Take a Look Around: European Football’s Best Kept Betting Secrets

As punters it is second nature to bet on the leagues and markets we know the most about, which typically will be those in our own country and some of Europe’s biggest and best known divisions.

But that is doing ourselves a disservice, as there is a whole world out there just waiting to be explored and taken advantage of by erstwhile bettors.

Finding the time to do the necessary research can be tricky, but not to worry: we’ve done the hard work for you! Here are five divisions from across the continent that are worthy of your time:

Swiss Super League

Clever punters will know that just predicting the winner of a football match is not enough to guarantee profit and often the goals markets are the better option in terms of low risk winners.

Step forward then the Swiss Super League, which is once again coming up trumps as far as sticking the ball in the net is concerned.

At the time of writing the Swiss season was six games old, and 30% of teams had scored in all of their half-dozen outings. Another 30% had, at this point, also failed to keep a clean sheet, while the most common percentile for clean sheets kept was 17% – which means just one in six blanks were expected.

Take a look at the most recent round of fixtures and their results:

St. Gallen 3 v 0 Luzern

Grasshoppers 4 v 1 Young Boys

Thun 0 v 3 Basel

Lugano 1 v 1 Lausanne

Sion 2 v 1 Vaduz

There are ten teams in the Swiss Super League, which means five matches per gameweek, and a common theme coming from them is goals….and plenty of them. As you can see above, 80% went over the classic 2.5 goal mark, and a solid 60% witnessed both teams scoring.

This really is quite a common pattern, as just a week prior 80% had once again gone Over 2.5 Goals; with the standout being Young Boys, who defeated Lausanne by a scoreline of 7-2!

Of the 30 fixtures played in Switzerland thus far, 23 have witnessed over 2.5 goals (77%), with 20 seeing both teams score (67%). So three in every four games satisfies the ‘overs’ market – very handy information for bettors to know!

Danish Superligaen

Backing winners is one thing, but the fantastic odds typically available on draws means that this is a potentially very lucrative avenue for punters to go down. Whether backing draw singles or doubles, or even adding a stalemate to an accumulator, can yield an outstanding return.

Rejoice then for the Danish Superligaen, where the humble draw is the most common result witnessed on a game-by-game basis.

At the time of writing their season was seven gameweeks old, so a very decent data set of 49 matches have been played, and the draw remains the most common result at 39% of fixtures, with home and away win both tied on 31%.

It is hard to pinpoint a footballing reason why this might be the case, so instead it is perhaps easier to conclude simply that there is a strong proximity between a lot of teams in the division, and that they struggle to be separated as a result.

Opportunities exist for bettors in the correct scoreline market too, knowing that the Danes aren’t strangers to a goal or two. After gameweek seven, 11 of the 14 teams had recorded over 2.5 goal verdicts in more than 50% of their matches, with five of the teams at an incredible 70% or over. The 2-2 or 3-3 draw could well be an avenue of potential profit when two of these sides meet. Indeed, the most common scorelines in the Danish Superligaen in 2016/17 to date are 1-1 (14%) and 2-2 (12%).

English Championship

The late, late show…..that’s how we can sum up the English Championship.

With five gameweeks gone that’s 60 matches worth of data to work with, and take a look at this for a stat: 22.5% of all goals in the division have come after the 80th minute!

Yes, you read that correctly: nearly one in four goals are scored in the final ten minutes or so of matches in the league.

So what does that mean for punters? Well, clearly it will have a knock-on effect to those who like to bet in-play, and similarly for those who have a habit of cashing out at the right/wrong time. With the knowledge that another goal could be just around the corner, bettors can leave their wagers running a bit longer if another goal would suit their election, or instead cash out if another goal would cause a heated ‘coupon shredding’!

And there is no harm in exploring the Next Goal market too if a particular fixture’s stats look prime for a late strike.

Irish Premier Division

Ireland’s top flight is a largely summer-based division, and so we have a huge data set to work: some 138 matches, to be precise.

The results are really interesting, and while the over/under 2.5 goal ratio sits at 41/59, which is largely inconclusive, just take a look at the most common results witnessed in the league:

• (14%), 0-2 (10%), 0-1 (10%), 1-1 (9%), 2-0 (9%) and 0-0 (7%)

This shows us that, in reality, the likelihood of under 2.5 goals is a lot more prominent than the numbers suggest.

Russian Premier League

Russian football is known for its tactical conservatism and strategic pragmatism, so it is no surprise to find goals at an absolute premium here.

Some 72% of the 40 games played at the time of writing had gone under the magic 2.5 mark, with both teams failing to score in 70%. Remarkably, one in five Russian Premier League matches ends 0-0 – not good for the spectator, but excellent for the punter!

We might expect these numbers to regress to the mean sooner or later – in the 2015/16 campaign, over 2.5 goals was witnessed in 42% and BTTS in 48% – but for now bettors are encouraged to take advantage to the low-scoring start to the Russian football season.

And why not take a look our Ranking List of the Best Bookmakers Online here.