User Review
( votes)The Champions League and Europa League group stages are now in full swing and there are a host of different betting options available on the best online sports betting sites. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular markets on offer.
TO WIN OUTRIGHT
An obvious one to start with, selecting who the tournament winner will be. As we head towards the completion of matchday two in both competitions this week, the odds available on the best football betting sites are now considerably greater than they will be at the conclusion of the round-robin phase in December, when we will know who will progress to the knock-out phase in February 2016. So if we take Chelsea for example, who won their opening group fixture but lost their second in Porto this week, their price to win the Champions League has now drifted out to *17.00. Arsenal on the other hand, who have lost both their opening group games are now priced at a huge *51.00 to lift the trophy.
GROUP QUALIFICATION
If long term predictions are not your speciality, then a safer bet would be to predict who will progress from the group phases. The odds on the betting exchanges will of course be much shorter than predicting the tournament winners, but the chances of success are greatly enhanced. A prime example of this would be Arsenal, who despite their poor start, are priced at *3.50 to claim one of the two qualifying berths from group F.
TOP GOALSCORER
Another popular bet in tournament football is predicting who will finish up as top goalscorer. Just like picking an outright winner, the earlier in the competition that you make your selections, the better the odds. For this example, let’s take Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski who scored a hat-trick in last night’s 5-0 win over Dynamo Kiev – He is currently priced at *4.50 to finish as the Champions League’s top marksman and with Bayern already looking secure for a place in the knock-out phase in the new year, he could be a name worth following.
NATIONALITY OF THE WINNER
One of tournament football’s most popular bets is to predict the nationality of the winning teams. The prices offered by the best betting websites are reflected by the number of participants from a particular nation. If we continue to use the Champions League as an example, Spain are the first country to have five teams in the competition this season, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Valencia, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla so are therefore the shortest price to provide the winner of the competition at *1.90. Germany are the second favourites with four representatives; Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Mönchengladbach and are valued at *4.00.
There are of course, many other ways to bet on Europe’s two major club competitions and additions will be made before we reach the finals in Milan and Basel in 2016.
*odds courtesy of Bet365
By: Steve Mitchell (@barafundler)