Football Betting Sites, Tips, Odds & Strategy 2024

Associated Football, commonly known as football or soccer, is arguably the most popular sport globally, and betting on the sport remains a staple for any sports betting site. 


The sport is played all-year-round worldwide, including Ireland, which opens up a variety of football betting markets to Irish punters. This guide covers all you need to know about betting on football games. 


It will look at associated football in Ireland, football betting odds, popular markets for football betting, and other essential information. We will also give you some football betting tips that will be helpful to you when you bet on football.

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Siobhan Aslett
Siobhan AslettVerified

Best Irish Football Betting Sites 2024

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With thousands of professional players, hundreds of teams, and millions of fans in every corner of the world, you will agree that football is today's most prominent sport. As a result, you will hardly find any sportsbook, whether online or land-based, that doesn't offer football betting to its punters. 

That being said, you can make wagers on football events, tournaments, and leagues in any of the hundreds of online sports betting sites that are out there, as long as they accept Irish bettors. To make the search for where to place football bets easy for Irish punters, our team of betting experts at Irishluck have reviewed many of these sports betting sites.  

Football Leagues to Bet on

League of Ireland - Premier Division

Premier Division

UEFA Champions League

Champions League

UEFA Super Cup

Super Cup

World Cup

World Cup

La Liga

La Liga

Premier League

Premier League

League of Ireland - First Division

First Division

When it comes to associated football and football betting across the globe, certain leagues and tournaments are the centres of attention. We'll quickly take you through the top football competitions in the world.

The World Cup

The world cup is an international association football competition. The national football teams of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) participating countries compete for the world championship title. It started in 1930 and is played every four years, with 32 countries playing in the final tournament phase.

UEFA Champions League

The Champions League is an annual football competition organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), where European clubs from different top-level divisions compete. It started in 1955.

English Premier League (EPL)

The English premier league is the top level of the English football league system, where 20 clubs in and around England compete for the top position and the chance to participate in the UEFA Championship. It started in 1992.

Spanish Primera Division (La Liga)

La Liga is the Spanish football league system’s top-level football division, where 20 teams compete for the top position and a chance at the UEFA Championship. It started in 1929.

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History of Football in Ireland

You will agree that football is a pretty standard sport in Ireland. In fact, it is the second most popular sport in the country, and it is Ireland’s third most popular spectator sport after Gaelic football and hurling. While the sport is not a local sport with Irish origins like GAA football and hurling, it has also had a pretty long history in Ireland. The sport was already being played in Ulster as far back as 1860, but it wasn’t until the 1880s that it started spreading to other places across the country. 

The establishment of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) in 1921 spelt a new era for associated football in Ireland. Since then, the sport gradually became ingrained in the culture of the Irish people, with different tournaments and competitions occurring regularly. While the domestic leagues in Ireland are pretty famous, English football remains the go-to option for many Irish football fans, with more than 120,000 Irish fans travelling to watch football games in the U.K. each year.

Football Divisions in Ireland

You will agree that when it comes to associated football, the English Premier League (EPL), the Spanish Primera Division (La Liga), the German Bundesliga, and the UEFA Champions League, among others, need no introductions. These are the biggest and the most popular leagues in the world. Most countries have tournaments and leagues where the different football teams within the country compete regularly, and Ireland is not an exception.

There are dozens of football tournaments and leagues taking place in Ireland annually. Traditionally, associated football in Ireland is classified into senior, intermediate and junior, encompassing the national, provincial, and district leagues, respectively. The table below shows some basic information on Ireland's top 5 leagues and divisions.

League/ DivisionLevelDate Founded No. of TeamsTeam with Most Championships
League of Ireland Premier Division (SSE Airtricity League Premier Division)National198510Dundalk (8 titles)
League of Ireland First DivisionNational198510Drogheda United (5 titles)
Leinster Senior League Senior DivisionProvince189614Shelbourne (12 titles)
Munster Senior League Senior Premier DivisionProvince190110Cobh Ramblers (15 titles)
Ulster Senior LeagueProvince19867Fanad United (14)

Venues for Playing Football in Ireland

Though not as popular as GAA football or hurling, associated football is a pretty popular sport in Ireland, which is not surprising as it is considered the most popular sport globally. As a result, there are many different venues where the sport is played in and around Ireland. The table below shows some basic information about the five most prestigious venues for playing football in and around the country.

VenueLocationCapacityHome Team/ Club
Aviva StadiumBallsbridge51,700Republic of Ireland national football team
Thomond ParkLimerick26,500-
Tallaght StadiumTallaght8,000Shamrock Rovers F.C.
Turner’s CrossCork7,485Cork City F.C.
Richmond ParkInchicore5,340St Patrick's Athletic F.C.

