World Cup Betting Guide

Learn how to choose the right bets for the World Cup

Don't worry if you do not know much about Ecuador's attacking strength, or Tunisia's offside trap: this guide to World Cup betting will guide your through by judging how well the teams are playing and what sorts or bets are best. Have a look at the contents of our FIFA World Cup betting guide.

How can we judge how well world cup teams are playing?

You need to turn to the qualifying schedule and pre-tournament friendly matches. With the qualification stage taking three years you have a good opportunity to see how well the teams are playing. However, you won't often see the top nations playing each other in the qualifying stages so it's worth taking that into account. Looking at up to date news from Fifa is a good way of getting this information.

What information should you be using?

Knowledge is power as they say. If you have time to prepare, we advise logging the result, goal, corner, and booking of as many of the Nations' World Cup qualifying schedule and pre-tournament friendly mathces as you can - this will give you the data you need to make the best bets.

Of course, not everyone has the time to do this so for people who are not so religous about world cup betting you may want to just look at our best bets section. For those of us who are more adventurous you may want to look at some of the more wacky World Cup Betting Markets.

Best World Cup Bets

These bets are for those of us who are not World Cup betting fanatics but want to have some fun betting at the World Cup. That said, having fun should also go hand in hand with increasing your chances of placing successful bets.

World Cup Betting Staking Plan

There are various staking plans that you could use. A good all rounder is as follows. Use stakes based on a scale of 1 to 10 'points'. 10 being the strongest, most confident bet. For example if you have a team which have been attacking hard during the pre-tournament games and show this at the qualifying stages: who are matched up with a team who have been weak in defence (shown by high corners conceeded and goals conceeded). You are certain there will be an Over corner result. In this case you may go with a bet towards the higher end of you point plan. However, most bets should be 1 or 2 points.

A 'point' can be whatever amount you want. Some people might want to bet £5 (or currency equivalent) per point, others, £100 per point.

Whatever you decide a 'point' means to you, it is advisable to stick closely to the staking plan. So, you would bet three times as much on a 3-point bet as you would a 1-point bet, twice as much on a 6-point bet as you would a 3-point bet, and so on.

One of the main rules, as always, is bet responsibly and only what you can afford to lose.

World Cup Goals - a brief history

There are trends in football.... so what has happened since 1990?

If you're trying to think of World Cup greats chances are you won't be thinking of the 1990 world cup held in Italy. Despite Gazza's tears and Roger Milla's wiggle - it wasn't a feast of attractive football. Despite the fact that all previous champions were present, very few teams played attacking football, not even Brazil.

Every stage of the tournament produced low scoring games. This defensive style of football that could be seen in many of the domestic leagues of the time resulted in a very low average goals count.

Evident in each of the world cup tournaments held since 1990 in the US of A, France, Japan/Korea, Germany and so on, has been a trend towards more attacking football.

Conclusions

Lets see what assumptions you can make from the events since the 1990 World Cup.

The Semi-Finals to produce low goal counts, as teams with an eye on a place in the Final adopt a more cautious approach.

The Final 'goal count' is unpredictable and best avoided.

The 'Bronze' match between the two semi-final losers usually produces a high goal count.

Although the goals have gone up, it hasn't made much difference to the percentage of matches which are won, drawn or lost - it's just that they're likely to have more goalmouth action in them these days.

What betting markets lend themselves to more attacking play?

We'd recommend looking at goals and corner markets. More corners are conceeded when the oppossing team are attacking more agressively.

World Cup Goals Bets

The under / over market is a easy market to bet on. The bookies' usual 'middle' figure is 2.5 goals, so you can bet on whether the match will produce more or less goals - in total - than this figure.

Of course, there is no such thing as 0.5 of a goal, it simply means - if there are 2 goals in a match, it counts as under. If there are 3 goals, it counts as over.

Sometimes the goal bet will be split, like this: under 2.0/2.5. This means, half your stake goes on each outcome. So if the match produces exactly 2 goals, half your stake wins, and half is returned.

Goal Ranges

Some bookies offer goal 'ranges', such as: 0 - 1 goals, 2 - 3 goals, 4 + goals.

Goal / Match Handicaps (Asian Handicaps)

Teams of different ability might be given a plus, or minus handicaps. For example, you might see: England (-1) to beat Paraguay.

In this case, England would have to win by at least 2 goals for the bet to be a winner.

You may also see; England (-05) to beat Paraguay. You cannot have 0.5 of a goal, it just means England only have to win by 1 goal to win the bet.

You might also see:

England (0/sero) v Paraguay

Sometimes called a 'Draw No Bet' this means you are only betting on a Win or Lose - if the game is a Draw, your stakes are returned.

Clean sheets bets

Betting on a team not to concede any goals during a match (or, the opponent not to score). These can be good in the cagey semi final stages. If the odds are long enough correct score bets can be used as a saver bet (described in the tip below for corner betting).

