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Football Betting

A couple of decades ago the football betting options available to sports betting fans were fairly limited in number, but with the advent and subsequent popularity of online sports betting sites the range of bets available has exploded. In this article we will take a look at the most popular football betting options currently on offer and identify the main advantages and disadvantages of each. Knowing the best bets to focus on can help make profitable football betting much easier than it would be if you selected markets at random, so read on and reap!

Football Betting Options

Outright Result
The most traditional of football betting markets, and still the most popular by far, is the outright result market. This requires you to predict whether a given match will result as a home win, away win or draw at full time. The advantage of this market is that it is simple and straightforward – if your chosen team wins at half time then so do you. The potential disadvantage is that if one team is widely expected to win then the odds on that team aren’t likely to be particularly generous.

Half-Time / Full-Time or Double Result
The half-time full-time market (also known as the double result market) requires you to predict both the result at half time and the result at full time. The advantage of this football betting market is that the odds for success are bigger than those for the outright result. The disadvantage is that success is more difficult to achieve. That’s because there are only three possible outcomes in an outright result market (home, away or draw) but there are nine possible outcomes in a half-time full-time market (home-home, home-away, home-draw, draw-draw, draw-home, draw-away, away-away, away-draw and away-home). You might therefore want to bet on more than one option to improve your chances, especially in particularly tricky matches.

Correct Score
This market requires you to predict the exact score-line at the end of the match. The advantage here is that the odds for an accurate correct score prediction are pretty good, and reflect the betting site’s opinion of how likely any give score is to occur. On the downside, few bettors win money in these markets on a regular basis. That said, if you adopt a sensible approach then you can increase your chances considerably. Note: there are also half-time correct score markets available that work in the same way but concern the score at half-time.

Win Only
The win only market allows you to bet on a home win or an away win, but not on the draw. If you place a bet in this market and the draw occurs then you will get your stake money back. The advantage of this market is that you can bet on your chosen team without having to worry about a draw costing you any money. The disadvantage is that the odds on the home and away results will be lower than they are in the outright result market.

Double Chance
Double chance markets require you to bet on two possible outcomes of the match at 90 minutes. For example, you could bet on home and draw, in which case your bet would win if the match resulted in a home win or draw. Or you could be on home and away, in which case you would win if the match resulted as a clear win for either team. The advantage here is obvious – you get to cover two of the three possible outcomes. The disadvantage is that you won’t get the kind of odds that are available to those bettors who bet on a single outright result.

Handicap Football Betting
The handicap football betting markets are similar to the outright result markets, but here an advantage is given to the home or away team. For example, the home team might be given a +1 goal advantage, so if you were to bet on the home team to win they would really need only to draw or win for your bet to succeed. Of course, for a bet on the draw to win in the same situation, the home team would need to lose by 1 goal or more. Handicap football betting markets can be useful when the odds on the outright result are too small to take your interest, but the disadvantage is that betting against the handicap makes it a little more difficult to succeed.

More Football Betting Markets

There are countless other football betting options available at online sports betting sites, but these are the most popular, and of these you would do well to focus on the outright result, win only and double chance markets if you want to succeed on a consistent basis. Of course, if you are willing to win less often but receive a bigger payoff when you do win, the double result, handicap betting and correct score markets can also be considered.

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