away market.

Just looking at a market that can be split into three results we can see that at its most basic each outcome has a 33.33% probability of happening. Of course, we need to factor in many other elements to make good betting decisions, such as home advantage, home/away form, team news and injuries, motivation, etc.

Over/Under Goals

What has quickly become one of the most popular betting market is betting on how many goals will (or won’t) be scored in a match. The most popular of these markets is the Over/Under 2.5 goals market. In this market you are betting on whether less, or more, than three goals will be scored. Of course, the 0.5 goals can be a bit confusing at first as obviously there cannot be a half goal scored in football. But the reason for the half goal is quite simple. If the bet was on Over/Under 3 goals then if 3 goals were scored you wouldn’t win but you also wouldn’t lose so your bet would have to be refunded and there would be no winners and loses in that market. Because of this and because that historically in football matches the average amount of goals is usually 2.5 goals per match, bookmakers decided for that to be the usual Over/Under goal market.

The great thing about this market is that you don’t need any team to win, you just need three or more goals to be scored if you bet on the Over side of the market or less than three goals scored on the Under side of the market.

Since this market has become popular may variants have come into being as well, most notably in the Asina Goal line markets where you can be on Over/Under 2 goals, 2.25, 2.5, 2.75 etc. We’re written extensively about this in the past and you can read more about it here.

Both Teams to Score

Football is a pretty simple sport, you need to score goals to win, so obviously teams need to score goals. Much like with the Over/Under market we don’t need to predict which team will win or lose, you just need to look for teams that are scoring and conceding goals regularly. If teams though are not scoring or conceding much you can bet against both teams scoring. Because of the tendency among bettors to bet on goals we can often find good value and bet against Both Teams to Score by choosing the ‘no’ option.

Cards and Corner Markets

Much like the Over/Under goals market, here you are betting on the amount of bookings or corners that will occur in a match. Both of these markets are still pretty new with online bookmakers so not all of them have it available and some of the bigger ones even only have these markets for the higher profile matches. However, saying that, these markets are becoming more and more popular.

Asian Handicap Markets

This market can be the most daunting of all for newcomers to the world of sports betting. We’ve written about this more extensively in previous articles, one of which is here. But, at its most basic, in this market the favourite is given a score handicap while the underdog is given an advantage. Like in horse racing where weight is added to the saddles of stronger horses, in football a favourite team can be given a goal handicap so it’s like they start the match with a one goal deficit and to win the bet they must beat the opposition by beating that handicap.

This market is great for when one team is a heavy favourite and we want to get better odds when backing them. As written in the linked article, knowing team news and how to read the market is vital here so please have a read of it because it’s one of the markets in football betting where you can usually find some good value.