Predicting soccer results – 10 important rules in predicting soccer outcomes
Some of you may be wondering if there is a foolproof way to bet on football results. Unfortunately, there is no football betting strategy that guarantees you profits. It is simply not possible, and anyone who tells you that they know how to bet on football results without losing or that they discovered a soccer betting system that works 100% of the time, or that they win soccer predictions with ease, is deceiving you.
So don’t be fooled by football betting sites that claim to have a simple football betting system that will make you rich, and don’t pay money to sites that claim to show you “how to win huge football bets”. It is purely marketing that works in the hope of seducing you to spend your hard-earned money.
The reality is that while it would be great to win the football bets every time, making money bets on football is like betting on any other sport. It takes a lot of discipline, experience and perseverance.
The reality is that while it would be nice to win football bets every time, making money betting on football is like betting on any other sport. It takes discipline, experience and persistence.
If you are excited about taking up a challenge and you seriously want to learn how to successfully bet on football, you have come to the right place.
Although, knowing that it is impossible for you to win every football bet, there are a number of things you can do to boost your chances of winning.
10 Rules of betting on Football
- Enter betting competitions only if there is a value
- Always be prepared to learn
- Only bet on the league you know well
- Bet only on the markets you know
- Manage your money properly
- Make sure to keep records of your Football Bets
- Assess Performance Potential Accurately
- Take advantage of changes in market
- Follow tips and information about Football Betting
- Have multiple bookmakers accounts
In this section, we present our 10 tips to win football bets at a rate that will bring you real profits, providing you with the basics of successful football betting. It will introduce you to advanced betting techniques to identify opportunities of value and ultimately answer the question – what is the best way to bet on football?
1# Enter betting competitions only if there is a value
By Now you are probably tired of reading this. But this is a point that many football punters consistently fail to grasp.
Because the best football bets, and the only prediction races worth getting into are the ones in which you’ve identified genuine betting value.
If you place bets without realizing the value of the betting, you will simply lose in the long run.
If you skipped the section on value football betting, please read it now before continuing with our guide.
2# Always be prepared to learn
A mistake many novice bettors make is to believe that because they have an intimate knowledge of football, this knowledge will immediately translate into an understanding of football betting markets.
But the truth is that understanding football and understanding football betting are two different things.
Yes, of course, without an understanding of football, you would not be able to understand the nuances of football betting.
And yes, without an understanding of the game and of the football betting will complement each other.
You will appreciate the dynamics of the football betting markets, and how approaching a football match as a fan differs greatly from the way you approach it in football betting.
The best way to develop this understanding is to start with the leagues you know well, and to keep your bets small.
In fact, some of the most successful bettors in football have started their journey by never placing real bets at all.
Rather, it is via “paper trading” where you can keep a record of fake bets to gain experience without the risk of losing any real money.
Successful bettors only begin to place real bets once they develop a deep understanding of the footballing betting markets.
Humility is a good thing, especially when it comes to football betting.
And sure, it is possible to have a deeper knowledge of every club in the Premier League than many media sport critics expert, but don’t confuse this knowledge for an understanding of football betting markets.
To learn how to handle a range of football betting markets, leagues and tournaments. Please refer to the detailed series: how to bet on football guides.
3# Only bet on the league you know well
As mentioned earlier, the best way to develop a real understanding of football betting markets is to start with the clubs (Football teams) you know.
But even after you develop an understanding of these markets, continue to focus on the teams you understand best.
If there’s no action in the teams this week, then take a break. Or use this time to research other leagues you might want to bet on in the future.
But in no case should you go looking for a bet randomly. This will only lead to ruin or at least decrease the profitability.
A lot of the most successful football bettors and the most profitable betting experts focus, at most, on only two, three or four teams.
They study everything they need to know about these teams and over time they develop an understanding that goes even beyond bookmakers’.
Think of it this way, football bookmakers have some of the latest analysis tools at their disposal.
