Depending on which part of the world you are from, following football can be very different. Take the United Kingdom, for example. The island gave the world many of today’s most popular sports, including association football, watching, supporting, and betting on means following the English Premier League, Championship, FA Cup, Scottish Premiership, and other professional competitions. If you were watching the same game on TV, you’d be enjoying soccer.
To a sports fan in the United States, there is only one proper form of football: American Football. The biggest competition in that sport is the National Football League – or the NFL, for short – with the standout match being the Super Bowl. It may seem odd to those watching in Europe, but football is a sport played mostly with the hands to an NFL fan.
Celebrate the similarities
What is the true form of football, and should the word soccer be erased from the dictionary? That’s a debate that continues to rage amongst sports fans and will never produce a final answer. Regardless of which side of the argument you support, there’s no getting away from the fact that there are many similarities between football and American Football. The differences ensure both sports continue to thrive, but the similarities should be celebrated too, not least in the betting.
Thanks to the leading bookmakers, you can gamble on just about every professional football match played in Europe and beyond. You may even have experience of landing a nice profit gambling on your favourite competition, such as the Champions League or World Cup. Each fixture has over 100 pre-match and in-play betting markets. The most popular of these is match winner betting, where you select a team to win the game and, if your prediction is correct, you land the profits.
There are several other markets available, with traders constantly working on new additions to ensure there is something to suit every style of bettor and every match. Place a single on your favourite team to win their upcoming match or add a few selections together to create a multiple bet such as an accumulator, shooting for a big win off a small stake.
Betting on the big match
Super Bowl LVI will be played at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on Sunday 13th February. It will attract a capacity crowd above 100,000, with millions more watching the play live on television. If you are a lover of sports, there will be no getting away from mentions of Super Bowl LVI as the big kick-off approaches. This will excite people from every corner of the globe while others will be showing an interest, eager to find out what all the fuss is about.
Certain bettors take a ”if you can’t beat them, join them” viewpoint. If the game is going ahead and you can’t escape the subject, why not try to make it work for you by placing a bet on the outcome. You may not know a lot about the NFL, but if you can bet on football, you can bet on the Super Bowl. The wording and betting jargon may be slightly different, but this shouldn’t put you off. The markets, odds, styles of bets and the way wagers are settled are the same.
If you have gambled on the beautiful game, chances are you would have played one of the most popular markets. Match winner to football bettors is known as Moneyline to NFL backers. Different word, same bet. Here you are picking a team to win, and if they do, you land the profits.
Totals is another bet. In football, you will bet on the total number of goals scored by both teams – usually under or over 2.5 goals. In the NFL, you’re betting on the total number of points which is often set around 50.5 but can move depending on a match.
Handicap betting is widely used in both sports. As a football fan, you’ll see the favourite in a match start with a goal or two handicap. In a game between Man Utd and Watford, the handicap may be Man Utd -1 goal vs Watford +1 goal. In the Super Bowl betting, LA Rams -8.5 points vs Cincinnati Bengals +8.5 points. So, you see, you know more about Super Bowl betting than you may think.