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Soccer Betting
By Kurt Boyer
Updated: March 21, 2024
Barcelona's Big Road Win Fails to Move La Liga Odds
La Liga and other domestic leagues' betting action is often tied to the standings, as shown by the sudden drop in wagers placed on Manchester City following the club's disappointing draw with 10th-place Chelsea F.C. in late February. Given the present status of La Liga rivals Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona on the Spanish league table and at the sportsbook, analysts can only conclude that bettors are taking an all-competitions view this time.
Barcelona is 8 points behind Real Madrid on the La Liga table, still within striking distance with 9 matches yet to play and another head-to-head kickoff coming up on April 21st. That's hardly a factor in FanDuel's lopsided futures odds that favor Los Blancos of Real Madrid. The latter club is a commanding (-3500) pick to lift La Liga hardware again this spring, with Barcelona's (+1600) odds barely boosted by Sunday's 3-0 defeat of Atlético. The triumph of Barca's defeat of another rival has rung somewhat hollow for gamblers.
Evidence is rife that Real Madrid is outclassing Barca this year, especially when one looks past the La Liga ledger of outcomes and to all recent competitions. Barca was embarrassed by an opposing hat trick from Vini Jr. while losing 2024's Spanish Supercup Final to Real Madrid 4-1. Soon, the Barcelona back line became confetti against more domestic rivals, FCB losing the Copa del Rey to Athletic Club and dropping 3 league points to Villareal while giving up 9 goals-against in the pair of matches. Girona (+16000) lost consecutive times to fall out of any serious contention for a Cinderella league championship, but Gironistes still haven't given up more goals-allowed than Barca's defenders.
It's not as if there are lots of La Liga underdogs in the pool to pick from, at least not with a budget expected to produce lineups alongside the league's big shots all the way through spring in spite of its severe limitations. For example, Girona led La Liga's late autumn standings with an 11-win record, but stayed a long-shot futures pick at 21/1 odds.
An Introduction to Soccer Betting at FanDuel Sportsbook
Ciao! It’s time for FanDuel Sportsbook clients to get acquainted with a worldly, unique genre of sports betting - gambling on soccer, aka football, aka The Beautiful Game.
Even experienced "punters" and others already familiar with most of the information in this tutorial won't be wasting their time on scroll. We’ll be getting into the fine details, too, including an introduction to FanDuel’s improved soccer betting window.
Our latest soccer markets combine the best of American and English football gambling traditions, mixing the pleasure of customizable lines.
But first, it’s important to let readers who are used to touchdowns, swishes, and strikeouts learn just how soccer and its betting markets are organized.
Soccer’s Unique Organization and Betting Markets
International squads and clubs belong to many federations but are exclusively sanctioned by none. Teams must qualify to be invited independently for inclusion in domestic or international leagues, tournaments, and exhibition fixtures, known collectively as “competitions.”
Essentially, the season never ends. Teams play again and again in annual cycles, with each month providing opportunities to avenge a prior defeat. Because of the responsibilities of a top soccer club, managers are not always obliged to play their best starting 11s.
Prominent clubs are “clubs” in the strict sense. Both supporters and recreational players can belong to them. Premier League organizations each have several women’s, youth, and reserves’ teams ready to play with any unit that calls for them. Liverpool came close to fielding its backup U20 roster in England while flying the top squad to Japan to play in the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup. Reds played “Villains” of Aston Villa with a team of 11 novice professionals, losing 0-5 in the Football League Cup.
It nearly goes without saying that gamblers and fantasy soccer GMs must be keenly aware of how strong or weak a team’s lineup is likely to be in various scenarios. Each nation with a prosperous club league, such as France, Spain, Italy, and Brazil, hosts a premier domestic tournament during the cycle and a second-most prestigious tournament earlier in the season. Most of a country’s pro soccer teams may apply to play in these events, even clubs that are relegated to lower-tier status. Monumental upsets can take place as reserve teams lose to upstart clubs in the less-important championships. Soccer bets can go sideways in these imbalanced matchups, and bettors are cautious of weak favorites in “friendlies.”
The Tiers of Domestic and International Soccer
The Premier League makes a good example of how the "tier" system of European club soccer operates. The English Championship, which is the second-tier league in the United Kingdom, is similar to the Premiership in structure—but with the caveat that the top-three finishing teams on the league “table” will win promotion to the EPL for the next season. English Championship teams that qualify for the big-time must then finish 17th or higher in the Premier League’s 20-club field to survive relegation back to Championship.
UEFA Champions League is considered the “ultimate” level of club competition. The UEFA welcomes the top 10 to 20 percent of each major domestic table into a round-robin and knockout round similar to the World Cup except that it stretches out over a season.
