Regardless of whether you’re betting on football as a competition with friends, purely for your own entertainment, or as a lucrative side hustle, every punter wants to get better at making bets. Rather than learning through trial and error, we outline an approach to football betting that will help you quickly become a stronger bettor, and put more of your money on the right bets, more often. Here are three key areas to be weighing up every time you make a bet.
Consider the Weight of the Game
The first, and perhaps most important factor to look at when deciding what bet to place on a football match, is the weight of the game.
Though competitive football teams want to win every time they step onto the field, the reality is, not every match is made equal. Sometimes, a side is coming into a match with nothing to gain, having already qualified for the next stage of a tournament. In this case, there’s a good chance player motivation and focus will be low, while the team management may even choose to rest several key players to avoid injury.
On the other hand, a team may come into a match up needing a certain result in order to save their season. In this situation, players will be desperate to get a win, and more motivated than ever to go the extra mile. Or, a match may be a dead rubber, where neither side has a vested interest in a result. Occurrences like these are risky bets, leaving the outcome volatile.
Understand the Head-to-Head Match Up
Another key factor to consider when betting on football is the history between the two sides.
While one team may be having a poor season and the other one a strong year, this can pale into insignificance in the face of a long-lasting rivalry. When faced with history, some football teams just know how to get themselves up for a certain game.
Sites such as https://betting.com/gb/ offer both a range of betting markets and odds for different football games. If you ever are planning to make a bet and feel as though the odds are skewed in a certain direction for a match up, consider analysing the previous history between the two sides first.
Look at the Current Form of Team and Players
Finally, the form of teams and players can have a significant influence on the outcome of a match. When betting on football, consider the recent results of teams—are they on a winning or losing streak? Will this make them complacent, or desperate to win? Confidence, desperation and rhythm are all big influences on football matches, and should be analysed before betting.
Player form is also critical. If a side has one player who is playing out of their skin, that can make all the difference in a match up, regardless of the overall team form or the historic record between the sides. Looking at trends in goal scoring and assists, in recent games compared to earlier in the season can be a great place to start when analysing team and player form.
