The Most Popular Football Betting Markets – A Complete Guide

If you're serious about wagering on the best football betting sites🐼, it's pivotal that you're aware of all the different markets available to you. This guide will help you maximise your chances of establishing yourself as a profitable punter. Here are the 20 most popular football betting markets available, along with a few top tips to guide you in the right direction!

Best Bookies We Recommend for Betting on Football

How To Build the Ideal Football Betting Strategy

To consistently profit off football bets, you need a sound football betting strategy🤪. However, there is no universally valid strategy that will lead you to success in every single event. For you to know where and how to start, we have compiled the 10 most important basics of how to create and customise your very own betting strategy.

1. Define Your Starting Capital: Before placing money on bets on a regular basis, you ought to determine how much capital you want to start with. You should only budget the money you have at your disposal and that you can afford to spend.

2. Only Bet on Football Matches That You Can Assess: A comprehensive knowledge of sport (in this case, football) and information about each individual match is vital if you want to be a successful bettor. Therefore, you should get to know each team in detail. Assess form curve, missing players, match history and many other indicators that can help you analyse every match as fully as possible.

3. Choose the Right Football Betting Category: Place your bets only in categories you are familiar with, or where you have already been considerably successful. If you are just starting out, you should test different betting categories💫 to get a good impression of your options. Simple and low-risk bets for betting rookies are the classic 3-way bets, where you can place Home win, Draw or Away win and Over / Under 2.5 bets.

4. Stay Away From Accumulators: Even though accumulators have a certain appeal, we recommend avoiding them as much as possible. When playing accas, each additional match on your betting slip makes it more likely that you will lose the bet. The best betting strategies are based upon high probabilities,𝓰 which in turn are achieved by making the right bets.

5. Be Wary of Live Bets: Live bets also carry a high probability of loss, so again, you should try to avoid putting money on them. For these kinds of bets, you have to make multiple decisions in a matter of seconds. This usually doesn’t give you enough time for the comprehensive analysis needed for placing successful wager. Moreover, the odds of live bets are always under the offers before the match൩. For that reason, the payout percentage only rarely exceeds 90%.

6. Find Value Bets: Before placing money on a match, you should always check the bookmaker’s odds to find out if your bet has value – only then should you put money on it. You can check out our guide to creating a football betting strategy to find out more about value bets.

7. Use Your Expertise in Niche Football Betting Markets: Big betting companies offer you up to 40,000 different bets to choose from on a daily basis. For obvious reasons, they are unable to accurately assess each and every match in detail. You can almost be certain that you will not be able to find especially valuable odds for matches played by well-known and popular teams like Manchester United, Real Madrid and Liverpool. So, if you know your way around in other leagues, it is worth shifting your focus on them instead.

8. Create an Effective Money Management Strategy: To stay in the game, you should avoid placing too much money on a single match. Nor should you try to make up for a loss by placing a risky wager afterwards. Instead, you should have a well-thought-out money management strategy in place. Many bettors work with flat wagers or dynamic wagers, wherein the amount to be placed follows an initial betting budget (flat wagers) or a current betting budget (dynamic wagers). Whatever kind of money management strategy you choose to follow, you should begin by wagering smaller amounts of no more than 3%-5% percent of your betting budget.

9. Keep Multiple Betting Accounts at Different Bookmakers: Exploit the variety of bookmakers available and keep multiple betting accounts with different providers. Depending on the match, odds at different bookmaker tend to differ, even among football betting markets, so it pays to look out for the most valuable ones𒆙. Furthermore, many of them offer welcome bonuses that could boost your bets.

10. Keep a Record of Your Bets: If you have many different bets taking place at the same time, it can be hard to keep track of what’s going on. However, the latter is crucial if you want to keep an eye on how your bets are doing. You should, therefore, keep a record of your bets. In this way, all profits and expenses are available at a glance𒅌, and you can quickly react to developments and refine your betting strategy if necessary.

Best Bookmakers for Football Markets

Final Result	bet365
Double Chance	Parimatch
Over/Under 2.5 Goals	Coral
Both Teams to Score	BoyleSports
Asian Handicap	Smarkets
To Win From Behind	BetVictor
Correct Score	Betway
Player to Be Carded	BetVictor
Total Corners	LeoVegas
Total Cards	10bet
To Win to Nil	BetVictor
Draw No Bet	Bet UK
First Goal Scorer	BetVictor
Half Time/Full Time	LeoVegas

The Most Popular Football Betting Markets

Final Result

This is the staple of football betting. Predicting and placing bets on the outcome of matches has almost evolved into a tradition, especially in the UK, due to its simplicity.

