Football Betting In India Guide: How To Bet On Football?

Football betting is probably the second most popular type of sports betting among Indian customers. Or soccer, as it’s sometimes called on some betting websites. It’s second to cricket, of course, which in India isn’t so much a sport as it is a religion. But the popularity of online football betting is very much on the up. Some of the best football betting sites in India now spend a lot of time bringing the best betting experience to the Indian community.

Indians love to wager on sports on the internet, so it should come as no surprise some European sports betting sites now offer India’s nationally televised Indian Super League as part of their football betting product.

You can place bets on the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, Indian Super League, and dozens of other competitions around the world. As time goes on more and more leagues are offered, some of them pretty obscure. Most online bookmakers now offer betting markets from football leagues in countries like the USA (MLS), Japan, Uruguay, and China for example.

No matter if you’re interested in wagering on domestic, regional, or global football competitions, there is no shortage of places for Indians to do so online.

Best Football Betting Sites In India

The best football betting site for Indians is Betway. Betway has massive cricket and football coverage and accepts Indian players. They gladly accept bettors from India, and also accept INR deposits directly.

While Indian gambling laws prohibit bookmakers from operating domestically, Betway is both licensed and fully legal in the United Kingdom.

What Soccer Leagues Are The Most Popular To Bet On?

We have updated the betting odds on the biggest leagues in the world of football for the 2022-23 season.

• English Premier League (England)
• Spanish La Liga (Spain)
• German Bundesliga (Germany)
• Italian Serie A (Italy)

There are also two major leagues in Indian Soccer:

• Indian Super League
• I-League

And then, just to name a few more leagues, you can bet on:

• French Ligue 1 (France)
• Major League Soccer (USA)
• Dutch Eredivisie (The Netherlands)
• Portuguese Primeira Liga (Portugal)
• Chinese Super League (China)

Again, you can find plenty of options in your sportsbook. So, you can bet on football leagues from all around the world.

Types of Football Betting

Here are some of the most popular types of football betting in India or all across the world.

Futures Betting

Futures betting is a long-term wager that you can make. Essentially, you’re betting on something that’s going to happen in the distant ‘future’ rather than a match that’s being played tomorrow.

For example, there can be a betting opportunity on which team will win the title at the end of the season or which three teams are going to be relegated. It can also be on who is going to be a particular league’s top scorer.

These types of bets will usually be available for most of the season, but you can get the best prices either before the season begins, or earlier in the campaign.

Match Betting

Match betting is probably the most popular type of wager you can make in football betting. It is betting on which team will win that match.

You can bet on either team to win, but you can also bet on them to draw. Football, alongside the likes of Test cricket, is one of the few sports in which you can bet on a draw.

The draw is generally available at quite big prices and happens more than you’d think, so can be a good option.

Prop Betting

A prop bet is a wager that might not have anything to do with the outcome of the game. For example, the Man of The Match prop bet is a popular option at sportsbooks.

Here, you can bet on which player will win the Man of The Match award. That player (although it usually does) doesn’t have to come from the winning team.

But these days you can also bet on whether a player will score a goal, how many saves a keeper will make, whether a player will get an assist, or how many shots on target a particular striker might have.

Totals

Betting on totals for football matches is when the sportsbook will set a total for the number of goals being scored, and you wager on the over/under.

For example, if a total is set for 2.5 goals, you will bet on whether the actual number of goals will come in either over or under the total set by the Sportsbook.

But that doesn’t just apply to corners. Totals markets are also available regarding the number of cards and corners, for example.

Asian Handicap

The Asian handicap bet is similar to what North American bettors would call, “betting on the spread”. The team that has been deemed “better/stronger” by the sportsbook is still favored.

However, they now have to win by a certain number of goals. For example, the favorites, Team X, might have a handicap of 1.5 goals (the half-goal is usually added so that the Sportsbook can avoid a push on that bet).

This means that team has to win by more than 1.5 goals (at least two) in order to fulfill their end of the bargain.