These are tools with dozens of variables that enable them to identify, most of the time, incredibly accurate odds.
Do you really think you could beat them with half an hour of “analysis” on a team you have at best only a broad understanding of? The answer is clear: no.
4# Bet only on the markets you know
As mentioned above, there are literally dozens of football betting markets, each with its own calculations, quirks and nuances.
As you develop your understanding of football betting, you will find yourself attracted to certain markets more than others.
Simply put, some betting markets make more sense to us than others. So, go with your intuition and develop a rich understanding of these markets.
Many of the most profitable bettors focus on one or two markets. There are many successful football bettors who set their bets only on Asian handicap, while other bettors focus on the results of 1×2 matches.
Others look to exploit the internal markets by betting on the team that scores first, while others keep their focus only on the first half markets.
In fact, the quirkier the market, the more your experience will provide opportunities. Therefore, don’t be afraid to specialise.
As long as you can have reasonable bets, if you focus on just a few markets, you can reap big rewards. Specialisation is often the path to profit.
5# Manage your money properly
The key to betting in any sport is to implement a sound money management strategy. This mainly involves applying a consistent staking strategy.
It is a strategy that will make the most of the value you have identified, while setting a reasonable and comfortable stake size that will protect your betting balance.
If you are really interested in knowing how to make money in football betting, then you need to get serious about how you manage your money.
Randomly setting a ten dollars bet here or five dollars there will only lead to losing your money in the long run.
To be a successful football bettor, you have to manage the amounts you set in the bets like a financial planner.
The saying “only bet what you can afford to lose” is as true as it ever was and any money management strategy should take this seriously.
Start with an amount of money that it will be comfortable for you to lose. Of course, we aim to make money out of football betting. But even if we have a strong enough strategy in football betting, things can go wrong and certainly will be losses from time to time.
Only by implementing a consistent and strategic money management plan can you endure the worst of your losses and take advantage of your biggest winnings.
To learn more, please read our guide to manage finance as well as our guide to calculate the ideal bet amount using the Kelly Criterion.
6# Make sure to keep records of your Football Bets
If you are serious about your desire to make money from football betting, then you should, as mentioned, keep a record of your betting. This record must include the following:
Date, Team /match, Bet Type, Bet Details, Bookmaker, Bet you made (Your Stake), Your Odds,, Profit/Loss, comments
If you do not keep such records, then you are doomed to fail. Keeping a detailed log of football betting will help you review your results.
Sometimes you might say to yourself, “I never win with football bets.” If you find yourself saying this, firstly, stop feeling sorry for yourself and secondly, in keeping detailed records, you will see that you are actually winning football bets at a higher rate than you assume.
As bettors, we can often remember losses more easily than our wins.
But by keeping records of your bets, you will be able to see which teams and leagues you are making money from.
The leagues that reduce your returns, not to mention the bet type that work best for you and those markets that are constantly losing you money.
Fortunately, we have done the hard work for you and created Bettingexpert football score betting tables. You can download it now and read more about the spreadsheet below.
7# Assess Performance Potential Accurately
Expert critics analysts (Pundits) like to talk about the general form. “This team is in great form’’ or “That team’s form has been terrible.” You’ve no doubt heard that many times.
But the problematic thing about “form” is that it is so ephemeral. Just because a team was in good form, there is no indication that this form will continue or even that the ‘form’ was based on anything other than the team, perhaps, having had a string of matches against mediocre clubs, or maybe a series of lucky games.
When it comes to football betting, what really matters to us, is not whether the team is in proper form or not, but rather, what their performance will lead to in a particular match. There are many things to consider in this assessment:
The host’s performance at home Vs. its performance as an away team
It’s no secret that clubs perform better at home. It turns out that, an average team is better with around +0.74 goals at home than they are away.
