If you’re new to the world of football betting or even if you’re a seasoned bettor, this article has been designed to highlight what some of the massive range of bets you can place when betting on football. We know that when you head into a bookmaker and see 100+ betting markets for a certain game it can be quite overwhelming, so hopefully this should break things down for you a little.
It’s also worth noting that the majority of these bets are spread over the course of a 90-minute match. They often don’t include extra time, but will include any stoppage time that the referee has added on at the end of each half.
Popular Bets
WIN-DRAW-WIN (1X2)
The W-D-W market is the most common bet that you’re going to find when betting on football. All this represents is you choosing the correct result over the course of the 90 minutes for that game.
Essentially, there are 3 bets that you can choose from: Home Win, Draw and Away Win. The score line, number of goals or players who have scored are irrelevant for this market.
DOUBLE CHANCE
The double chance market is just an extension of the W-D-W market above, except for this one, you get to choose two results from the game for your bet to win. So, this could be a Home Win and Draw, Away Win and Draw or a Home or Away Win.
As the chances of your betting winning significantly increase due to you have selected two results, you will see a massive reduced price for each bet to come in rather than picking just a single result.
DRAW NO BET
Again, another adaptation of the W-D-W is the Draw No Bet market. This essentially removes the draw result from this bet and if the match finishes as a draw, the result will be settled as a ‘push’, meaning that you get your original stake back.
For example, if you pick Home Win on the Draw No Bet market and the match finishes 1-1, then as it’s a Draw, the bet is voided and the stake returned. However, if the same bet is placed and the Away team wins, then you would lose your bet.
CORRECT SCORE
This is a fairly simple market in that all you need to do is select the correct score for that match. You will need to get the score exactly right and, your bet will lose if it’s wrong, but you picked the correct overall result.
For example, if you backed the correct score market at 1-1 and that finished as the full time result, then your bet would win. If you placed the same bet and final score was 2-1, then your bet would lose.
BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE (BTTS)
The Both Teams To Score market is one of the most popular bets in the industry at the minute. All that you need to do is select a game where you think both teams will get at least one goal. It’s worth noting that the full time result or how many goals each team scores is actually irrelevant for this market, all you need is both teams to get at least one for your bet to win.
For example, a winning result would be something like 1-1, 2-1, 3-3, heck even 10-1 would count! Losing results would include 0-0, 1-0, 5-0, etc.
HANDICAPS
Handicapping could be a complete separate article on its own and, whilst it may seem difficult the concept, it actually very simple. The handicap is put in place to try and even things up a little for one team over the other by adding or subtracting goals that are represented by numbers following either a + or a -. You can, of course, manipulate this as much as you like simply by increasing or decreasing the handicap for a certain team.
There are two forms of handicapping that are popular amongst football bettors, which include standard handicapping and Asian handicapping. The standard handicap will use whole numbers for the handicap and will look like +1, +2, -1, -2 etc.
So, if you backed a team to win a game with a -1 Handicap then they would essentially need to win that bet by 2 or more goals. Let’s say we back Team A at -1 on the handicap and they win the game against Team B 3-1. Our bet would be successful because if we remove -1 from Team A, the handicap score would be adjusted to 2-1.
Let’s say that the same bet was placed but the score line was 2-1. Our bet would lose as the adjusted score would be 1-1 and we backed Team A to win.
ASIAN HANDICAP
What you’re going to find from the Asian Handicap is that it includes goals as fractions. Basically, without going too deep into the reasoning is because it eliminates the draw for this bet type.
So, you are likely going to see a handicap that might look like -1.5 goals. This means that if -1.5 goals were removed from a 3-1 score line for example, then it would read 1.5-1, meaning a result would then be applied. You will find that these bet types come in both positive and negative numbers, which essentially means that goals are either added or subtracted from the score line.
Goal Bets
FIRST GOALSCORER
A pretty straightforward one this, all you are betting on is that player to score the first goal in the match. If they score first, then your bet will win, if they fail to score first then your bet will lose.
One thing that is worth noting for these bets is that generally own goals will not count towards this market. So, if an own goal is scored then just for this bet it would still assume that no goals have been scored.
ANYTIME SCORER
The anytime scorer just means that you can back a player to score at any point in the match. The result of the game doesn’t matter and it also doesn’t matter if that player scores first or last, just as long as they do.
TIME/METHOD
As an extension to this you will also be able to bet on a player to score within a certain time bracket. This usually lasts for 10 minutes, so would include 0-9 minutes, 10-19 minutes, 20-29 minutes and so on. You may find that these margins are longer or even shorter with some markets, so make sure you are aware of that before placing your bet.
SCORECAST
The scorecast market means that you need to choose a player to score first and the correct result for that match. You will need both of these bets to come in for this market to be successful.
The scorecast market is popular due to the large odds that you can get for each bet. It’s also an incredibly difficult to call, so bear that in mind.
WINCAST
The wincast is a little different to the scorecast in that you need to choose the player to score first and then the full time result from the 1×2 market. So, instead of choosing the correct score for the match, you just need to pick the result. You can also get variations of this market, which allows you to choose a player to score anytime, and then the result of the match.
RESULT AND BTTS
This market requires you to pick out the 1×2 result from the match and also state if ‘Both Teams to Score’ is a yes or a no. You can’t back these bets as individual bets though, as they are both dependant of each other, but this special market allows you to do so with the odds set out by the bookmaker beforehand.
You will be able to back Home win, Draw or Away win and BTTS yes, or alternatively, you can back Home win, Away win or Draw and BTTS no.
Over/Under
GOALS
The over/under total goals in a match is one of the most popular betting markets at the minute. The bet is centred around how many goals have been scored in the match it’s worth noting that the actual result of the match for this bet is irrelevant.
The most popular bet margin is 2.5 goals and either under or over than that margin. If we were using the 2.5 goal line then if you back the over you would need 3 or more goals and if you picked the under you would need 2 or less. As it includes the fraction, it means that there will always be a result with this bet, similar to how the Asian Handicap works as mentioned above.
CORNERS
A similar bet that can be placed using the Over/Under market is that of corners. The same principal applies here in that the bookmaker sets the line and then you decide if you think there will be over or under that amount.
Again, just like goals, the corner market will be used in fractions, so you can expect to find something like over/under 8.5 corners throughout the match.
BOOKINGS
You will be able to bet on the total number of bookings for a certain game by choosing the over or under line, similar to that of the two examples above. It’s worth noting that with this market some bookmakers may count red cards as 2 yellow cards, so make sure you check the terms before placing these bets.