We want to allow you to have the most successful sports betting experience possible. To do this, what could be better than sharing our extensive experience in the field with you by giving you our 10 tips for betting on a football match?
This sport, very popular with punters, can indeed be tamed! Whether you’re a seasoned bettor or new to the world of sports betting on Betiton, these tips will help you make more informed decisions and enhance your overall enjoyment of football betting.
1. Sports Betting on Football ─ Choose One or More Championships
First, before placing a sports bet on a football match, you must absolutely choose championships or competitions that you know and are used to watching. You absolutely have to be an expert and that’s why our first advice is to choose your favourite championship(s).
Alternatively, you can consider relying on a provider of NHL betting trends to help you strategize for better betting decisions. You can enhance your understanding of the games and make more informed choices, even if football isn’t your primary focus.
We strongly advise you to choose one of these different leagues based on your preferences and habits. If you follow the Premier League every weekend, it would be a shame not to use your knowledge of this championship in your sports betting! Limit yourself to 3 or 4 championships and cups per season, so as not to get lost in a sea of matches and betting options.
2. Watch Team Statistics
To bet well on a football match, you can simply take help from the statistics surrounding the teams. This data is generally available on sites specializing in sport or on Wikipedia which brings together all the history. Depending on your bet, different statistics can be analysed.
The most important statistics:
- The current ranking ─ how many points does the team you want to bet on have, what place does it occupy in the ranking? Many other answers may help you;
- History in the competition ─ has the club already been champion? When? What position has the club occupied in recent years;
- The number of goals scored and conceded ─ important data that can help you know the true performance of your team’s attack and defines;
- The best scorer in history ─ looking at the ranking of scorers in the history of teams, we can realize that an active player is climbing and can claim to leave his mark on the club. This statistic must be taken into account;
- Average possession ─ very interesting data on teams which can help us know what strategy this or that club uses. For example, PSG has an average possession of 60% in 2022, which means the team will definitely have the ball during the match;
- Age (expected goals) ─ this new statistic is very interesting for bettors. Based on the team’s actions and attacks, an algorithm calculates the expected goals and compares them to the goals actually scored. For example, in Ligule 1, Lens has an age of 28.83 and has scored 36 goals! Which means that the team is more efficient than expected.
This list is obviously non-exhaustive. You can find thousands of statistics on specialized sites! Depending on the football prediction you want to make, it is important to look at useful data.
3. Observe the Team’s Current Form
Obviously, past statistics are not enough to make the best bet on a football match. It is important to take into account the current form of the teams who will face each other in the match that interests you.
How to observe the shape of the teams?
- Thanks to the news ─ following the news of football, your team and the championship in question can give you valuable information for placing a bet;
- Thanks to the state of form ─ according to the team’s latest results and previous meetings. Generally, to know the current form, you have to look at the last 10 results at most;
- Thanks to the latest matches watched ─ we advise you to have followed at least a few matches on TV of the teams playing, in order to know how they are really evolving at the moment.
The current form of the teams can obviously be measured through statistics of the number of goals scored in the last five matches and many other data, but you should not forget to look at previous meetings with your own eyes. Your expert football eye can tell if the team is in Olympic shape or not!
4. Find Out About the Squad Present at the Match
One of the best pieces of advice we can give to bettors is to try to have the composition of the teams before placing your football prediction. Indeed, the choice of coaches, the form of the players or even possible injuries can all have a negative or positive impact on your bet. You should be informed of this before placing a bet on a football match.
Injured Players
Many bettors forget to look at whether players were injured in the last match or simply in training. Without knowing this, it’s like placing a blind bet! You absolutely must be up to date with the latest news on the teams and injured players for the match.
Sometimes, certain strong elements of a team can withdraw a few hours before the match due to muscle discomfort or even for family reasons. Depending on the player and his importance in the squad, your confidence in the bet you were going to place may be completely destroyed.
Even though football is a team sport, the accumulation of injuries and the absence of certain executives can sometimes enormously influence matches.
A suspended Player
You must also take into account players who are suspended for the match. As you know, in football, it is not enough to have received a red card to be in the stands during the next match.
Sometimes a yellow card in two matches in a row can be enough to see a player suspended. Once again, depending on his importance in the team, his suspension can greatly influence the final result. Imagine if the pillar of defines and the captain of a team were suspended…
5. Find Out About the Motivation and Stakes of the Match
A football match can sometimes have different stakes for the two teams participating in it, or identical stakes (but this is rarer, because each club has its own history). Before betting, it is essential to know the stakes and the deep motivation of the teams, depending on this, everything can change!
Here are different examples of issues:
- Example 1 ─ PSG is already champion and is playing against a team that is trying to survive in Ligule 1;
- Example 2 ─ France and Morocco are playing for a place in the World Cup final, France can go for a second title in a row and Morocco has already written history by arriving in the semi-final;
- Example 3 ─ PSG is already qualified for the 1/8th of the Champions League and is playing its last group match against a team which is not yet qualified.
In all these examples, the situations differ completely and can change the coaches’ strategy, team composition and even players’ motivation. If you are not aware of the issue, you can be sure of making a bad sports bet on football!
6. Examine Team Dynamics at Home and Away
In football, specialists often notice that home and away matches are very different. There is in fact the famous “home advantage” at home, since the supporters are present to support their team and the players know the infrastructure and even the stadium staff perfectly.
Outside, it’s the opposite and this can be seen as a disadvantage.
How to analyze the dynamics at home and away?
- Looking at the home and away rankings;
- Looking at the number of goals scored at home and away;
- Looking at the history of home and away matches.
It is possible to find several data on the teams playing at home or at the opponent’s. To place a good sports bet on football, examining this dynamic can be really interesting! We sometimes realize that a team is not succeeding away, or on the contrary, that it is excelling.
7. Analyse the Club’s Situation
Clubs are real businesses today in football, but each club can also be compared to a family. The situation is progressing but still evolving, and sometimes the club’s situation can have a huge impact on your chances of winning.
Here are some examples of situations to be aware of:
- Internal conflicts
- Club sanctions
- Financial situation
- Staff reshuffle
- Tensions with supporters
- Controversies surrounding the club.
To make a reliable prediction on football, you must be aware if one of these situations is on the verge of explosion and can destabilize the players and the collective. To take a more specific example, if a team is in total disagreement and tension with its coach, it can sometimes engage in “sabotage” to lead to his resignation or dismissal.
8. Don’t Judge Based on Ratings Alone
As you certainly know, bookmakers place odds to guide players and balance their risks. Although sports traders who work on sports betting sites are true football specialists, they are still sometimes forced to respect certain directives from their company, either to limit the risk of loss or to increase their profit on a match. Plus, they can also make mistakes, because bookmakers are humans!
You should therefore not completely rely on the odds when you want to bet! A prediction must be made 100% through your analysis and expertise. Sometimes, when we do our own analysis, we can find a big difference between the odds offered by the bookmakers and the one we estimated. If it is to our advantage, we call it a Value Bet.
A piece of advice: estimate for yourself the percentage chance that a team has of winning, then apply the formula: (1/estimated percentage) x 100 = estimated odds, in order to compare your analysis to that of the bookmakers.