From corners to cards, to players scoring and assisting, there are countless ways to bet on football matches.
While certain high-scoring sports easily lend themselves to backing over or under a certain number of points, or backing teams to win by a certain number of points, such as rugby, basketball or American football, it can be a more challenging proposition in lower scoring sports like football.
Most football matches tend to have two or three goals, with the goal line often set at 2.5 goals, and punters tasked with predicting whether there will be more or fewer than 2.5 goals in a game, though Asian lines give a little more flexibility.
When betting on over or under 2.5 goals on a game, the settlement is straightforward; if you bet on over 2.5 goals and the game has three or more goals, your bet is settled as a winner. Two goals or fewer and your bet is settled as a loser.
For betters not accustomed to Asian lines and handicaps, seeing 2.75 or 3.0 can be confusing, but they're actually simpler than they look.
When seeing 0.25, 0.75, 1.25, 1.75 etc. (rather than 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 etc), your stake is essentially split into two separate bets, so a £10 bet becomes two £5 bets. If you see over 2.75 goals, you have one bet on over 2.5 goals and another bet on over 3.0 goals (with 2.75 the number in between the two).
In Asian betting, if you land on the goal line or handicap, your bet is a push and your stake on that selection is returned. For example, if betting on over 3.0 goals and there are exactly three goals in a game, your bet will be a push with stakes returned.
Something else to consider with Asian betting is that odds are typically displayed as decimals rather than fractional. These can be converted to fractional odds by subtracting one. For example, decimal odds of 3.00 are the equivalent of 2/1.
Take a look at the below explainer for Asian goal lines.
Bet | Odds | Stake | Result | Return |
Over 2.75 goals | 2.000 | £10 | 2-0 | £0 |
Over 2.75 goals | 2.000 | £10 | 3-0 | £15 |
Over 2.75 goals | 2.000 | £10 | 4-0 | £20 |
In the above table, the 3-0 bet returns £15. The £10 stake is split into two, so the first £5 at Evs on over 2.5 wins (returning £10), and the £5 on over 3.0 is a push with the stake returned.
The 4-0 bet returns £20. The same £10 stake is split into two, with the first £5 at Evs on over 2.5 winning (returning £10), and the £5 on over 3.0 also winning (returning another £10).
The same principal is applied to Asian handicap betting. When seeing 0.25 or 0.75 (or 1.25, 1.75 etc.), your stake will be divided into two separate bets: when backing a team +0.25, you'll have a bet on +0 and another on +0.5.
Bet | Odds | Stake | Result | Return |
Home +0.25 | 2.000 | £10 | 0-1 | £0 |
Home +0.25 | 2.000 | £10 | 0-0 | £15 |
Home +0.25 | 2.000 | £10 | 1-0 | £20 |
In the above example, the second bet returns £15. The first £5 on +0 is a push (the score would still be 0-0 with the handicap applies, and ties in Asian betting are pushes meaning stakes are returned) and the second £5 on +0.5 is a win, returning £10 for a total of £15.
