Soccer is one of the fastest-growing sports in Canada. It won’t dethrone hockey any time soon. But if the national team continues to excel in international competitions like the World Cup, soccer could soon become one of Canada’s top three sports.
All You Need to Know About Soccer Betting in Canada
Soccer is particularly popular with sports bettors. Here’s why. It’s the most popular sport in the world. That means there’s always a football match to bet on. It also means you can find lots of betting sites with soccer bonuses.
In this article, we’ll provide a beginner’s guide for betting on soccer in Canada. Let’s get started.
Picking a Soccer Betting Site
Sports betting is legal in Canada. Before 2021, you could only bet on parlays. Now, you can bet on a single soccer match. Or, you can select the first goal scorer, halftime results, or the correct score.
You can bet on sports through a land-based sportsbook in Canada. But in this age of smartphones, it makes more sense to bet online. Find a mobile-friendly sportsbook. Ensure it’s top-rated and features a wide range of sports.
There are a lot more things you should check for on a betting site. For example, you want a safe and licensed bookmaker. You also need a site with fast customer service. That being said, you don’t have to worry about these features if you choose a sportsbook recommended by trusted experts.
Choosing Betting Bonuses
Although you should prioritize safety and reliability in a betting site, look for a bookmaker with generous bonuses. Good bonuses protect you from losses. They also increase your potential profits.
Most betting sites in Canada welcome you with bonuses. However, betting promotions are not created equal. Look for a variety of bonuses, but pay more attention to the bonus policies: playthrough, withdrawal limit, odds to follow, and validity time.
Bestbettingsites.com has made a list of top betting bonus offers in Canada. These promotions come from established sportsbooks. That means they have fair terms and conditions. It also means you’re likely to get loyalty bonuses over time.
Selecting a Bet Type
The best soccer betting sites provide a wide range of bets. More importantly, they cover hundreds of leagues daily. It’s almost impossible to not find a good soccer match to predict for money.
With that said, you can’t bet on everything. Below are some of the soccer bet types:
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Match Winner/Moneyline
A moneyline bet is a prediction that one soccer team will win a game. It’s the most popular soccer bet around the world. That’s because you can easily predict certain matches.
Let’s say World Cup winners Argentina have a friendly match against Panama. The game is taking place in Bueno Aires, with Argentina’s leading players all in the lineup. Everyone expects the home team to win.
Although match winners look predictable, this is not always the case. Sometimes underdogs defeat the favorites. Just take a look at what happened to Argentina in their first match against Saudi Arabia during last year’s WC: they lost.
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Spreads/Handicap
With this prediction, you select a match winner and the margin of victory. Assume there’s a game between Barcelona and Real Madrid. It’s a competitive fixture. But you believe the home team will edge out Madrid by two or more goals.
You could bet on a +2 spread for Barcelona to win the match. You make money if Barca wins by a margin of two or more goals. If they win 2-1 or 1-0, you lose. If they draw, you lose.
The beauty of handicap bets lies in the odds. The odds are often much better than match winners. Precisely, a +2 handicap could have 3.5 odds while a regular moneyline bet has 2.00 odds.
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Totals
Totals bets challenge you to predict the total number of goals scored in a soccer match. Don’t worry. You don’t have to predict something specific. In most cases, you get a choice like OV/UN 0.5, OV/UN 2.5, or OV/UN 3.5. OV is short for over while UN means under.
In an OV/UN 0.5, the challenge is to predict whether there will be any goals in the match. If you think a game will be goalless by full-time, choose UN 0.5. If you think there will be at least two goals in a game, select OV 1.5.
A total bet is one of the best soccer bets out there. That’s because you can analyze a lot of data about a team to determine if it’s been scoring a lot lately or not.
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Parlays/Accumulators
With parlays, you accumulate several predictions in one betting slip. The betting site adds up the odds so that you could win up to 100x your stake. The only catch is that you must predict all matches correctly for you to win.
Parlays are tough to win. Don’t bet on a soccer parlay until you become experienced in betting.
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Additional Bet Types
Soccer is full of bet types. You can pick the correct score. It’s highly risky but also profitable. It’s the same case for props—these bets are based on pure luck. Additional wager types to consider include goal-goal, futures, and double chance.
Reading Odds
Betting on soccer is 50% finding good odds and 50% analyzing data to ensure you make the right prediction. In Canada, bookmakers provide odds in three formats:
- Decimals
- American Style
- Fractions
Both decimals and fractions work in the same way. If Brazil has 2.0 odds to beat Uruguay (5.0), you win $2 for every $1 you bet on Brazil. The same bet can be expressed as a fraction: 2/1 for Brazil and 5/1 for their opponents.
American odds are easy to understand if you’ve been betting on other Canadian sports for a while. However, they can be intimidating to a beginner. Basically, bookmakers select an underdog and a favorite in every soccer match.
If you select an underdog, you should expect odds like +$150. These odds mean if you bet $100 on the underdog, you win $150. You also receive your stake back.
If you select your favorite team, you will see odds preceded by a minus sign, say -150. Here, you need to bet $150 to win $100.