betting tips guide
Below we have some exclusive Best Bet Advice articles featuring all the most popular
sports with punters here in the UK. We wrote these guides to provide you with an
insider’s view and get you up to speed in betting successfully in double quick time.
These tips are garnered from years of experience in the betting industry; giving
you a head start in understanding the sport, its unique gaming qualities and the
methods in which to maximise your gambling returns and fun.
These aren’t individual fixture tips here, but tips on how the sport works with
the betting markets and the bets you can make sensibly within these markets. For
instance you won’t choose to make an each way bet on a football match and there
are no half time scores in a horse race! If you’re new to a particular sport you
can find out the most common and successful betting strategies and methods in that
sport. We are so good to you!
Football Betting Tips
Football betting is very popular here in the UK, and so it should be, it’s the national
sport after all. The national teams will be in the news a lot this summer with the
World Cup in South Africa coming up. So for all your football betters out there
here’s some football betting tips that we have gathered together to help you enjoy
the beautiful game even more. top
The two major sports people like to bet on in the UK are football and horse racing.
There are many bets you can make on football that you can’t on the horses (and vice
versa) so we will be focussing on the differences. top
Football Betting Tips - win, lose or draw.
Another more positive way of putting this is home win, away win or draw. These are
the three basic events you can bet on in a football match. It’s very easy to find
and click on the odds online and make your bet. Use your skill, judgement and any
football tips you’ve come across to make your choice. Also, as mentioned in the
strategies section, you can look at head-to-head stats and odds to help you decide
if you have a good chance of your bet paying off. Don’t forget those lay bets! It’s
not rocket science to lay a team in football, you just bet on the other team to
win... The same applies to all two individual/team sports. top
Football Betting Tips - scores.
A more advanced bet on football is on the score; the full time score or perhaps
at half time. As there are many choices of score there are many odds to choose from.
A variation of the bet on a score is to bet on how many goals in total in the match.
For your information the average number of goals in a match in the English premiership
is 2.5, though we can never remember that happening, even once! Betting using this
average figure is called over/under betting. Most bookmakers have odds available
for over or under 2.5 goals. top
Football Betting Tips - home and away.
In football where a team plays has a great impact upon whether they will win and
how many goals they will score. This has always been true since leagues started
in 1888. Historical statistics show that if a team is at home the average number
of goals they score is 60% higher at home than away. In football betting numbers
of goals and home advantage are huge factors to consider with your football betting
tips. top
Football Betting Tips – the Asian handicap.
Asian handicaps are another way of betting on football. The Asian handicap reduces
the number of outcomes of a football match from 3 to 2 by giving one of the teams
a handicap. A draw, including the handicap goal(s) means a refunded stake. Why bother
with this? Well it’s a way to get better value odds on the match. It works like
this; if a home win is expected the away side will be given a head start by a handicap
say of 0.5 or 1 goals. With a handicap of 1 and the home team win by 2 then it’s
a win for the home team. If the home team win by 1, the bet is drawn and your stake
is refunded. If the away handicap was 0.5 and you bet on the away team then a home
win result is a loss for you, a draw is a win for you (by 0.5!) and of course an
away win is also a win for you. If you are thinking of having a bet on the world
cup this summer the Asian handicap might be the way to get you the best world cup
odds. top
Football Betting Tips – other ways to bet.
There’s lots of interesting little bets you can make on football matches, if you’ve
got some football betting tips in these quirky areas these might take your fancy;
first player to be shown a card, first or last goal scorer, margin of victory (choose
winning team and how many more goals than the opposition). Good luck!
top
Horse betting Tips.
The first recorded race meeting was in London nearly a thousand years ago, during
the reign of King Henry II. It’s a sport made for betting, is there anyone who watches
horse racing without having a bet? Even a millennia ago the punters wouldn’t have
had a bet without some background knowledge of the horses previous form, the jockeys
and perhaps some hot horse betting tips passed on in Ye Olde Mead Shoppe... Currently
in the UK there are two main types of popular horse racing; flat racing and National
Hunt (hurdles/ steeplechase). Usually a horse is a specialist at either of these
events and doesn’t switch back and forth.top
Horse betting tips – top of the form.
