Can You Make Money Betting On Football
- Football betting, in clear terms, is an avenue where you place a bet on one or two teams in football matches to make money. Football betting can be done for physical teams or virtually. Real-life football betting entails betting.
- The answer to this question is “yes”. One can be profitable in football betting if he/she has a well defined betting plan and strategy (with a edge over the bookies).
If you are looking to risk less when football betting, there are several approaches and strategies you can employ. Here we look at some of the most popular and give you a little more detail on them, along with their pros and cons.
A football accumulator is a bet that includes at least 4 different football games on it. Therefore, you might place an accumulator on the basis of 4 different teams winning. This is a popular type of bet as it is.
Almost all of the strategies will require a great deal of skill, effort and dedication, but if that all sounds like too much hard work, we will begin by taking a look at the easiest ways to get the edge from betting on football.
Matched Betting in Football
Matched betting has been around a long time and is a proven, guaranteed method of making cash punting on sports, with football one of the best options. We personally know lots of people who have turned pro from this technique, and whilst it is underpinned by some relatively complex maths, basically, anyone can do it.
It is beyond the scope of this article to deliver a full guide to matched betting, but there is a wealth of information out there (and available for free, so ignore anyone trying to sell it!). As well as “how to” guides, there are calculators and other tools that do much of the hard work and all of the tricky maths for you.
In short, matched betting involves betting on an outcome whilst simultaneously betting against that same outcome with a different betting site in a way that guarantees a lower risk. The most common way to do this is to bet on a football team, score, player, or anything else with one bookie and then use a betting exchange to lay the same team, player, or other selection.
When this technique is used alongside the many free bets, sign up offers and welcome bonuses that bookmakers offer both new and existing customers, there is the potential for great returns. Matched betting is easy and is as risk-free as crossing the road, which is to say there is no real risk if you do it correctly, but a human error (your own) can lead to mistakes.
Football Arbing or Arbitrage Betting
Arbing, or arbitrage betting, is a natural progression from matched betting and is a great way to get the edge once you have exhausted all the available betting site freebies. Arbing entails backing and laying a selection at such odds that it is responsible even without the use of a free bet or promotion. This is possible because most online bookmakers may view a market differently, change their odds at different times or just have differing liabilities on a particular game or outcome.
Dutching is a similar process whereby rather than backing and laying a selection, you bet on all options. So whilst arbing might entail betting on Man City at odds of 1.4 and laying them at odds of 1.32, dutching would involve betting on Man City to win, as well as the draw and Man City to lose (i.e. backing their opponent to win) at odds that meant that no matter what the result, you would risk less.
Both dutching and arbing can be used on your football wagers, but both can be time-consuming. You need to scour the odds at various sites by comparing the bookmakers and their odds before calculating how much to stake (or lay) on each selection.
In addition, sooner, or if you are lucky or prudent, later, betting sites will tend to limit or ban those customers who are arbing. Lastly, because margins are small and speed is of the essence, there is a danger that one small error, for example backing the wrong team while rushing, can wipe out previous success.
Free Bets for Football
We would argue that matched betting is the best way of being more responsible with football betting and it is simple and easy. However, if it sounds like too much effort, there are even easier options.
One is to look for bookmakers that offer free bets as part of their welcome bonus for sports, as is the example with UK finest Ladbrokes welcome offer, or as a part of regular promo offers, targeting loyal customers. Check out which bookie have free bets from the info in the table below.
How To Win Money Betting On Football
We feature loads and loads of free bets here from some great bookies. Simply by joining lots of different betting sites and using their free bets you shift the odds in your favour.
Ouija Board
To explain this simply, if we assume a bookie gives you a 100% free bet worth £25, the value of the free bet is bigger than the overround (which is in effect the bookmaker’s margin, created by offering lower odds than the true probability implies).
If the overround is, as an example, 20%, by using a 100% free bet you will, in the long term risk less. You are getting £50 worth of bets for just £25 and with so many free bets and offers available, even a very unskilled punter could expect to become better.
Football Tips
Yet another option, if you want to land some bets, is to follow a tipster. There are plenty of free tips available online with many more paid tipping services also on the market. Some of the paid options may offer free trials so giving them a go and using small stakes is well worth considering to see what success you have.
Tipsters tend to make many claims about their past successes, but the veracity of these claims is questionable. Some tipping sites have been shown to have doctored or manipulated “proof” to back up their claims of bets, so we would recommend exercising caution if this is the route you opt for.
That said, our feeling with regards to following tipsters, particularly paid ones, tends to revolve around one obvious question: if their tips are so good, why are they selling them or giving them away? There are some valid reasons why a tipster might prefer to sell tips rather than back them… but not many.
Football Trading
Trading is another option for low risk from football and has become increasingly popular over the last 10 years as more and more people have become familiar with betting exchanges such as Betfair.
Trading involves wagering by predicting odds movements, rather than the actual outcome of a game. Trading can be done pre-game or in-play and there are lots and lots of different strategies, but in many ways the same skills that are needed for value betting (see below) are also required for trading. A good idea is to check out which bookies offer better live betting platforms, as is the case with the unparalleled 1xBet in-play section that comes with lots of useful features that may benefit punters who want to try trading.
Those trading pre-game may believe that the initial odds on, for instance, Man United to beat Everton, are too high. Quite simply, they believe the odds are wrong and will drop once the market naturally corrects itself.
