Where to Look When Betting

Betting on football is hard enough at the best of times, so when you are pretty new to the game, it can be almost impossible. Here I will try and give you a few tips on where to look when you’re trying to find something to put your money on.

The usual starting point is to look at how a team has been performing in the weeks previous to the match you are looking at. From a personal point of view, I’m not a fan of backing the teams towards the lower end of the league who have had a big win the week before. This is because it is very rare for a struggling team to win 2 games on the trot; therefore I would usually bet against them in the following week. Depending on the team you are looking at and their position in the league, I would recommend considering using this technique because the bookmakers usually have to reduce the team’s odds because they are on a good run. This means the opposition will be at more attractive odds and so giving you a bit of extra value for your money. Of course this is not a bullet proof method of betting and each case is subjective to the teams involved.

Another popular clue is the amount of goals a team has scored and conceded. Looking into this in more depth, look at the home/away statistics for the 2 teams involved in the games you are looking at and try to work out how many goals each team are likely to score. From this you can predict the result you think will happen.  For example is a team scored 3 every week at home, but away from home they concede 3 every week, the chances are they will win most their home games but get beaten in the away games so I would bet on them at home, but bet against the away from home.

Teams who have had a tough mid-week European fixture are often ones to avoid as well, especially if they only have a small squad or a lot of injuries. This is particularly true for those playing in the Europa League on a Thursday night because the manager and players will only have 2 days at the very most to prepare. For the teams with a bigger squad the manager can rotate their players and therefore they would be fresh for the game but smaller squads cannot.

Of course none of these methods are fool proof but I hope they can give you a couple of hints when you look to place a bet. You will find your own techniques once you start betting regularly and this will do you no harm at all!

Andy Clark

http://twitter.com/#!/AndyClark_TFT