Football Betting Odds

You will agree that a punter wouldn't have much luck in football betting without understanding how football betting odds work. The football odds express the probability or chance of any betting market or bet type occurring, which lets a punter know the value of the market. When it comes to sports betting odds, most online bookmakers will offer the fractional, decimal, and American formats.

Of course, the odds format widely used by Irish punters is the fractional format, which displays prices as 3/1, 2/11, 13/2, and so on. This format expressly represents the ratio between the stake and winnings of any given market. For example, let’s say a bookmaker features a 2/1 odds price for Napoli to win in a football match between Napoli and Tottenham. 

If you place a bet on this market, it means that for every €1 you wager on the market, you will receive €2 in profit. So if you wager €100 on the market and your prediction is accurate, you will receive a €300 return (€200 winnings + €100 returned stake). That being said, football betting odds are set by bookmakers and more often than not, the odds you see on one betting site may not necessarily be the same as what another site will offer. However, you will find common across all betting sites that betting markets with high chances of occurring come with low odds, while the ones with low chances typically have very high odds.

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Types of Betting in Footbal

As we have mentioned earlier, football is the most popular sport globally. The sport has hundreds, if not thousands of teams playing the game in professional leagues and tournaments regularly, with millions of fans in just about every corner across the globe. With this massive popularity, it is no surprise that football betting is by far the most common form of betting that you will find punters making online or offline. 

As a result, hundreds of football betting markets have been created over the years, and you will find a variety of bet types that you can place on any football event. Our team of betting experts at Irishluck have done their homework on this subject and have compiled a list of some of the most popular football markets that Irish punters can enjoy when they bet on football.

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Football Match Betting

Football match betting, also popularly known as 1X2 betting, is the most common and the simplest form of football betting. It involves punters making wagers on the result of a football match. In this market, you can bet on three outcomes, namely, 'home team to win' (1), a 'draw/tie' (X), or 'away team to win' (2). 

For example, let’s say there is a football match between Chelsea and Arsenal, where Chelsea is the home team, and Arsenal is the away team

  • Home win (1): Here, punters will bet on Chelsea to win the match. Naturally, they will only win the bet if Chelsea is the winner after the full 90 minutes is over.

  • Away win (2): Here, punters will place a bet on Arsenal beating Chelsea in the game.

  • Draw (X): Here, punters will place a bet on the game's outcome ending in a tie.

Double Chances

Double chance betting is another popular football betting type. It is just like the 1x2 betting in that it involves punters choosing from three selections. 

However, in this market, a punter gets to select a combination of two results of the three outcomes of a football match. The combinations include;

  • Home team or draw: Here, a punter is making a wager on the outcome of an event ending up in a win for the home team or a draw

  • Away team or draw: Here, a punter makes a wager on the away team winning or the game ending in a draw.

  • Home team or away team: Here, a punter makes a wager on the outcome of a football event ending up in a win for either of the two teams.

Naturally, if any of the combinations you choose occurs, you will win the bet. You should note that due to the outcome probability of this market being higher, the odds are significantly lower than that of match betting. But, this is a good market for newbies and bettors who want a reduced risk element.

Draw No Bet

The Draw No Bet is the betting market that eliminates the element of a draw from the available selections. This means that if you place a football bet on a team to win and the team ends up in a tie with its opponent, you will get your bet stakes back. Naturally, if the team loses the match, you lose the bet. You should note that the odds here are usually lower than that of other markets due to the obvious advantage this betting market gives punters.

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Handicap Betting

Another common form of online football betting popular amongst punters in Ireland and beyond is handicap betting. Typically, most football matches will have a clear favourite and underdog, which often shows in the value of the odds prices offered by bookmakers. 

As such, the favourites will have very low odds, making it difficult for punters to gain anything substantial from the market unless they risk large sums of money. The handicap market takes care of this downside by assigning certain conditions to the two contenders in a football match, thereby giving the underdog and favourite a hypothetical advantage and disadvantage, respectively. 

These conditions come in the form of negative and positive values, which will be assigned to the teams to manage the goal differences and make the odds prices more attractive.

For example, handicap markets are shown as:

  • Liverpool (-1)

  • Draw (-1)

  • Watford (+1)

If you bet on Liverpool, the clear favourite to win the football match, the wager wins if Liverpool beats Watford by two or more goals. You will win the handicap draw bet if Liverpool wins the match by exactly one goal (1-0 becomes 0-0 after the -1 adjustment). A bet on Watford will payout if the game ends in a draw or if Watford manages to win the game by any number of goals

Half-time/Full-time

You will agree that just because a team is in the lead in the first half of a football match doesn’t necessarily mean that the team will eventually win the game. As a result, a market that takes advantage of this aspect of football matches is the Half-time/Full-time market. In this market, a punter will have to place wagers on the result of a football game at half time and at full time. 