Read the form of horses in the races you are interested in. A horse race relies
on the partnership between horse and rider. Form also details positions in previous
races/venues, trainer name, jockey, weight carried, horses age, racing colours,
shirt/horse number. Commentators often talk about the ‘going’ –the going is good,
firm, soft or heavy. They’re referring to the condition of the racetrack turf. Different
horses run well on different surfaces. The combination of all these factors makes
some horses favourites and others outsiders. Good horse betting tips rely on expert
use of this information to get a solid idea of the winners. top
Horse betting tips – each way, the less risky way.
In horse racing, just as in any sport, the win bet is a favourite way to bet. Probably
the next most popular bet is the each way bet, where you bet on your horse winning
a place at the end of the race. Think of ‘placed’ as a place on the winner’s podium;
the number of placed finishers depends on number of runners. E.g. 5 to 7 runners,
only the first two horses have a place. For 8 to 15 runners the 3 winners are places,
over 16 competitor races the first 4 are placed. The each way bet gives you a bit
of margin for errors/upsets and can often still pay quite well. See the earlier
betting guide section. top
Horse betting tips – for the confident.
If you have the confidence in your predictions in a certain race you could try a
forecast bet. In a forecast you choose the first and second placed horses in the
race. If you are right it can pay handsomely even if the horses have relatively
short odds. A variation of the forecast is the reverse forecast, you are again betting
on the first two placed horses but aren’t so sure about the order, so either horse
can come first or second (two effective bets). Then we have the tricast betting
on the first three horses in the order picked. A combination tricast is betting
on the three top horses placed in any order (six effective bets). top
Horse betting tips – too mucho lingo.
There are lots and lots of words and phrases in horse racing that are used in chit
chat but aren’t necessary for online betting. You might come across terms like Yankee,
Trixie and Heinz to name but three but they are just names of different bet combinations
and not really important things to learn. For instance a Heinz is a series of bets
made up of 57 bets; 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 fourfolds, 6 fivefolds and a sixfold
accumulator. The bets don’t depend on each other, so they don’t all have to win
to make a profit. Just like knowing that a monkey is £500 in some circles, Heinz
is a cute name but you don’t need to know these words to enjoy a flutter on the
gee gees. top
Golf betting tips.
Golf is a game of great skill, with origins dating back to 12th century St Andrews,
Scotland. Players can have very long careers and many players have been in the top
echelons of play for several years. Fans and followers of the sport can therefore
have a very good idea of the favourites and competition results in the major tournaments.
This makes it a particularly good sport for betting aficionados who want to have
fun and to profit through their skill and knowledge. Therefore golf betting tips
from a keen amateur golfer or golf fan can be quite accurate. top
Golf betting tips – the events.
The major golf events are; the US Open, The Open, The Masters, US PGA, Ryder Cup
and Presidents Cup. There are lots and lots of other tournaments around Europe/USA
and also more and more now in Asia. It’s possible to find free bets on most of the
major tournaments. top
Golf betting tips – outright and each way.
Like many sports it’s easy to have a bet on an outright winner. This can be an outright winner of a tournament or a match or in golf there are numerous tours. Since there
is usually a large amount of participants in these tours (prize money can be huge)
each way bets and placings are available in the betting markets. top
Golf betting tips – mythical 2 balls!
