Football Betting Strategy

Sadly, there are no guaranteed routes to success in life, and few shortcuts to take either.

One of the Founding Fathers of the USA, Thomas Jefferson, is attributed with the quote ‘the harder I work, the luckier I get’, and that seems to be true for many individuals in life.

Oddly, those words ring true for football betting as well.

Another slogan that is worth remembering here is ‘when the fun stops, stop’. Football betting is supposed to be enjoyable, so if you want to bet on a team or place that accumulator on a Saturday morning then go for it – as long as you are wagering money you can afford to lose.

But if you want to take your football betting to the next level, you may want to adopt one or two strategies to follow.

These give you:

• Discipline in your betting
• An area of specialism to focus on
• Some context when combing through a set of games
• A chance to spot value: the ‘needle in a haystack’

There are a number of different football betting strategies that you can follow based on the betting markets that bookmakers offer, and while none offer that ‘shortcut to success’ when it comes to your bets, following some of the principles outlined in this article will at least help you to have some continuity to your football betting so you don’t place wagers at random or without conviction.

So without further ado….

Strategy #1: Picking the Winner

In theory, picking the winner of a football match should be a simple enough affair.

For example, in the 2018/19 Premier League season the 76 combined matches played by Manchester City and Liverpool yielded 62 wins between them: a staggering 82% success rate.

So, if you backed the teams of Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp to win religiously then you would have an incredible 82% hit rate – the kind of performance that the vast majority of bettors would give their right arm for.

So, football betting is easy….right?

Well no, not exactly. Think again about this example: there were 12 games in which you would have recorded a loss, and that’s before we even consider the low odds that Man City and Liverpool are at to win most of the time.

For a more structured example, let’s consider Manchester City alone. Typically, they average odds of around just 1/5 to win every week – often they are even shorter than that, but sometimes a more generous price can be found when they are playing away to a strong opponent.

Let’s break our betting down into units, and assume with every Manchester City victory we win 0.2 units based on those 1/5 odds.

In the 2018/19 campaign, they won 32 games:

32 wins x 0.2 units = 6.4 units

So, we would have made 6.4 units of profit last season betting blind on City. If we attribute £10 to each unit, that’s £64 in our pocket over the season.

Then let’s look at the other columns of the league table: two draws, four defeats. So that’s six games where we make a loss:

6 ‘non wins’ x 1 unit = 6 units

The upshot? If we had backed Manchester City to win every game last season, we would have made 0.4 units (£4) profit.

Okay, so that’s better than a kick in the pants, but a £4 profit for over an entire season for a team that won 84% of their games? That doesn’t sound like smart value to us.

A Numbers Game

The Manchester City example confirms one thing: football betting is all about the odds.

The odds should reflect the likelihood of an event occurring. We always come back to the classic coin toss example. If someone was offering a book on the toss of a coin, they should be priced at evens for heads and evens for tails, given that a fair coin has a 50% chance of landing on either side.

However, once the bookies have added their profit margin to the odds, sometimes known as the ‘vig’, these odds would probably be closer to 11/10 for either outcome, so more like 47.6%, to allow for the bookies profit.

In that sense, betting is not a fair fight!

Even so, there are occasions where we can find value prices, i.e. those where the odds are greater than the perceived probability of a team winning.

But What is Perceived or Implied Probability?

Think about it: in a perfect world, there would be a 33.3% chance of the home team winning a football match, 33.3% chance for the away team, and 33.3% chance for the draw.

But we know that football isn’t that simplistic: in the 2018/19 Premier League campaign, the draw occurred in just 19% of matches, with the home team claiming the spoils in 48%.

And we know that some teams are fundamentally better than their opponent – giving them a higher than 33% chance of winning, and also that some sides are beset by injuries and suspensions; again, their win probability may be lower than the 33% prescribed.

Understanding these percentages is the key to unlocking successful long-term football betting.

You may have hated maths at school, and so zoned out when talk turned to fractions, decimals, percentages and so on. But we’re here to tell you that all bookmakers’ odds represent is the implied probability of an event occurring.

Here’s a table of some betting odds and their implied probabilities:

Betting Odds	Implied Probability
1/5	83.3%
4/11	73.3%
8/15	65.2%
4/6	60%
10/11	52.4%
EVENS	50%
6/5	45.5%
13/8	38.1%
2/1	33.3%
13/5	27.8%
15/4	21.1%
10/1	9.1%

We’ve added this table because it will help you to visualise whether odds are ‘value’ based on our interpretation of a game – especially if you are new to the fractions used by the bookies.