In this instance, you could make the most of it by betting on the Red Devils, let’s say at decimal odds of 2.4. When the odds move the way you have predicted, you can then lay them – i.e. back against Man United winning – at the shorter odds of 2.1 and in so doing lowers the risk no matter what.
This is similar to arbing and matched betting in that you risk less whoever wins the game. However, the difference with trading is that the advantageous position isn’t guaranteed when you make the bet and it relies on your judgment being correct.
If you call things wrong and United drift to longer odds of 2.6 you would be forced to accept a loss. However, you go about trading ultimately it requires a lot of knowledge, skill and dedication, so clearly isn’t an option for everyone.
Value Betting
Value betting, as we discuss at greater length in our Key to successful sports betting feature is how professional gamblers usually try to cash in betting on football and other sports. This requires dedication, a huge amount of effort and research and a lot of skill.
Most people will not be able to beat the bookies consistently. If it was easy and everyone did it, the bookies would soon go out of business and as we know, that isn’t the reality.
Value betting entails studying all the available form, stats, news and other information to make an assessment of a team’s chances of winning a given game, the likelihood of a player of scoring first, the probability of match having over 2.5 goal or whatever other football market is being considered.
This probability is compared to the odds and when the odds are right, which is to say higher than they should be given the calculated chance of success, you have a value bet. Keep finding value bets and, over time, you will risk less; but sadly this is far easier to say or to write than it is to do.
If you are looking to bet on the NFL to make money you have found the right website. Sure, betting adds a lot of excitement to watching the NFL games, but here at TheSportsGeek.com we are in it to make money over the course of each NFL season.
Making a profit of the course of the NFL season is tough, and the average bettor will not do it, but I am here to give you a few NFL betting tips and strategies (most that follow the normal sports betting strategies) that will help you have a better shot at making money this NFL season.
Can You Make Money Betting On Football
NFL Betting Strategy Articles (Advanced):
» Teaser Betting Strategy
» Prop Betting Strategy
» How To Get Max Value When Betting
» Future Betting Strategy
» NFL Bye Week Betting Strategy
Basic NFL Betting Strategies and Tips
Did you know that you need to hit above 52.4% of your NFL bets (assuming you are betting -110 odds) in order to profit? Doesn’t sound too hard does it? It is actually extremely tough to do, and only the best of the best can consistently hit 53%+ winners year in and year out in the NFL.
Use the basic NFL betting strategies below to help you on your way to a profiting NFL season.
#1 NFL Betting Strategy – Money/Bankroll Management
When you are betting on the NFL season you will want to set aside a certain amount of money to bet with that you can afford to lose, known as your “bankroll”. I suggest you either make a weekly bankroll, monthly bankroll, or full season bankroll (I do full season).
For example, you may set aside a $3000 bankroll for the full NFL season that you can use to bet with. A general rule of thumb for NFL betting I go by is to only use 2-5% of my bankroll for each bet. In this example, it would allow us to make $60-$150 wagers on each game we bet. You can use 2% for your smaller plays and 5% for plays you really like.
One common mistake is to increase the size of your bets as you start winning or to chase losses with biggers bets – remember the NFL is a long season and to profit over the course of the season you need to manage your money smartly.
#2 NFL Betting Strategy – Look For Weekly Edges
I can’t believe how many times I will see bettors who play every game (or close to) in the NFL each week. This is a recipe for disaster in the long run – to be a winning NFL bettor you need to find edges and capitalize on them.
Find what you think may be an edge in the NFL lines and make your bets based on that. Some weeks you may be making 4 bets, some weeks 6 NFL bets, and hell some weeks even just 1 or 2 NFL bets on the whole weekend. Don’t force bets because you want action and want to make the NFL games more exciting. If you want to make a profit this NFL season find a few good plays each weekend and bet them with 2-5% of your bankroll like we mentioned above.
#3 NFL Betting Strategy – Line Shopping
In order to have the best opportunity of making money this NFL season, you will need to make sure you do a little bit of “line shopping”. Line shopping is simply checking a few different sportsbooks and comparing the lines on the plays you like. For example, you may like the Bears to cover the 5 point spread on Monday night. Before you place your wager you should check other sportsbooks, as one of them might have the Bears listed as 4.5 point favorites instead of 5 point favorites.
I suggest you sign up at 3-4 of the best NFL sportsbooks listed in our Online Sportsbook section and compare the lines on each before you make any bets this NFL season. This NFL betting strategy can help you win a few extra wagers this NFL season and help you on your way to a winning season!
#4 NFL Betting Strategy – Bet Sober and Don’t Tilt
Bet Sober – This may seem pretty obvious, but there are hundreds of thousands of bettors who don’t follow this week in and week out during the NFL season. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Vegas casinos offer gamblers free alcoholic drinks? Drinking will impair your judgment while betting – save the beers for when the games start and you are done making bets.
Don’t Tilt – Everyone losses. Even the best NFL handicappers lose bets 40% of the time. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Some bettors may take a few bad losses and start to make very poor decisions as their emotions have taken over. Make sure you have a clear mind when making your NFL bets. If you feel like you are on tilt go for a walk or do something to calm down and don’t bet until you are back to your normal state of mind.
How To Make Money Betting On Football
You are now ready to become a winning NFL bettor – Follow our Sports Picks for weekly NFL prediction articles and sign up at Bovada.lv for a $250 Free Money bonus for this NFL season!