You can do this by picking a single team to win both halves or one team to win the first half while the other wins the second half. You can also add ties into the mix, leading to 9 possible combinations of bets (Home team/Home team, Home team/Away team, Home team/Draw, Draw/Home team, Draw/Draw, Away team/Away team, Away team/Home team, Away team/Draw, Draw/Away team).

Outrights/Ante-Post Betting

Another popular way Irish punters bet on football is by using the outright betting market. Unlike the other bet types we have explained, the outright betting market is more of a long term bet, involving placing bets on tournaments as a whole.

In this market, you can predict which team will win at the end of a particular league or championship tournament, such as the Premier League, the Europa League, or the Champions League. You can also bet on top goalscorers, the teams that will take top positions, the team that will end up in relegation, and many other markets.

Other Betting Markets

The list of football betting online markets that you can access and place wagers on is endless. Depending on the betting site you are using, you will always find new and exciting betting options that you can place bets on when it comes to football games. 

Below are a few other online football betting markets that deserve mention;

  • Corners: Involves different betting options on the corners that are played in a match. This includes total corners, first match corner, last match corner, and many others.
  • Goals: Involves different betting options on the goals scored in a football match. This includes the first winning margin, total scores, the first team to score, the last team to score, etc.
  • Cards: Involves betting market options revolving around received cards in a football match. This includes the number of cards in a match, the first card received, the first player booked, and many others.
  • Player: The market revolves around bets on individual players in the match. It includes goalscorers, multi scorers, player assists, player passes, and many others.

In-Play Betting

One of the latest features taking the sports betting industry by storm today is live betting, also known as in-play betting. Punters are no longer limited to making pre-match betting for football games. Irish punters can place bets on different aspects of football with the in-play feature while the football sporting event is going on. Here, punters can observe the flow of the ongoing game and make informed decisions based on what they see.

While the markets offered for live betting are not as massive or extensive as pre-match betting, there are more than enough exciting ones to keep sports betting enthusiasts entertained. Several bookmakers offer this feature, and you will find different markets like the next goalscorer, the next team to score, the next team to get a field kick, and so many others. We should mention that, unlike pre-match betting, the odds offered for in-play betting are fixed. Instead, the odds fluctuate as the flow of the live game action taking place on the football pitch changes.

Singles and Accumulators Explained

Typically, depending on the sportsbook you are using, there are two primary ways to place bets, namely singles (straight bets) and accumulators (parlay). When you place bets with an accumulator, you use the same amount to wager on the entire selection. 

This betting method offers the potential for significant returns for small stakes. Naturally, the risk to making this type of bet is that all the picks have to win for a bettor to receive the payout. Singles, on the other hand, don't work the same way. When you use singles, you have to place wagers on each of your selections of markets, which means that a loss on any of the picks doesn’t affect the returns of the others.

How to Place Football Bets

If you are new to the world of online football betting, then you may be wondering what the process of making wagers on the football sport looks like. Thankfully, the process is pretty simple and doesn’t require any cumbersome effort to get done. 

We have highlighted the steps you need to follow in the content below.

  1. Find a sports betting site is if you don’t already have one.
  2. Create your sportsbook account with the site.
  3. Choose a deposit method from the site's payment methods list and deposit money into your player's account.
  4. The next thing to do is start selecting football events and markets you want to wager on.
  5. As you click on the football markets you want to stake on, the bets will automatically show up on your betting slip, and you can choose to place the bets as singles or as a combination in accumulators.
  6. Once you are satisfied with your bet selections, you need to enter the stake amount and submit the betting slip.

How Did We Select Best Betting Sites?

As we have mentioned, most, if not all, online bookmakers offer football betting markets to their players, resulting in Irish punters having an endless option of sites to use for football betting. Naturally, some bookmakers are better than others, and while some sites offer excellent services to their players, others offer substandard and unsatisfactory ones. This is why any Irish punter needs to be selective when choosing where to use for football betting. Not to worry, our team of betting experts at Irishluck have made a list of some of the things you need to consider in order to find the best online football betting site that is right for you.

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You want a site that offers a wide variety of betting markets. This should include many different bet types in all the major football leagues. Naturally, this should also consist of Irish football leagues and divisions.

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Football betting odds usually varies from one bookmaker to another, so you should look out for the sites that offer the best possible odds.

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In-play wagering offers the most exciting betting experience, so you want a site that offers live betting services on most of their football sporting events.

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Betting features like ‘early cashout’, ‘bet builder’, ‘live streaming services, and many others are helpful to punters when they bet on football. So, it would be best to look for the sites that provide these features to bettors.