So when you have weighed up all the factors that go into predicting a football match, you may decide that Arsenal have a 60% chance of beating Leicester City. What are their odds with the bookies? 4/6 would be accurate, a price of 10/11 excellent value, and 8/15 poor value.

All of which feeds into the key practice for successful football betting, no matter what strategy you adopt: always do your research.

Current form, home/away records, head-to-heads, injuries, suspensions, players rested, teams with new managers, the distraction of big games to come….there are so many variables to consider.

Tally these up, work out your own implied probabilities for the three outcomes of a match, and see if you can identify any value odds.

Here’s the bottom line to picking a winner: the odds are key, as we saw in the Manchester City example. If you can regularly back teams at value prices, you will go a long way towards securing long-term football betting success.

Strategy #2: Goals, Goals, Goals

Some punters prefer to opt for a goals-based football betting strategy rather than trying to pick a winner.

There are many different ways such a philosophy can be implemented, but for the sake of this guide we will focus on two: Both Teams to Score (BTTS) and Over/Under 2.5 Goals.

The concept of BTTS is straightforward enough: we’re looking for both teams to score in the game – we don’t care who wins, nor what the final score is.

And something that often gets overlooked by bettors: there is a ‘Both Teams to Score – No’ option, where we are looking for one or both sides to fail to hit the back of the net.

Over/Under 2.5 Goals is a market where the ‘overs’ part is satisfied in games where there are three or more goals, while the unders’ criteria are two or fewer.

There are other options aside from 2.5 goals, with all of the other decimals available at relative odds.

So what is the golden rule for goals-based strategies? That’s simple….

Context is King

In October 2018, Liverpool welcomed Manchester City to Anfield.

These are two of the most exciting attacking teams that the Premier League has seen in decades, with goals following them up and down the land thanks to their litany of attacking options. Goals-based punters licked their lips in anticipation, ploughing into the BTTS and Overs markets.

Sure enough, the game ended 0-0.

That’s not to say those punters weren’t right to follow their noses with this one, but sometimes seeking some context is crucial before pulling the trigger on bets where goals are a necessity.

Liverpool and Manchester City have the best defences in the Premier League – as proven by the final league table, and so any notions of their encounter being a goal-fest had to be managed accordingly.

Don’t forget, even as early as October this had the feel of a title decider to it, with the outcome crucial to where the trophy would be heading seven months later (so it proved with City taking the title by a solitary point).

The notion of two attacking teams producing a goal-laden contest is a fair one, and we wouldn’t put off any punters who follow this basic narrative.

But we do ask that you consider the context of the match: if the thought of losing is too much to bear for either team, they simply aren’t going to play gung-ho football. Similarly, teams shorn of their best attacking players through injury or suspension will also struggle to achieve their normal creative levels.

Once more, goals-based betting strategies are about understanding the context of football matches….and doing your homework.

Strategy #3: Scores & Draws

We’ve put correct score and draw betting in the same category here for one simple reason: these are not the low hanging fruit of the football betting world.

It is simply very difficult to accurately predict the correct score of a football match, or indeed know when a draw is coming – remember, in the 2018/19 Premier League season, just one in five games ended in a stalemate.

Complexity is often represented by the bookies odds, with the average price of a draw around the 12/5 mark and correct scores often starting from as long as 5/1 – these are tough football betting strategies to follow and they don’t come highly recommended.

If you do wish to proceed, then once again we urge you to consider the context of each team and how they go about their business. Teams that like to ‘park the bus’ tend to yield low scoring games, while the elite sides will rest and rotate players when they have key Champions League games coming up – again, that lends itself to low-scoring affairs.

And as we saw in the Liverpool vs Manchester City example, important games generally hint at a lower, closer scoreline.

Money Talk

One way in which a correct score or draw betting strategy can work is with the application of a progressive staking plan – however, we must urge absolute caution in doing so.

These staking plans dictate that you understand you will experience a losing streak when backing correct scorelines or the draw; it’s a simple fact.

But these systems counteract that by progressively increasing your stake to cover losses, in some cases meaning that the amount you wager is doubled with each losing bet.

That’s all well and good, but if your initial stake is £1 and you go 15-20 bets without a win, that stake level can soon increase to unmanageable levels.

We point you to Google to do your own research on both the Martingale and Fibonacci staking plans; you may or may not decide to proceed with them.

If all else fails, here’s a stat that might get you going: historically, the most common scoreline in the Premier League is 1-0, which occurs in roughly 20% of matches.

