As the current reigning king of world’s most popular sport: football has become the international pastime for billions. Along with its meteoric rise across the world as a fun and entertaining sport, football has also given rise to a number of other industries, namely the betting scene.
Betting on football is easy and straightforward, although the bets can become more complicated depending on what’s being offered and what the risk is. For anyone looking to start betting on football after getting a taste of similar action through mobile casino Malaysia, these are the types of bets that are worth knowing.
1. Money Line Bet
A money line bet is an extremely common type of football bet and is offered by most bookmakers around the world. These kinds of wagers generally offer odds that are based on three different outcomes: one for each team to win the game, and one for the game to finish in a draw.
Money lines also generally only cover around 90 minutes of a game, including injury times, while overtime and penalties tend to not be included. It’s important to ensure that the punter knows everything they can about the wager before taking it out.
2. Point Spread
This is an alternative to the money line bet, where the punter instead puts money down on the point spread. Most games are offered a point spread bet with the underdog at +0.5 while the favourite sits at -0.5.
This gives those that bet on the underdog a higher chance of removing the draw from the odds, and while they pay a bit more for the bet, they also win more if their team does well.
3. Over/Under
Bookmakers will set a total number of goals for every game that they cover, and punters are able to bet whether the number of goals scored between the two teams will go over or under the total set by the bookie. With the low scoring nature of the game, the total is usually set fairly low, with 2.5 being the most common number chosen.
It can even be as low as 2.0 in some games, especially if it’s between two teams that are known to be good on the field. The number will be determined by various different factors that the bookie will take into account when choosing a total.
4. Parlay
A parlay in soccer is a wager where the bettor is given the choice of two or more sides, and will win the bet only if the selected sides win. The benefit to this type of wager is that if every selected side does win, the payout in the end can be that much higher.
This is one of the reasons that the parlay is a favourite among seasoned bettors, especially when dealing with favourites. The downside here is that the parlay comes with an inherent amount of risk, which is higher than what would be found with a money line bet, for example. It’s better suited to those that have been betting on soccer for some time.