You probably hear a lot about people winning money through sports bets, especially football. Betting on football matches is a great way to take your love for football to the next level. However, jumping headfirst into the world of betting can have some negative financial and personal consequences. Here is how to safely bet on football matches in Nigeria.
1. What To Bet On?
Even if you consider yourself to be the biggest football fan in the world, it’s not enough to be knowledgeable about this sport – it’s also important to know exactly what to bet on when you are starting your betting journey. Here are the 4 main football events that are especially popular among bettors:
- Africa Cup Of Nations, or AFCON, which takes place every two years and is the biggest football event in Africa. While you are cheering for Nigeria to make it through the qualifications, you can also try your luck by betting on your favourite team.
- FIFA World Cup, which takes place every four years and will happen in 2022. This event has millions of fans glued to their screens, and while Brazil is currently the undisputed leader of FIFA, it can all change.
- UEFA Champions League, which is an annual event that celebrates mostly European teams with a few exceptions. Here, Real Madrid currently holds the biggest number of wins.
- FIFA Women’s World Cup, which takes place every four years just like the standard FIFA World Cup event and brings a lot of happiness to the Nigerian football fans.
2. Types Of Football Betting
It may seem like the process of betting is super easy and you simply bet on the winner. However, there are several types of football betting, or football markets, you should know about:
- Correct score. If your gut feeling is telling you that a certain team will win with a certain number of goals against the other team’s number of goals, you can bet on the exact score you consider to be correct.
- Double chance. Double chance football betting allows you to name two possible outcomes of the match, and if one of them proves to be right, you can consider yourself to be the winner.
- 1×2 betting. This is probably the most popular type of football betting. Here you need to simply predict the winner of the match based on your intuition or other factors we will discuss below.
3. Football Betting Strategies
If you are serious about learning how to succeed in the world of football betting, you will need to pay special attention to the popular football betting strategies:
- Team status. If the team in question has recently undergone changes in its composition, hired a new coach or star player, had one of the key players suffer from an injury, or will play under extreme weather conditions, it can all affect the team’s performance.
- Current form. If one of the players on the team has had an especially good or bad year and caused several important wins or losses for the team, you can use this knowledge for your next bet.
- Motivation. In case the current game is expected to have a particularly noticeable impact on the team’s status – for example, if they are playing to qualify for the next round of the championship – you can expect them to display their best performance.
- Home advantage. When the team is playing in their home country or even home town, their performance will likely be more impressive compared to when they are playing elsewhere.
- Head to head. It is very possible that the team you are betting on has already played against the other team several times in the past. Simply look at those past match results to notice a pattern and decide whether they have a real chance of winning.
4. Where To Bet On Football In Nigeria
In Nigeria, there are dozens of companies offering football betting services, but some are clearly more popular and trusted than the others. Right now, Bet9ja, NairaBet, BetWay, Surebet247, and 1xBet seem to have the most trust among Nigerian betting fans.