Football Betting Stats Every Bettor Needs to Know

Not so long ago, sports stats weren’t nearly as comprehensive or widely available as they are now. These days, all you have to do is browse the web and you can find an insane volume of data that might increase your chances of winning a football bet.

However, just being online isn’t enough to make you a successful football bettor; you also have to know how to interpret this data correctly. Some bettors have mastered analysing football betting stats, which has helped them win many bets and take home significant amounts of money.

If you want to do the same, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’ve singled out the stats every bettor needs to be aware of.

The Importance of Using Stats When Betting

Inexperienced bettors believe that sports betting is all about luck. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Unlike some casino games, sports betting requires much more than luck. Following your mythical hunch will never lead to long-term success; if you want to win repeatedly, you need a deep understanding of the sport you’re betting on.

When betting on football, using stats can help you increase your knowledge and make better betting decisions. After all, why wouldn’t you use the opportunity to improve your prediction-making when there’s so much information available online? Unlike a few decades ago, you now have access to the same amount of information oddsmakers have when creating odds. It’s all about knowing where to find that info and how to use it to improve your football betting skills.

In this post, we’ll list some of the key statistics that can help you make more accurate football predictions and ultimately win more bets.

How to Use Stats When Betting on Football

It’s rare for sports bettors to bet blind without looking for information about the match they’re investing in. Casual bettors usually rely on basic stats such as league tables and current form guides to help them decide which team to bet on.

Professional football bettors dig a lot deeper before placing a football bet. If you want to make a serious profit from betting on football, it’s necessary to employ the same strategy and perform some serious football betting analysis.

For example, one of the teams participating in a football match might have a better track record at winning corner kicks, while the other team might be better at winning and converting penalties. How will that impact each team’s chances of winning? And how will it affect the number of goals each side scores? Analysing information like this can help you paint a better picture of how the game might turn out.

The more information you collect and the more analysis you perform, the more likely you’ll be to make the correct football prediction and win the bet.

Finding Football Stats Online

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: access to football stats has increased exponentially, making betting on football easier. Just think about sports bettors a few decades ago and what they had to go through when preparing to place a football bet. While most bettors just went on instinct, more serious gamblers collected data by watching football matches on live television and poring through newspapers.

These days, all you have to do is browse the web and you’ll find a bunch of sites that provide football stats. Of course, accessing all these sites is just half the battle.

The next important thing you need to know how to do is to find the sites that actually provide the stats you’re looking for. Some of these sites focus solely on football from a sporting perspective, while others have been designed specifically for betting. Knowing where to look for your stats can save you time and help you make more accurate predictions.

Before we continue talking about how to use statistics when betting on football, let’s take a look at some of the best football stats sites you need to know about.

Kickform.com

Kickform is one of the best free-to-use platforms providing accurate statistics for all top football competitions. In addition, the site provides its own odds and predictions for upcoming football matches. Just remember that not all odds found online are fixed odds and they’re often subject to a change.

It’s also important to mention that all Kickform’s predictions are scientifically backed, so you can rest assured that this site’s data is more reliable than most. Stats at Kickform are updated every week, meaning you should be able to find everything you need before placing a football bet. Most bettors consider Kickform to be the best football betting stats site at their disposal.

Transfermarkt.com

Transfermarkt is a seemingly infinite resource of football information. The site follows everything from multi-million-pound Premier League transfers to player movement in lower-league football. While the site doesn’t provide predictions as Kickform does, it offers far more football-related information in general.

There’s a breakdown of team and player performances, as well as total squad values, which can come in handy when evaluating sides in a game you want to bet on. Being one of the biggest resources on football statistics, Transfermakt is the place to be for every football bettor.

Flashscore.com

Another site every football bettor needs to be aware of is Flashscore. While this may not be as helpful as the aforementioned sites when preparing to place a bet, it’s the best resource for when you want to check how the team you’ve bet on is performing. The site provides live football scores 24/7 from more than 1,000 football competitions across the world.

Aside from football, Flashscore tracks live scores from 25 other sports. Another thing you can find at Flashscore are in-play football stats, which can be extremely helpful when betting on live football. The site even lists live betting football odds offered by some of the best bookmakers and betting markets in the UK.

