Human beings are creatures of habit – we like to stick to the things we know and love. But in so many areas of life, we can find new and exciting things to enjoy just by opening our minds and exploring new possibilities.
One of these areas is football betting.
Most punters like to stick to the markets that they enjoy or have proven successful to them in the past, but many bookmakers are offering niche opportunities that require further exploration. Here is just a selection of the very best:
Match Result and…..
Whether many punters know these markets exist who knows, but a fantastic way to leverage extra profit when placing a win-draw-win bet is to add one of two extra elements into the mix: Over/Under 2.5 Goals or Both Teams to Score.
More and more bookmakers are starting to take on these doubles as a single bet, and the good news for punters is that it is a fine strategy for adding a bit of extra cash to your bankroll.
Tactics for Match Result & Over/Under 2.5 Goals:
There are two scenarios where this may come in handy. The first is where we fancy one team to annihilate the other – say Manchester City draw Grimsby Town in the FA Cup. We assume strongly that City will win, but there is simply no value in backing them to do so. But if we add an Over 2.5 element to our bet then suddenly the price goes up without really enhancing our risk (we would expect City to win by a three-goal cushion at least).
The second is where we fancy a real close game – cup finals are a good example – where neither team gives an inch and plays a risk-free brand of football. Here, we may fancy one team or the other, but we also expect it to be a low-scoring affair. It is here that the Match Result & Under 2.5 Goals double appeals the most.
Tactics for Match Result & BTTS:
Again, we can see two obvious examples of where this market become a must back. The first is similar to the Manchester City vs Grimsby scenario above; City will win to nil, won’t they? So there we’d been wagering on Man City to Win & Both Teams to Score (No).
The second would be in those matches we identify as potential goal fests, but where there is a clear favouritism for one team or the other to win the game.
Leading After….
Another method of leveraging additional profit from a win-draw-win scenario is by backing your preferred team to be leading after a specific amount of time.
So backing France to beat Albania offers no value….but backing them to be in the lead after 60 minutes does present slightly more and with minimal risk.
The options for this market are commonly 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 75 minutes, and as we will discuss later in this article there is a lot of risk attached to backing any team to be winning at half time. So the 60 minute mark is the smart investment here.
Both Teams to Score & Over/Under 2.5 Goals
A market for goal buffs – but one overlooked, oddly – is the abbreviated O/U 2.5 & BTTS.
This offers an awesome opportunity for those with an encyclopaedic knowledge of a team’s prowess in front of goal to take advantage; either by backing games to witness goals going in left, right and centre (O2.5 & BTTS), one team to completely dominate (02.5 & BTTS – no) or complete snorefests (U2.5 & BTTS – no).
Of course, there’s no point backing U2.5 & BTTS as that would simply be a 1-1 draw!
Both Teams to Score First Half
A general theme across European football – and the world for that matter – is that the majority of goals are scored in the second half of matches. That means that at half time very few are goal fests, and very few are anything greater than 1-0 to either side; just look at Euro 2016, where in the first 12 group matches played none had been anything greater than 1-0 at half time.
So, this is a fantastic way to build a bankroll, because ultimately the odds on offer aren’t great (bookmakers aren’t daft you know). You can get roughly 1/5 per match, which hands some of the power back to the punter as we know that more than five matches will be successful from a both teams to score (no) standpoint at half time.
Winning Margin
A fantastic way to find value in a match where we are really confident we have egged the winner s by backing them to triumph by a specific margin of victory.
Here’s an example:
At Euro 2016 France are entertaining Albania. Now, we really fancy Les Bleus to win this one, but their price – 2/7 – is simply too short to get involved with. But if we’re thinking logically then we might conclude that France will win by two or three clear goals….and this is where the margin bets come in handy.
France to win by two is 14/5, and for them to win by three is available at 9/2. So, we can actually wager on both of those eventualities and still return a profit!
Another way to play this market is in matches we believe will be closely fought. That’s because with certain bookmakers we don’t even need to specify which team we think will win – we can actually back a generic ‘one goal winning margin’ for either team.
A real-life example would be the Czech Republic vs Turkey at Euro 2016, where in truth we don’t really know who the winner will be. But at odds of 5/4, backing the ‘one goal winning margin’ gives us a real chance; and at odds-against too.