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Many sports betting sites offer different bonuses and promotions to their punters. So, if you are interested in such offers, you should find the sites that provide generous bonuses.

Football Betting Strategy and Tips

One vital thing you need to note is that, as is with most sports, betting on football is a game of probability, and nobody can tell what the outcome will be until after it happens.  As such, no football betting strategy or tips can guarantee that a wager will win. However, certain tips and practices will increase your likelihood of winning predictions when you bet on football. 

Below are some excellent football betting tips that our team of betting experts at Irishluck have gleaned from their research into football betting, which will prove helpful to you when you bet on football games.

  1. Know the sport and its betting scene: You need to know about football betting that being a football fanatic doesn't necessarily make you a betting expert. If you are interested in being successful in football betting, in-depth knowledge of the sport and the football betting scene is essential.
  2. Do thorough research: Before you place a wager on any football betting market, make sure to do thorough research on the teams involved. Check out their present form, previous results, stats, news, injury updates, and other underlying factors that might influence the games' outcomes. Knowing this will help you to make more accurate predictions.
  3. Bet with your head, not your heart: This means that you should place bets on the team that has the highest chances of winning and not because you want the team to win.
  4. Don’t get greedy: When making your selections, especially when using accumulator bets, don’t add in extra markets just to bump up the payout. Stick with the quality odds with better chances than quantity odds that will bring big winnings.
  5. Have Patience: As is with any form of gambling, you can't win every bet you place on football matches. So, if you want to be successful in football betting, you need to have patience and not get too worked up when you lose.
  6. Try and avoid friendly matches: Often than not, teams that engage in friendly matches don’t usually put in their best, which means that the results will be unpredictable. So, making predictions on the outcome of such events may not be the best idea for you, especially if you are a newbie.

Finally, we should mention that, like any other form of gambling, football betting can be addictive, leading to a series of problems. So, if you feel that your betting might become a problem for you at any point in time, we advise you to seek help. Sites like begambleaware.org and others might be worth a visit.

Closing Thoughts

To sum up, football is the most popular sport globally, which is why football betting is a pretty massive industry in Ireland and many other places across the globe. It is fun betting on any of the hundreds of football events being played in Ireland and other countries. We hope this review has equipped you with the skillset and expertise you need to start placing bets on football.

Football Betting FAQs

Is football betting legal in Ireland?

Yes. As is it with most sports in Ireland, it is legal to place wagers on your favourite football events and markets.

What are football betting odds?

Football betting odds are the market value of betting markets set by bookmakers, which represent the ratio between the wager amount and the winnings of any given outcome, should you stake on it.

Is football betting profitable?

The short answer is yes, football betting can be profitable for any punter that has solid knowledge and understanding of football and how football betting works. However, it is still a form of gambling, which means losing bets will remain constant.

How does football betting work?

Football betting is quite simple.  All you need to do is access the bookmaker of choice, identify the football event and market you want to bet on, enter the amount you wish to bet, and submit the betting slip. If your prediction(s) proves true, you will score a payout. However, you lose your stake if the prediction is inaccurate.

Which football betting site is the best?

When it comes to football betting, there is no one size fits all site for players, which is why most Irish punters will have varying opinions on which site is the best.  That being said, you can check the list of the best Irish football betting sites on our page to find the bookmaker that suits your betting needs.

What is a handicap in football betting?

Handicap betting is a betting market used to balance the playing field between two teams, especially where one team is clearly stronger than the other. 

The handicap gives the weaker team an advantage over the stronger team, thereby giving the two equal winning chances in betting.

What football market can I bet on?

The football betting industry comes with plenty of betting markets that Irish punters can enjoy when they place bets on their favourite teams or sporting events. This includes the likes of match betting, double chances, winning margin, over/under, and so many others.

Can football betting make you rich?

While it is possible in theory, football betting is unlikely to make you rich unless you turn it into a full-time job and give it all your time. 

Even then, you may still not get rich from it because football betting is still a game of probabilities at the core of it all.

Do bets count for only 90 minutes full-time in a football match?

Yes. All bets in football are accepted based on the 90 minutes full-time in the game, including overtime, and any extra time does not count for bet settlements unless otherwise stated.

What are the easiest football bets?

While there are hundreds of betting markets that a punter can place bets on, only a handful usually are more likely to be correct than others. 

Some of these bets include but are not limited to Double Chances, Draw No Bet, and Over/Under.

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Sportsbook Expert
Siobhan aslett

Siobhan Aslett

Irish Sportsbook Specialist

Sports & sportsbook expert of 8 years. Specialising in a subject close to her heart, sports, Siobhan informs online sports betting fans about the latest news & best sports betting sites.

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