Contrary to many other sports, spectators who bet on soccer must often estimate the lineup strength of European clubs headed into less-prestigious matches. The Champions League removes that element of handicapping altogether. All teams agree that reaching the Champions League is a great honor, and managers have no intention of phoning-in fixtures in the UEFA, even if their clubs have fallen out of contention.
One exception to the rule occurs when Major League Soccer (MLS) clubs reach the knockout-stage at the CONCACAF Champions League, a North American club competition that Mexican clubs always dominate. MLS’s prime time summer schedules do not mix well with the spring CONCACAF calendar, leaving managers tough choices between going all-out to advance in the bracket or protecting the team’s domestic-league chances.
UEFA Champions League soccer comes with its own “second-tier” sister tournament: the UEFA Europa League. Clubs may qualify for the Champions League through winning the Europa League, which often amounts to a romp-through for the deep English club ranks.
Tips on Betting Premier League Matches at FanDuel
Bet on Underdogs Early in the EPL Season
EPL favorites like Liverpool and Manchester City rely on depth and reserve-lineup quality to earn a top-4 finish and a UEFA berth each cycle. When lineups are just falling into place in August and September, even an aristocratic EPL team can be embarrassed by a poorer club's starting 11. Once injuries pile up and superstars like Ronaldo are warmed to the challenge, lower-ranked EPL clubs cannot pull off a high-profile surprise so easily.
For every "Leicester City" and "West Ham" that remain solid on the Premiership table in spite of predictions to the contrary, there's another batch of English "minnows" who've ascended the ladder in autumn, only to "fall" back to bottom-half as pitches turn icy. Speculators must bet accordingly, with an outlook of patience toward top teams.
Find Soccer Betting Picks By Using the League Table
Premier League seasons are organized so that most teams always have something to play for, whether it's a top-third finish and a potential international bid, a league title, or simply to avoid relegation as 1 of 3 teams that are demoted while English Championship teams are welcomed to the EPL. Nevertheless, there are times in which footballers and even coaches will find themselves less motivated to produce a winning effort on Saturday or Sunday.
For example, a sturdy but limited club like Crystal Palace often finishes between 10th and 15th on the Premier League table. Late in the season, CPFC footballers can be seen playing "developmental" matches against teams desperate to earn more points and qualify. Man City and Liverpool often coast to the domestic season's denouement in spring, having earned enough points to finish 1st or top-4 with ease. However, a "business" angle cannot outweigh the importance of giving supporters a fun ride, and so even a Premier League team that's leading on the table by 9-10 points is likely to play its best starting-11 and perform with alacrity when hosting its final league match of the cycle.
Don't Feel Pressure to Pick a Team to Win
It's well known that favorites draw too much money-line action prior to championship sporting events, because group-betting parties can't help but prod each other to pick a team to cheer for. "Who are you picking to win?" revelers ask their friends, and peer-pressured newbies simply bet the favored club.
That's a costly mistake, especially when betting on The Beautiful Game. EPL betting includes a plethora of ways to win money from predicting what kind of match a Premier League pairing is about to have, even without making a W-D-L prediction. Wolverhampton, to wit, is known as a stubborn defending team that's extremely difficult to score against when hosting at Molineux Stadium. If Liverpool is visiting "Wolves" and the chances of an underdog victory are slim, the Molineux hosts' goalkeeping and back-line quality can still help an "Under" total goals pick pay off easily in spite of Wanderers falling short. Other alternatives for those looking to avoid "sides" betting include prop bets on individual footballers, 1st-half vs 2nd-half goal-scoring tendencies, and "Double Chance" bets.
Know How English Premier League Odds Work
The "plus" money-line odds on "favored" English Premier League teams are just one of many unique aspects of professional soccer gambling. Here's a crash course in the most popular soccer betting lines at FanDuel Sportsbook.
Soccer Betting Lines and Options at FanDuel
FanDuel Sportsbook offers traditional 3-way money-lines to bet on soccer at both the domestic and international levels. A soccer “draw” is a tie, making soccer one of just a few sports that allow the match to end in a tie.
Because non-elimination matches do not require a penalty-kick tiebreaker, or even an extra period beyond “stoppage time” on most occasions, a draw of more than 90 minutes is considered a plausible, sometimes even ordinary, result.
The money-lines are based on $100 or $1.00 bets, and they offer a payoff in multiples for “plus” odds and a $100 or $1 return on a given sum in a “minus” market. So, if Liverpool is a (-200) favorite, $200 or $2 must be wagered to receive $100 or $1, respectively, if they win.
