• World Cup Soccer Betting Lines
• World Cup Soccer Betting Lines Explained
• Soccer Betting Odds Explained

Soccer point spread betting is when you are betting on whether a team will win or lose by a certain number of goals. It is an increasingly popular form of betting and is gaining ground in the soccer betting market. It allows to equalize uneven teams and to get more people to bet on underdogs. Similarly, it helps to create a market for both sides of the wager: the underdogs and the favorites. In a way, it combines both money lines and over/under bets. The best way is to demonstrate with a few examples.

Live soccer betting explained Interest in sports betting continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The evolving legal landscape only helps in that regard, as does the fact that folks can bet online and via sports betting apps safely. Another note is that soccer odds can be represented as Fractional Odds (i.e. 10/6), Decimal Odds (i.e. 1.95) or the common American Odds (i.e. As far as the real betting is concerned in soccer, every better usually has three options to choose from; Team X winning, Team Y winning, or Both Teams ending the game in a Draw.

Point Spread Examples

* Please see illustration below to help understand point spread bets, text explanation follows.

Let us say Brazil is playing against USA in the World Cup. Brazil, as one of the most successful teams in the history of World Cup tournaments will likely be a favorite against USA, which has not done as notoriously well in international competitions. In this case most of the people will likely vote for Brazil. Even with an adjusted money line that will give a big payoff to people who bet the underdog, a sportsbook might see little action on an underdog, USA. A point spread could solve that problem. Using a 2-goal spread, the odds might look like this:

• USA +2.5 (2.0)
• Brazil -2.5 (1.5)

If you are betting on Brazil, then Brazil has to win by more than 2 goals for you to win. Thus, if the score is 3-0 for Brazil, then you would win since it is higher than the point spread of 2.5. This way, if you bet $100 on Brazil, you will win $150 total (see Online Soccer Money Line Betting for more details on how to calculate the lines).

If you are betting on USA, then USA has to lose by 2 or less goals, or win. Hence, if the final score is 1-0 for Brazil, then USA would have lost by less than 2 goals and your bet wins. If you bet $100 on USA, then you will get $200 in total.

As we have explained in several other occasions, the 0.5 is used to eliminate a possibility of a draw and a “no-action”. If the 0.5 was not included and if the spread is exactly 2 goals, then there is a change that no side of the sportsbook or bettor would win, and the book would have to return the bets. A lot of bettors and sportsbooks do not like that so the 0.5 is normally utilized.

Soccer Point Spread Betting Strategies and Tips

One good tip we can give you is that it might be better to bet on a point spread as late as possible. You might actually get better spreads this way. This is because a sportsbook might originally post a spread based upon what the experts say, but over time that spread will actually be adjusted to even out the betting money.

Another reason to get in late on a point spread is because you will have a better idea on the lineup of the players of the teams. For example, you might get some updated news on who is injured, how the coach gets along with his team and what to expect (a good example is the French team on the 2010 World Cup, where the coach and team was not getting along, and you could see the results on their matches, unfortunately).

Avoid Big Decisive Matches

Another soccer point spread betting strategy and tip to consider is to avoid big competitive decisive matches. For example, it is a FIFA World Cup Final; the two teams are very strong and should do their best to win. If one of the teams is losing, the players will likely keep on fighting, even risking injuries and exhaustion. On the other hand, if it is just a qualifier first round game and one of the teams is losing 2-0, then the players on a losing team might save their energy for the next match.

We can give examples as much as possible, but there is nothing better than learning first hand, than experiencing the thrill of the game with a few bets on the side, so if you are up for it, you should definitely make your soccer point spread bet now!

The Goal Line bet, perhaps more commonly known as the Over/Under market in football betting, is betting on the number of goals to be scored in a match. Another name that is alternatively used for this, is Totals.

What is a Goal-line bet?

A Goal Line bet means that you make a prediction about the number of goals that are going to be scored in a match. These will be presented normally with half goal options, such as Over 1.5 Goals or Over 2.5 Goals. You will find along with an outright Goal Line market, a 1st Half Goal Line market as well, which is the same thing except only the tally of goals at the half time break counts.

How does a Goal-line bet work?

Probably the first questions that will come up is “Why are the options presented as 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 and so on?” and similarly “What’s the purpose of those half goals, as no-one scores half of a goal in a game?.”

That is the whole point. The half goal in the options is simply to avoid the bet going to a ‘push’. A push is where a bet is neither won or lost. For example, if the option in the Goal Line market was just Over 3 and there were three goals exactly scored in the match, the bet neither wins or loses. With the half goal included, the bet will either win or lose.

Under or Over 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 Goals explained

So if you are looking at a bet which is Over 2.5 Goals, what is needed is for a minimum of three goals to be scored in the fixture. It doesn’t matter if there are more, but if there’s less then the bet will lose.