Strategy #4: Overcoming the Odds with a Handicap

With your new-found knowledge of implied probabilities, you might comb through a set of odds for a given game week and not be able to find any value bets to pursue.

That’s a bummer, but happily help might be at hand.

Most bookies offer handicap markets too, where we can give a team an advantage or disadvantage with a hypothetical headstart or obstacle to overcome.

With traditional European handicaps, we are dealing with whole numbers and absolute certainties. So:

Liverpool -1 Handicap v Arsenal = Liverpool must win by two or more goals

Chelsea +2 Handicap v Man City = Chelsea can lose by one goal, draw or win

These handicaps naturally give us a few new angles to attack with our bets, and we can again employ our knowledge of implied probability to determine whether a +/- handicap is a value bet based on the odds and the likelihood of it occurring.

Asian Handicaps

Punters tend to get a bit scared of Asian handicaps; they see half and quarter numbers and get transported back to their school maths classes and their eyes begin to close.

However, there really is no need to be fearful, because once you understand the concept they really are a doddle to use.

Asian handicaps offer punters fractions of goals to wager on. It sounds complex, but let’s work through the most common examples:

Asian Handicap	Outcome of Match
+/- 0.00	Win = bet wins Draw = stake refund Loss = bet loses
+0.25	Win = bet wins Draw = half win Loss = bet loses
-0.25	Win = bet wins Draw = half stake lost Loss = bet loses
+0.50	Win = bet wins Draw = bet wins Loss = bet loses
-0.50	Win = bet wins Draw = bet loses Loss = bet loses
+0.75	Win = bet wins Draw = bet loses Lose by one goal = half lose Lose by two or more = bet loses
-0.75	Win by two goals or more = bet wins Win by one goal = half win Draw = bet loses Lose = bet loses
+1.00	Win = bet wins Draw = bet wins Lose by one goal = stake refund Lose by two or more = bet loses
-1.00	Win by two goals or more = bet wins Win by one goal = stake refund Draw = bet loses Lose = bet loses

For every increase, e.g. +/- 2.50, simply add another goal to the conditions.

The Asian handicap betting strategy is a fantastic one for punters who want to be more precise and methodical in their wagering.

We particularly like this as a ‘consolation prize’ style football betting strategy, i.e. one where if we get our bets slightly wrong we can still get a stake refund or some of our stake back.

Handicaps enable us to improve our odds where we believe one team will win comfortably, while hedging our bets where we feel an underdog can put in a positive performance without necessarily claiming the win.

Strategy #5: Player Power

Some punters want to avoid betting on the outcome of the match altogether, and in this case player props are well worth exploring.

You can bet on players to be booked and/or sent off with some bookmakers, but for our money, the real strategy here is tackling the goalscorer markets.

As you are probably aware, you can bet on a player to score first, last, anytime or two or more goals, but it is the Scorecast and Wincast markets that are most appealing.

The Scorecast market is a tough one to navigate: here, you are looking to back a player to score first or anytime and then also to get the correct score part of the bet right as well. As we have already found in this guide, correct score betting is particularly tricky.

The Wincast is a smarter option then. Here we are betting on a double: the first goalscorer and the team to win the match.

There is no great science to identifying a first goalscorer. Football is, by its very nature, a low-scoring sport, so if you believe a player will find the net then he is as likely to score the first as at any other point in a game.

So how do we identify players that are likely to score?

A Question of Confidence

Strikers and attacking players thrive on confidence.

It’s why so many forwards embark on streaks of scoring where they find the net in consecutive games; when the mojo is there, goals tend to follow.

Clearly, backing attack-minded players is central to Wincast success.

If you want to take your own analysis further, you can investigate the topic of Expected Goals (xG). We are converts to the concept and could happily bore you to tears about it (we won’t), so feel free to do your own research. But in short, player xG tells us how many goals a player should have scored based on the chances that have been created for them.

Strikers that are getting into good positions to score, or who play in creative teams, naturally top the shortlist in drawing up Wincast selections.

There’s another angle too. Stats sites like WhoScored let you know exactly how teams score and concede their goals: open play, set pieces, own goals etc.

On occasion, you will find fixtures where teams with high success rates of attacking set pieces will meet those who struggle to defend them effectively.

In this instance, our Wincast is informed by the stats, and the player we want to back to score is the most dangerous target at set plays: often, that will be a tall, rugged centre back who can climb highest and nod home the winner that sees our bet land.