A particular style of betting common in golf is on 2/3/4 balls. This is betting
on the individual matches on each round of a game. The whole field of players can’t
walk around the golf course together so they are put in smaller groups, very often
in 3s. Betting on the winner among of these players over an 18 hole match is a popular
option. With 3 players it will be called a 3 ball bet, in the first round the bet
will be on first round three balls. So 3 balls = 3 players. There are also commonly,
bets offered on 2, 3, 4 and 5 ball matches. A golf bet that is popular but sounds
rather odd is the Mythical 2 balls, it’s mythical because the pairing is not of
two players who actually play together, though they are in the same tournament,
the bookmaker decides on these interesting pairings. This bet will give you a choice
of either winner or a draw. If odds are given for a draw then there will be no stake
refund in the event of a draw (and you have backed either player to win). top
Golf betting tips – special events.
- As well as the single event betting market we have the following special prizes
that can be bet upon:
- Grand Slam – win all four major championships (Masters, US Open, The Open, PGA).
- The Triple Crown – win The Open, US Open & South African Open.
- Order of Merit – which golfer will top the official prize money list at the end
of the golfing season?
Betting on a winner of the Grand Slam or Triple Crown are accumulator bets (a fourfold
and a treble) and the odds you will get should reflect that. top
Golf betting tips – spread betting.
We talked about spread betting previously in the betting guide. How does it work
with golf? You will bet on a points score/or finishing place for the tournament/season.
If the betting exchange uses the points system the top placed players are allocated
points, otherwise the finishing rank is the ‘price’. For instance a golfer called
John Smith has a ‘price’ of 19 – 22. This means you can make money if you are of
either opinion; he will be in the top 18, or he will be placed 23 or lower. If you
back/buy this 19-22 bet and he finishes the tournament 10th then you have made 9x
your stake. If you oppose/ sell this bet and he is placed 32nd then you have also
made 9x your stake! Don’t forget that in spread betting you can lose multiples of
your bet and you should have a ‘stop loss’ to sell your position before a certain
loss is incurred. During the tournament these prices are always shifting, this is
why spread betting is floating odds betting. So if you have some golf betting tips
choose carefully the kind of bets you want to make. And look through several exchanges
to find the best betting site for the prices you are interested in spread betting.
top
Tennis betting tips.
Tennis is yet another sport invented by the British at play. Our very own Wimbledon
lawn tennis championships started in 1877 and the game has grown in popularity ever
since. Tennis betting isn’t very complicated; these tennis betting tips will show
you there are many things to consider when making your bets. The three most popular
bets in tennis are the following; outright tournament result, match betting and
set score betting. With tennis it is also quite popular and widespread to bet in-play,
while a match is on, this makes it fun even if you missed the start of the match. top
Tennis betting tips – bet types explained.
When betting on the tournament winner, sometimes because of the random nature of
the draw, two favourites might meet early on and therefore one of the top players
will be eliminated early in the proceedings. On the other side of the draw a lesser
ranked player might have a better chance of getting placed so will have good odds
for an each way bet. It is also possible to bet on the tennis grand slam, as in
golf, but to find a tennis grand slam (Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon,
and the US Open) winner in either the male or female game we have to look quite
a long way back in history! The last female grand slam winner was Steffi Graf in
1988, while the men’s most recent winner was Rod Laver in 1969.
Match betting is very popular as it’s on a shorter event than the tournament, which
may last for weeks. Who will be paired in a match is quite dynamic depending on
the draw and previous results so you can get some very exciting matches to bet upon.
Many bookmakers allow you to bet in play on matches. Of course odds can change greatly
once a match has started and as sets are scored.
Betting on the sets score for a tennis match is just like betting on the football
scores as detailed in our football tips section. The odds will be shorter than for
football scores bets because of the fewer possible combinations/permutations available.
Also for more winnings with your tennis betting tips you can put together accumulators on several scores/matches to make a big payout from a small stake. top
Tennis betting tips – surface factors.
Playing surfaces in tennis are quite important to the players’ performance, just
like when you consider horse racing tips and the going/condition of the racecourse
turf. Most tournaments are played on clay, hard surface or grass, though there are
exceptions such as on carpet like at the St. Petersburg Open. This partly explains
the lack of grand slam winners; lawn tennis and clay court tennis have different
dynamics due to speed of the ball, spin and bounce height that favour different
styles of play. top
Tennis betting tips – form.
