Reliable football betting tips are very hard to come by, and that’s purely down to the fact that football – like many sports – is such an unpredictable game. So while getting a clear-cut winner tip may be extremely hard to achieve, there are some things you can do to ensure you have the best possible chances of making successful picks.
We’ve outlined our five key tips on what you can do enhance your football betting process, and give you confidence that you’re as best prepared as you can possibly be for placing your wagers. Read on to find out more!
- Football Betting: A quick pre-amble
- Tip 1 – Football is unpredictable, so don’t rely on tipsters
- Tip 2 – Do your own research
- Tip 3 – Don’t look across the entire football betting spectrum
- Tip 4 – Mix it up, there’s more to it than WDW
- Tip 5 – Don’t rush your bets
Football Betting: A quick pre-amble
You might be thinking “if it’s so difficult, why are there so many tipsters out there who give the impression they can give tips that have a high chance of success?”.
There are professional pundits on BT sports, BBC Sport and Sky Sports who get it wrong week in, week out. There are betting sites that hire tipsters to give football tips on their websites for the football betting markets, and because they know it’s so unpredictable, they can afford to offer tips as a customer service.
Tipsters might eventually make you a profit, but often their systems are designed to give you a return based on long term strategies. You might lose 40% of your bets and win 60%, but these bets will be based on small £5 wagers, which are most common, and you’re unlikely to win big with those.
If you’re a novice, you could fall into the trap of backing all their tips with over-inflated stakes and lose a lot of money. That’s why our five sensible tips could help you…
Tip 1 – Football is unpredictable, so don’t rely on tipsters
You can’t predict a bottom-of-the-table team taking on a Man Utd or Man City and winning, but it does happen. It’s their day in the spotlight, their cup final. It’s shocking that teams raise their games for a big team like this, but it happens.
That’s just one reason why football is unpredictable and you can’t rely on tips. Plus, if the tipsters are referring you to a betting site after they have given you their selections, then at some point they want you to lose! Yes they want you to lose money, because they’ll be on a commission deal with the betting site.
Tip 2 – Do your own research
What I tend to do is pick out my games and then research them. If you rely on odds alone, you’ll be somewhat in the dark. Odds are based on probabilities and these are usually calculated with some good knowledge and a mathematical formula.
But with thousands of football matches to compile odds for, the compilers don’t always get to see the bigger picture – but you can! The odds are often suggested before the team sheet is announced for example and thats an area where you can use some insight to research your bets.
If a manager selects a defensive away team, they may be playing for a draw. Short run form is also a great indicator, if your team has form in away games, but they are priced as the outsiders, you can use your knowledge of their form to decide on their chances.
Tip 3 – Don’t look across the entire football betting spectrum
That means don’t look at every game on Saturday and pick your selections out of the hundred or so matches that take place.
Narrow your picking list to a segment of games. You’ll find it easier to see the circumstances around matches and you might find some interesting bets. So go back to Tip 2 and do some research, but on a narrow selection.
Pick out four or five games from each English professional league as an example and then you have a crop of, say, 20 matches. That’s a smaller number of games to contend with and its easier to see the insights and stats that make up the scenarios of each match.
Do NOT pick 20 bets! Pick the games first and then decide on narrowing them down to a smaller number, like a treble or five-fold accumulator with an appropriate bet for each one.
An example is when you see a Tuesday night of Champions League games, you can start to analyse those fixtures with ease if you ignore all the EFL games going on around the country. But as soon as you start scrolling the betting screen with over 100+ games, you only have the odds as the guide and we know from experience that odds are not absolutely reliable.
Tip 4 – Mix it up, there’s more to it than WDW
Win-draw-win is the oldest of old markets in football betting. So you can see from our football betting markets post that there are a tonne of alternative markets that are just as popular.
If you’re into football accas for example, don’t think your whole bet has to be about who wins, loses or draws. You can have a home win for one selection, under 1.5 goals in your next and both teams to score. For this to be a valid acca they all need to be different games. The bookie won’t allow that multiple on your betting slip from one game.
However, all is not lost on that topic, as most for the bookies offer a route for you to request a bet like that when it’s from the same game. Normally, you’ll have to request a bet from their social media channel or they may have a section dedicated to bet-building, such as Bet365. An acca has to be different matches for different markets, but requesting a bet allows you to build it up if it’s the same game.
Tip 5 – Don’t rush your bets
One of the most important football betting tips is to take you time with your selections and make decisions with good knowledge of the match you have chosen. If you’ve got two minutes until kick off and you’re only betting to ‘be involved’ then you’re as good as an addict. Betting can be fun and if you’ve done the research, found some good bets, it can be thrilling.
But if you’ve rushed in like a juvenile gambler and lumped cash on an event you know nothing about, you’re making a mistake. You’ll probably walk away having lost and be thinking, “why did I do that?” Take your time, make your bets with good thinking space in order to be able to seriously consider what you’re putting your money on.