Similarly, if you had backed Under 2.5 Goals, you would need the match to produce no more than two goals. When it comes to goal line betting it doesn’t matter which team scores the goal, and it doesn’t matter what the outcome of the match is in terms of who wins or not, it’s simply focusing on the goals scored in the game only.

Asian Goal Line explained

Asian Goal Lines introduce something extra. They bring in quarter goals along with half goals and whole goals. Note that this is different from Asian Handicap betting as the match result comes into play there. For Asian Goal Lines, it is looking only at the number of goals produced in a match.

Any Asian goal line bet with a quarter goal means that essentially you are playing two bets. Let’s look at an Asian Goal Line Under 1.75 goals which means that you have two selections in the bet of Under 1.5 Goals and Under 2 Goals. So the quarter goal used here at 1.75 is the midway point between those two options.

Let’s compare the Under 1.5 and Under 2 Goals individually:

Why a refund if two goals are scored on an Under 2 Goals bet? Any matched number in an Asian Goal Line, gives a refund. For example if you have taken Over 1 goals and there has been exactly one goal scored, the bet is a push and you get your stake back. If you took Under 3 Goals and exactly three goals are scored, that’s a push and a stake refund.

Now half way between Under 1.5 and Under 2.5 you have 1.75 which combines the two bets. Note for quarter goal bets, half of your stake goes to each portion of the bet (known as a Split Bet).

Why a Half Loss for two goals scored? That is because you are playing Under 1.5 goals AND Under 2 goals in one bet. So if two goals are scored in the game, it causes the Under 1.5 Goals bet to lose, but the Under 2 Goals gives a refund for two goals scored. So in this scenario, you would get half of your stake back from the Split Bet.

World Cup Soccer Betting Lines

Alternative Goal Line meaning

Alternative Goal Line is just another name for Asian Goal Lines.

Winning example of a Goal-line bet in Football

Going back to the regular Over/Under market for an example. There is a match between Southampton and West Ham. You don’t expect many goals to crop up in the game, so you back under 2.5 goals.

The game ends in a 1-1 stalemate, but that does not matter. The total goals in the game was less than 2.5, so your bet wins.

World Cup Soccer Betting Lines Explained

Losing example of a Goal-line bet in Football

In our example match of Southampton v West Ham, let’s suppose that the option backed was Over 3.5 Goals because both teams are scoring well at the moment. The game, turns out to be a good contest with West Ham taking a 2-1 win. That result isn’t important for your Goal Line bet, the fact that there was only three goals in the game, is. It means that the forecast that the game would go above 3.5 goals was incorrect. The bet loses.

Goal Line markets

Why goal line markets are popular, especially the normal Over/Under market for football matches is that it is a simple 50/50 chance of getting the prediction right. It’s a simple pick and it’s not a market that often needs a big deep dive into stats to figure out.

The thing with these 50/50 type markets is that you aren’t going to get super wonderful odds unless you back something unpredictable to happen like under 0.5 goals or over 4.5 goals. But these are nice bets to pull together into multiples and accas.

Goal Line strategy

Stats help tremendously with Goal-line strategy. That is because it is so easy to see what team is scoring (or not scoring) within their current form. You can just look at a league, say pick out Aston Villa in a home game and see how many of their matches for the season on home soil have either gone over or under 2.5 goals for example. Those are basic stats.

You will easily spot the teams who have consistently racked up more higher-scoring games than other teams in the same division. You can base your simple Goal Line bet strategy off of that. It is common for league to have approximately three-quarters of matches for the season go over 1.5 goals, approximately half of all matches for the season go over 2.5 goals, and maybe a around a quarter going up into over 3.5 goals.

Different leagues will vary but it’s a general rule of thumb. What that will tell you is that the frequency of high scoring games (at least four goals) doesn’t happen anywhere near as much as games producing at least two, or at least three goals.

How to place a Goal-line bet on Bet365?

Because the standard average for a regular Goal Line bet on a football match is Under/Over 2.5 Goals, that is what odds you will be presented for when you look at a match at Bet365. That’s sort of the default setting for the bet if you like. If you want to take a different option, say over 3.5 goals, then you have to look at the Alternative Total Goals Market (which, slightly confusingly is not the same as the Alternative Goal Line market).

Soccer Betting Odds Explained

Just below the Goal Line market, you will see the Alternative Goal Line market which can be expanded. This is where the aforementioned Asian Goal Line (aka Alternative Goal Line) options are. Another way to get to them is at the top menu for a given match, you will see Asian Lines which presents the markets like Goal Line, 1st Half Goal Line and the Alternative Goal Line.