Betting BasicsCentrebet Football betting - some tips and statistics
For those dedicated to football betting, the following statistics lesson may provide you with a tool to assess each team's chance of winning. It has been found by statisticians that the Poisson Distribution is quite a good model to predict the results of a soccer match. By calculating each team's average number of goals per match, it is then possible to calculate the probability of each outcome of a match. If statistics aren't your strong suit - you can go straight to our current football betting sportsbooks!.
Here is a football betting prediction table:
| Goals | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 or more |
| Av. 0.8 | 45% | 36% | 14% | 4% | 1% |
| Av. 1.2 | 30% | 36% | 22% | 9% | 3% |
| Av. 1.6 | 20% | 32% | 26% | 14% | 8% |
| Av. 2.0 | 14% | 27% | 27% | 18% | 14% |
To use this table for football betting, here is an example.
Team A (the home side) has an average of 1.6 goals per match and team B (the away side) has an average number of goals of 1.2.
What are the chances of a 0-0 result?
The probabilities are: 20% and 30%
Multiply these together: 0.2. x 0.30 = 0.06 or 6%
What are the chances of a 1-1 result?
The probabilities are: 32% and 36%
Multiply these together: 0.32 x 0.36 = 11.5%
What are the chances of this game ending in a draw?
Add together all the probabilities (ie.0-0, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4)
6% + 11.5% + 5.7% + 1.3% + 1.1% = 25.6%
Many factors are not taken into account in this model:
Just remember however, that this is all theory! For example - the issue of yellow or red cards can have a serious effect on the games outcome. One obvious finding was that the longer a team has to play with less than eleven players, the higher the probability that they will have goals scored against them. Would a player, by committing a foul to stop a certain goal (thereby leaving his team one man short) actually be helping them? Football betting is not that easy to calculate!
After the first goal is scored, later goals tend to come along a little quicker. Scoring the first goal is an advantage, however unusual things can and will happen. In 1957, Charlton Athletic trailed Huddersfield Town 5-1. Charlton were down to 10 players. At full time, Charlton had won the match 7-6, with Huddersfield gaining the unwanted statistic of having 6 goals scored by 6 different players and still losing the game!
Centrebet also offers online sports books on a wide range of major sporting codes and events. We've recently reviewed many of the European domestic football competitions, including English Premier League, Bundesliga football, and Danish Superliga. Centrebet also offers Confederations Cup odds, Champions League soccer odds and UEFA Cup football odds. Books for these events are now open for Centrebet customers. In order to bet on these sporting events, you first need to register to bet with Centrebet on our secure bet site. You can check our online sports betting calendar for more information on upcoming events.
Last modified 2 June 2007
