
Updated In May, 2012 - There are many different types of football bet, but the simplest type of football betting is match betting. It is possible to make a single bet (one money stake on one selection) on the result of most matches, whether it is the Premier League, The Championship, the FA Cup, UEFA Cup, Champions League or Internationals. You select a Home Win, a Draw or an Away Win – this is the traditional Win-Draw-Win bet. Here are some links to the best online gambling related sites in 2012. These gambling guides cover everything from poker deposit bonus codes to bingo and everything inbetween.
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Similarly, you can bet on an individual competition or event – be it the Champions League, World Cup, European Cup or Premiership – by picking the winner or a finalist. To place this type of bet, you must choose a team or player, if for example you want to place a bet on who will score the most goals in a tournament. Next, decide whether you want to bet on your selection to win outright or to win and/or finish in the places. This bet for a win or a place is known as Each Way betting.
When making this type of bet, have a good look at the Each Way terms – in other words, the final positions your team must finish in for you to have a winning bet, together with the proportion of the odds you would be paid for your selection being placed. You can find this information at the foot of the list of teams or players for the event you are betting on. If you choose Each Way and your selection wins the competition, you will collect both the win part (paid at full odds) and the place part (paid at the proportion of the odds shown in the Each Way terms).
The risks of betting on football are increased by playing via an accumulator bet – but so are the returns. An accumulator is a single money stake covering four or more selections in different events. Each of your selections needs to be successful, but the winnings from the first selection roll on to subsequent selections to generate potentially massive returns. But be warned, the odds of winning an accumulator bet are low.
Of course, there is more to a football match than the final result, and this is where the bookmakers' have taken advantage of fans' passion for all things football to offer a variety of special types of bets. These include the correct score, half-time / full-time result, and first player to score. Doing just what it says on the tin, Correct Score Betting allows you to bet on what the final score will be on a particular match, or on a number of matches, at the end of 90 minutes play (for example, Chelsea 3 Real Madrid 2).
Further testing your prediction skills is the Double Result Forecast or Half-Time / Full-Time Betting. To win with this bet, you nominate the result of the match at both Half-Time and Full-Time – for example at half-time the match will be a draw, and at full-time the result will be away team win. Lastly, to place a First Goal Scorer bet, simply nominate the player to score the first goal in the match. A reputable bookmaker should refund stakes on any player who takes no part in the match or who comes on as substitute after the first goal has been scored. As for own goals, these are ignored.
Of course, there are other events that take place in a football match, and therefore other football gambling chances. Many special bets are possible such as:
Alternatively, another type of football bet is where you can bet on two of the three outcomes possible in a football match. So, for example, if City are playing United, you can bet on City and the draw, United and the draw, or – bizarrely – both City and United to win.
Another type of bet is Handicap Betting, offering you the opportunity to bet on the outcome of an event where one team has been given a points start. Bets are settled on the outcome after adjusting for the handicaps.
You can also play special bets as accumulators – for example, in an accumulator based on goals scored in a number of matches, you bet on the amount of goals that will be scored in each individual match. But although special bets seem attractively straightforward, they can get complicated.
Traditionally, in this type of bet, a coupon gives a set number of matches, chosen by the bookmaker, and to win, you have to predict correctly how all the matches on the coupon will turn out. Needless to say, though you may be confident of predicting many, even most, of the matches on a coupon, there will always be some hard-to-call results on which the bookmakers will rely.
The Football Pools offer an enticing prospect of huge payouts, but you are more likely to be struck by lightning than scoop a million on the Football Pools. Like the lottery, all of the money staked by the bettors is placed in a kitty or central pool, which – after the organisers take their cut - is shared equally amongst the winners. The object is to identify, from the total number of matches listed on a Pools coupon, eight score draws (1-1 or 2-2, etc). To fill in a coupon, simply mark an 'X' against potential score draws. You can also win smaller prizes depending upon points gained: a Score Draw is worth 3 point; a No Score Draw (0-0) or Void (cancelled) match is 2 points and a Home win or Away win is 1 point. As in the lottery, there can be several winners with winning forecasts who share the jackpot, so the odds of winning a Pools jackpot can never be accurately forecast – but it is certainly an unlikely event.