How to Bet on Football: A Beginner's Guide for Indian Players

Big fan of football? Why not make the match more exciting by winning some real money with football betting? This beginner-friendly guide is made just for Indian players.

We explain football odds, popular betting markets, and how to place bets online – step by step, no confusion.

What is Football Betting?

Football betting means placing a bet on a football match, where you try to predict the result or other events in the game — with the goal of winning real money.

Most players check things like recent team performance, player form, head-to-head stats, and even live match conditions before placing their bets.

Bookmakers (also called betting sites) give odds based on these factors, and those odds decide how much money you can win if your prediction is correct.

How to Read Football Betting Odds?

Before placing any bet, it’s very important to understand football betting odds. In India, the most common format is Decimal Odds.

The formula is simple — Total return = Bet amount × Odds

This means for every ₹1 you bet, the odds show how much you’ll get back in total (including your original bet).

Example:
Odds 2.00 → Bet ₹100 → Win ₹200 (₹100 profit)

• Low odds (like 1.3 to 1.5) = Safer bet, but small profit
• High odds (like 2.5 and above) = Higher risk, but bigger payout

Popular Football Betting Markets in India

In India, football betting has become a regular part of watching matches — especially during big tournaments like the Premier League, Champions League, World Cup, and Indian Super League (ISL).

Most football bets are based on the result within 90 minutes of regular play, including injury time but excluding extra time or penalty shootouts.

If you're not clear about how these betting markets work, it's easy to make the wrong bet.

1X2 Match Result

1X2 is the most basic type of football bet — you predict the final result of the match. There are three possible outcomes:

• 1 – You bet the home team (listed on the left) will win.
• X – You bet the match will end in a draw (both teams score the same).
• 2 – You bet the away team (listed on the right) will win.

The draw (X) is its own separate option. So if you bet on the home team (1) but the match ends in a draw, you lose the bet — even if the team didn’t lose.

Over/Under(OU)

With Over/Under bets, you don’t need to guess who wins the match — you just predict whether the total number of goals will be over or under a number set by the bookmaker.

• Over 2.5 → You win if the match has 3 goals or more in total.
• Under 6 → You win if the match has less than 6 goals in total.

Handicap

In India, the most common handicap betting is Asian Handicap. Bookmakers give the stronger team a "handicap" (minus goals) or the weaker team a "head start" (plus goals).

The result can be full win, full loss, half win/half loss, or a refund in case of a draw.

When you see:

• A minus sign (-) means that team is giving away goals (the handicap). They must still win after subtracting the handicap for your bet to win.
• A plus sign (+) means that team is receiving goals. Your bet adds the handicap to their final score. If that total beats the opponent, you win.

The handicap numbers you see on betting sites are usually standard, starting at 0 and moving up or down in increments of 0.25, like:
0, ±0.25, ±0.5, ±0.75, ±1.0, ±1.25, ±1.5, ±1.75, etc.

When the handicap has a .25 or .75 (for example +0.25 or -1.75), this is called a Split Handicap. Your bet is split into two halves, placed on two handicaps — one 0.25 less and one 0.25 more than the number.

This split makes your bet more flexible. If the match is a draw, you won't lose everything, and you can win or lose half the bet.

Example 1: Bet +0.25 (team receiving 0.25 goals)
You are actually betting half on +0.0 and half on +0.5.

• If your team wins by 1 goal or more → both bets win
• If the match is a draw → +0.0 bet is refunded, +0.5 bet wins
• If your team loses by 1 or more → both bets lose

Example 2: Bet -1.75 (team giving away 1.75 goals)
You are actually betting half on -2.0 and half on -1.5.

• If your team wins by 3 goals or more → both bets win
• If your team wins by 2 goals → -1.5 bet wins, -2.0 bet refunded (half win)
• If your team wins by 1 or less → both bets lose

Half-Time/Full-Time(HT/FT)

This bet means you predict the result at half-time and full-time, for example:

• Home/Home (home team leads at half-time and wins full-time)
• Home/Draw (home team leads at half-time but match ends in a draw)
• Draw/Away (draw at half-time but away team wins full-time)

If you only bet on the full-time result without half-time, that’s called Double Chance.

Back or Lay

Back or Lay betting is different from the usual “betting against the house.” Here, you bet against other players.

• Back means you support something to happen. For example:
  You Back Manchester United to win, with odds 3.0, and bet ₹100.
  → If Manchester United wins, you get ₹300 back (₹200 profit).
• Lay means you oppose something happening — you think it will not happen. In this case, you act like the bookmaker, accepting bets from other players who Back that outcome.

The Lay odds show the price you offer to others. If they win, you pay them according to these odds.

For example:
You Lay Manchester United (betting they won’t win), odds 3.0, with ₹100 stake. This means you accept someone else betting ₹100 on Manchester United to win.

→ If Manchester United loses, you keep their ₹100.

→ If Manchester United wins, you pay them ₹200. (Because odds are 3.0, they get ₹300 back; minus their original ₹100 stake, you pay ₹200.)

First Goal/Last Goal

You predict which team will score the first goal or last goal in the match. Common options are:

• HG: Home Goal (home team scores first)
• HL: Home Last (home team scores last)
• AF: Away First (away team scores first)
• AL: Away Last (away team scores last)
• NG: No Goal (match ends 0-0, no goals scored)

Corners

Corners happen when the defending team kicks the ball out behind their goal line, and the attacking team gets a chance to kick the ball back into play from the corner flag area.

Popular corner bets include:

• Over/Under on total corner kicks
• Exact Corners (predicting the exact number of corners)
• Corner Range (like 0-4, 5-8, or 9-11 corners)

Correct Score

You predict the exact final score, like 1-0, 2-1, or 0-0. Because guessing exact scores is very hard, the odds are usually quite high.

Live Betting

Live Betting means you can place bets while the match is still on, based on what’s happening right now — not just before the game starts. The odds keep changing in real time depending on things like the current score, red cards, and possession.

One important thing to know: when you bet on Asian Handicap in Live Betting, the score resets to 0-0 for calculating the handicap, no matter what the actual score is at that moment.

How to Bet on Football Online

Want to try football betting? The process is not difficult, but the first step is very important — choose the right online betting site.

Here are some popular football betting sites among Indian players:

• Dubai7: Offers multiple bookmakers and a variety of odds and markets to compare. Register on Dubai7 and get free live streams of Premier League, World Cup, and ISL matches.
• Parimatch India: Known for promotions but has fewer football offers. Better if you mostly bet on cricket.
• 1xBet: Wide market options, but the interface might be a bit confusing for beginners.

Betting Steps (Using Dubai7 as Example)

1. Register an account using your mobile number.
2. Deposit money via UPI, Paytm, bank transfer, or USDT.
3. Check out 11 sportsbooks and pick your favourite.
4. Find the match you want to bet on → Choose your bet type → Confirm the odds.
5. Enter your stake amount → Confirm your bet.