Even though I consider myself an expert in gambling and sports betting, I would never say that you have to be one to bet on a single sport. Even as a beginner, you can start making money, but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be looking to improve your knowledge and establish better strategies.
Since soccer is the most popular sport in the world, most people already know enough about it to go betting. However, you need a bit more knowledge to make it pay off in the long run, and that’s where my soccer betting guide comes in.
In this guide, I’ll show you the:
One of the first sports I placed a bet on was soccer, and if you’re thinking about trying your luck as well, stick around for a while.
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Yes, soccer is really easy to bet on, and everyone can do it. However, this doesn’t mean you should rush into it without getting informed in any way.
After all, you will be betting your money, and you don’t want to lose constantly. In fact, you will surely want to win as much as possible. Since it’s fun, why shouldn’t it be profitable as well?
At the same time, there is no rush in learning things. This is the second mistake beginners often make.
They try to learn advanced strategies right away and go to that “next level” but end up confusing themselves. Trust me, the only thing you need to worry about at this moment is getting all the fundamentals right.
It’s all about establishing the right habits and discipline. Don’t give in to your emotions – be pragmatic. This is the recipe for success, and it has served me and many others quite well. Luckily for you, I am willing to share some of my long experience in sports betting.
In general, here’s what you should do:
- Read online about betting on credible sites.
- Follow games on a regular basis.
- Take tips and tricks from experienced bettors.
- Find communities that share their strategies.
There are millions and millions of people across the globe betting on soccer every day. A lot of them lose really often. As a beginner, you can expect to lose until you’ve gathered the necessary experience. It’s just the way of things and something that every serious bettor has to go through at the beginning.
However, if you approach the whole thing the right way, you’ll be able to turn a profit, but you‘ll still have to be prepared to lose at the start.
Losing your bets is part of the fun and the learning process. The only thing you should try to avoid is losing more than you can afford. To avoid doing this, make sure to set a betting budget and stick to it. This way, you’ll never overspend, and you’ll feel comfortable while playing.
You can set a weekly, monthly, or fixed budget. It doesn’t matter which one you choose, just as long as you are making sure that this budget isn’t affecting you financially. Make sure that you don’t bet money that you need for more important things.
Do this, and you will have a good betting experience.
As I mentioned earlier, most people that start betting on soccer are soccer fans. We all know that each soccer fan has their own favorite team, a team they support in each league, and will even support certain teams because the players they love play for these teams.
Of course, you want your favorites to be successful, win titles, and bring you joy, but you need to sideline all this when betting. If you want to make good wagers, you will have to be objective when making decisions, no matter who your favorites are.
If you love your team too much and can’t bet against them, even though all the facts tell you to, make a rule to never bet on your favorites. This is actually the best way to deal with this issue.
Just think about it, if your favorite team is playing a decisive game which helps them win the title, could you bet against them?
Even if you try to be as objective as possible, you wouldn’t be able to do it. Trust me, I’ve tried, and it didn’t work out that well for me. Emotions can easily make you blind and lead to irrational moves that will cost you.
As a soccer fan, you probably know that there are hundreds of different leagues, cups, and tournaments across the globe.
There is always something going on, meaning that there is always something to bet on. However, this doesn’t mean you should do this. Just because you keep track of one league doesn’t mean that you are a global expert on soccer.
I consider myself to be a fairly successful soccer bettor, but even I am scared of placing bets on certain leagues, and I stick to what I know.
A lot of people get carried away, wanting to place a bet and end up playing leagues they know nothing about. This, of course, means that they will lose more often.
Betting in familiar leagues can be difficult, and when you are on completely unfamiliar ground, it becomes almost impossible to win.
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot – have patience. If there aren’t any games available, take the time to learn more about upcoming matches and gather important information that will help you place the right bet.
Over time, you will learn more about other leagues and open up new opportunities. Don’t be afraid to learn more about teams, players, and leagues. There are a lot of professional bettors who play leagues that are unfamiliar to most players, and they are able to make lots of money by doing this.