With regards to the final result market, you’re selecting one of three options: a home win, draw, or away win♏. It’s simple, and the ultimate test of your football knowledge or how trustworthy your ‘gut instinct’ really is.

Punters, however, typically stay away from backing a single final result, no matter how good the value, preferring to pick out several selections (four or more) from a round of fixtures to create an accumulator bet for superior odds and excitement.

Double Chance

The Double Chance (DC) bet adds an interesting dynamic to the final result market. Instead of backing one outcome, DC allows you to back two, albeit with lessened odds. Like this, you can back a home win or draw, away win or draw, or even a home or away winꦇ using DC. It’s a market in which your backing of the underdog can end up being rewarded.

Over/Under 2.5 Goals

The Over/Under football betting markets enable punters to bet on there being over or under a particular number of goals in a game, without needing to be specific about the result.

𝕴 This kind of bet belongs to the group of 2-way bets, since only two outcomes are possible. Here your chance of winning is, therefore, especially high.

The most popular spread is “Over/Under 2.5 goals”, but there’s also 1.5, 3.5, and so on. With the average punter seeking entertainment, the “over” line is generally more popular. If this sounds like the right market for you, there are also detailed strategies and tips you could take note of.

Both Teams to Score

Both Teams to Score (BTTS) is another market in which the final result isn’t accounted for. There are two options: “Yes” or “No“. If you back “Yes“, then both sides will have to find the back of the net for you to win your bet, while “No” means you're hopeful of a stalemate📖, or that only one outfit has their shooting boots on.

Final Result & Both Teams to Score

A combination of two popular (aforementioned) football betting markets, the Final Result & BTTS market is the ideal option if you’re confident of the victor and the number of goals.

You can select any three final result (1X2) outcomes and either BTTS (“Yes” or “No“) options within this market, giving you a little more freedom compared to the single final result and BTTS markets. It’s tricky to predict though, meaning the payouts are more generous.

European Handicap

In a European Handicap (EH) market, one side will start with a pre-determined goal (or goals) advantage.

It’s a market which can provide value for not only heavy favourites, but distinct underdogs🅷 as well. Handicap bets are ideal if you actually want to bet on the clear frontrunner, but the odds are simply too low because they are the favoured team to win. Then, bookmakers issue more attractive odds for Handicap bets that naturally also bear a higher risk, since the favoured team winning no longer has a high probability.

Asian Handicap

The Asian Handicap (AH) and European Handicap football betting markets aren't too dissimilar; however, there is one distinct difference. The Asian Handicap is designed to eliminate draws.

While you always get a whole number with EH, the AH market involves decimals. By using the previous example, this means that you’re often likely to see Tottenham as -1.5, and Aston Villa as +1.5. However, whole numbers still exist with the AH market, but should you back a Tottenham victory with a -1 AH, and the contest ends 2-1 to Tottenham, your stake will be refunded as it won’t count as a loss.

Half Time/Full Time (HT/FT)

This market is a combination of the Half Time Result and Final Result football betting markets. To win a Half Time/Full Time bet, you must correctly predict the outcome (Home, Draw, or Away) at both half-time and full-time.

𝓡 The Half Time/Full Time combination is tough to predict, but that lower chance of winning is, of course, reflected with more generous returns.

Half-Time Result

With Half-Time result betting, it's all about the opening 45 minutes. It’s the same premise as the Final Result market; though instead, you’re betting on the result at the interval. The result at full-time will not have any impact on your bet.

To Score in Both Halves

If you’re backing a side to score in both halves, they must score at least once in the first and at least once in second half൩. The final result and goals scored by the opposition aren’t taken into account, unless you opt for the Both Teams to Score in Both Halves market.

Correct Score

If you’re really feeling lucky, you might want to go one step further than merely predicting the outcome of a particular contest and have a punt on the correct final score instead.

Anytime Goal Scorer

If you’re keen to capitalise on a player’s rich vein of form or their impressive scoring record against a particular club, the Anytime Goal Scorer (AGS) market allows you to do so.

The AGS market lets you place a bet on a player of your choice to score at any time during the 90 minutes of play🌼. The less likely the goal scorer, the better the odds. Keep in mind that goals scored during extra time and penalties usually won't count for this market. However, stoppage time goals do.