Despite this, the subject of home vs away performance is a controversial issue. While some clubs may display a distinctive ability to perform better on their home ground than away within a specified period of time, the reasons for this may not always be relevant to this home advantage. Some analysts believe that what often appears as field advantage may hardly be a run of better-than-expected performance.
When evaluating a team’s performance potential in a particular environment, beware of falling prey to conventional phrases such as “This team is always tough on home.” The reality is that every team is better in their field than others, but the belief that some clubs hold a distinct home field advantage that exceeds the average is often misleading.
Injuries/accidents and matches suspensions
Obviously, we have to take into account the issue of injuries and the matches suspensions when assessing a team’s potential. But many people misjudge the effects of these absences. When it comes to both injuries and suspensions, what is important is not that the team will be missing a player, but the important question is who will replace that player. Will the alternative greatly reduce the chances of winning? Or is the missing player easy to be replaced in the squad?
This is where the deep knowledge of each team comes into play. Yes, many may know about the position of the injured player, but how many bettors know the performance potential of his lesser-known alternative?
Furthermore, how many bettors know how this absence will affect the team’s tactical approach? In both regards, a thorough understanding of a league team can assist us in the project of value football betting. Football Betting markets can often overestimate the negative impact of losing a star player as opposed to the positive impact of a lesser-known player but with durable and consistent performance.
Team equipment and formations
As we get deeper into the football calendar, the requirements for fixed commitments come into play. This is definitely a major area for all football bettors. As we discussed previously regarding injuries and suspensions, developing a good knowledge of each club’s squad will often help you spy on valuable betting opportunities.
For example, a Premier League club may have a run of league commitments, with cup and European duties. Which fixtures are you most likely to take more seriously than others? How would they alternate their squad formations and how would a distinctly alternate squad perform, both in terms of tactical approach and team chemistry? Being able to answer these questions accurately will more often than not provide you with value betting opportunities.
Tactical Match and Personnel Affairs
There is a saying in boxing that styles make fights. This is also true in football. We will often see teams that we consider to be of inferior quality, preparing more to meet their opponents and often claiming unlikely victories, giving headaches to their more vaunted opponents.
When it comes to football betting, what we want to discern is whether such performances were the results of the inferior team making providing a difficult tactical match for their opponents in terms of personnel, or whether these results were simply a matter of the superior team underperforming due to its busy schedule, or whether these performances were a matter of random good fortune.
To accurately assess these abilities to perform, we must be aware of not only being familiar with each club’s squad, but the way each club likes to tactically set up, and how a team’s personnel can get in the way of the opponent’s gameplan. If we can do this and come up with an accurate assessment of which inferior teams match up with their more highly regarded opponents, the value of betting can easily be found.
Development of a predictive football betting model
Many successful football bettors have made money in their lives through intelligent statistical analysis and mathematical model building. What is involved in developing a football betting model? There is no single answer to this other than saying that the answer is “whatever helps you identify football values bets”. Some predictive models for football are quite simple and involve only the use of goals scored for and against during a given sample of matches, while more sophisticated models include a variety of statistical categories such as:
- Goals for/against
- Shots for/against
- Shots on target for/against
- Shot on the expected target location
- Possession Share
- Individual Player Performance
Regardless of the football stats you could choose to develop your model, the goal is the same – to assess the probability of a given outcome (or betting market) and arrive to find more accurate odds than the bookmakers do.
The purpose of a football match betting model is to determine betting value. It is not necessary to identify value in every match played or every betting market available. In fact, your model is likely to make one bet every week of the Premier League season and it’s up to 38 bets per season.
Not so many right?
But think of it if you could expand your model to include 40 different football teams. You’re then looking at a total of over 1,000 bets per season. The work involved in developing and maintaining the cunning betting model can be challenging, but the rewards can be enormous.
