There's no shortage of options when it comes to online football betting. There's an active football betting market in the UK with all top operators providing numerous possible results and occurrences, and various offers and odds. The country's leading bookmakers continue to invest in football due to our long-time love affair with the beautiful game. The very first Football Pools was offered all the way back in 1923 and it even contributed to the sport becoming the national pastime it is today. Once the Gambling Act was introduced in 1968, bookmakers were legally allowed to offer football betting. Today's football fans can bet on matches played all over the world.
With so many betting sites out there today offering various features, it can be hard to find one that has the exact features you're looking for, and the task of finding one can be overwhelming. There's a list on this website with various promotions and bonuses on leagues such as the Premier League, Bundesliga, and La Liga. Once you've found your site, it's time to start looking at strategy. Before we do that, however, let's discuss one of the more common types of bet.
ACCAs
Among the more popular sports bets, this one has football fans constantly checking the scores. ACCAs (or accumulators) enable the punter to bet on multiple matches simultaneously for exponential odds. For example, you can bet Newcastle United, Everton, Chelsea, West Ham, and Leicester City as individual matches for a return (R) so five winning matches would be 5xR. If these matches were combined into an ACCA, however, you'd get a far higher return. You might even get 10xR.
How to win
There isn't a single guaranteed way to win at football betting as the bookmakers are very strategic when it comes to stacking the odds in their favour. You would need to be skilful enough to beat them, which we can help you with. Here are the basics to keep in mind.
Study the form: When it comes to football, the first thing you should take into account is form. Utilising a range of sources such as football tipster analysis, player stats, recent results, and match reports, you should have a good idea of which teams are in form and which teams are not. Obviously, the bookies also have this information but it's the right place to start.
Be careful of accumulators: These were explained above to ensure you understand what they mean as you'll see them offered a lot. When starting out, however, it's advisable to proceed with caution. They're not the easiest kind of bets to make, so if you can't resist, set yourself a limit of three matches.
Manage your money: If you want to become successful at football betting, one of the most important things you will need to do is become adept at the art of money management. As a general guideline, ensure that your stake is never over two per cent of your bankroll on any one fixture.
Choose your strategy
Back and Lay: This isn't about the outcome but rather playing the numbers. Ideally, you're looking to create a situation where you can place a bet without putting your stake at risk. You'd both be backing a team to win and betting on them to lose (laying) to benefit from different odds and opinions. You can either apply this strategy with different bookmakers where two bookies create very different odds (arbitrage betting), or in-play, which we'll discuss more below.
In-play: There are numerous strategies that you can implement just before and during a match. For instance, you could simply lay the draw just as the match starts when you believe that there will be at least one goal in the match. After the first goal has been scored, you can either back that team to win or, should the odds allow, cover all possible outcomes for a guaranteed profit.
Over/under: This type of bet offers a range of outcomes and improved odds. The typical threshold is 2.5 goals and you can bet that the match sees either over or under this amount of goals. Consider this bet when you believe that there's a high probability of either a very low-scoring game (as close to 0-0 as possible) or when a match looks like one of the big teams could be dominant over a smaller one.
