Best Football Betting Sites UK 2024
After reading our guide, you’ll fully comprehend the top football betting stes in the UK, courtesy of Sportsboom.
After reading our guide, you’ll fully comprehend the top football betting stes in the UK, courtesy of Sportsboom.
From Salah and Haaland to Bellingham and Mbappe, we've analyzed stats and picked the best players for your betting strategy.
Football is the most popular sport in the world by viewership and the English Premier League is considered by many to be the best globally. With 72 teams making up the English football pyramid, there’s a plethora of UK football betting opportunities throughout the regular season which runs August through May.
With so much action and an incredible depth to available betting markets, we will help you understand how to bet on football.
Top 3 UK Football Betting Sites
Our experts tested several bookmakers based on our criteria, and selected the best UK football betting sites for you.
An Introduction to Football
Football, also known as Soccer, shares common rules and terms wherever it’s played globally.
Like any team sport, there’s a lengthy rulebook and strategic nuance. We’ve outlined a few basic rules you’ll need to know, and often see when looking at how to bet on football online:
Match size: 11 versus 11, each team having one goalkeeper and ten outfield players
Match outcome: Home Win, Draw, Away Win
Match duration: 90 minutes, split into two 45-minute halves.
- In cup competitions where the match is a knockout round, an extra period of 30 minutes may be played in the event of a draw. It’s important to note that most bets placed before the match are still settled on a 90-minute basis unless specified.
Match objective: The team that scores the most goals will win the match. Where scores are level, matches are settled as a draw.
Other football-specific terms that you’ll often see when diving into betting markets are:
Bookings: Yellow and red cards given by the referee for foul play. If a player receives two yellow cards, they automatically receive a red card.
Offside: The most complicated rule in football, involves an attacker gaining an unfair advantage due to positioning.
Goal Kick/Corner: A goal kick or corner is given when the ball goes beyond the goal line.
- If the last touch is by an attacker, a goal kick to the defending team will be awarded.
- If the last touch is by a defender, a corner to the attacking team will be awarded.
How Popular Is Real Money Online Football Wagering?
There’s no doubt that UK football betting continues to be the primary market driver for the industry. According to a 2022 YouGov study, 45% of regular gamblers in the country bet on football. This dwarfs American sports leagues, such as the NBA, which only 3% had wagered on.
The UK Gambling Commission data on gambling participation in March 2023 suggests that as much as 94% of sports bettors in the UK wager on football, far eclipsing any other sport available.
bet365, a sports betting powerhouse, reported a 15.0% rise in sports betting revenue from 2022-2023 with combined esports and sports betting revenue reaching £3.39 billion.
Football’s popularity continues to grow, and with betting operators pouring resources into new product development, it’ll remain at the forefront for a considerable while yet.
How to Bet on Football
Once you’ve decided the thrill of football is for you, you will need to know how to bet on football. We’ve put together a simple step-by-step to help you get started.
- 1
Find a sportsbook: Pick from a comprehensive selection of operators that offer the best sign-up bonuses and have the markets you wish to wager on. If you are interested in mobile betting, you can check out our list of the best football betting apps here.
- 2
Register an account: Complete registration, including the KYC checks so you’re ready to place a bet.
- 3
Make a deposit: Deposit an amount you can afford, making sure you follow any required steps to grab that sign-up bonus.
- 4
Do your research: There’s no such thing as a certainty, but with the depth of markets available on football, research is key to success. Make sure you’ve done your research on the leagues and teams you’re going to select.
- 5
Place your bet: Once you’ve decided on a league, team, and market to bet on, simply build your bet and place it.
- 6
Manage your bankroll: If you’ve won, it’s important not to get carried away. Managing your balance is vitally important when betting on football. Although the 03:00 kick-off in the Indonesian Second Division may seem appealing, ensure your research is just as thorough. Also, keep an eye on any sign-up bonus stipulations so you know when you’re able to withdraw.
How We Rate Football Sportsbooks
Online football betting sites must pass strict tests before they make it onto our recommended lists. Here’s what forms our checklist when our reviewers sit down to test and analyze the best football betting sites:
Football Leagues & Competitions: Does the sportsbook offer markets on just the English Premier League and La Liga, or does it go further afield with minor leagues and women’s football? We assess the sports betting site’s reach to see what you can and can’t bet on.
