Football Betting Strategy – Betting Strategies That Work

Two Goals Up Strategy

Many bookmakers offer the ‘two goals early payout’ deal that will pay out winnings if a team goes two goals ahead at any time in the match. You can minimise the risk to yourself by backing teams at such bookies and laying them at the same time at a betting exchange. Let’s take a look at this strategy in action.

Let’s say we bet £20 on Newcastle to win. We can also lay Newcastle (bet on them not to win) at 1.82 for a wager of £11 which would cover our £20 stake for our first bet. Let’s see what happens in all three scenarios:

• Newcastle win, returns £34.25 – £31 bet – £3.25 profit
• Newcastle don’t win, returns £31.02 – £31 bet = £0.02 profit
• Newcastle go two goals up but don’t win returns £65.27 – £31 bet = £34.27 profit

As you can see, no matter what happens you will return profit (this is not always the case, we just happened to be ‘lucky’ with the odds on this occasion. However, in most cases the profits and losses will be minimal UNLESS your backed team goes two goals up and then does not win which is what you are hoping), but the big profits come when winning teams surrender a two-goal lead and draw or lose.

Draw Hedging

Draws are an annoyance in football, and football is one of the few sports where a draw is an accepted result. If you are betting on, say, Liverpool to beat Newcastle, you might consider a smaller bet in tandem on the draw to cover two scenarios. If you are betting £10 on Liverpool and the odds of the draw are 4/1, A secondary £2.50 bet on the draw would cover your ‘to win’ stake. Note, you can achieve the same by betting on ‘double chance’. This could be your best bet if you are trying to find how to make money betting on football.

In addition, instead of betting on the win, you could bet on draw no bet instead but still bet on the draw. Let’s look at some prices as an illustration:

Here, with ‘Draw No Bet’ Bilbao are priced at 4/11, and the draw at 27/10. You can therefore bet £10 on Bilbao, and £3.70 on the draw. If Bilbao win, you will return £13.64 for a £0.06 loss overall. If it’s a draw, your £10 will be returned and you will return £10 on the draw, for a decent £16.30 profit, with the overall risk being £13.70. Obviously, in these scenarios, you are looking for cases where an away win is unlikely, but there’s a strong chance of a draw and a decent chance of a home win.

Bet Over/Under

Sides that find it hard to stick one in the onion bag tend not to suddenly hammer sides 7-0. In addition, teams famed for tight defences tend to win by eking out 1-0 wins. Instead of betting how who will win a match, how about betting on how many goals the crowd will get to see? If two sides with tight defences but goal-shy strikeforces meet, it’s hardly likely to be a glut of goals. Betting on over/under 2.5 goals could pay you dividends if you’re looking how to win a football bet consistently.

Pounce on Price Fluctuations

Modern football betting systems and markets are all about keeping up to date with the odds, with live betting becoming incredibly popular. Say that you think Arsenal will beat Manchester United. Instead of betting on the prices pre-game, monitor the live markets instead. If it is still 0-0 after 70 minutes, you will get better odds on an Arsenal win than you would have done at kick-off. Also, if a fancied team goes a goal down early doors, their odds for a win will drop and you can enjoy the better prices.

Lay the Draw

Let’s get the terminology defined first – laying is the opposite of betting. If you bet, you are betting on something happening. If you lay, you are betting on something not happening. This strategy involves laying the draw (at a betting exchange), as you can usually get decent odds. You’ll find that once a goal has been scored in the match, the odds of the draw will rise. You can then back the draw to lock in a profit and cash out immediately. This strategy usually works best when a game features two high-scoring teams.

Pick Asian Handicap Winners

Asian handicap betting, or ‘betting on the spread’ as it is known, is hugely popular in the US and you can adopt it to enhance your odds over simple ‘1X2’ bets. Let’s say Manchester City are facing Sheffield United. City are of course red-hot favourites so the price of a City win is poor, at 2/11. You can get better odds if you look at the handicap prices – 8/13 for a single goal handicap, 6/4 for two and 7/2 for three. If you think City are going to hammer the Blades, you’ll get better odds for Asian handicap betting than betting straight on a City win.

Leverage Early Cashout

Most UK betting sites now allow you to cash out winning football bets before the conclusion of an event, albeit with a reduced return. Let’s say you bet £10 at Evens for Newcastle to beat Arsenal and at half time the Magpies are 2-1 up. The cash-out value of your bet is £5, with the odds of a Newcastle win tightening to 1/2. You could cash out this bet (£15 return) and use the profit to bet on Newcastle not winning at odds of 2/1. If Arsenal do go on to draw or win, your second bet will return £15, returning you £25 overall – nice!

Take advantage of Acca Boosts, Bonuses and Insurance

Football betting sites like you to place accas. That’s because most accas are placed with the hope of turning a small outlay into big money. You can though take advantage of acca boosts, bonuses and insurance to add a little extra money to your football bets. Take a look at the following acca:

This acca is going to be placed at a site that offers acca insurance if one selection fails, minimum five selections, minimum odds 3/1. We have picked out four ‘dead certs’ and the bet we are most interested in, Alfreton v South Sheilds. We were looking at odds of 6/4 on our selection, South Shields, but by adding in four dead certs, we have boosted those odds to 3.21/1.

The double beauty of this strategy is that should just one of our selections fail (which, in all likelihood, will be South Shields), then we get our stake back as a free bet. The only risk is an upset – South Shields letting us down and one or more of our dead certs suffering an upset.