Advanced Football Betting Strategies to Help You Win More

Making a profit while betting on football is no easy task. Regardless of your knowledge of the teams and the players involved, the game is simply too unpredictable for you to win consistently. Add in the bookmaker’s edge, and you’re always likely to end up in the red.

Still, there are ways to increase your chances. Advanced strategies like the ones described below can undoubtedly help you win more, although they will require a lot of extra leg work.

Arbitrage

Arbitrage betting completely eliminates risks, as it lets you take advantage of the discrepancies in pricing between two bookmakers.

For example, the home team’s win at one sportsbook is priced at 2.05, while the X2 double chance bet at another site comes with the odds of 2.03. If you place the same amount of money on each wager, you are guaranteed to make a small profit no matter the outcome.

This strategy seems simple enough, but it’s hardly practical. Arbitrage betting opportunities are very hard to come by, and even when you do find them, your guaranteed profit will be quite small. You’ll need the help of a good odds comparison site and a sizable bankroll to truly make this approach effective.

Value Betting

Value betting implies staking money on an outcome that you believe has a greater chance of happening relative to the odds given by the bookmaker.

Bookies can sometimes overprice their odds, making it so your bet on that particular outcome has a positive expected value. If you’ve concluded that a football team stands a 55% chance of winning, but the given odds suggest a 45% likelihood, you’re looking at a value bet.

But how do you know which sports bets have a good value?

One of the main strategies is to use sharp bookmakers' odds as the ones that provide the true probability of an outcome. They invest a lot in making accurately priced odds, which allows them to accept large bets. We can then look at soft bookmakers’ odds, and if their pricing deviates from the ones offered by a sharp bookie, we can potentially spot a value bet.

However, this can be very time-consuming, and you’ll be prone to making mistakes. It’s much easier to find a good opportunity by using value bet calculators and software that relies on advanced algorithms for comparing thousands of odds across multiple betting sites.

Line Shopping

Line shopping is the simplest of football betting strategies. It won't guarantee you a profit, but it will show you where the best odds are for a particular bet. The principle of this strategy is to simply compare the prices offered by different sportsbooks.

To save time, you should use line shopping tools to quickly compare the odds at top bookmakers. Among the many options available, my favourites are Odds Checker and Odds Assist.

Matched Betting

Matched betting is a strategy that involves using free bets and other bookmaker promotions to guarantee a profit.

The goal is to cover all possible outcomes, with one of them triggering a free bet. You must place two wagers on opposite results at two different betting sites. Calculate how much money you need to stake on each outcome to avoid losses. This way, you will stay afloat and gain a free bet in the process.

You can then just repeat this action by placing a free bet on one outcome and a real-money bet on another. If you win on the latter, you don’t lose anything since the free bet covered the opposite outcome. On the other hand, if you win using the former, you still gain profit, as the return should be higher than the real-money stake.