If you like watching football, you often like to bet on your favorite team or their victory. Especially in the last few years, since Tipico, bwin and similar providers have conquered the German market, football betting has become much more popular. Many people bet on football with their hearts and put their money on the team they are also a fan of. Others bet with their heads and pay close attention to how likely the result they are betting on is, without being guided by loyalties to certain teams.
Whether you bet out of passion, to test your analysis or to earn money – in any case, you need to know which bets you can place on football and how they work. You can find out about various portals where you can place bets.
Types of football bets
There are different types of football bets, not all of which offer the same risk and the same probability of winning. Some types are also less complicated than others. The basis of all football bets are single bets. There are also the very common combination bets and system bets. These three types of football bets will now be presented.
Single bets
Single bets are probably the oldest bets in sports or betting. At the same time, they are also the easiest bets to place, which may have something to do with their age. A single bet works in such a way that you have to correctly predict the result of a single game. For example, you bet that team A will win, that team B will win, or that the game will end in a draw. In a more advanced form of the single bet, you can also predict what score or goal difference the game will end with.
Potential profit
With single bets, calculating the winnings is very simple, because you only need to multiply the stake by the odds to determine the payout. With a stake of 10 euros and odds of 2.50, you will receive a payout of 25 euros if your tip is correct. 15 euros of this is pure winnings, while the remaining 10 euros simply get your stake back. Compared to other types of bets, the risk with a single bet is quite low. In return, however, the potential winnings are not quite as high as with combination or system bets.
Offer
You can place a single bet with almost all established bookmakers in all football leagues. Only at Tipico you have to combine at least three results into one bet when betting in lower leagues or in non-established fringe sports (i.e. certainly not football), so single bets are not possible for all events here.
Combination bets
A combination bet is a little more complex than a single bet. It is basically a series of individual bets placed one after the other. The way a combination bet works is that you have to name a few outcomes on different events. These all have to happen independently for you to take home your winnings. Otherwise, the entire stake is lost, regardless of how many times you were right with your bet.
Potential gains
With a combination bet, the calculation of the possible winnings is a little more complex than with a single bet. But here too, it is not rocket science to calculate the possible winnings once when placing the bet and thus estimate the risk. To do this, you multiply the odds of the results with each other and with the stake. With odds of 2.5, 2 and 1.5, a possible winnings of 75 euros can be achieved with a stake of 10 euros.
This is the same as placing the bets one after the other and choosing the payout of the previous bet as the stake each time. However, the risk here is quite high, as you lose your entire stake with just one wrong tip in the combination. The more tips with higher odds you combine in a combination bet, the higher the risk.
Offer
Almost all sports betting providers offer combination bets. As already described above, Tipico only allows its customers to place combination bets in lower leagues and fringe sports and does not allow single bets in these cases.
System bets
With a system bet, like with a combination bet, you can bet on the outcome of different events at the same time, but the risk is significantly lower. In this case, the ratio between chances and risk is adjusted so that you have a lower risk with similar chances. However, because the system bet is quite complex in concept, it is still relatively new and less well known among people who do not like to bet as a hobby.
Potential profit
As already mentioned, the system bet is comparatively complex. Here you place several combination bets at once. This is easier and faster than placing them all individually. For example, you can bet that a certain team will win in each of four selected football matches. With the system bet, you have four triple combination bets. The amount you bet is divided equally between the individual combination bets.
An example calculation would look like this: Team A wins its game with odds of 1.5. Team B wins its game with odds of 2. Team C wins its game with odds of 2.4. Team D wins its game with odds of 2.7. You bet forty euros, or a total of ten euros, on each possible combination bet. If two teams lose, no combination bet is placed. But if, for example, only Team B loses, you still receive 1.5 x 2.4 x 2.7 x 10€, or 97.20€. Of this, 57.20€ is pure profit – and you had to put in a lot less effort placing the bets than with four individual combination bets.
Offer
The system bet is available at almost all sports betting providers. There are no limits here either – you just have to be aware that the stake can quickly become quite high. Otherwise, the system bet is impressive because it saves a lot of time compared to individual combination bets.
The Fiction of Safe Bets
Gamblers always try to design a system that guarantees they will not lose money in the long run. Such constructs of a safe betting system are also touted from time to time when a player has had success with it for a while. However, in the long run they rarely prove to be true. While it is true that you can make low-risk bets, especially if you are always well informed and bet wisely, there is always a little bit of luck involved in football. So it is not about placing a single bet with a sure win or developing a system to avoid long-term losses. You have to rely on luck with every bet, despite all your knowledge.
What are the most popular bets?
The most common bets are on well-known teams, as they are the best to judge. This also applies to the bookmakers who calculate the odds, which is why the odds are usually most reliable for established teams and leagues. For example, bets are often placed on games in the Spanish, French, English or German first divisions. But the Champions League and Europa League are also very popular. And let’s not forget the European and World Championships, where many people bet long in advance on who will win the tournament.