Soccerstats.com

Soccerstats is another popular site among football bettors, who love its user-friendly interface and the fact that it allows them to check football statistics in a matter of seconds. Another great thing about this site is that it provides stats split into subcategories that target different types of bets.

Let’s say you want to bet online on both teams to score in an upcoming Serie A game. You can look at all stats related to goal-scoring for those two teams with just a few clicks of a button, then proceed to place your bet in a matter of seconds.

One of the stats that Soccerstats users love is the average minute a team scores their first goal in. Stats like this open up new betting opportunities and increase bettors’ chances of predicting the correct outcome. It’s because of advanced stats like this that many bettors consider Soccerstats to be the best football stats site around.

Most Important Stats to Look for

Now that you know where you can find detailed football stats online, it’s time to take a look at some of the most important statistics when it comes to making a successful bet. While some stats prove to be more valuable for football bettors, it’s important to point out that no football statistic guarantees that you’ll get your predictions right. After all, surprises and underdog victories are an integral part of any sport, and football is no different. Football data can help you predict the likeliest outcomes, which can in turn help you figure out what to bet on.

Possession

Football fans understand the importance of possession. If you don’t watch football regularly but you want to bet on it, becoming familiar with terms like possession is extremely important. Possession refers to the amount of time one of the two teams participating in the game possesses the ball. Most often, possession in football is expressed as a percentage. For instance, in the opening game of the 2020/2021 Premier League season, Arsenal had the ball for 55% of the game, while Fulham had possession for 45% of the game.

Possession stats are extremely important in football, which is why most bettors look them up before placing a bet. It’s crucial to understand that the team with the better possession percentage isn’t necessarily going to win the game. Still, this statistic can help you get a better idea of what the game will look like. For example, the team with higher possession is more likely to shoot more often and win more corner kicks. Based on the possession stat and other things that can affect a football game, professional bettors can come up with expected goals and shots for each team.

Individual Stats

Anyone who has ever played football can tell you that this is, above all, a team game. Having the best individual player on the pitch doesn’t mean an automatic win; it’s much more likely that the team that works together best will win a football match. Nevertheless, taking a look at individual statistics in football can tell you a lot about what a football match will look like.

If one of the two teams playing a football match has the league’s leading scorer, you can assume that they’re quite likely to score in the game you want to bet on. Of course, individual player stats go much further than just goals scored and passes completed. If you visit any of the sites we covered earlier in this post, you’ll find more advanced statistics such as shots metrics that can help you make better predictions when placing a bet.

Head-to-Head (H2H)

Head-to-head stats are also useful reference points for bettors. These statistics show you how teams have performed against each other throughout their history. You can look up stats for seasons that took place decades ago and find out anything you want about how the teams involved in the game typically perform against each other. Thanks to the popularity of this statistic, the best sites that provide football betting statistics give you a chance to look at H2H stats with just a few clicks of a button.

It’s important to mention that the H2H stat isn’t necessarily a great indication of who the winner will be. Teams buy and sell players each year; the teams that faced each other a few years ago may now look completely different.

However, the H2H stat can be quite useful in some cases, as it captures the intensity of certain rivalries. For example, if you take a look at H2H stats before a game between Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, you’ll see that Spurs didn’t win at Chelsea’s home stadium for 28 years before recording a victory in 2018.

Recent Form

Another piece of football betting data football bettors like to use is recent form. This is a stat you can find relatively quickly to get an idea of how well the team is performing at the moment. In fact, some betting sites provide bettors with a quick snapshot of the team’s current form.

Of course, if you want to dig deeper into a team’s form, you can visit some of the sites we listed earlier in this post. There you’ll find more advanced stats for the team’s previous few games so you can analyse them before placing your bet.

While football match stats from the previous few games can tell you a lot about a team’s current form, there are plenty of other factors that can impact the outcome of the game. In fact, sometimes a football team has a poor run when one of their star players is injured or suspended. Once that player returns, the team’s form starts to improve. This is why looking at team injuries and suspensions is a must when placing a football bet.