First Goal Scorer

The same premise as Anytime Goal Scorer, just a little trickier. Instead of having the luxury of having the entire 90 minutes for your selected goal scorer to find the back of the net with AGS, they’ll have to break the deadlock if you’ve backed them as the First Goal Scorer.

A perk of the FGS market as opposed to AGS is that, due to its superior difficulty, you’ll certainly find better odds.

Player to Be Carded

This is an incredibly popular in-play market𓆏, with punters looking to capitalise on tidy prices late in proceedings.

The Player to Be Carded market works in a similar way to Anytime Goal Scorer, but instead of backing a certain player to find the back of the net, you want them to end up in the referee’s book as either booked or sent off.

If you do dabble with the cards market for a particular bout, it might be wise to research the tendencies of that game’s referee to get an idea of just how card-happy they are.

Draw No Bet

Another bet type relating to the final outcome of a football tie is the Draw No Bet market. This type of bet has only two possibilities: a home win or an away win. If the match results in a draw, your money is refunded.

Of course, in a regular Final Result market, you'd lose your stake if you bet on a team winning and the match resulted in a draw, so this bet is less risky.

This market is somewhat related to the Double Chance bet type, in that you're covered should the match end in a tie.

Winning Margin

This is another one of those football betting markets which can add an interesting dynamic to your predictions. Winning Margin means you’re predicting how many goals one team will beat the other by, with “one goal” being the most popular option.

🍸 While this market may be a tempting option with more pragmatic managers happy to sit on a one-goal lead, it should be one to avoid if, for example, Marcelo Bielsa is occupying one of the dugouts.

Total Corners

There's a lot of variation available within total corner football betting markets, with bookies often offering punters the chance to bet on the exact number of corners in a given match, the timing of the first corner, which team will get the most corners, first and second half corners, or, like goals, corners on an over/under basis𝓰. Corner markets can also include Asian Handicaps.

Total Cards

Unsure whether Arsenal will topple Tottenham in the North London derby, but certain of a fiery encounter? Perhaps the Total Cards market is for you.

This market tends to work on an over/under basis – so, for example, if you reckon this particular North London derby will be so tasty that you bet on 5.5 cards or more, you’ll be successful should the referee brandish a total value of at least six cards. Generally, a booking is one point, a straight red is two, and a double yellow card is worth a mighty three points, although this can differ with certain bookies.

To Win to Nil

Jose Mourinho’s 2004/05 Chelsea side would’ve won punters heaps of cash via this market, which often offers mouthwatering returns. To Win to Nil betting is perhaps a less specific version of Correct Score betting, in that you’re backing a side to win without conceding. Should the side you’re betting against score, your bet is over, no matter the final result.

To Win From Behind

To Win From Behind means that the side you’re backing must trail at any given point in the match – whether it's 1-0, 2-0, 3-1, and so on – before turning it around and going on to win. This market requires a bit of research, but, considering its difficulty, there are big returns to be had.

Clean Sheet

While the average punter tends to avoid these sorts of football betting markets in favour of those that facilitate entertainment, more experienced bettors seek to find value in any way, shape, or form, and may look towards the Clean Sheet market.

By “clean sheet”, we're referring to a match where a goalkeeper stops the other side from scoring🍌, so you're trusting the defensive competence of a particular side’s goalkeeper in this bet. Should the opposition breach your selected side’s goal on just one occasion, you lose.

Different Betting Types Available

🥃 Now that we've listed the most popular football betting markets above, it only makes sense that we give you a brief overview of what kind of betting types there are available.

Live Betting

Live bets, also called in-play bets, are bets that are placed during a match that has already begun. You can bet on the next goal, the next corner or the next yellow card (among others) during the game. Consequently, you have to follow each and every development of the match in real time so you can quickly react to changes within the course of the game and thus, the odds. This also allows you to “read” the game intuitively and this way, place your bets strategically.

💃 If a goal has been scored (or a corner achieved or a yellow card given), the betting process is interrupted, and all bets are deleted. After the game starts again, new bets may be placed.

Accumulators

For a combi-bet (short for ‘combination bet’) or accumulator, you place bets on multiple matches instead of just one. In order to win, all selections have to be successful. If one of them loses, you will then lose the whole bet. Usually, there is a minimum or maximum number of selections that may be placed on one betting slip – this amount varies depending on the bookmaker.

