The Magic of the Cup: Who’s Going to the FA Cup Final?

Betting Advice

Every footballer dreams of lifting the FA Cup trophy at the end of the English season. And every punter dreams of lifting some serious money from bets after the 90 mins (or more) of football at Wembley Stadium.

This 2017 FA Cup Final is just around the corner and it promises to be a cracker as two of the top teams in the country are set to battle it out for one of the sport’s most coveted prizes. Chelsea go into the final looking to seal a domestic double as they look dead on course to win the 2017 Premier League in what could be a dream debut season in London for Antonio Conte. Arsenal, on the other hand, haven’t quite shown the same dominance in the top division this season, but there is plenty of reputation stake for the team and plenty of future employment prospects in the balance for their manager, Arsene Wenger.

Arsenal-Chelsea

No doubt the preparation is well under way for the managers and players. And there are bound to be a few sleepless nights for fans in West and North London. But how should you look to prepare your betting slips for the grand finale of the 2017 season? Why not check out some of our top betting tips for the FA Cup Final.

Who’s Going to Win It?

The question of every pundits lips before kick-off on Saturday May 27 will be: “who’s going to win?” Punters should also have this question in mind. This is not to say that the answer will give them the best chance of winning money on the day, but more because it will help them to judge the value of the odds across the FA Cup betting spectrum (as we will discuss later).

As we edge into the closing fixtures of the Premier League season, it’s easy to see that Chelsea have the edge in league position. And this shows in the odds that are available in the FA Cup outright markets as the Blues can be found with shorter than evens odds of 4/6 while the Gunners are a relative long-shot at 7/4. To put this into perspective, here’s how those odds look in real money terms:

– £10 bet on Chelsea to win FA Cup at 4/6 returns profit of £6.67

– £10 bet on Arsenal to win FA Cup 7/4 returns profit of £17.50

Click here for comprehensive guide to the best online bookmakers.

It’s fair to say that Chelsea are the more likely to take lift the trophy this time around and the odds-on favourites have taken almost two thirds of the bets placed so far according to oddschecker.com. But do these odds accurately reflect good value for money? And what might the 39% of punters backing Arsenal know that you might not?

Well, besides from the fact that there are some bettors out there who swear by backing the underdog, there are some good reasons to back the Arsenal to upset the bookies. While it would be wishful thinking from Arsenal fans to say that they are in a good run of form, they can take positives from the fact that they have only lost two games in the last six. It might be hard to believe, but that’s the same amount of defeats as Chelsea have had in the same number of matches. So, far from suggesting that Arsenal are finishing the season on a high, it is fair to say that the toils of the season are starting to show some cracks in their FA Cup FInal rivals.

Then again, it could be argued that form goes out of the window when the teams walk out into the cauldron of Wembley. And this is where psychology takes over. Will Arsene Wenger be able to pump his players up for a match that could determine his future at the club? It’s a tough one to call because, as we have seen on a couple of occasions this season, the Gunners have failed to turn up when it really matters (*cough* Bayern Munich 10, Arsenal 2 *cough*).

On the other hand – and despite to odd wobble – Chelsea have kept on grafting this season under the disciplinarian that is Antonio Conte. They have even dug deep when needed as they did in their thrilling 4-2 win over Tottenham in the semi finals.

Tip: if you want to boost your potential profits when you place a bet on the winner of the FA Cup, check out the odds for the full time result markets since these tend to be longer than those in the outright markets. Or, you could back on a draw after 90 minutes if you think the game will go into extra time.

Get Intricate

Betting on the match result is bread and butter for any keen football punter. However, in a one-off match like this, you could potentially boost your winning haul by taking a look at some of the more advanced bets on offer. You may or may not be familiar with things like Asian Handicaps or the Over/Under markets, but they could make the game much more interesting from a punters perspective.

Correct score: If you have a pretty clear idea of who is going to triumph in your mind, then why not try to boost your profits my attempting to guess the correct score. It might seem like a very difficult thing to do, but the rewards are there for the taking. What’s more, there are some mathematical methods that you can use to determine the likelihood of different score lines, such as Poisson distribution. Interestingly enough, the odds on Bet365 suggest that the most probable 90 minute scoreline is a 1-1 draw at odds of 11/2. Can you find any value in the other correct score odds?

Winning Margin: Using statistics to work out the probability of correct score will never predict the future, and the cup final factor could lend to a lower scoring game in general. However, having an idea of a score line can open the doorway into other betting markets. Take the Winning Margin markets, for example, in which you can get Chelsea to win by 1 goal at 11/4 or Arsenal win by 1 goal at 9/2. Those aren’t bad options to go for when you consider that the FA Cup Final has been won by a 1 goal margin in 12 of the last 17 years.

Over/Under: Perhaps a bit more difficult to call, the Over/Under markets are basically there for players who want to back a high scoring game or a low scoring game. Right now, you can get odds of 8/11 for over 2.5 goals while the under 2.5 goals is just over evens at 43/40. With Chelsea’s disciplined defence and the nerves of the occasion, this might not be a bad shout.

Asian Handicap: the best online bookmakers will provide a whole spread of handicap odds, from Goal Lines to Alternative Asian Handicaps. The ones that we are more interested in are the quarter-qoal handicaps (depicted either by quarter decimal place e.g. -0.75 or by two handicap lines e.g. -0.5, -1.0). These handicaps essentially split the bet into two stakes according to the half goal and full goal handicap line. This means that there is an element of insurance involved since certain score line results could void one half portion of the bet. This betting strategy for the FA Cup final is a little bit more complex than most, but it could provide you with the best opportunity to ensure that you don’t end up with less money in your bankroll than you started with.