Teams on a poor run also often change managers as an attempt to improve their game. Managerial changes can sometimes have a huge impact on the team’s form. Sites that provide only football stats for betting rarely provide information about managerial changes, which is why visiting sites like Transfermarkt is also critical.

Goal Averages

It stands to reason that not all football teams have the same mentality or employ the same strategies. While some teams prefer attacking football, others sit on defence and wait for their chance to counter-attack.

Depending on the matchup, some games finish scoreless while others end up being a real goal fest. This is also something you can bet on, and if you spend enough time looking at statistics, predicting how many goals will be scored in the game may not be as difficult as predicting the winner.

Goal betting is becoming increasingly popular as football bettors keep looking for new challenges. Bookmakers predict the number of goals both teams will score and it’s up to the bettor to predict whether the actual number of goals will be higher or lower than that. These bets are known as over/under bets.

There are numerous things to keep in mind when looking at goal averages for teams you’re betting on. If their previous games were against a team from the bottom of the league table, chances are they scored more than they would when facing a top team. Average goals per game statistics are similar to individual player stats in the sense that it’s often the individual players on the pitch who determine how many goals will be scored.

For example, it’s reasonable to assume that two teams both missing their top strikers will probably score fewer goals than they usually do. However, sometimes the manager will opt for a different tactic and leave a scorer on the bench while focusing on defence. This is why the goal averages stat may not always be as effective as it seems.
No matter what sites you turn to, you should be able to find important betting stats such as goal percentages.

League Position

When placing a football bet, you have to take a look at where the teams stand on the league table. That will not only give you an idea of how well the team is playing, but also of their motivation to win their next game. This is especially the case later in the season when teams are fighting for Europa League/Champions League or promotion spots. This means you can expect a team that’s on the verge of qualifying for the Champions League to be more motivated than a team that’s guaranteed a spot in the middle of the table.

When looking at football betting stats, the first thing most bettors do is examine the league table. Even when not analysing the bet thoroughly, bettors will take a look at the table to see which team is the favourite to win.

Average Corners

Earlier in this post, we mentioned how different tactics affect stats such as average corners. However, it’s a good idea to keep track of the number of corners teams win and concede. This is especially the case if you plan to bet on corners in an upcoming game.

One important thing to keep in mind is that the number of average corners in a football game is 10.27. This gives you a clear ballpark figure to work with when predicting the number of corners in any given football match. Still, you have to take a look at each team’s average and total corners if you want to predict the correct outcome.

Average Throw-Ins

Another thing to bet on in football are throw-ins. This football bet type is constantly becoming more popular, which is why most sites now provide throw-in stats that can help you predict correct outcomes. You can find average throw-ins per game for each team and place bets accordingly.

For those looking for even more challenges, there are different ways to bet on throw-ins in football. You can bet on which team will win more throw-ins in a game or you can bet on the total number of throw-ins a team will win.

Stats and Handicap Betting

Depending on how much you already know about football betting, you might’ve heard of handicap betting. It’s a common process in which bookmakers turn a match into an even money contest by giving teams an advantage or disadvantage. They assign handicap odds and create an entirely new situation for bettors to consider.

When betting on handicap matches, you can rely on the same football stats and tips you generally do. Still, to maximise your chance of winning a handicap bet, try to understand which stats will have the most impact on the game when the advantage or disadvantage is taken into account.

Improving Your Betting Skills with Statistics

With the amount of information available on the web, it’s now easier than ever for football bettors to improve their betting skills. All you have to do is make a habit of analysing stats when betting. You can also browse the web for football betting tips offered by pro bettors and football analysts.

Once the games you’ve bet on end, you can look at the stats again and see which predictions you or someone else got right or wrong. Focus on the stats that had an impact in determining the winner and make sure you take them into account the next time you bet. You can also give free betting a go and practise without having to worry about your money.

Fantasy football can serve as a great practice field for football bettors, as it requires you to predict individual player performances. The lessons you learn playing fantasy football can serve as free betting tips that you can follow to improve your chances of winning in the future. Just remember that even the most successful bettors place bad bets from time to time, and you shouldn’t let a lost bet stop you from sticking to your guns in the future.