Football Betting can be a tricky business and there are so many factors at stake when placing a bet on football.
Are you one of those gamblers who cannot bet against their own team, even if you know in your mind it makes sense? Are you happy to bet on gut instinct alone and just hope you have made the right choice? Or do you methodically work through all the statistics before placing your bet and relax knowing you have done everything you could to land a winner?
Every football gambler knows there is a risk when they place a bet on the beautiful game. One of the greatest things about football is that anything can happen. However, is there a football betting system available which changes all that?
Is it possible for a football betting system to consider various factors? These include:
- Overall Team Form
- Goals Scored
- Goals Against
- Home Form
- Away Form
- Average Goals Scored
- Average Goals Conceded
- Injuries and Suspensions to Key Players
- What’s at Stake for Both Teams
Does the perfect football betting system really exist?
Keep reading to find out!
1. Matched Betting
Matched Betting is a football betting system which is guaranteed to work every time, if done properly. That may seem like a bold claim but the trick is to place a back bet and a lay bet and trade them off against each other.
For this to work, you must use it on free bet promotions and the lay bet will ensure you cannot lose and will pick up a free bet regardless of the outcome. You can lay off the free bet to ensure a profit.
If you follow a matched betting system, you are guaranteed to make a profit every month. However, you must be prepared to put in the work and its not as simple as placing two bets and waiting for the football match to end.
You must use betting calculators to determine which matches are the best on which to place a matched bet and generate the most profit. You also need to work out how much money to bet and the numbers can be quite high to produce a decent outcome.
Concentration and dedication is key to the matched betting football system.
2. The Kelly Criterion
Like Matched Betting, the Kelly Criterion is a football betting system which uses a calculated method to determine the stake you should bet on an outcome which has favourable odds.
Again, this seems like a long way from simply looking at the form of the two teams and betting on the one you think will win but you may be surprised.
There are several calculations which can be used for this football betting system and to those who are unfamiliar with mathematical systems, they can look quite daunting. You start with a specific bank roll and the Kelly Criterion maximises the value of the bet by determining the percentage of your bankroll you should use.
As this football betting system is quite aggressive, it will often ask you to bet a large sum of your bankroll on a single bet and you must be confident in the bet being a winner. This is where your interpretation of a team’s chance of winning come into play and if you are unsure when you start, always bet conservatively until you feel comfortable with the system.
3. Value Bets
Value Bets is a football betting system that relies on your ability to select a bet which you believe has a higher probability of winning than a bookmaker believes.
Essentially, you are looking for football bet which the bookmaker has over-priced. For example, they may have priced Liverpool to win a match at 4/1, which is a 20% chance but you believe their chancers of winning the game are more like 25% and betting on this outcome could represent value.
You can use a formula to help decide if a football bet represents value and you can see that formula below:
Value = (odds x probability %)
100
If the answer given is over 1.00 then you have a value bet on your hands. Using the Liverpool example above, taking 4/1 and converting to decimal odds leaves 5.00 but we believe there is a 25% chance of this outcome. That would leave the odds at 3/1 or 3.00 in decimal format. Using the equation above, we are left with the following:
(5 x 25)/100 = 1.25
The answer is above 1.00 and this suggests we have a value bet. You must trust your judgement on seeing when a football bet has a higher probability than a bookmaker has stated in their odds. However, this gives the system a real feel and places you in control, more so than the previous two football betting systems highlighted above.
4. Double Chance
This is more of a betting market than a football betting system but is a good option when betting on a match which has a risky outcome.
As the name suggests, you have two chances to win the bet instead of the usual one and basically, you are betting on two outcomes to a game. In every football match there are three outcomes, home win, draw and away win.
Usually you would bet on one of these three outcomes but using a double chance bet, you can bet on two of these outcomes and reduce your risk. The major issue with using double chance as a football betting strategy is that although you will have a better chance of winning the bet, the odds will be shorter and your profit smaller than a standard bet.
You can make a profit using the double chance football betting system if you pick games which have a risky outcome. These matches generally have higher odds to begin with and will still provide a decent profit using double chance.
5. Two Out of Three System Bet
The great aspect of this football betting system is you can make a profit even if you do not win the bet on each of the three games.
The risk is lower using a two out of three system bet than a multibet and so are the odds but if you use this football betting system on matches where the outcome is risky, you will still make a decent profit, even if you get some games wrong.