How To Make Deposits and Withdrawals At Football Betting Sites In India?

In order to avoid challenges that result from banks getting nervous over gambling transactions, most Indians use e-wallets such as Skrill or Neteller to deposit and withdraw from online betting sites. E-wallets act much like online bank accounts.

They can be funded using a credit card or electronic bank transfer. Once your account is funded, you can transfer the funds to betting sites. You can also cash out funds from the betting sites as well.

This is a great way to move money between online bookmakers, but also when you’re ready to get some of your winnings back as cash, you can have the e-wallet send the funds back to your bank account.

Perhaps the best e-wallet choice for Indians is Skrill. They’ve been in business since 2001, are well-regulated in the UK, have over 18 million customers worldwide, and offer Indian Rupee (INR) as an account currency.

Considering all your deposits and withdrawals will read ‘Skrill’, as opposed to the name of a gambling site, your bank will have no idea these are gambling transactions.

Indian banks process hundreds of Skrill transactions daily that have nothing to do with gambling. In short, this is a great way to keep your online transactions fully anonymous.

Football Betting Strategy

Perhaps the biggest key to winning is to always bet at the best odds. Now a question we are often asked is: which site has the best football odds?

It’s very difficult to beat the Sportsbook using just a single betting site. Odds differ from site to site, so when you wager, it makes sense to have numerous betting accounts and to place that particular bet with the one who’s offering the highest odds on that particular selection.

From here, you’ll want to consider shopping for the best odds in smaller markets as well. When shopping in really small markets you’ll find the largest discrepancy in odds between the different betting sites.

For example, you check Betway and see the anytime goalscorer odds for India captain Sunil Chhetri at 2.05. But then see Betway is offering the same at 2.35.

You probably don’t need to know much about online football betting to realize that making a bet at Betway rather than Bet365 is a good idea. Shopping around in small markets to pick off soft lines requires no actual knowledge of the sport.

Football Betting Tips

Whilst we aren’t going to give you the exact bets in this article, we will take a look at things you need to consider before placing any football bets.

The more you can apply these tips to finding value bets of your own, the easier and more profitable your betting experience will become.

Research

Probably the most important thing when betting on football is doing your research. When betting in smaller leagues such as I-League, great value can be found. Again as mentioned, the limits are smaller, but it’s a trade-off.

Major leagues such as the English Premier League and Spanish La Liga are full markets these days.

It’s tough to get an edge versus the bookmaker with these. But leagues in countries where football is not the main sport become an absolute goldmine for those who are best at doing research.

Study The Form

A little like horse racing, you need to work out how the two teams you are looking to bet on have fared in the past few games.

Look at things such as goals scored, and goals conceded, if this shows some sort of correlation, then go to the ‘Total goals’ market and see if something is available that you feel will be a good bet.

If possible, read up on match reports of previous games, this may give a better insight as to how the team is playing as a whole.

Just because they didn’t score one week, may not mean they aren’t creating chances. Look as deep as you can into games to find a solid bet.

Know Your Football Betting Markets

There are literally hundreds of markets available to bet on with each and every football match.

Some are extremely obscure, but if you learn them and know what each bookmaker is offering when you come to do your research then things may just jump out at you.

For example, many bookmakers offer comprehensive ‘Corner betting’ markets. Whether this is the total number of corners, 1st half corners, corners in a period of the game, and so on.

If you know these markets exist and you are reading through a match report of a game with a high number of corners, then you will instantly realize to go and see if there are any value bets for these appropriate markets.

Avoid Cup Games

Well, at least look heavily into these games before betting. Year in, and year out, cup games throw up surprises. They are a chance for the lesser teams to come up against opposition of a higher standard.

The larger teams will more often than not field a weakened team, making the playing field much more even.

It’s for this reason that you must make sure you know the starting eleven for each team before placing bets.

If you are really shrewd, it can be a good hunting ground for an upset or two. But the unpredictability of games makes them a nightmare for the serious punter.

Football Betting In India FAQs