Betting on Football: Your Guide to Odds and Bet Types

When betting on football, the odds tell you how much a bet is worth and how likely it is that the result will happen. They tell you how much money you’ll get if your bet wins.

Here is an explanation of the different types of odds and how they work.

Decimal Odds

When you look around the Magic Betting website, you’ll often see odds that are broken down into decimals, like 2.3.

Most of the time, decimal odds are easier to understand at a look when betting on football. Decimal odds only show what you’d win with a €1 bet, while fractional odds show both the risk and the possible winnings. Your stake is included in the returns.

You can show odds of 4.5 as a decimal, for example. This makes it clear that a €1 bet would win €4.50.

To bet more than €1, just increase your stake by the number shown. Bet €10 on odds of 4.5 to win €45.

Key Terms for Fractional Odds

Evens

You can write “evens” as “1.0”. If it wins, you’ll get back twice as much as you put in.

Favourite

The most likely outcome to happen. The odds on the favourite will be the shortest, and the payouts will be smaller.

Odds On

This is when something is more likely than not to happen, like a big team beating a lower-league team at home. If the odds are 0.8, a €1 bet will earn you €0.80 profit.

How to Place a Football Bet

You can bet on sports from all over the world at Magic Betting. You can pick from hundreds of games around the world, whether you like the Premier League, Jupiler Pro League, Champions League, Bundesliga, Belgium Cup, La Liga and so on.

The first thing you need to do is choose a game to bet on. Then you can bet on dozens of bet types, such as the final score, the first goal scorer, the total number of chances in many games, the time of the first goal and many more.

Betting on Football: Bet Types

Match Betting

Who do you think will win? Or will it be a draw? This question is very simple. You’ll see the odds for both teams, as well as the chances for a draw. Also known as 1X2 market betting.

Both Teams to Score (BTTS)

Will both teams score? It’s an easy yes or no question. You can also bet on both BTTS and the outcome of the match to get better chances.

Total Goals

This market is worth looking at if a team that has been scoring goals plays a team that has had trouble defending.

You guess how many goals will be scored in a game by calling either more or less than the number. You can bet on over 3.5 total goals if you think the game will have four or more goals. You could also pick under 2.5 total goals if you think there will be two or fewer goals.

This number can be changed in many ways, such as by adding up the goals scored in each half. You can bet on both the result and the number of goals scored, or you can choose the “Team Goals” choice to bet on how many times a certain team will score in the full 90 minutes or in either half.

Half-Time / Full -Time

What do you think will happen in the match? In this type of bet you have to guess which team, if any, will be ahead at halftime and then at the end of the game. This bet has nine possible results, including draws.

Draw No Bet

It’s normal to have a strong preference for one team but not be sure about them 100%. In this instance the Draw No Bet market might be right for you.

If the game ends in a draw you’ll get your money back. But because you are protected, the odds are not as good as they would be in the normal Match Betting (Win-Draw-Win).

Double Chance

The Double Chance bet also makes it less likely that you will lose. Three things could happen in the match, and you are betting on two of them. If you choose the away team and a draw, then your bet wins as long as the home team avoid being beaten.

You can also bet on both teams in the “Double Chance” market. If the game doesn’t end in a tie, you’ll win.

Correct Score

It’s much harder to guess the right score than the match result of the game, this is why you can get longer odds on correctly predicting the final score line.

Goalscorer Bets

When betting on football, you can also bet on when and who will score. There are bet options for predicting the first goalscorer. the last and anytime goalscorer.

You can also be more specific and bet on a player to score two or more goals, a hat trick, or to even score in their team’s win or loss.

Handicap Betting

Sometimes putting a normal bet on the favourite doesn’t pay off very much. With handicap betting, you can level the playing field by applying a goal handicap to either side, which can mean bigger payouts if you win.

When you bet on a team with a -1 goal handicap, they’ll have to win by at least two goals to cover the handicap and win your bet.

In the event that they win by just one goal, the handicap would make the game a tie, and you would lose your bet.

In-Play Betting

One popular feature that makes betting on football so appealing is that you can’t be sure what will happen.

Form guides and stats can help you predict how a game will go, but an injury or red card could swing the game in a very different direction once it starts.

By betting during a game, you can change your mind as you watch it happen. As the game goes on, the odds will change right away to reflect what is happening.

You can bet on a player to score while the game is still going on if they look like they’re going to score.

Cash Out Bets

You can Cash Out some bets while the game is still going on. This lets you settle your bet before the game ends.

Say you thought Cercle Brugge would beat Royal Antwerp. With 10 minutes left, they are ahead 1-0. Royal Antwerp is putting more pressure on, and it looks like they will get a goal. That’s when you can Cash Out instead of taking a chance on losing the game.

There are also ways to get some of your stake back if your bet loses.

Cash Out comes in handy if you’ve placed an accumulator bet, which is a single bet on four or more choices.

You can “Cash Out” to get a part of your winnings if one pick doesn’t look like it will come in.

Betting on Football on Magic Betting

Magic Betting offers many sportsbetting markets including Football, Tennis, Basketball, Darts, Table Tennis and Golf. Sometimes there are even Accumulator Boosts on the website where additional boosted odds are offered when placing multiple bets.

Visit Magic Betting for the latest odds and betting markets.