The odds of each match are multiplied by each other🌺 so that your potential profit accumulates. If you, for example, bet on 3 games, your potential profit might be calculated as follows:

This bet type offers the incentive of gaining a high profit from a small stake🐠. If you place each selection on its own, the profit will be considerably smaller. But, at the same time, the risk is considerably higher, since just one unsuccessful selection will cause you to lose the entire bet.

System Bets

System bets are a derivative of accumulators and enable you to play multiple combi-bets by submitting only one bet. The crucial difference is that not all your bets have to be correct to achieve generate a return.

These bets are also known as “System 2/3”, “System 2/4” or “System 4/7”. The bottom figure in these names describes the total amount of matches on which you bet. The top figure states how many of your bets have to be successful for you to gain a profit.

Market-Related Betting Tips

♐ While the majority primarily gamble for fun and excitement, the ultimate goal is profitability. While unquestionably entertaining, predicting the outcome of a football match often isn’t profitable. However, there are ways in which you can boost your chances.

• Research is key, especially if, like most punters in the UK, you’re gambling on teams you don’t watch week in, week out (or at all) in the lower divisions. It’s important to take into account home and away form, injuries and suspensions, statistics from both an attacking and defensive perspective.

• At the elite level, you should consider tactical factors. While you don’t need to have an in-depth understanding of Marcelo Bielsa’s combinations and rotations in wide areas, we recommend a bit of tactical and analytical research into the teams you’re betting on. Tactical analysis is also beneficial for predicting other football betting markets as well, namely Anytime Goal Scorer and Player to be Carded.

• Lastly, look into a team’s ability to defend the counter-attack and set piecesꦬ. Chelsea, for example, proved in their 3-1 defeat to Manchester City that they’re defensively poor at transitions, meaning if they were to face up against Crystal Palace, then Wilfried Zaha, a distinct threat on the counter, would be a good option to get on the scoresheet.

Our Market of Choice: Player To Be Carded

𒁏 While there’s still an avenue for profit by dabbling in this market pre-game, it’s the in-play betting odds that make this one a big go-er.

Other High Value Market: Double Chance

Another profitable option which has emerged throughout the 2020/21 season has been the Double Chance market. As a result of the pandemic, this campaign has been particularly unpredictable, particularly for the Premier League. Seemingly anyone can beat anyone.

Other High Value Market: To Win From Behind

Elsewhere, the To Win From Behind market is another worthy option, with the difficulty in landing such a bet meaning the returns are typically healthy. However, it certainly requires some research. Basically, you need to pick the right game.

Profit Maximisation With Football Bets

Apart from familiarising yourself with the best football betting markets, you should use a money management strategy that enables a consistent profit increase in order to be successful♊. This means that with each bet you increase your betting budget and therefore, your capital.

The Kelly Criterion Formula

The Kelly Criterion♊ Formula, both in its complete version and in its fractional interpretation (i.e. underbetting) belongs to a model that lets you bet with the aim of increasing your profit. It is based on the assumption that you constantly want to bet and increase your assets.

Ideally, your betting budget grows with each bet won, so that each wager increases as well. Like this, the growth curve of your betting assets becomes especially steepᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ. You should utilise a money management strategy that also focuses on a maximisation of profit. Should you turn out to be competent football and betting expert, you can, in this way, enjoy handsome winnings from football bets.

Underbetting

🅠 The Kelly Criterion Formula suggests optimal wagers if your estimated probability and the bookmaker’s odds add up. However, since you never know exactly with what probability a match will end, you might get your estimations wrong from time to time. As a result, the Kelly Formula may suggest an amount that no longer constitutes the optimal wager.

If you decide to use underbetting, you therefore place only a fraction of the amount proposed through the Kelly Formula and thus, decrease the risk of loss. Hence, underbetting simply describes the fractional Kelly Formula.

Key Factors To Help You Predict Football Matches

🐼 Once you've managed to wrap your ahead around all the best football betting markets out there, it's also helpful to know factors are helpful when predicting football matches.

These include the performance level of a team, as well as the circumstances of a match🉐. Both are composed of various key figures and values. The below 11 values, among others, are important in that regard. Let’s go through them in detail below:

1. Goals

A team that doesn't score goals cannot win. It will, at best, reach a draw. Therefore, the figure of goals scored🌟 is a decisive factor for the evaluation of a team and for placing your bet.

