Learning how to win at football betting is not easy and you must be aware of many things before you begin your journey to success.  Arguably the most important aspect of how to win at football betting is to understand you will not win every bet.

Only betting what you can afford is key and the sooner you understand and follow this simple principle, the more fun you will have when betting.

Following steps on how to win at football betting will help you make better, more informed bets and the simple guide below will assist by:

• Breaking things down into easy points
• Showing you how you can help yourself
• Giving you an understanding of football betting markets
• Providing you with key tips to improve

Continue reading below to find our more about how to win at football betting.

1. Find the Best Odds

This applies to all forms of betting but especially football betting. Finding the best odds will not determine how likely you are to win at football betting but it will give you the best possible winnings should your football bet succeed.

It is very easy to find the best odds for your football bets, just sign up with betting sites offering the best and highest odds.

It may not make a great deal of difference on some bets as the difference can be minimal, especially for the favourites but in the long term, every Euro adds up.

2. What Football Leagues to Bet

The best place to begin when betting on football is to bet using the leagues you know best.  It could be the English Premier League or the Swedish Allsvenskan, it does not matter.  However, when trying to win at football betting, any insider knowledge you have is valuable and will help you to place a winning bet.

You will find a greater range of betting markets for the most popular leagues and competitions including the Premier League, Champions League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Europa League and World Cup.  These are arguably the best competitions on which to bet but you will not always find the best odds.

As you begin to develop your football betting skills, you can start looking at smaller leagues around the world, where the odds are more generous and thus make more profit.  We will look at how you can use betting on smaller leagues to your advantage later in the guide.

3. Always Bet the Best Markets

To win at football betting, you must bet on the best markets and this means two things.  Firstly, only bet on the football markets you understand.  It is all very well following a tip you might have seen online but if you do not understand how the Asian handicap betting market works, how do you know the tip is good?

Always bet on football markets you understand and leave the others until you have learned how they work. Secondly, some football betting markets seem tempting but they are best avoided.

Accumulators is a good example and while they offer great odds, with significant potential winnings, there is a good reason for that and its because they rarely win. There is nothing wrong with betting on a football accumulator for fun but a professional football punter would never use the accumulator market as it is considered to be throwing your money away.

The best football betting markets to use include the following:

• Match Winner
• Total goals
• Both teams to score
• Handicap betting

There are others but when learning how to win at football betting, the four markets above are a great place to start.

4. Research

Conducting thorough research before placing a football bet is key.  You will never learn how to win at football betting if you do not conduct the necessary research as this is vital to success.  The following points are all linked to research and the things you can do to help you win at football betting, starting with the team news.

5. Team News

The team news can make all the difference when trying to win at football betting.  Unless you are going to be away from a computer or mobile device for some time, there is no need to place a bet on a football match until you hear the team news.  In most cases, this comes up an hour before kick-off.

Imagine you place a bet on Barcelona to win at Real Madrid only to find out Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez are not in the starting XI for Barcelona.

Immediately you will wish you had not placed the bet and will probably think you should have considered backing the home team instead. If only you had waited until the team news announcement, it would have made all the difference.

Having placed your bet before the team news, you are now left frustrated knowing your chances of winning have been severely reduced.  Always wait for the team news before placing a bet on a football match.

6. Recent Form

Another thing which can help you win more at football betting is studying recent form of the teams involved.  One glance at the league table could see the home team down in 14^th place and the away team in 5^th place.  Looking at this alone, it is easy to see why the home team are the outsiders in terms of the odds.

However, one glance at the form table shows the 14^th place team have won three of their last four matches and are moving up the table.  The team in 5^th place have lost each of their last three and are in poor form.

Immediately the prospect of a home win seems much better than the league table suggests and you could be on to a winner, with good odds.

7. Home/Away and Competitions Specific Form

In addition to the overall form of the teams involved in a match, you should also check the home and away form of both teams.  A team may be struggling in terms of league position and their away form could be awful but when playing at home, they are a different animal and manage to pick-up good results.

Burnley were a good example of this in the 2016/17 Premier League season when they were poor away but very strong at home.  There were ten wins at home for the Clarets that season but only one win on the road.

Competition specific form is another thing to consider if you want to win at football betting.  A team such as BATE Borisov have won the Belarussian league title for 13 seasons in succession up to and including 2018.  Looking at their results, they seem a great team but would you back them to defeat Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League?

Some clubs dominate their domestic leagues but when it comes to European competition, they are found wanting.  You cannot rely on a team’s overall form, if you want to win at football betting.  You must look at form for the specific competitions to get a better idea of what to expect.

8. Head-to-Head Record

The head-to-head record of two teams can provide a nice insight of what to expect from a match.  Take the England team as an example, they have a good head-to-head record against most teams but have really struggled against Brazil.

Only four times in twenty-six attempts have England managed to beat Brazil and they have lost on eleven occasions.  Based on this, when England next meet Brazil, at a World Cup for example, you would think twice about backing the English team, regardless of current form.

That’s not to say you should not take form into account but if both teams have a similar record in recent matches, the smart money would be on Brazil based on their head-to-head record.

9. Motivational Levels

Some teams are more motivated to win matches than other teams at different times of the season.  A team in the top four of the Premier League, who have Champions League qualification wrapped up could be playing a team in the relegation zone, who are 1 point from safety.