Football Betting Markets: Why just bet on the outright league winner or 1X2 (Home/Draw/Away)? Our checks reveal betting sites with 100s of markets on each match, including 1st/Last Goalscorer, Asian Handicap, and HT/FT.
Competitive Odds: Why suffer from lousy prices on Manchester Utd, Real Madrid, or LA Galaxy? We only recommend top betting sites that offer better odds than their competitors.
Football Bonuses: A good football bonus or promotion can make or break an online sportsbook. We only rate online football betting sites that offer regular odds boosts on the night’s games, money-back, and parlay boosts.
Software & Features: Good sportsbooks should offer seamless online betting through secure, easy-to-use software platforms. Placing bets, navigating mobile apps, and finding match stats should be a breeze.
Banking Methods: We ensure every sportsbook we feature offers quick and free payments using cards, e-Wallets, or bank transfers. Our best football sportsbooks also offer localized banking for easier deposits where you live.
Customer Support: Good customer service is a vital cog in the wheel of any online football betting firm. Localized phone support, live chat, and email should be expected at a good sportsbook.
Licensing & Security: We only feature properly-licensed sportsbooks on our pages. Every sportsbook has the requisite licenses from approved gambling authorities. That means your data and personal funds are completely protected when you gamble.
Understanding the Odds
There are three main ways that you’ll see odds represented, and often UK soccer betting operators will have an option where you can select the one that works for you. Here’s an overview of the three typical presentations:
- Fractional (British): When placing a football bet UK, you’ll most often see odds presented in fractional format. This is also referred to as “traditional odds.” A £10 bet at a fraction of 10/1 (ten-to-one) odds would see you win £100 for every £10 you wager, as well as the £10 you wagered.
- In simpler terms, you would receive a total payout of £110 (£10 stake as well as £100 profit)
- Decimal (European/Continental): A format more common across Europe/Oceania/Canada, the number shown incorporates the stake. The aforementioned 10/1 bet would be presented as 11.00, meaning you simply multiply the decimal by the stake to determine total payout.
- 11.00 x £10 = £110 (£100 profit, and £10 stake)
- Money line (American): This is rarely seen on UK football betting operators sites. The odds will be shown as a plus sign (+) for the underdog and a minus sign (-) for the favourite. The favourite odds represent the amount you need to stake to return £100. The underdogs show the amount you would win for a £100 stake.
- For example, if Manchester United are -860 and Sheffield United are +685, then you’d need to wager £860 to make £100 profit on Manchester United, whereas a £100 wager on Sheffield United would return £785 (£100 stake + £685 profit).
When looking at UK football betting, odds indicate the likelihood of an outcome based on a bookmaker’s judgment. The lower the odds (fractional or decimal), the more likely an operator believes it will happen.
Odds can be influenced by numerous factors, again showing the need for careful and intricate research to fully identify value and a good bet.
Hypothetically, Manchester United could be four places higher than Brighton in the Premier League but could have had a 5000-mile round trip to face a Georgian opponent in the Europa League just three days prior. The odds may reflect potential player absences and factors such as home and away form too.
Popular Types of Football Betting
There are now hundreds of bets that are available at the click of a button for each football match. If UK football betting, you’ll need to know your correct score from your first goal scorer bet. We’ve provided a handy summary of the most popular types:
Full Time Result:
A bet on the full time result will offer you Home. Draw or Away. This is simply selecting the outcome of the match within the 90 minute parameter. This is the simplest bet to place and understand.
Player to Score:
If you fancy a particular player to score a goal in a match, then you can select them to score. Typically, you can choose First Goalscorer, Last Goalscorer, or Anytime Goalscorer.
First or last bets normally share the same odds, with significantly lower anytime odds. Often you can also wager on a player to score two or more goals, or a hat-trick (three).
Goals Over/Under:
The typical line presented for a goals Over/Under bet is 2.5. By choosing Over 2.5, you’re betting on there being three or more total goals in the game. Conversely, Under 2.5 is betting on there being two or fewer total goals in the game.
There are also alternate thresholds that you can choose, from 0.5 goals through to 7.5 (or in some cases, higher).
Both Teams to Score:
It is what it says on the tin. Choose from Yes/No, based on whether you think both teams will score in the match.
