How Can You Increase Your Chances on Football Betting
Posted by Harry Kane on Friday, December 21, 2018
While there’s little doubt that casino gaming remains the king of the virtual gambling space, sports betting continues to carve out a lucrative and fast-growing niche. To this end, online sports betting grew to account for 37.1% of the online gross gaming yield (GGY) in the year ending September 2017, with casino gameplay claiming a 56% market share.
While sports betting covers an array of different disciplines and markets, football wagers continue to dominate the space in the UK. This is hardly surprising; particularly given the popularity of the sport and the partisan nature of supporters across the length and breadth of the country.
In this article, we’ll ask how punters can increase the quality of the bets that they place, as they look to take incremental steps towards making money from the sport that they love!
1. Understand the True Nature of Odds and Probability
It’s fair to say that most football fans are little more than casual gamblers, meaning that they often do little more than identifying the most likely outcome of a game when placing a wager.
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, of course, there’s more to successful sports betting than simply predicting the outcome of a game or tournament. After all, while the odds applied by betting brands are based loosely on the most likely results, bookmakers also manipulate prices to safeguard themselves against the risk of loss.
This means that the odds of the most likely outcome will rarely represent good value, and both of these factors need to be considered before you place your wager.
Odds-on pricing offers a relevant case in point, as this will often be applied in instances where one team is the overwhelming favourite to beat another. While this represents a relatively safe bet that’s likely to come in, you’ll have to place a large amount of stake money if you’re to claim a realistic or viable return.
This impacts negatively on the value proposition, and with this in mind, it may better to avoid wagering on such matches or at least target alternative betting markets that offer superior odds (such as the exact score or first goalscorer).
On another note, you may be best served by viewing odds in the decimal format rather than fractions, which are often displayed on bookmakers websites in the UK. This makes it a little easier to quickly and accurately compare the real-time market while helping you to calculate the true value of odds for specific matches.
2. Avoid Placing Wagers Based on Emotion or Tribalism
We spoke earlier about the partisan nature of football support, and this can encourage many people to place bets based on emotion and tribalism rather than their likely returns.
Now, while this type of biased and emotive wagering may help to aid your enjoyment of following your favourite team, it’s unlikely to deliver any kind of healthy return over the course of an individual season.
As a result, you may find it more rewarding to wager on neutral games, as this will ensure that you make informed and reasoned decisions rather than impulsively backing your favourite team.
On the subject of emotive betting, it’s also crucial that you refrain from basing the type or the value of your bets on previous results. After all, this represents one of the biggest imaginable gambling fallacies, which encourages bettors to chase previous loses by increasing the stake of the next bet that they place.
Make no mistake; each individual bet should always be considered on its own individual merits, as there’s no discernible relationship between one wager or another. This means that both winning and losing streaks should be considered as completely random occurrences, while there no rule which dictates that results will even themselves out over time.
Instead of betting emotively or attempting to seek out a pattern in completely random sequences, it’s far better to base your wagers on information and data sets that are pertinent to specific games.
Team form offers a relevant case in point, as does the analysis of individual players who are likely to determine the outcome of a game. This type of critical and analytical thought process also enables you to lay down informed wagers in a host of associated betting markets, helping to tap new winning opportunities in the process.
3. Consider (But Don’t Rely on) the Opinion of Selected Experts
While data should be your key watchword when formulating wagers, this does not mean that you cannot draw information from alternate sources.
Football experts and pundits can excellent sources of insight, for example, while their perspective can also challenge and influence the type of wager that you place for the better.
Of course, not all so-called experts have been created equal, while the sheer volume of aspiring pundits on the Internet can make it hard to identify the most viable opinions.
However, with a selective mind and willingness to review the past performance of pundits, you can seek out those that have a record of success and a proven method for predicting the outcome of matches. We’d also recommend reviewing the criteria that experts use to predict outcomes, as this may also have a bearing on your final decision.
There’s another reason for leveraging expert opinion, particularly when it’s provided by local journalists who regularly recover specific teams.
These individuals often have sources and contacts at particular clubs, meaning that they receive information concerning any potential injuries or team news ahead of time. This can have a significant bearing on their prediction, particularly if key players are unavailable and unable to influence the outcome of the game.
By following this type of informed expert opinion, you can really improve the quality of your wagers and potential returns that they’re likely to deliver.
Just remember to use this type of insight sparingly, as even the most reputable expert opinion should not be given priority over data and statistical information.