Soccer Betting

With soccer being the world’s most popular sport, it’s no doubt that betting on it is a pretty big deal also! But if you want in on the fun of betting on soccer, you shouldn’t just go into the sports book blind. There are some important things you need to know before you should even think about betting. To take things further, once you know the basics, there are several strategies and tactics you can use to find favorable bets. This article will provide an introduction to betting on soccer, the types of bets that can be made and will also focus on a few tips for increasing your chances of success.

Types of soccer bets

Soccer betting is quite similar to betting on other types of low scoring sports games like baseball or hockey, but with soccer, since ties are much more prevalent, they are factored into the lines. Most soccer betting is of the money line type. What this means is that the bookmakers will set three lines for each game. One line for each team and one line for the draw, below is what a typical line might look like:

Hull City -120 
Draw +180 
Liverpool +200

In the situation outlined above if you were to bet on Hull City, you would need to bet $120 to win $100. Conversely, if you were to bet on Liverpool you would only need to bet $100 to win $200. In the draw line, your bet would be $100 to win $180. So the bookmakers create the lines to as accurately reflect how they feel the game will go. While Hull city might be a pretty sure fire win for the game, the bookmakers punish you by making you risk more money to win less. Remember, in soccer betting, if you bet on either team, they will have to win in order for your bet to win as well, if the game ends in a tie and you didn’t bet on the draw line, then you unfortunately will not win!

While the money line is the most common type of bet in soccer, there are other bets you can take part in. Asian handicaps are a type of bet that have become popular in recent years. Asian handicapping is a bit more involved, so we have a separate article that you can find here that will tell you all about it. Some games may have what is called an over/under bet. This is where the bookmaker’s sets a goal total and you wager on whether or not you think the final score will be over or under that amount. It is important to note that often times the goal totals are in half numbers. For example if the over/under for a game is 1.5 that means that if you bet on the over the score will need to be 2 or higher and if you bet on the under it will need to be one or less.

There certainly are other types of soccer bets but sometimes they can be really bad bets with horrible odds for the player. By sticking to money line and over under bets, you put yourself in the best position to be a winner.