When you start Googling or searching for information about sports bets on social media, the chances are that you will instantly come across the so-called “professional soccer tipsters”. They are especially active on Twitter and are constantly spamming with “accurate prognosis” and tips on which bets to place.
However, you should know right away that most of these people don’t know what they are talking about. Only a small number of them are betting experts, and for beginners, it can be extremely difficult to set the real ones apart from the fakes.
These people aren’t purposely trying to harm anyone, but if you keep listening to what they have to say, you won’t be able to develop your own strategy and learn how to find the right fixes. This is a lazy approach and won’t get you that far.
I haven’t yet met a professional gambler who made their career by listening to other people.
You need to build your own reasoning and intuition. Sorry but becoming good at soccer betting or any other sports betting requires you to put in the work. This is the harsh truth that you need to hear at the very start. Luckily, this road can be really fun, and once you start winning, it will be like an added bonus – a good one I might add.
What is your primary goal for betting on soccer? Money and fun, of course, but being guided by either of these things won’t get you the results you want.
The main goal of betting on soccer games should be making accurate assessments. This might not sound all that special, but it’s an important rule for all kinds of sports betting.
Soccer betting is fundamentally basic – you need to determine how likely an outcome is, look at the odds of the outcome, and make a bet in case the odds bring good value. This is the whole process in a nutshell.
When you repeat it hundreds of times and perfect it, you will increase your chances of winning.
However, making accurate outcome assessments isn’t that easy, as there are many factors involved. Even when all the factors are set in place, there is no guarantee that the outcome will be the one that’s expected.
Soccer is a game of luck as well, and there are 22 players on the field who all contribute to how the game will go.
What you can do as a bettor is go through all the important factors and assess them to make the best possible judgments. This is the only way to really increase your chances of winning. Here are some of the key factors you need to asses:
Quality of the teams
One of the most obvious factors that need to be considered is the overall quality of the team. However, assessing the quality of the whole team is not that easy. Comparing players and their quality is not too difficult, but the best teams aren’t always the ones with the best individuals.
There are countless examples of superteams that failed miserably against much weaker teams on paper.
Soccer is a team sport and it’s not about individual skill, but how the whole rooster works together along with their coach. Some of the most important elements of a good team are:
- Overall team spirit
- Balance of the whole squad
- The quality of the coaching staff and the manager
- Player compatibility
Team spirit
The spirit of the team is always important. When there is a group of people doing anything together, they need to have good dynamics.
After all, soccer players are human as well, and when they are happy to train and play together, they will perform great.
There are many examples of teams making a good run and nearly missing their goal at the end, which leads to their spirits dropping and the team underperforming the next season, even though they have the same squad.
Squad balance
A team needs to be well-balanced so that they can win consistently. For example, if a team has good attackers and midfield players, but has a poor defense, they will be able to win over teams that don’t have a strong attack but will perform poorly against those that do.
It’s always vital to look at the squad balance of both teams that are playing. See how they fair on each position and whether they have the potential to make up for their weaknesses or exploit the weak sides of their opponents.
Manager & coaching staff
Obviously, the manager is extremely important. A good manager will get the most out of their squad and create a team that will work like a well-oiled machine. On top of that, they are the ones in charge of tactics, strategies, and preparing the team against different teams.
Player compatibility
A team needs to have a compatible squad, both with their mentality and playing style. For example, if a team has several ball-dominant players, this can easily lead to dissatisfaction within the team, and players can easily lose motivation.
Form
The form is one of the best indicators of how a team might perform in their next game. A team’s form gives insight into how good or bad a team is at the moment. The best way to check the current form of the team is to look at their past 10 games and see how much they’ve won or lost.
You can look at a team’s performance in their domestic league, cup, or international competition. However, the best thing is to look at all the games together. The current form can be used for making basic assessments for the upcoming game.
Still, bear in mind that the latest results only might be misleading. The form is not only about winning or losing, but it’s also about the overall game shown at matches. For example, a certain team could’ve been playing really well, but were faced with much, much better opponents that they just couldn’t overcome.
