Football Bets Explained
- Football is easily the most preferred sport by punters also due to the fact that it gives them the chance to choose between a broad variety of betting opportunities. Gambling operators undoubtedly strive to see punters right as they give them the chance to select from an abundance of wagers.
- The three most popular types of bets in football are point spread, moneyline and total. Point Spread - A point spread bet allows bettors to pick games based on a spread set by the sportsbook and is extremely popular in football and most American sports. Moneyline - A moneyline bet is simply a bet on who you think will win the game.
Examples of futures bets: Team to win division, conference championship, division winner, rookie of the year, and player to be taken first in the NFL draft. You can even bet on which two teams will meet in the Super Bowl. The most popular football futures bet is “Team to win the Super Bowl”.
Welcome to Football Betting Explained. The aim of this website is too give you all the information and more you need for betting on football.
Best Football Betting Sites
Information about football bets can be hard found. Sure there are glossaries on all bookmakers sites, but how many of them are written in layman’s terms? Not many, I can tell you. Here we aim to put this right, and help you in your football betting.
Explaining Bet Types – There seems to be an assumption in the betting industry that everybody placing a bet knows what they are doing, but experiences tells us this isn’t the case. Here we aim to put this right.
Fully understanding what Over 2.5 Goals means, or what a Yankee bet is, etc, before you part with your money can only help you. So here we will bring you that information, along with bet examples. We aim to keep bet descriptions short and simple, and – hopefully – easy to understand.
Football Betting Terms Explained
Football betting is now a multi billion pound industry, and the bookmakers have found ways to create well over 100 markets for you to be on in a match. There are though some basic favourites which us punters like to bet on, which we have compiled a list of below.
Popular Football Bets
Match Betting – Probably the most popular football bet is one on who you think will win the match. This can be called Match Betting, 1 X 2, or 90 Minutes Betting, all three are the same bet. Simple select either the home team (1), or the away team (2), to win, or you can pick the draw (X).
Asian Handicap – This is a complicated bet for more experienced football gamblers, and is designed to create a more 50/50 bet. So for example, if Real Madrid are at home to the team bottom of the Spanish league, the Asian Handicap bet might see Madrid starting at -3 Goals. Meaning they would have to win 4-0 to win the bet.
Draw No Bet – Draw No Bet sees the 90 minute match betting come down to a 2 horse race. If you back the home team to win, and they win, your bet is a winner. While if you back a home win, and the match ends in a draw, you get your money back. If you back the home team to win, and the away team wins, your bet is a loser.
As this is a 2 horse race with the possibility of getting your money back, the odds are far shorter than if you place a bet using the conventional Match Betting (90 minutes / 1 X 2) market.
Half-time / Full-time – This is a bet on the outcome of the match at half time and full time. So for example, you could back Real Madrid to be winning at half time, and also at full time.
Over/Under Betting Explained
Overs / Unders – The Overs and Unders bets are one of the most puzzling in football. As they are usually Over/Under 2.5 Goals, etc, and how can you have half a goal?
The 0.5 is simply added to make it a 2 horse race. So Over 2.5 Goals would be a bet on 3 goals or more to be scored. While Under 2.5 Goals would be a bet on 0, 1, or 2 goals to be scored. This bet can be done on corners, as well as goals.
Football Accumulator Betting Explained
Accumulator Bets (also know as Accas) – By far one of the biggest football bets is the Accumulator Bet, especially on a Saturday afternoon. These bets are far riskier, but the reason why they are so popular is because you can win big, while only making a small bet.
In an Accumulator Bet you pick a number of teams to win (or draw), and if all your selections turn out correct, you will win big. If only one outcome is wrong, your bet loses.
The more teams you put in your Accumulator Bet, the harder it becomes to win, and the more money you will win if you are successful.
Goals Betting Explained
Both Teams to Score – One of the far more easier football bets to explain. This is simply a bet on both teams to score.
The bet is usually listed as Yes or No. So for example if the match was Real Madrid V Barcelona, you would select ‘Yes’ for both teams to score, or ‘No’ if you think both teams won’t score.
Anytime Goalscorer – This is simply a bet on a player to score at any time in a particular football match. Every player has their own odds to score, back the player, and if he/she scores, your bet is a winner.
Bear in mind that a bet on Ronaldo or Messi (for example) to score anytime will have far lower odds than a bet on the right back of the team to score.
First Goalscorer – Similar to Anytime Goalscorer, every player on the pitch will have their own odds on scoring the first goal. These odds will be longer than the Anytime Goalscorer, as your player has to score the first goal of the match for this bet to win.