8# Exploiting trends in the market by betting against the public (crowd)
Constant betting on value opportunities is what will make you a successful long-term football bettor. Yes, the team may have odds for the long term and yes, we still believe they have the chances of winning the match, while it is a greater chance than what the bookmakers are suggesting, are still unlikely, but it is frequently betting on such situations which likely will make you have a betting profit in football in the long term.
When it comes to football prediction, there are two obvious biases in the market:
- An attitude that tends to favour the team that plays on its home ground
- An orientation that tends to favour and give a higher-than-average chance of total goals
Underdogs are usually better value than favourites, especially home favourites. Why? Because most people betting on football are thinking in the short term. They want a winner today. Not next week. Not next month. They want the “sure thing” now. So, they place large bets on their favourites home team. This excessive betting money on short-priced favourites often distorts the betting markets, which in turn inflates the odds in favour of the underdog, making their underdogs great value.
Let’s consider an example,
England play their World Cup qualifier at home to San Marino. England, with their array of star players, are the favourites and have a price tag of 1.10 to win. San Marino, being only semi-footballers and rarely defeating anyone, is priced at odds of 21.00. Who on earth would bet San Marino’s to win? Well yes, they are unlikely to do that. The odds of 21.00 odds indicate that San Marino has a 4.8% chance of winning the match.
But through our research and analysis, we think San Marino is closer to an 8% chance. Yes, even with an 8% win from San Marino it is still highly unlikely. But we still think the chances of winning are higher than the 21.00 odds suggest. Based on our analysis and our assessment probability of 8%, we believe the odds should be closer to 12.50. Although it is unlikely to be the winner, betting on San Marino is a valuable opportunity and we should take it.
Another market bias is higher-than-average target totals.
Why? Because the average football punter unconsciously bets the aggressive team. By this logic, betting a low-scoring outcome is a rather passive act and does not satisfy this subconscious aspect of placing a bet. Add to that the fact that very few people like to watch a football match with a limited number of goals scored, and you get a market bias towards higher-than-average goals. This bias artificially puts pressure on odds for markets such as targets Over 2.5, making a market for targets Under 2.5 often the best option.
Simply betting of the underdogs playing on the opponent’s field and low goal totals won’t make you rich anytime soon. Yet, both present examples of why it is often better to anticipate against crowd expectations.
9# Follow tips and information about Football Betting
Following our football betting tips can be a great way to make money especially if you can find a real expert in the league that you might not normally bet on.
But let’s be clear. You should not blindly follow any football tipster, predictor or expert. There are literally hundreds of so-called expert football tipsters on the Internet. Some even charge a high subscription fee for the privilege of following their service. Some of them are legitimate, but most of them are not and they will not see you lose your money by following their tips only, but you will be wasting your money with your excessive subscription fee. There are also services that claim to have inside information on fixed matches and are willing to sell that information for a price. Don’t be fooled by their claims.
Before following any football tipster, you should do your own research. For example, there are hundreds of football tipsters at Bettingexpert. And while each is honest in their attempts to make money with their football tips, the majority don’t. However, there are a select few who are profitable, often due to high knowledge of a particular football league. You can spot these expert tips with our Tipster stats tool, where you can learn about opportunities by sorting by league, rank and profitability.
To find out more, please read our guide on tips related to the following soccer results predictions.
10# Have multiple bookmakers accounts
Many football bettors limit their chances of making profit by limiting their ability to get the best odds available. Yes, there is a certain simplicity with using a single bookmaker for all your betting. But the reality is if you want to make money in the long run, you need a number of bookmakers’ agents for your football betting.
Why? Because in reducing your bookmakers portfolio, you are limiting yourself in terms of available odds. For example, take a look at odds comparison site Smartbets. Below are the odds for the Asian handicap for the upcoming match between Tottenham and Atlético Madrid.
This is just a simple example, but we can see that once we have two competing bookmakers at our disposal, we can improve on the odds available. By taking the best odds available among our constantly competing bookmakers, we greatly increase our chances of making a long-term profit.
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