Whilst football is recognised as easily the most used team sport on earth, drawing television audiences of billions to its major events, relatively few football fans take the chance to place their football expertise to the test by taking part in football betting.

For many football fans, being a supporter is centered on backing one club for life, however football betting allows you to add excitement to neutral matches by backing the club you rate as strongest. And if your team isn’t on a good run of form, placing a bet on the opposition can offer some consolation when your team loses.

Online betting is one of the best ways to get involved in football betting. Most online sportsbooks provide a huge selection of football bets from the world’s top leagues, throughout the year. Also, an online account can be set up in a matter of minutes, giving you virtually instant access to football betting markets.

Here are just some of the most popular football betting options:

Match betting – match betting is the simplest type of football betting. It involves betting on the results of a match, with each outcome coming in at specific odds. You can bet on a team or a draw. Usually the betting slip will carry the name of 1 team under ‘away’ and another under ‘home’.

When doing match betting you can also vote on a handicap bet which basically gives one team a one goal advantage or disadvantage prior to the game has even started. You then bet on the outcome as per a normal match bet.

Score betting – score betting describes a wide range of betting options. poker88asia is predicting the ultimate score of a match, and will carry very high odds.

Another popular score betting option involves betting on who will score a goal. These bets carry high odds and come in several varieties including: first goal scorer, last goal scorer and anytime goal scorer.

Special bets – every football game will carry a multitude of additional betting opportunities, with each online bookmaker offering their own game specials. Literally every aspect of the overall game attracts odds, ranging from the quantity of corners in the game, to which players will undoubtedly be injured. These bets often carry a number of the highest odds.

Tournament betting – if you’re a big picture punter you’ll enjoy tournament betting. Betting opportunities range between picking group and pool winners, picking the tournament winner and predicting the amount of goals a team will score in your competition. The limits to your tournament betting opportunities are defined only by the bookmaker’s imagination!

We hope that brief introduction to the basics of football betting has been helpful. With several great football tournaments like the African Cup of Nations, FA Cup and Champions League being played this season you won’t find a lack of opportunities to practice your brand-new football betting skills!