Correct Score – One of the harder football bets to predict. As is usually the case in football betting though, it is one of the most rewarding if you get it correct.
You place your bet on 1-0 to the home team, or 3-3 draw, if you think that will be the score at the end of 90 minutes. Predict the correct score and you win, choose the wrong score, and you lose.
Best Bookmakers For Football Betting
Which Bookmakers To Use For Betting On Football – There are certain bookmakers who are good for football refunds. Bookmakers who give you money back on certain markets every week, and who give you a refund on football accumulators if one team lets you down, etc.
For example, if you like placing accumulator bets on premier league matches, Paddy Power will give you a refund – as a free bet – up to a maximum of £10 if one leg of a five-fold bet lets you down.
Best Football Betting Sites
It’s only a small adjustment to make to your football betting, but it could save you money. It can even make you more money from betting on football. This is just an example of the sorts of little football betting tips we will bring you here.
Football Betting Explained is currently under construction, so please be patient with us. But you can rest assured that you will soon have all the information you need about how football betting works.
In the meantime, should you wish to contact us to discuss anything, please feel free to mail us at admin@footballbettingexplained.co.uk
There are many different ways to bet on football, which can be quite daunting when you get started.
While everyone knows what a 'single' bet is - and can probably work out what 'doubles' and 'trebles' are too - it soon gets much more complicated.
Figuring out the best bets to make money will very much depend on how much risk you're happy to accept. Generally, the more outcomes you need to get right, the less likely you are to win as there always seems to be that 'home banker' which lets you down.
There's no easy way to win football bets on a regular basis, but knowing all of your options is a good place to start.
So here are the different types of football bets explained one by one.
A double is one of the most popular football bets.
It simply means that you have picked out two selections you think are going to win, perhaps France to beat Romania and England to beat Russia - as you can see in the example on the right.
Doubles are particularly useful when you wish to back odds-on selections (below 2.00 on Betfair).
If you were to back France and England as singles and both won, you would not even double your stake. However, you can see that the double would return quite a bit more than double the £10 stake.
To calculate a double bet, simply work out the total return for the first selection and then use it as the stake for the second selections. In the example to the right, £10 on France to win would return £13.33 and then all of that on England would return £24.40.
A double bet returns a profit when both of the selections you make win, otherwise the bet loses.
What is a Treble Bet?
Moving on from double bets, you don't need to be a genius to work out that a treble is three outcomes which make up one bet.
In addition to backing France to beat Romania and England to beat Russia, perhaps you wish to also back Germany to beat Ukraine.
As with doubles, you need all selections to win in order to return a profit. For example, if France and England won but Germany drew, then a treble would lose.
In terms of calculating a treble bet, it's pretty much the same as with a double. £10 on France to win would return £13.33, all of that on England would return £24.40, then all of that on Germany would come to £35.30 in total.
Compare that return with what you would end up with if you were to back all three as singles. In that case, you would risk £30 in total (3 x £10 stakes) and your return would only be £16.11.
As you can see already, multiple bets quickly compound potential profits as you add more selections. This is what makes them so attractive to punters, but as the risks increase it gets much harder to win consistently. It's a risk/reward that you have to think about carefully.
9 Football Accumulator Near Misses: So Close to Big Wins!A trixie bet is the first 'full cover bet' that we are going to talk about.
What is a full cover bet? It is a bet which covers all possible doubles, trebles and accumulators across however many selections you choose.
When placing a trixie, you choose three selections which means there are three possible doubles and a treble, so four lines in total.
The doubles in this example would be:
- France and England
- England and Germany
- France and Germany
While the treble, of course, would be all three together.
Why do people choose a trixie bet? Quite simply, because if one of your selections loses then you still have a winning double.
For example, if France and England were to win but Germany drew, then your double on France and England would win but the other two doubles (involving Germany) and the treble would lose.
What you do have to remember is that this is four lines, so £10 x 4 = £40 stake.
It wouldn't be a good idea to place a trixie for short-priced selections as the winning double wouldn't cover the three losing lines. In that situation, it would be better to place a treble only.
What is a Patent Bet?
A patent bet is another full cover bet, similar to a trixie but with the addition of three single bets on top of the three doubles and a treble. That means seven lines in total.
Sure, it means that you would only need to hit one winning selection in order to get a return on your bet, but the total stake would be significantly higher.
Seven lines is £10 x 7 = £70
If your only winning selection was priced 2.00 then you would be down by £50 overall.
Even if your only winning selection was an away underdog at 5.00, you would still make a loss of £20 overall. As you can imagine, patent bets are not much use when betting on Match Odds markets.