Say the opposing team, Arsenal, is (+500) to win as an underdog, then $500 can be won on a $100 underdog bet if the Gunners prevail. But a draw might come with its own (+400) or similar odds. Sports bettors occasionally forget that sometimes a game ends in a draw, making it one of the three options to end the game.
Veterans of other sports betting must adjust their bankroll management when picking a soccer game on the money-line. In a way, betting on soccer is a more lucrative bet because these matches tend to have larger payoffs by a factor of 33 percent. However, if you only plan on picking teams-to-win and never that the game ends in a draw, chances are that a goal of 50 percent successful bets would be an unattainable goal to reach.
Soccer Spreads at FanDuel: Picking a Team or the Bookmaker’s Pick
Our sportsbook offers 3-way spreads on soccer fixtures as well. In a typical scenario for spread betting, the favorites are pre-penalized (-1) or (-2) or (-2 ½) goals and can win, lose, or “push” the outcome based on the final score. This would potentially produce a returned-bet scenario by winning by the same (-1) or (-2) margin that’s been handicapped in the betting market. However, at FanDuel, gamblers are given three options on the spread: Favorite-to-cover, Underdog-to-cover, or Handicap Draw.
These bets all pay off on a 3-way goal spread. Bettors can choose to pick the consensus “Handicap Draw” at (-1) or (-2) or (-3), an exact margin-of-victory proposition. If Liverpool beats Southampton by exactly the (-1) or (-2) goals that Reds are favored by, Handicap Draw wins the 3-way spread bet. If Liverpool wins 3-0 after 90 minutes and “covers” the spread, or, if the Saints display cracking form and win or draw the match, “covering” for the underdog, then a Handicap Draw bet loses. There are no pushed betting outcomes.
Our spreads cannot be set at half-goal fractions. Otherwise, the Handicap Draw betting market would be useless. If your pick is covering a 2 or 3-goal margin and gives up a tally, you’ll know the score change without having to solve a math problem first.
Since the sportsbook’s spreads can’t venture into half-goal margins, you’ll often find payoff odds skewing far beyond the subtle handicaps at most betting sites, such as (+250) on a team to cover (-1) and a minus-odds price on their opponents to cover (+1).
Goals for Goals in Goals Betting
FanDuel Sportsbook also offers a customizable over/under bet, or a “goals” bet, as it is often nicknamed overseas. Rather than ask punters to speculate on a single, shifting O/U line for a match, the sportsbook offers a choice of standard (1 ½), (+2 ½), and (3 ½) O/U bets with handicapped odds for each over and under payout offer. To find out the consensus over/under total for the match, simply find the O/U total for the payoff odds that closely mimic each other. That’s the “balanced for probable outcome” goals line.
One “goal” for picking the right amount of goals in a goals bet is to avoid small margins. For example, if you find yourself thinking that a match with a balanced (2 ½) goals market might tally 3+ total goals, or that a match handicapped to produce (3 ½) goals could perhaps result in a 2-1 or 2-0 outcome, your handicaps are too fine and speculative to produce a profit against the merciless laws of chance.
Alternatively, wait to bet on matches that you think will turn out very cautious or wide open compared to expectations. If a “goals” gambler can find a bet with (-125) odds on over (2 ½) for a match in which he or she believes at least 4 goals will be scored, that’s a favorable bet… and a fun cheering experience.
World Cup: Soccer Betting on the World's Biggest Sporting Event
The FIFA World Cup is an event that transcends geography itself. Quite literally, all of the peoples of the world pay attention to the World Cup's kick-offs. Europe, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere pause "real life" to become immersed in the World Cup.
Residents of cold-weather countries can easily grasp soccer's rules, turning curious viewers into lifelong fans of international football. Many "hockey" and "skiing" nations have risen to field powerful teams in the FIFA World Cup, like Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland. In soccer-crazed countries like Mexico, England, Spain, and Brazil, even those who don't care to watch the action know when the party's in full swing. Chucky Lozano's goal to defeat Germany in 2018 caused an honest-to-goodness earthquake to occur in Mexico City. The FIFA World Cup can be a truly world-shaking event.
How do FanDuel users get a handle on such a massive gala? Thankfully, there are advantages for the casual (and veteran) sports gambler when the FIFA World Cup rolls around. National team lineups are more stable than club soccer lineups, and elite national teams plot and prepare to peak every 4 years with an absolute-best starting 11. Rather than join Premier League bettors in analyzing stats, formations, and fatigue prior to speculating on the next round, users preparing to bet on the World Cup can simply browse club-football news each Monday, to make sure key national-team cogs are healthy.
Another edge granted to FanDuel bettors during the FIFA World Cup is the sportsbook's endless variety of alternative FIFA odds and gambling markets. Newcomers can find a guide to FanDuel Sportsbook's popular soccer odds by scrolling onward. But first, here's a look at the World Cup's standard format once 32 teams are chosen.
