We are also experts and sports bookmakers, and our team can provide you with information about soccer, hockey and almost every other sport. On our website you can read about the best online football bets and many other sports-related bets.
If you’ve only been eyeing soccer betting, but didn’t know where to start, you’re in the best place! This article is specifically intended for those who are just getting to know the world of sports betting, including football betting. Here, we have pre-selected and ranked the best soccer betting sites for you!
If you read this article, you will also know where the best betting margins are! But a separate list of bookmakers offering the best mobile betting experience has been compiled. Finally, we will introduce you to the most popular banking methods in the world of online sports betting.
The history of live football betting
The evolution of soccer betting is a bit murky from the beginning, similar to the history of the sport. Football betting has existed since the beginning of the sport, but it was only in the 20th century that they became popular and public.
Speaking of legality: until 1960, most football bookmakers organized bets illegally.
However, betting was legal in bookies when Littlewoods introduced it in 1923. bookmakers typically used a points system where punters were awarded points as a result of their tips, usually up to a maximum of 12 matches.
At the beginning of the 20th century, betting companies began to appear in the United Kingdom, Ladbrokes being the oldest of them. However, at that time, betting companies focused on horse racing and dog racing.
Online soccer betting has long been a part of people’s lives, and since the Internet has existed, soccer betting has slowly shifted to the online space. Nowadays, the best sports betting sites are available to anyone.
Football is the biggest betting sport in the world
17 of the 24 teams in the 2019/2020 Premier League had gambling sponsors.
Apart from the above-mentioned betting offices dealing with football, betting on football was illegal, but of course betting took place in the alleys and through criminal gangs. That’s how it went in most of the world.
However, everything changed in the UK with a 1960 law that legalized gambling.
This was when bookmakers took off in the UK, although they were a bit poor at first, and illegal businesses ran rampant until the 1980s.
In 1986, the bookies were cleared and allowed to show live games on TV. However, bettors did not have many betting options and for non-televised matches, the stakes had to be high, i.e. three matches with one ticket.
Online football betting boomed in the late 1990s and early 2000s when several football betting sites such as Bet365 and William Hill appeared. Also of note was 2001, when betting tax was abolished, and in 2002, the minimum three rule, which allowed punters to bet on one match, was also abolished.
Online football betting sites have continued to grow and now there are plenty of betting markets and leagues around the world to place bets from anywhere.
In 2013, the BBC reported that online football betting was worth £70 billion worldwide, and by 2019 this figure had risen to over £100 billion.
A look at some of the figures from the 2018 World Cup shows just how big a business football betting really is. According to a study prepared by FIFA, a total of £110.4 billion was bet on the 2018 World Cup, of which £5.8 billion was on the final between Croatia and France alone.
It can be really difficult to find the best sports betting site specifically for soccer. In this article, we try to make the choice easier by considering several aspects: be it the odds, the range of events and markets that can be bet on, the possibility of live betting and broadcasting, and the margins. You will also find a short summary for each listed bookmaker. We also talk separately about how to interpret the margin percentages of foreign bookmakers.