When deciding which tennis betting tips to back other things to consider are; the
recent form of the players, if the players have any lingering injuries/sprains,
if the player has recently had any very difficult matches that may have drained
them and head to head stats from previous matches with the same players. top
Sports betting tips.
We’ve covered all the major UK sports betting tips in our previous guides, so now
we will endeavour to cover some sports that are occasionally or seasonally very
popular and any others that warrant tips just because they are fun to watch. top
Sports betting tips - Boxing.
Sometimes a boxing match will catch the public imagination and for that short time
boxing is in the headlines, and that is probably why people who already pay a lot
for TV subscriptions have to pay even more to watch the big fights. As well as betting
on the winner or a draw there are a few other selections you can opt for; winner
and winning round, length of the match and nature of the win (knockout, points etc). top
Sports betting tips - Snooker.
Snooker is sometimes very popular and it’s an interesting sport to bet on with quite
a few options. Tournament betting has a large number of participants to choose from.
Match betting lets you get in on the action for a day. You can also bet on the scores,
the amount of frames, amount of centuries or 147s, the century winner and even on
the first colour (non-red) potted in a match. Quite a lot of fun to be had there. top
Sports betting tips - Rugby.
Whether you follow league or union there are a number of cups and championships
to bet upon. For a quicker bet you can bet on matches, scores and winning margins.
Just like with football tips and the goal scorer bets, rugby fans have bets available
on the first and last try. top
Sports betting tips - Darts.
What a gripping, nail biting game darts can be – even more so with a few well placed
bets. Darts has leagues and matches to bet upon and also darts specific bets such
as on 9 dart finishes, most 180s and so on. We all like a bit of bully... top
Sports betting tips - Cricket.
Cricket has quite a lot of betting markets to play. Cricket fans are well known
statistics fiends so it’s no surprise to see that betting on stats such as top bowlers,
batsmen, sixes, runouts, boundaries are all bet upon (as is the coin toss!). So
there’s lots to keep you interested in this sport that can take a while to play
from start to finish. top
Sports betting tips - Motor Sport.
Motorsport includes F1, Rally, MotoGP and Speedway. They are all racing sports,
most have leagues and championships made up of individual races. The most popular
betting here in the UK is upon the F1 championships. In the F1 we have individual
races, grand prix all around the world and the championship for the overall winner.
As with the horse racing tips and also in tennis, form of the contestants at different
venues is very important to consider. Where tennis has the different surfaces F1
has the different tracks that are favoured by the respective drivers. top
Sports betting tips – Greyhounds.
Some people take the greyhounds as seriously as the horses; if this is your specialty
and interest there are plenty of bets to be had in greyhounds. It’s a market that
is broadly comparable to the horses. There are always only six racers in greyhounds
(plus the rabbit) so that makes a difference to the odds and each ways available
to punters. There are lots of greyhound races on here in the UK and around the world
so there is always opportunity to have a bet on a race going on somewhere most of
the time. (If not you can also bet on the virtual greyhounds). top
Sports betting tips - American sports.
The big four American sports are Basketball, Baseball, American Football and Nascar.
Basketball is the most popular over this side of the pond with many bets available
on the NBA. Basketball is a game of 4 quarters and it is a quite high scoring game
so this has an influence on the bets available. Every quarter is available to bet
upon as are the scores and of course the matches. Baseball shares many characteristics
with cricket so there are bets on runs, innings and catches etc. For UK punters
most of the American Football bets concern the superbowl winner. Nascar, as a motor
racing sport is similar to F! Racing except that the races take place around ovals
where the driver only has to turn left. Most successful Nascar drivers first name
alliterates with their surname e.g. Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin & Kasey Kahne.
Have fun! top