Using the Premier League as an example, you could place bets on wins for Everton at odds of 2.0, Watford at odds of 2.1 and Chelsea at odds of 1.9. Your three bets are as follows:
Win Everton (2.0) and Watford (2.1)
Win Everton (2.0) and Chelsea (1.9)
Win Watford (2.1) and Chelsea (1.9)
For the purposes of the example, let’s say Everton and Watford win their matches but Chelsea loses their game. That leaves you with one winning bet, the top one, which is Everton and Watford.
If you placed a 10 Euro bet on each of the three outcomes, you would have 30 Euro placed in total. Your total winnings would be 42 Euro, as 10 x 2.1 x 2.0 = 42 and this leaves you with a 12 Euro profit across the three bets.
This is not a huge amount of money but as a football betting system, the two out of three system bet means you can lose two of the bets but still come out with a profit.
6. In-play Betting
While not a betting system as such, in-play betting offers a different set of circumstances which, if used correctly, can be to the benefit of the punter.
Watching a football match live, either using the live stream on the bookmaker website or a television, gives valuable insight into what is happening during the match. All the information is at your finger tips and you can watch carefully for the ebb and flow of the game.
If a team is piling on the pressure, you can utilise different betting markets to your advantage and bet on a goal to be scored in the next 10 minutes.
You can use the cash out feature to secure a small profit, especially on the over 1.5 and over 2.5 goals market. Assess which teams score a lot of goals and if there is an early goal in the match you can use the cash out option to lock in a small profit. Some online bookmakers have a partial cash out option and that way you can secure a small profit and allow the rest of the bet to run until the end of the match.
Utilising an in-play betting system like this will see you make small profits, which added up over time will result into something more substantial.
7. Price Boosts
Many top online bookmakers will offer price boosts on odds before some football matches and these can be used as a football betting system to make a profit.
Bookmakers will offer enhanced odds for a short period of time on a specific market ranging from match winner to first goal scorer and these are available for many of the major football leagues and tournaments.
You can guarantee a profit using the price boost betting system by backing an outcome at the bookmaker offering the price boost and laying the same outcome at an exchange. You can also place a bet on the opposite outcome at a different bookmaker and make a profit regardless of the outcome of the match.
Price boosts are available regularly throughout the season on Premier League, Champions League, Europa League and La Liga games and when used properly they make a great football betting system which works.
8. Refund System
In addition to price boosts and special offers, some online bookmakers will give you your money back if a football match ends in a certain outcome. The most common is 0-0 and if you bet on a game and your bet loses but the match ends 0-0, you will have your money refunded.
To make the refund football betting system work, you must find a game on which you can bet on the 0-0 final score and lay a different outcome at similar odds on a betting exchange. You must also place another lay bet on 0-0 being the correct score. If the odds are low enough, you will always have a chance to win.
The key is to find decent odds for the back option with the bookmaker and the lay at the betting exchange. Then check the lay price for the outcome that could be refunded. If these are low enough, you have value and there is a profit to made.
9. Lay the Draw
This football betting system is not as popular as it once was as profits are not as high but it can still produce a small profit when used correctly.
This system, as the name suggests, involves laying the draw in football matches. You must choose games where the home team is a good favourite to win and at some point in the match, they are likely to take the lead. Once the home team is in-front, the price for the draw will go up and you can back the draw at much higher odds than the lay price you used before the game started.
Doing this will guarantee you make a profit regardless of the outcome in the match. However, be aware that sometimes there will not be a goal scored until later in the game and you will need to back the draw to ensure you make a small loss. It’s not ideal but doing this will cut down any potential losses greatly.
There is more risk to the lay the draw football betting system than some of the others highlighted above and you must be confident in the ability for the home team to get an early goal.
10. Over 1.5 Goals System
The over 1.5 goals football betting system is easy to employ and makes better use of the goals betting market than betting on the more popular over 2.5 goals betting market.
During games, the odds for over 1.5 goals can raise quickly and each minute that passes in a match will see the odds go higher. They may not be great prior to the game but after 15 minutes, 30 minutes and 45 minutes without a goal in a game, the odds for over 1.5 goals will increase.
You can place your bet at any time in the game up to and including half-time but the later you leave it the better the odds will become. Once a goal is scored, the odds will drop and you can lay or cash out the bet to make a profit. If the first goal is scored within 10 minutes of the second half, you will make a bigger profit than at any other point in the match.
Sometimes there will be an early goal in a game and if that happens this football betting system becomes redundant and you need to move on to a different game but at least you have not lost anything. The only way you will lose money is if there is no goal scored at all in the match, so always look for games where the chances of over 2.5 goals is good.
You will find many football betting systems out there but there are only handful which are proven to work well. The five football betting systems above are the best available and while there are no guarantees when betting on football, you will struggle to find anything superior.