Tips for Betting on a Live Football Match
1) Watch the games
2) Study the games in advance
3) Assess player performances
4) Understand the coaches
5) Be slow to judge
Do you like live football betting?
I do!
And I’m pretty sure there are lots of sports bettors like me who do, too!
Live betting is one of those newly introduced football betting markets that are starting to gain a lot of traction lately.
And for good reasons!
If you haven’t started playing it, then you seriously have no idea what you’ve been missing out on.
For those of us who have, below are a few new tips to set us on the path for success.
Watch the Games
How can you possibly make correct predictions about a live game if you’re not watching it?
The best way to tell who the better team is, who the likeliest player to score is, who’s probing each other’s goalpost the most, and who’s likely to get red-carded is to sit and watch the match yourself.
By doing so, you’ll be able to take some calculated guesses based on what you’re seeing.
Although there are going to be times when you’ll find live betting opportunities in games you can’t watch (perhaps due to your schedule or inability to access it), you should strive to limit your live betting escapades to games you can actually watch.
Study the Games in Advance
This is the biggest tip you’ll find in this guide.
And the reason is because it addresses the biggest mistake live football bettors make.
Many a time, when football bettors want to bet on live matches, they do so not because they’ve been in touch with the matches in question beforehand, but mainly because they just happen to see an opportunity in the game while scrolling through their phone.
For example, while scrolling through a site like Livescores.com, a bettor might spot that a game between Chelsea and West Ham United is currently locked at 0:0. And because he knows Chelsea is the bigger team, he’d go to a site like Sbobet and place a live bet on Chelsea to win the game. Unbeknown to him that Chelsea and West Ham United are rivals, and games between them might go either way.
My point here is that you should still be studying games in advance when live betting, and analyzing all the relevant factors that you normally would if placing wagers beforehand.
Assess Player Performance
One of the biggest perks of betting on live football matches is that you already know how individual players are performing.
How players will perform in games is always a mystery to bettors. And over the years, this mystery has cost many bettors their hard-earned money.
In live betting, however, you can read meanings into player performance.
If you spot any players who are performing below their usual standard, think about the kind of impact this could have on the overall team performance. If they’re vital to the offense, a poor performance for the whole game could mean their team will struggle to score as many points as expected. If they’re vital to the defense, a poor performance could mean their opposition is going to score more points than expected. Their performance may not have much impact at all, of course, but that’s what you’ve got to try to gauge.
Understand the Coaches
Coaches are another important element of the puzzle.
Just as crucial as players’ performances are, so is the nature and philosophy of coaches.
For example, while some coaches are known to fancy entertaining football irrespective of the prevailing scoreline, there are those who are known to “park the bus” once their team scores as many as one goal. Betting on a team like this to score more goals after a one-goal lead at half-time might be a really lame move.
But how will you know when you didn’t even put the coach-factor into consideration.
Think about how useful it will be if you can answer the following questions accurately.
- How will a coach run his offense if he takes a big lead early on in the game?
- How will a coach run his offense if he has a small lead going into the last quarter?
- How will a coach approach the game after a poor first half and falling several points behind?
- What are a coach’s tendencies on fourth downs?
Be Slow to Judge
Football, as well all know it, is a game of moments – moments for the two competing teams. Therefore, regardless of how weak a team may appear, they, too, will have their own moments.
This is to say that even if a team is playing poorly at the start of a game, that’s no reason to write them off.
You want to take into consideration lots of factors before reading any meaning into a team’s immediate performance.
For example, a poorly-playing team might have a habit of starting games poorly and getting into gear as the game progresses. A team that starting with a bang might only be flattering to deceive, especially when playing against a better side.
