We take a look at the betting aspect of football and how it has developed over the last few years to become one of the major betting industries for bookmakers.
Football on-the-pitch has undergone evolution of a massive degree. Thanks to the likes of Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and others, we now see a slight resurgence of the possession football played in the 1980’s era. However, the game has now developed beyond a fixed style of football.
While the likes of Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Barcelona have dominated possession, Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund are perfect examples of teams that have done exceedingly well without controlling the ball for the majority of the game.
All of the above are attacking efficient in a different tactical demeanor. The likes of Juventus, though, exemplify the old defensive arts and there has been a new wave of the 3-man central defence, with a host of managers using it to great success – case in point being Antonio Conte.
With the evolution of football, the betting aspect of it has developed quite a bit. The bookmakers now offer a variety of bets rather than the plain Match Winner bet. Sure, the betting markets have become quite complex but with it, the bookmakers provide the fans to test their predicting capacity in a much bigger manner.
The Football Association has agreed to end all of its sponsorships with betting companies.
More: https://t.co/6w61WSqbAf pic.twitter.com/yzu5318aXM
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) June 22, 2017
The Football Association may have agreed to end sponsorship deals with betting companies. But, the relationship between football and betting has been ever-evolving and is set for further development as well, thanks in large to the bookmakers who provide fascinating betting markets for the fans to enjoy.
The Asian Handicaps or Handicaps in general, have become much popular, especially in games that involve underdogs. The clients can now guess and bet safely on the underdog with lesser risk of failure compared to the outright win markets.
While the Corners and Goals markets are also found to attract clients, the bookmakers often lure them in with an array of offers for new customers. Almost every bookmaker offers some concession or a certain percentage or a fixed amount of free bets to their customers to attract them to the website.
The free bets aren’t confined to just the new clients. There are often special offers for some given matches which allow risk-free betting upto a certain amount to existing clients as well. Also, the bookmakers often give a loyalty bonus to regular clients upon reaching a certain figure of turnover in volume.
There are some bizarre bets available as well, such as top clubs getting relegated or relegation candidates going on a magical run to clinch the title. However, these do come true every now much to the delight of the rare clients who took up the option.
Such was the case in the Premier League in the 2015-16 campaign as Leicester City, who only survived relegation miraculously the season before, went on a rampant run under Claudio Ranieri to clinch the Premier League crown in a dominating fashion.
FEEL GOOD FRIDAY: Leicester City wins 2015-2016 Premier League title after being given 5000-1 odds.#7figuresyndicate #premierleague #futbo… pic.twitter.com/S7fsIf0nWT
— 7 Figure Syndicate (@7FigSyndicate) June 16, 2017
The monstrosity of the event can be mapped by the fact that they were placed at 5000-1 by most bookmakers for the title in the beginning of the season. One such winner of the lottery was fan Leigh Herbert, who had placed a £5 bet on the Foxes to win the title.
And while he did cash out £2 of it for £5,680, the rest will have earned him around £11,594 from the fairytale story of Leicester City winning the Premier League.
To put things into perspective, the bookmakers took a massive hit from the aforementioned event, with reports that they were set to lose around £15 million, taking into account the bookmakers from United Kingdom alone, with William Hill themselves set to lose £3 million.
Further, the victory also saw the bookmakers take a vow that they would not offer title odds over a 1000-1. The victory was magnanimous in the fact that no one in the sports history has managed to convert such odds while off-football such odds are assigned to bizarre contingencies.
Two such examples are Elvis Presley being found alive and Barrack Obama playing Cricket for England, which were both priced at the same odds as Leicester City.
