The best odds, thousands of markets and great liquidity – put simply, Betfair is the best place on the internet to do your football betting.
There are loads of football punters already on Betfair and this large community of punters is good news for you for two main reasons.
Firstly, competition among layers is so strong that they usually have to offer you a slightly better price than anyone else if they are to get their bet matched. Market forces therefore ensure the Betfair price is almost always bigger than those other bookmakers are offering. By the same token, there are plenty of people looking to back bets, which means you are always likely to find someone willing to take the opposite view to you.
The second is that because so many people are on Betfair, there’s a lot of money waiting to be matched, especially on the more popular markets. High-street bookmakers very often limit the amount of money you can have on any given bet to a few hundred pounds, but on Betfair you can generally wager a few thousand on any big match odds or over/under 2.5 goals market, not to mention any winner market amongst the major leagues.
And if you’re happy to take a price that’s a couple of ticks shorter as a backer (or longer as a layer) there is plenty more waiting to be matched. When big Premier League or Champions League matches come around it’s not unusual for there to be hundreds of thousands of pounds at a particular price on either side of the bet – if those are the sort of figures you like to deal in!
Betfair is also among the market leaders when it comes to offering in-play football markets. These are markets that you can bet on whilst a match is in progress and are available for every match played in the Premier League, Champions League and many more.
Though Betfair is not widely known for betting on ‘specials’, these are also available from time to time. Specials markets that always attract a lot of attention are Premier League “Next Manager” markets, so much so that newspapers and websites often quote Betfair prices as the most reliable source of assessing a candidate’s chances of ultimately landing the job.
This book is solely concerned with betting on Premier League markets. If you’ve never placed a bet on Betfair before you’d be advised to read “Betfair for Dummies” for a thorough explanation of how it all works, from depositing money into your account, to the difference between backing and laying and how to ensure you win on a market whatever the outcome, also known as a “green book”.
The 2009/10 season promises to be a cracker on the pitch and should, as ever, make for exciting betting prospects on Betfair. Whether you prefer to stake your money on season-long bets such as the Premier League winner market or prefer to get involved on a match-by-match basis, this guide should hopefully point you in the right direction so you’re fully prepared when all the action kicks off on the 15th August.