In normal circumstances you would back the team in the top four to win the match.  However, they have a Champions League semi-final coming up on Tuesday and with nothing left to play for in the league, have very little motivation to win the match.

The odds will still favour the team higher up in the league but the outsiders will be the only team who really need to win the match.  This could provide a great opportunity to back a team to win at big odds.

Something like this will not happen very often but when it does it is the perfect opportunity to back an outsider and potentially win more money at football betting.

10. Do Not Bet on Your Own Team

If you want to win at football betting, it is best to avoid betting on matches which involve the team you support.  For example, if you are a Manchester United fan and everything points to a win for Manchester City in the derby, are you going to be able to go against your own team and bet on them to lose?

Most fans would not be able to bet against their own team and will back their side whatever the statistics may suggest.  This is fine if you are betting occasionally for fun but if you want to win at football betting, all sentiment must go out of the window.

The easiest way to prevent your loyalty from clouding your judgement is to avoid betting on games involving your team altogether.  Make it a priority when you begin your football betting journey to ignore all matches involving your team and this will help you to focus on the facts and make a better judgement on your bets.

11. Don’t Get Sucked in by Big Odds

Occasionally you will see some odds for a football match and one team will be out as far as 10/1 to win the game.  A 10 Euro bet on this and you could win 100 Euro or a 50 Euro bet on this and you could win 500 Euro.

The potential winnings are great but they are big for a reason and that’s because it is very unlikely to happen.  Do not get sucked in by large odds and believe you are going to win life changing amounts of money in one hit by betting on football.  The fact is that it is never going to happen.

Instead, you should focus on making a profit with each bet you place, regardless of how small it may be.  Ultimately, a profit is a profit, however small and they all add up over time.  If you were walking down the street, would you rather pick up a 2 Euro coin or a drop a 50 Euro note on the floor, never to be seen again?

The answer is obvious and the same should apply when betting on football.  Do not let the big odds of an accumulator tempt you, this is the same as throwing your money away.  Use the information above to place informative football bets and you will have a much greater chance of winning, regardless of the size of the profit.

12. Keeping a Record

This brings us nicely on to our next point ,which is that you should always keep a detailed record of your football betting activity.  This means writing down the date, the match, the betting market, the bet placed, the stake placed and the outcome of the bet.

This is not only so you can keep tabs on your profit but also so you can spot trends in your betting.  If you want to win at football betting, you need to know where your strengths lie and keeping a detailed record of your betting activity will allow you to identify trends.

For example, you may find you are winning 80% of your bets on the over/under goals market but only 25% of your bets when betting on winning margin.  This is a basic example and the figures may not be this clear cut but you will find, over time, which football betting markets are the most profitable for you.

Therefore, to win more at football betting, it is best to stick to the betting markets on which you have the most success.

13. Do Not Chase Losses

This is one of the most common mistakes a beginner makes and ultimately, you will not win more at football betting by chasing after a loss.

Chasing after a loss is when you place bet, with good intentions having completed your research but the bet was lost.  There could be many reasons why the outcome you backed did not materialise but let’s say for argument sake, the team you backed to win simply had an off day.  It can happen and is always a risk when betting on football.

However, if you want to win at football betting, you cannot allow yourself to get angry about the outcome and place another bet immediately, hoping to win back the money you lost.  Inevitably, this only leads to another lost bet and the cycle will continue until you have used all your bankroll.

The key to winning at football betting is sometimes to know when to stop betting.  If you have lost a bet, accept that it is going to happen sometimes, fully in the knowledge you did everything you could to make the bet a success.  Getting angry and wanting to place another bet immediately is a natural reaction but the sooner you can stop it from happening the better.

Set yourself a limit as to how many football bets you will place per week and stick to it.  You will have more success in the long term.

14. Playing Conditions

Teams like to play different styles of football and while some may enjoy keeping possession and this works for them, other teams like to play more direct and with long balls.  The playing conditions can have a big impact on how well a team will play.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has been criticised for his comments about the wind and how it has a negative impact on his team.  Check the weather when Liverpool are playing and if they are away from home and the wind is set to be strong, they may struggle to win the match.

Perhaps this is a good time to bet on an upset or maybe to avoid betting on this game at all, even though Liverpool are expected to win according to the bookmakers.

Manchester City like to play passing football, with the ball on the ground but if they are away to a team who has a bad pitch, perhaps the weather has made it poor, they could struggle to win the match.

If you want to win at football betting, always check the playing conditions because they can have a big impact on the outcome of the game.

15. Betting on Lesser Known Leagues

As you become accustomed to the different football betting markets and gain experience, it may be time to start looking at other leagues.

If you have tasted a lot of success betting on football using the over/under 2.5 goals market, you could win more at football betting by betting on a league where the statistics are in your favour.  At the time of writing this article, 119 games had been played in the United Arab Emirates UFL and 70% of those games had seen over 2.5 goals scored.

A total of 234 games had been played in the Dutch Eredivisie and 152 of those matches have seen over 2.5 goals, which is almost 65%.  So, this suggests if you want to win at football betting using the over 2.5 goals market, the UFL and Eredivisie are a good place to begin.

Armed with the tips above, you should be ready to win at football betting.  As with all forms of betting, there is always a risk attached and you should never bet more than you can afford.