Correct Score

This is betting on the exact score of the match. We wouldn't advise on this unless the odds are very long (i.e. you stand to make a lot of money for the amount of money you risk).

First goal scorer

Same goes for first goal scorer as does correct score bets.

World Cup Corner Bets

It could seem like betting on how many corners there will be in a football match might strike some as a high risk venture. Using corner information some clever people are making big profits from the corner bets.

You come to understand that many teams have easily recognisable corner activity, like goal activity. Lets look at how the bookmakers price up the corner book.

Bookmakers offer fixed odds in two different ways. You have an option of three bets.

One bookmaker may offer odds for under 11 corners, exactly 11 corners and over 11 corners.This is the most common presentation and tends to offer the best value. The middle band of exactly 11, or however many corners the bookmaker believes there will be in the match, will be priced at around 7/1, and both of the other alternatives, under 11 and over 11 will be offered at around even money.

Imagine you have two teams with low corners averages (the number of corners won and conceeded divided by the number of games played). Then this is the market to bet in, as you have an allowance of up to 10 corners for the teams to score.

Another bookmaker may offer fixed odds on 0-9 corners, 10-12 corners, and 13 corners or more.

The big difference is that this market has a middle band not of just one corner, but of three, 10, 11, and 12. This can be very useful when your statistics strongly point to the number of corners being in this band, since this will pay around 11/5.

An ideal situation for you to exploit this is when the figures for two 'low corners' teams heavily indicate a total in the middle band. This gives you the opportunity to have a strong bet on your favoured low band option at around 11/8 and to 'save' your stake with a smaller bet on the '10-12' band which will be offered at around 11/5.

You staking plan might look like

• 3 points on 0 - 9 corners
• 1.3 points on 10 - 12 corners

 

TIP The saver bet is very useful. Either betting on exactly 11 corners or the middle band of corners. Use a portion of your stake (around 1/7th) on exactly 11 corners and the rest on either Over (or Under) to return your money, if there is exactly 11 corners.

You can also get the following corner bets, corner ranges, team multi corners, match multi corners, x-corners, corner supremacy, corner handicaps and team corners.

So...what factors influence the number of corners in a game?

High corner counts often go hand in hand with teams who attack with 'width', sides that like to run the ball to the touchline and cross into the penalty area.

The defensive tactics of a team

Some teams will risk running the ball out of the box, or heading a cross from the wings into the danger area rather than risk conceding a corner.

Other sides clear their lines regardless of whether they give up a corner or not. The Italians are a good example of this style of 'percentage' defending.

The size of the pitch

The larger the pitch and width of the touchline, should produce higher corner averages.

The weather

The weather has its effect on corner numbers too. Windy weather tends to increase the count, as does rain, but very heavy rain can waterlog the wings and reduce the count.

World Cup Corner betting outlook

Using the information which is available from pre-tournament games we would suggest only betting low amounts (low point numbers from the staking plan). If you have no prior information about corner or goal numbers use the first two group games as the basis for your data bank (the info you use for your betting decisions). Note down the corners earned and conceded, and also take into account the team style, weather and pitch factors we have discussed already. This is also a good way of confirming any assumptions you have made about the teams.

On their own two games is not a large sample, and you should start betting cautiously, but, the data could still highlight profit opportunities. By the time the second round is reached you can be more confident about your predictions, enabling you to up the number of points you stake.

The bookmakers will have the same information and will be feeling their way at the group stage.

It has been a feature of International football in the past few years that matches tend to produce slightly higher corner figures than are generally seen in the club game. While they are waiting for solid information from the group games, we believe that bookmakers may bank on that trend continuing.

Expect bookmakers to make the odds for over corners slighly shorter than you might see in domestic football. If your statistics point to a game likely to return a low total, particularly in the early stages of the competition, you could have a strong opportunity for profit.

The 'quality' daily papers will carry extensive stats from World Cup games, and corners information will also be available on the internet - though these can be unreliable. The site to visit is the official Fifa World Cup website.

To check if you have won a corners bet, the best place to go is to the results section of the bookmakers - after all, that is the figure they use to pay out on.

Fun World Cup Bets

Have you ever had a bet on the World Cup's fatest goal?

You would have been in the money if you'd backed Turkey's Hakan Sukur, who hit one after just 9 seconds against South Korea in 2002. Beating the previous best by England's Bryan Robson - 27 seconds - in 1982. Who knows if any one can beat 11 seconds going forward.... not likely.

Fancy a player to score in every game including the Final?

It's only ever been done twice in the history of the World Cup. By Jairzinho of Brazil in 1970, and Alcide Ghiggia of Uruguay in 1950.

How about someone to score an own goal?

Make sure you get a big price, there have only been eight in the 232 games played in the last four World Cups.