Format of the FIFA World Cup
There are relatively few ways to get into an elite soccer tournament without qualifying. That's true of the FIFA World Cup as well. Italy's recent absence from the World Cup stage must be perplexing to fans of FIBA basketball and IIHF ice hockey, in which a sport's highest-ranked international squads qualify for the next event by placing reasonably well in the competition at hand. World Cup representatives qualify "the hard way," earning berths through long-running qualification cycles hosted by each continental soccer federation. Italy could easily beat many contemporary FIFA World Cup teams, such as Costa Rica of Team USA's federation CONCACAF. But the Italians have struggled to cope with UEFA's challenging schedule and depth of competition, while teams like Costa Rica and Panama take advantage of FIFA's equitable system and a thinner field of rivals. Once a series of round-robin tournaments and playoffs have settled berths on 6 continents, a World Cup draw from "pots" of like-ranked contenders helps to lend each of FIFA's 8 tournament "groups" a mix of gold-medal hopefuls and underdog sides.
Group Stage includes 3 high-pressure matches for each of 4 teams in a group, with no rematches or "2-legged" scenarios such as found in other domestic and international competitions. If France, Brazil, or a resurgent Italy loses to Panama or Costa Rica during the Group Stage, there's nothing to do but compensate by claiming more points than anticipated from the other 2 rounds of play. Like in the English Premier League and many other club and national-team events, victories are worth 3 points to a Group Stage competitor in the FIFA World Cup, while a draw is worth only a single point.
The top 2 teams in each group-of-4 advance to the elimination Round of 16, once again decided with single-match "knockout" bouts instead of the more elaborate schemes of UEFA and English Championship. Teams that reach the World Cup quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals are considered to have reached an elite pinnacle of international football.
Managers, however, have spoken out against FIFA's "consolation" system of pitting the tournament's pair of semi-final losers against each other in a third-place game, or bronze medal game. It opens up the possibility that a national squad can go unbeaten in Group Stage, win 3 times in a row during the elimination round, and still be forced to endure multiple consecutive losses to finish-out what should have been a sterling appearance. Nonetheless, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar included a third-place game.
FIFA plans to expand to a 48-team format for the 2026 Men's World Cup in North America.
How Do I Sign Up to Play DFS Soccer at FanDuel?
Browse to FanDuel's soccer hub for a complete, concise rundown on DFS (Daily Fantasy Soccer) games involving Premier League, FIFA. UEFA, and other matches.
How Does Premier League Promotion and Relegation Work?
European teams play under a promotion and relegation system in which the top clubs of a lower-tier ascend and replace the lowest-finishing teams in the next-best domestic league.
The English Championship is the second-tier league in the UK. The organization's structure is similar to that of the Premiership, but the "2nd-tier" league has a caveat in that the top-3 finishing teams on the league “table” will win promotion. Promoted prior English Championship teams which have qualified for the big-time must then finish 17th or higher in the Premier League’s 20-club field to maintain their top-league status.
What Are the Best Soccer Leagues in the World?
Premier League, Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain), and Serie A (Italy) footballers are considered to form the best professional squads in the world, with leagues in France, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Russia, Australia, Brazil, and Mexico not too far behind. Regretfully for U.S. supporters, Major League Soccer is considered a 3rd-tier league that would rank below almost any major club league in Europe, though MLS football is currently only surpassed in North America by the Mexican soccer clubs of Liga MX.
Which Nation Has Won the Most World Cup Titles?
Brazil has won a record total of 5 FIFA World Cup championships, with Germany and Italy just behind at 4 gold-medalist teams apiece. While the "Nationalelf" of Germany may be poised to potentially tie or surpass Brazil's mark in the next 12 years, Italy's struggle to even qualify for the field of 32 casts doubt on the nation's prospects to win again soon.
Argentina's memorable win from 2022 gives the nation a trio of world titles.
Should I Bet on a Single FIFA Team or Many Teams to Win Gold?
It's always best to diversify your gold-medal bets in a tournament field with as many as 32 teams, the classic size of FIFA's quadrennial gala. However, it's important to look closely at the tournament format and "draw" of groups and schedules before picking more than 1 national team to win or to reach the semi-finals.
For instance, teams can be drawn into "Groups of Death," the soccer slang term for 4 excellent national teams who're drawn to square-off in Group Stage. While it's true that any eventual champion should be able to emerge from the Group Stage with enough points to qualify, regardless of which opponents FIFA has drawn them against, there's also no wisdom in futures betting on multiple teams from the same round-robin group. Especially if a "Group of Death" awaits before the World Cup field can even narrow to 16 teams.