Correct Score:
A tough market to get right, a correct score bet is predicting the exact score outcome of the match. The odds reflect the difficulty of predicting the outcome, offering larger odds depending on selection.
Half Time / Full Time:
The Half Time/ Full Time market effectively splits a Full Time Result bet into two. It predicts the match outcome at half-time (e.g. home team win) and then the result at full-time.
Examples of how a Half Time / Full Time bets can look are:
- Home / Home: Home team to be winning at half-time and full-time.
- Home / Away: Home team to be winning at half-time, the away team to be winning at full-time.
- Draw / Home: The match to be level at half-time, with the home team winning at full-time.
- Home / Draw: Home team to be winning at half time, with the match finishing a draw.
Handicap Bets:
A handicap bet will offer the same markets as full time result but with at least a one-goal handicap.
The favourite will be offered -1, which means you would be backing the favourite should they start the match one goal down.
A tie bet is effectively a bet on the margin of victory. For example, a bet on a tie -1 would be a bet on the game’s winning margin to be a single goal.
The underdog will be priced +1, which means you are backing them to win if they start the game one goal up.
What is Football Live Betting?
Live football betting allows bettors to wager on a game that is currently being played. Betting operators have live, to the second data, and as such dynamically update the odds throughout the game reflecting the current status of the game.
A lot of the markets we’ve previously outlined are available with in-play betting, but certain markets are completely unique to live.
Some popular markets to consider are:
Next goal scorer: Whereas pre-game you can back first, last or anytime, by betting in-play, you’re able to back the next goal scorer at any point.
Time-gated markets: Live markets often allow you to place specific bets at larger odds for something happening in the ‘next ten minutes’. This could be match events such as ‘red card in next 10 minutes’, ‘penalty to be awarded in the next 10 minutes’.
Betting on International Competitions
Outside of domestic competition, there’s also European competition throughout the regular season, and then the small matter of international fixtures through the summer. These competitions can offer a different betting experience, so here’s a few to look out for:
Champions League / Europa League: Competition featuring the best teams from each of Europe’s domestic leagues. Teams will often play each other home and away so there’s plenty of extra research to do. Consider teams' travel times, different playing surfaces, and time zone changes when looking for the bets you want to place.
Euros/World Cup: The two biggest international football tournaments take place every four years. International football takes place less frequently, and the best teams on paper do not always gel cohesively. There are often shocks aplenty in international football, and the depth of data isn’t as robust as it is with domestic competitions.
Responsible Betting
It’s important to stay in control of your gambling, and only bet what you can afford to lose. Responsible betting is a mantra of most UK-regulated operators now, and there are several tools you can use to help stay in control:
- Set deposit limits: A limit on the amount you can deposit per day/week/month.
- Set stake limits: A limit on the amount you can stake per day/week/month.
- Set deposit curfews: Set certain times that you can and can’t make a deposit.
- Reality check: Set a time that an operator will remind you that you’ve been logged in for.
- Self-exclusion: Ask an operator to shut your account for a pre-determined amount of time. During that time, you won’t be able to login to that operator.
Other industry-wide tools include:
- GAMSTOP: Block yourself from accessing any gambling accounts with businesses licensed in the UK for 6 months, 1 year or 5 years.
It’s important to know what you’re wagering and manage your bankroll effectively. Don’t chase your losses, and keep betting fun.
FAQs
Most UK-licensed betting operators have a huge array of deposit methods. These include:
- Debit Cards
- Google/Apple Pay
- Bank Transfer
- Neteller
- PayPal
- PaySafeCard
- Skrill
- Trustly
Make sure you check with the specific operator and payment method you use for associated charges. It’s rare to find a bookmaker now that will have charges associated with deposits and withdrawals.
Of course. Parlays, also known as accumulators, are a popular betting product in the UK. Certain outcomes can be combined into an accumulator which will provide a larger return should all outcomes win.
Another popular product is the same-game accumulator, where you pick multiple selections from the same game (eg: players to be booked, over 6.5 corners, both teams to score). These also then provide higher potential returns.
Read our handy guide above for information on different football markets. There are several websites that provide statistics and historical information around football leagues.
Stay tuned to Sportsboom.com as we provide you with the most in-depth betting guides out there.