There are plenty of online betting markets for you to choose from when taking a punt on football matches. Some are straightforward, others are more complicated than necessary. All offer rewards for correctly predicting an outcome of some sort.
‘Winning Margin’ is one such market.
What Is The Winning Margin Betting Market?
With this bet type, you’re wagering on the difference in goals between two sides. For example, if one team scores three goals and the other scores once, then the winning margin stands at two (2). If the home team bags four goals and the visitors hit three goals, the winning margin is one (1).
There are two key elements to this genre of betting. First, you need to correctly guess which team will win the game (draws are not available for selection). The second aspect of this market is the margin of victory. You are required to pick whether a team will win by one, two, three or more goals. When both outcomes go in your favour, your bet wins. In return, you make money.
Odds for ‘Winning Margin’ bets are better than ‘To Win’ prices, making it a more rewarding method of betting. This is because you’re not just putting money on which team will win but also the number of goals they’ll win by. As such, you need to be confident in your ability to estimate which team will score X number of goals – otherwise, you’ll be throwing cash into the wind.
Winning Margin Market Meaning
Popular UK bookmaker SkyBet describes the ‘Winning Margin’ betting market as the following:
SkyBet’s Description of ‘Winning Margin’
You’re betting on: by what margin the nominated team will win by, e.g. Team A by exactly 1 Goal.
The bookie also explains that bets will stand for all games that end in a stalemate. Therefore, any bets on this market where the game finishes as a draw will be counted as a loss rather than being voided. Hence, you must be diligent when making selections.
Terminology Explained For Winning Margin Markets
Just two words make up this market’s title, forming one of the simplest phrases in the world of online football betting to comprehend. Thus, this type of wager is ideal for anyone at the beginning of an online betting journey.
And if you’re someone that is more comfortable placing wagers on complex selections, the ‘Winning Margin’ market serves as a great way to win. The market is hard enough to get right that it offers good prices, yet it is simultaneously easy enough to use that even the most novice of punters can make a profit from it.
The word ‘Winning’ at the start of the market’s title represents the fact that you’re betting on the victor in the affair. In turn, you are also betting on the loser. Both outcomes work in tandem with each other.
Next is the word ‘Margin’. This may cause a little bit of confusion due to the existence of ‘Margin Betting’ in sports punting, but it could not be more different to the oft-used style of betting from across the pond.
Here, the word ‘Margin’ refers to the difference in goals between the winning and losing team. If the winning team leads by two goals, the ‘Winning Margin’ equals two. Now, let’s see if you understand how it works.
Imagine Chelsea were to take on Barcelona at Stamford Bridge in the Champions League. The Blues lead 4-1 in the 89th minute having come from 0-1 down in the first half. The atmosphere is electric and fans are beginning to dream of eliminating one of the world’s most famous powerhouses from Europe’s elite competition.
What is the ‘Winning Margin’?
Despite Chelsea scoring four goals, the answer is not ‘four’. Barca have one goal on the board, but they’re not winning – so the winning margin certainly isn’t ‘one’.
The margin between the two sides is found by subtracting the number of goals scored by the losing team from those struck by the team in the lead. Here’s the formula for this game:
- 4 – 1 = 3
Chelsea hit the net four times and Barcelona scored a solitary goal. The answer to this equation, therefore, is three. The same premise applies to every other selection on this market.
Strategy & Tips For Winning Margin
You can’t control the number of goals scored in a game, nor do you have the power to sway which way the result will go. These are factors that can only be determined by the players, managers, and to some degree, the fans within the stadium.
Those of us betting from the comfort of home are only capable of creating strategies to account for the above-mentioned influences on football results. By developing a strategy, you give yourself the freedom to analyze where you may have gone wrong in the past to better prepare for the future.
The ‘Winning Margin’ market is difficult to predict. It’s a bet-type in a limbo of sorts, with each goal either increasing or decreasing your chances of making money.
1. Analyse Result Patterns
Teams gain confidence when they win. That is football’s worst-kept secret. A side in top form can earn points via confidence alone.
Even more impressive is the way that some clubs and nations can repeatedly come out on top by the same scoreline. For example, between the end of August and the start of September 2022, Arsenal went on a run of winning three games 2-1 from four outings (one match ended in a loss). Bets on ‘Arsenal To Win by Exactly 1 Goal’ throughout this period would have seen impressive returns.
Then you have a team like Fulham. The Cottagers showed a mixed run of form over the first several weeks of the 2022/23 campaign, winning three matches, losing three, and drawing twice. In five of these games, the winning margin stood at one goal.
Now, Fulham did not win all five of those fixtures. The pattern was in the winning margin itself and not the result; making the ease at which you can correctly predict which team wins much harder. The upside to this is that you can have a fair degree of confidence in Fulham’s games ending with a winning margin of one. It’s up to you to decide which team should win.
Another positive comes in the form of prices. You can get great odds on matches where the winning margin is relatively simple to estimate. For instance:
- Fulham vs Newcastle in October 2022
- Fulham To Win by Exactly 1 Goal is priced at 4.50 (7/2)
- Newcastle To Win by Exactly 1 Goal is priced at 4.00 (3/1)
With Newcastle’s last two outings that ended in a victory either in their favour or the favour of their opponents boasting a winning margin of one, the percentage chance of this matchup also concluding with a margin of victory equalling ‘1’ is high.
2. Better Teams Have Greater Winning Margins
This point is short and sweet, but it’s handy for anyone that wants to make a quick buck. If you want to try your hand at this market but can’t decide which team to bet on, we recommend sticking with the most talented outfits.
Sides like Manchester City, Real Madrid, PSG, and Barcelona will often blow teams away with the sheer force in attack. All of these teams are equipped with the world’s best-trained coaching staff and players, subsequently forcing most opposing sides into submission before half-time.
Here are some notable statistics concerning these four clubs:
- Manchester City have won by three or more goals on four occasions before October 2022.
- Real Madrid were unbeaten in the opening two months of the 2022/23 season in all competitions.
- Each game won by Barcelona at the start of the 22/23 campaign ended with a winning margin of three or more (6 wins from 8 games).
- PSG scored three or more goals in five of their opening six Ligue 1 fixtures during 2022/23.
You should be able to find selections with terrific odds on these teams under the ‘Winning Margin’ market. To increase your odds even further, try your hand at creating an accumulator packed with Europe’s best sides.
Best Bookies & Odds For Winning Margin Bets
Football matches are out of your control, as we discussed earlier. However, you can pick where you want to bet as well as the odds you wish to take by shopping around. There are some top-of-the-range sportsbooks available in the UK, with each of the following bookies offering a wide selection of games to choose from in the ‘Winning Margin’ market.
This is a list of our recommended online sports betting sites for those of you that want to bet on this market:
- Bet365 – Highly competitive odds
- SkyBet – Selections published early in the week
- Betfair – Plenty of winning margin options
At the end of the day, the most important factor to consider is where you feel safest investing your hard-earned money. Each of the three bookies we listed in this section offer secure betting platforms that provide customers with numerous layers of protection.
It’s always worth your time to look around for better odds, wider selections and easy-to-use websites. When all three come together, you’ll have found your perfect bookmaker.
