With today’s sportsbooks, players have more access than ever to the major and niche betting markets. However, soccer remains the number one sports for international betting markets. With hundreds of daily matches available, there’s no shortage of soccer bets a player can make. This guide explores the savvy soccer bets, or in your part of the world, known as football, to make.
Breaking Down the Basic Soccer Bets
Every listing in a soccer sportsbook will have associated plus or minus odds. However, many international betting apps allow you to change the odds format, including decimal and fractional. Plus-money odds are a display of your potential profit on a $100 wager. For instance, +170 would yield a $170 profit on a $100 wager. Minus-money odds reflect how much you need to wager to profit $100. So, -145 means you need to wager $145 to profit $100.
The Classic Three-Way
Most sportsbooks have the three-way listed as 1×2. However, the concept is the same. One of the most common methods to bet on soccer is that you will be able to pick either team to win or the match to end in a draw. Two-way moneylines are different as if the match ends in a draw and you bet on a team to win, you do not get your money back.
The only way the draw bet wins. There is no push potential on these bets. Three-way money line bets in soccer do not have any extra time after regular time.
The Draw Bet
A draw no bet is a bet in which you are betting on a team to win the match. It simply removes draw as an option on the bet and creates a push where you’ll get your original bet back stake returned if the match ends in a draw. This is why you would see this referred to as a two-way moneyline in soccer betting menus.
Spread Bets
In spread betting, there will be a handicap as to how much a team is favored to win or lose by. For instance, if the spread for Arsenal was -1.5 goals, then they would have to win by two goals or more to win that bet, and a one-goal win would lose that bet. It is similar to the run line in baseball betting.
Totals
Totals can be priced either as a half number or a full number, just like spreads. A typical game would likely be set at 2.5 goals, on which you can bet over or under the number. A bet over 2.5 goals would win if the game is won by three or more total goals and lose if it’s two or fewer. If the line were set at four goals, that bet would push and receive your money back if four combined goals are scored.
Team totals are similar, but in that case, you’re only betting on one specific team to score instead of either team to count toward your total. This can be further broken down at some sportsbooks and apps to only bet on the total goals by half.
Double Chance
Double chances essentially provide two of the three available outcomes of a three-way money line to improve your chances of winning the bet, but at much shorter odds than if you simply bet one of the three-way money line options. You still win the bet if the match ends in a draw by picking one of the double chance options that include a draw versus a push when betting the draw no bet market.
Asian handicaps
Asian handicaps can be a difficult concept for new soccer bettors to understand. They can pay partial wins or losses on a wager, depending on the wager being split into two separate bets.
Futures
Like other sports, bet on the moneyline on the team to win. There are advanced futures, like which team wins a tournament.