Goal difference is an important parameter. Many scored goals can only strengthen a team, if, at the same time, it doesn't concede too many goals. A team that scores an average of 3 goals but simultaneously concedes 4 goals doesn't win any points. A team that scores 5 goals every game and concedes 4 is weaker than a team which only scores 3 goals but doesn't concede any goals. For this reason, you should always take the average goal difference into account.

2. Goalscoring Opportunities

Only by creating goalscoring opportunities can a team score a goal, making them important indicators. Likewise, you need to consider allowed goalscoring opportunities⭕, which can lead to conceding a goal and, consequently, lower the performance level of a team.

3. Shot Conversion Rate

What good are 100 opportunities in a match if not one goal is scored? The Shot Conversion Rate refers to the effectiveness of shots at a goal taken,☂ and can be calculated by taking the number of goals in a match and dividing them by the number of shots.

4. Possession

How often does a team have control of the ball? This is yet another equally important parameter when evaluating the performance level of a team – after all, only the team who has the ball can score a goal. Admittedly, some teams (especially weaker ones) rely not on possession, but on counterattack☂. However, such a strategy rarely pays off, and is heavily dependent on the opponent’s performance.

5. Running Distance

How many kilometres do players of a team run on average? Through a high willingness to run✨, a team can create goalscoring opportunities and score goals. A good positional play is also vital to a team’s performance; nevertheless, without an appropriate willingness to run, a team cannot score a goal. Therefore, the total running distance of all players can also indicate the performance level of a team.

6. Corner Kicks and Free Kicks

How many corners and free kicks is a team awarded during a match? These variables greatly highlight a team's effort to score a goal🌌 and are therefore important indicators for the performance level of said team. Relatively smaller factors like these create goalscoring opportunities and scored goals.

7. Team Value

What is the current team value? A comparison between Bayern Munich and Augsburg shows that this can indeed be significant. While Bayern had a market value of 500 million euros in the season of 2016/17, Augsburg’s team value only amounted to 60 million. This reflects the quality of individual players♛, and so the performance level of a team can be determined.

🔴 Nevertheless, the price of a player is created based on several variables which include age and potential, and does not represent the current form of a player. Factors such as injuries and lack of rest between one match and another may prove detrimental for players, but do not have any effect on the value.

8. Home Advantage / Weakness in Away Matches

Even though, according to statistics, the Home advantage measured in goals has consistently decreased over the last 20 years, many teams perform distinctively better in front of their own supporters, and therefore get one or two points more at home. In figures, Home teams score 1.66 goals on average, while Away teams score merely 1.20 goalsജ. Will all this in mind, you should take the Home advantage into account whenever placing a bet.

9. Total Goals

The total goals of Bundesliga matches vary and depend on the stage of the season. While at the beginning of a season a few more goals are usually scoredꦑ, later on the quota of goals decreases and finds its low point between the 20th and 30th matchday. Towards the very end of the season it then increases rapidly and reaches its climax. The average amount of goals per match used to be 3 for a long time; nowadays it has, however, fallen to 2.8.

10. Bogey Teams

There are opponents against which a certain team loses (almost) during every match. Most of the time, it is impossible to determine the reason why this happens. Nevertheless, there might be factors such as tactical orientation, formation or expectations🅺 that can have a distinctive influence on the outcome of a game, regardless of the discrepancy of the actual performance level of each team.

11. Matchday

𒀰 Matchday circumstances can also have an impact on the performance level and the outcome of a game. If, for example, Bayern Munich has already been declared the German Champions due to an unbeatable margin of points just 3 matchdays before the end of the season, then this can influence the motivation, concentration and performance level of the team. You should consequently take note of any extenuating circumstances surrounding the matchday in question when trying to predict the outcome of a match.

Probability of Accurate Predictions

Even though mathematically, every possible outcome of a football match has a certain probability of occurrence, and it is possible to calculate that probability with the help of various indicators, making a safe forecast for the outcome of a football match is impossible. This is because apart from every statistically quantifiable data, unforeseeable factors – like coincidence, intuition and emotion, as well as a sudden change of circumstances like refereeing errors or unusual pitch conditions – play a role. Although figures can add up to certain predictions on paper, reality can turn out to be completely different.

ThePuntersPage Final Say

ಌ While sticking a Saturday morning six-fold on the afternoon’s fixtures generates a significant buzz for the average punter, the ever-increasing variation regarding football betting markets makes it simply naïve to continue to place the same old, often unprofitable, bets. It’s easier than ever before to find a market that suits your needs, giving you ample opportunity for a profitable 2024!