Whilst football is recognised as easily the most famous team sport on earth, drawing television audiences of billions to its major events, relatively few football fans take the opportunity to place their football expertise to the test by taking part in football betting.

For many football fans, being a supporter is about backing one club forever, however football betting allows you to add excitement to neutral matches by backing the club you rate as strongest. And if your team isn’t on a good run of form, placing a bet on the opposition can offer some consolation whenever your team loses.

Online betting is among the best ways to become involved in football betting. Most online sportsbooks offer a huge variety of football bets from the world’s top leagues, all year round. UFA What’s more, an online account could be set up in a matter of minutes, giving you virtually instant access to football betting markets.

Here are just some of the most popular football betting options:

Match betting – match betting is the simplest kind of football betting. It involves betting on the results of a match, with each outcome priced at specific odds. You can bet on a team or a draw. Typically the betting slip will carry the name of one team under ‘away’ and the other under ‘home’.

When doing match betting you can even vote on a handicap bet which basically gives one team a one goal advantage or disadvantage before the game has even started. Afterward you bet on the outcome as per a normal match bet.

Score betting – score betting describes a wide range of betting options. The simplest is predicting the ultimate score of a match, and tends to carry very high odds.

Another popular score betting option involves betting on who will score an objective. These bets carry high odds and come in several varieties including: first goal scorer, last goal scorer and anytime goal scorer.

Special bets – every football game will carry a multitude of additional betting opportunities, with each online bookmaker offering their own game specials. Literally every aspect of the game attracts odds, ranging from the amount of corners in the game, to which players will be injured. These bets often carry a number of the highest odds.

Tournament betting – if you’re a big picture punter you’ll enjoy tournament betting. Betting opportunities range between picking group and pool winners, picking the tournament winner and predicting the quantity of goals a team will score in the competition. The limits to your tournament betting opportunities are defined only by the bookmaker’s imagination!