Overall head-to-head score
In my opinion, this is not such an important factor. However, you should always check it out, as it can sometimes reveal things you didn’t know. The head-to-head record is the win/loss ratio two teams have against each other.
If you notice that a certain team is constantly winning or losing against another team, you should definitely take it into consideration. In some cases, there are no logical reasons why one team is bad or good against another, and it’s just an anomaly. In other cases, there is more to it.
Playstyle
The playstyle of a soccer team is not as tangible as some other factors. There is room for free interpretation, and people often have disputes about how a certain team plays. On top of that, it can be even more difficult to assess how one team’s playstyle will fair against their opponent’s.
To use these factors to your advantage, you will need to acquire a good understanding of the soccer game, what is being played, the current trends, tactics, strategies, and so on.
This means that you will have to spend a lot of time watching games of different teams and learning as much about them as possible.
Team’s record away & home
It’s common knowledge that most soccer teams have a better home record. This doesn’t do you any good when it comes to odds because the bookmakers also understand this. For example, if the teams are fairly matched in terms of quality and form, they will usually give the home side better odds.
However, there are teams that perform really well at home but are terrible at away games, and this is something that should be considered.
Furthermore, if you take into account other factors and see a game of well-matched teams, you can always try and bet on the guest team to win and increase your winnings.
In this part of the post, I will cover some of the most common soccer bet types. These aren’t all the soccer bets you can make, but I think I’ve added the most important ones. Read carefully to make sure you don’t misunderstand them:
Match outcome bets (money line)
Hands down the most popular option. It’s very simple, and a lot of beginners start with this type of bet. You can place a wager in three ways:
- Home win (1)
- Draw (x)
- Away win (2)
It’s as straightforward as it gets – you are betting on one of the teams to win or that the result will be a draw.
Score bets
This is another straightforward type of soccer bets. However, it’s more challenging than match outcome, but at the same time, the payouts are higher. The wager is placed on the accurate final score. It’s very difficult to guess the number of goals both teams will score, and not many people bet this way.
Total goals
This betting type doesn’t involve guessing which of the teams will win. In fact, it’s absolutely irrelevant. With totals, you are betting if the number of goals will be under or above the figure recommended by your bookmaker. This type of betting is also called over/under, and it usually revolves around the total goals scored. However, some bookmakers offer halftime totals and the totals of individual teams as a betting option.
Handicap betting
This betting style includes predicting the final outcome, but it also has a goal handicap added by bookmakers to counter the quality differences between teams. Teams that are favorites come with a negative handicap, while underdogs have a positive handicap.
Halftime score
If bettors don’t want to put wagers on the final result, they can bet on the halftime score. Simply put, your bet decides which of the two teams will be leading at halftime. Similarly to match outcome bets, you can bet on the home team leading, away team leading, or a draw at halftime.
Combination of halftime and full-time
If you want to take your halftime wager to the next level, this bet might seem interesting to you. This bet allows players to choose the correct halftime score and the end result. There are many different combinations to play here, and this bet is usually reserved for more experienced bettors. The important thing to remember for this betting type is that you must be accurate with both of your predictions to win.
Betting on both teams scoring
This is one of the most straightforward betting options in soccer. Nothing matters in this bet except whether or not both teams will score at least a single goal. The wager is put on a simple yes or no outcome, and if you are right, you will get your payout. Still, this betting option doesn’t give big payouts.
Number of goals scored
This is a very interesting betting option and quite popular as well. In essence, you are putting a wager on the exact number of goals that will be scored by both teams combined. It doesn’t matter if one or the other teams scored all the goals, or they both scored. The important thing is that your prediction was correct and that a certain number of goals were scored during the game.
Everyone loves soccer and betting on this sport can be really fun. Hopefully, I’ve helped you understand some of the fundamentals and that you feel ready to place a simple wager.
As I mentioned earlier, start small and slowly build your knowledge, as well as your betting strategies. I wish you luck in your soccer betting and want to thank you for taking the time to read my post. Do you have any tips for beginners? What’s your favorite betting type? Leave a comment down below, as I’d love to hear your feedback.
What type of soccer betting should I start with?