Many football fans love to bet on the matches they watch. For some, it adds an interesting layer to the experience. However, if you’re unfamiliar with the world of sports betting, it can be easy to make mistakes.
In this guide, we provide a breakdown of some of the most common football betting mistakes. And importantly, we explore ways for you to avoid making these errors.
Let’s dive in.
What are the most common football betting mistakes?
Here’s a breakdown of some of the most common football betting mistakes:
Not looking for the best odds
It’s easy to just sign up to a sportsbook and keep on betting with them. Perhaps the introductory offers enticed you, and you may enjoy the user interface. But while there are some perks to sticking with the same betting site, you may be doing yourself a disservice.
It’s not uncommon for different sportsbooks to offer better odds on different matches. For example, one betting site may offer odds of 4/1 on Everton to beat Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, but another sportsbook may offer odds of 6/1. It may not sound like a big difference, but if you bet £10 and win, you could have made an extra £20 if you had shopped around.
So, to avoid this, it can help to sign up for a number of different sports betting sites and also to sign up for their email alerts in case they do decide to offer different odds. Checking odds comparison sites can also help you to identify these opportunities.
Not sticking to a budget
For some people, this may seem like an obvious one, but failing to stick to your betting budget can end up being a huge mistake.
You should only ever bet what you can afford to lose. If you lose your bets, you don’t want to be in a situation where you keep on betting beyond your means. This can eat into future budgets and also damage your finances overall. The last thing you want to do is wind up in debt.
To prevent any of this happening, work out what you can afford to bet and stick to it. Chasing losses is never a wise move – and the most experienced gamblers will tell you so.
You don’t always have to back your team
Sometimes our loyalties can cloud our judgement. Our beloved football team may not always be the best team to back, despite fantasies of them causing an upset and winning in dramatic fashion.
If you follow a football team closely, you’ll no doubt be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, their recent form and any latest injuries. While we, of course, want our favourite team to win, if you know all of these facts and believe your team is going to lose, you can put that information to use by betting against them.
While this may seem controversial, it can make the pain of your team losing the game a little more bearable.
To avoid potentially jeopardising your bets by sticking with your team, take a pragmatic approach and place your bets without regard to personal loyalties.
Don’t skip the research
One of the biggest mistakes people can make with football betting is placing bets without any clear understanding of who they’re backing.
Football is a complex sport. Many factors can influence the outcome of a game, from the weather to who’s playing home or away. Betting blind without consideration for these factors is a risky approach.
Instead, conducting research can give you more of a chance. You can study the recent form of teams, which players are playing well and which are injured, and look up the thoughts and opinions of journalists and commentators. All of this information can help you form a considered view on the potential outcome of a game. As a result, you may have a better chance of succeeding.
Don’t rely on accumulators
Some fans of football betting love to do nothing but accumulators. If you’re not sure what this is, it’s essentially a form of multiple bet in which you pick the outcomes of numerous games. To win the bet, you need to call every single one right.
The bigger the accumulator, the more speculative and unlikely the bet. However, it will also attract the greatest odds. It’s therefore a draw for some people.
Placing large stakes on low-chance bets isn’t a wise move, though. Instead, try smaller accumulators or vary your betting strategy to include individual bets.