For patent bets to be effective when betting on football, you would need to be looking at higher priced selections. Perhaps correct score bets or first goalscorer bets.
Football Spread Explained
It is not a bet type that I use personally. I tend to stick to doubles and the odd treble here and there.
By the way, sometimes the patent is referred to as a 'twist bet' so do not get caught out if you see it called that from time to time.
How Does an Accumulator Work? Football Acca Bets ExplainedA yankee increases the number of selections you are betting on to four, so let's say that you are adding Spain to beat the Czech Republic in addition to France, England and Germany.
There are 11 lines which make up a yankee - six doubles, four trebles and a four-fold accumulator.
The six doubles in this example would be:
- France and England
- France and Germany
- France and Spain
- England and Germany
- England and Spain
- Germany and Spain
The four trebles would be:
- France, England and Germany
- France, England and Spain
- France, Germany and Spain
- England, Germany and Spain
And then the four-fold accumulator would include all four teams.
That's now up to 11 lines at £10 x 11 = £110
You would only need two winners in order to bring in a double, but would it be enough profit to cover the ten losing lines?
In horse racing, you can also place each way yankee bets which doubles the number of lines to 22. In that case, your stake would be £10 x 22 = £220. The stakes quickly rise as you try to cover more outcomes.
What is a Lucky 15 Bet?
A lucky 15 bet is a yankee with four singles added on.
It consists of 15 lines; four singles, six doubles, four trebles and a four-fold accumulator.
15 lines is £10 x 15 = £150
This means that you only need one of your selections to win in order to get a return, while your winnings will increase with each extra selection that ends up going the right way.
Lucky 15 is an odd name for a bet, but it's perhaps more of a marketing ploy by the bookies.
The 'lucky' part comes from bookmakers typically offering a bonus, for example doubling the odds if only one of your selections wins.
It's not particularly generous considering the fact that 14 of your 15 lines just lost, but that's bookies for you. They're more than happy to pull you in with bonuses, as long as they know that they'll still be in profit overall.
You can also add a fifth selection to create a lucky 31 bet, which works in exactly the same way.
A heinz bet works in a very similar manner to the lucky 15 and lucky 31 bets explained above, but there are six selections being made this time.
Therefore, there are 57 lines; 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 four-folds, six five-folds and a six-fold accumulator.
57 lines is £10 x 57 = £570
The heinz bet is named as such because of the famous Heinz '57 varieties' advertising slogan.
Due to the fact that there are no single bets as part of the heinz, you need at least two winning selections in order to get any sort of a return.
Of course, in an ideal world all six of the teams on your heinz bet would win. However, even if one or two let you down you can still expect to receive a decent return if you back at decent odds.
If you add a seventh selection, your heinz becomes a super heinz bet. That takes the number of lines in play on the bet up from 57 to 120.
What is a Canadian Bet?
A Canadian bet - sometimes referred to as a 'super yankee' - is made up of five selections.
Going back to our example from earlier, we had already added France, England, Germany and Spain to the betting slip and looked at various multiple bet options.
Now, assume that you are also going to add Portugal to beat Iceland.
The bet now consists of France to beat Romania, England to beat Russia, Germany to beat Ukraine, Spain to beat Czech Republic and Portugal to beat Iceland.
There are 26 lines in a Canadian bet; 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 four-folds and a five-fold accumulator.
26 lines is £10 x 26 = £260
As with the heinz bet above, as there are no singles involved in a Canadian which means that you need at least two of your selections to win in order to get a return on your bet.
As the number of selections increases, the likelihood of them all winning reduces. There's always a favourite or two which fails to win and the more teams you choose to back, the more chance of hitting one of the surprise results. The bookies know it'll happen, which is why they happily offer these bets.
The last type of football bet we are going to cover today is the goliath, which is by far the biggest multiple bet of the lot.
After adding an eighth selection into the mix, the aptly named goliath consists of a whopping 247 lines.
The 247 lines in a goliath bet are; 28 doubles, 56 trebles, 70 four-folds, 56 five-folds, 28 six-folds, eight seven-folds and an eight-fold accumulator.
247 lines is £10 x 247 = £2,470
With no single bets in play - which is just as well as 247 lines is more than enough! - you will need at least two of your eight selections to win in order to receive a return on a goliath bet.
Is a goliath bet worth it? Personally, I can't imagine backing any more than a treble and - more often than not - I stick to doubles. It's already tough enough to find a steady stream of winners at decent prices without making it this much more difficult.
Whenever a lucky punter hits a huge winner, the bookies make sure that it's in all the newspapers. Why? They want lots more people to place crazy bets the following weekend so that they can make even more profit! Don't make it easy for them.