Guide to the Most Popular Football Betting Markets

There have been many changes in how people bet on football with the explosion of online betting. Competition has increased significantly, and as a result, you will see that on many bookmaker’s websites there are a huge number of markets available, meaning you can place bets on plenty of aspects of a football game. In this betting guide, we will take you through the most popular betting markets right now and give you some useful information that will help you if you decide to get involved.

What are football betting markets?

A football market is simply a way for bookmakers to divide the various betting opportunities so that they are easier to find and manage.Every football market has a number of bets and odds for each outcome provided by the bookmaker.Although some betting markets might have just two outcomes, for instance, over and under 2.5 goals, they can go a lot bigger. For example, if you like to bet on who is going to win the World Cup, you will find that the bookie has priced up all the teams that will take part in the competition.

Which football betting markets are the most popular?

The most popular football betting market is the full-time result, also called the match result. This is the most straightforward way of betting on a football game, and it has three options: home win, draw, and away win. This was the first way of betting on football. It is very easy to understand, and it is not surprising that it remains the most popular way of betting on football. Other football markets, however, have gained popularity in recent years as they tend to keep the punters involved for longer during the game. Both teams to score, also called BTTS, has become very popular as it is a thrilling way to follow a football game, as everything can change until the end with just a goal. The same thing can be said for the number of goals scored in a game, also called under/over betting.

How does betting on football match results work?

It is generally very straightforward, as you simply need to decide if you want to back the home team, the away team, or the draw. When betting on cup competitions, things might get just a bit more complicated, as you need to consider if you are backing the team to win in 90 minutes or if you are backing them to qualify. Bookmakers now provide pretty clear guidelines, so even in this case, you should know what you’re betting on.

Other popular football betting markets

As mentioned above, there are a whole host of new football betting markets out there, and below we have given a short overview.

Handicap betting

This market is particularly popular with American sports, where there are heavy favorites in most games. It has, however, gained popularity in football because it creates more opportunities when there is a significant quality difference between two teams.Let’s say you have a cup game with Manchester City against a League Two opponent. Backing Man City to win would return pretty much nothing, but if you back Man City with a -3 goals handicap, you would see much more interesting odds, normally close to even. In this scenario, Man City will start with a three-goal disadvantage and would have to win 4-0, for example, or have at least four-goal margins to win the bet.You can also bet on the underdog at +3 if you believe they will be able to keep things close.

Correct score betting

If you like predicting the correct score of a game, give this market a go. As the name indicates, you would have to predict the exact result of a football game. Given the difficulty of this market, it tends to have very high odds.

You could try to predict the correct score of the game, as we do in each of our match predictions. Like the full-time result market, a correct score bet is only relevant for the first 90 minutes of a game, not extra time.

Half-time/full-time betting

This football betting market allows you to predict the result at the end of each half. If you believe a team will dominate from the start and lead at halftime, you can improve your odds by betting on them to win both halftime and fulltime.Likewise, if you know a team is not able to keep a lead, you might want to consider backing them to win at halftime but backing the draw at fulltime, and so on.

What else to know?

Make sure you take advantage of the many sign-up free bet options available to new players. Make sure you’re committed to being a responsible gambler before you start betting, and use all the tools bookmakers give you to make sure you’re in full control of your gambling so it stays safe and fun.

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