Do People Bet Differently on Domestic vs International Football?
Football is the most popular sport globally, with billions tuning in to watch the biggest games. In many ways, the sport’s popularity makes a mockery of the 3pm blackout that is in operation in the United Kingdom, given the fact that people are likely to find ways to watch a match if they particularly want to, so limiting a game to just those that are in the football ground in terms of legal viewership in the hope that a few hundred might go to a non-league game instead is ridiculous. The other big thing about the sport’s popularity is that a chunk of those billions watching will also look to place bets on what they’re watching.
Whilst there is obviously a lot of crossover between domestic football and its international cousin, there is also a huge amount of difference between the two versions of the same sport. This is especially prevalent when it comes to betting, with punters tending to change their betting habits depending on which version of the game it is that they’re watching. The differences between the two iterations of football mean that some bets that are popular in domestic football are as good as pointless in the international game, whilst the reverse is also true. For bettors, knowing what to bet on can be key to potential success.
International Football & Outright Betting
It is obviously true that there will be plenty of people betting on the likes of who will win the Premier League or the Championship before a ball has been kicked. Wagering on such competitions is big business, so a lot of punters will be quick to get their bets placed as soon as they can when the markets go live. Yet the reality is that domestic football doesn’t have the same number of people betting the Outright market as international football does. There are plenty of reasons for this, of course. Whilst domestic teams clearly have huge numbers of supporters, not all of them will be betting on their team to win something outright.
Think of a supporter of, say, Everton. They are fiercely loyal to their club, but they also know that they have next to no chance of winning the Premier League, so the number of bets placed on that happening won’t be all that many. In comparison, a team like Denmark can win the European Championship, as they have proven in the past. Greece were massively unfancied for Euro 2004, but they won it and in doing so gave hope-filled supporters of other unfancied nations a reason to place a bet on their team to win a tournament outright that the likes of Leicester City winning the Premier League didn’t quite do on the domestic front.
Domestic football is likely to have more money placed on it overall, largely because the competitions take place over such a long period of time, but there won’t be as much money placed on the Outright markets. A 38 game season, which is what the Premier League offers, is likely to see a player go in and out of form for any number of reasons, making a bet on the Top Goalscorer less appealing than in an international tournament. The likes of the European Championship and the World Cup sees teams play far fewer games overall, therefore making the likes of an Outright bet on a Top Goalscorer a live proposition for many people.
Goals Are Harder to Come By Internationally
The paucity of games on the international stage compared to domestically also means that it is much less likely for any of them to be absolute goalfests. In the World Cup in 2010, for example, the Goals Per Game rate stood at 2.27. In comparison, it was 2.77 in the Premier League and 2.83 in the Bundesliga. In the 2014 World Cup, Germany defeated Brazil 7-1. It was the exception that proves the rule, with no one really expecting it to be such a goal fest. In fact, before the game the majority of people predicted it to be a close encounter, with home advantage perhaps likely to see Brazil emerge on top rather than the Germans.
It is the same story with the European Championship. In 2018, the Goals Per Game rate stood at 2.12, where it was 2.68 in the Premier League and 2.79 in the Bundesliga. Rewind 20 years to 1998 and you’ll see that the rate was 2.06 for the Euros, whilst in the Premier League it was once again 2.68 and the Bundesliga again saw goals scored at a rate of 2.79 per game. What this all means is that punters are a lot less likely to place bets on there being a goal fest in an international game than they are when betting on domestic football. It is sensible betting from people, who know that the stats suggests games will be much closer on the international stage.
