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If you want some advice for how to place intelligent bets on Futsal, make sure to read through the information provided in this article.

We will be taking you through a brief overview of Futsal, giving some advice on how you can make smarter bets, and sharing some tips to help you bring in profit in the long term.

What Is Futsal?

Futsal is an indoor variant of football where the court is far smaller and there are usually 5 players per team.

Because Futstal is far less popular than standard football, there are less games to bet on and usually less supported markets.

The other issue is that the reduced popularity means that it’s sometimes harder to find good prediction posts. You really have to work hard to do your own research.

This can be a double-edged sword because whilst it can sometimes be harder to find the information you are looking for, taking time to do your research properly before placing a bet will mean that you’ll have an edge on most other bettors and the odds may lean in your favor.

How Can You Bet On Futsal More Intelligently?

Firstly, let’s talk about the betting opportunities for Futsal. If you are looking to make long term profit from betting, you’ll need a sport with a healthy betting scene.

Thankfully, Futsal has exploded in popularity in Europe, especially in Spain and Portugal. Futsal has also grown in popularity in South America. This means there has never been a better time to bet on Futsal if you know what you’re doing.

Many larger bookmakers are starting to support more Futsal events and they are bringing in more markets, too.

So, how do you make sure your bets on Futsal are intelligent and well-educated?

It all starts with match research. Unfortunately, the material online for Futsal predictions isn’t quite as voluminous as big sports like football or tennis. You’ll need to dig deep online to find specific match predictions well ahead of each game.

Sometimes, you might not be able to find any information online whatsoever. In these cases, it’s best just to watch the match without betting. You can keep your own notes on how each team performs and use that for later use.

In other cases, you’ll find in-depth betting analysis posts that you can use to make your own educated bets based on somebody else’s research.

If you want to stick to Futsal, eventually the most powerful resource will be your own knowledge. You’ll need to watch Futsal religiously, making note of how each team performs, what their styles are like, and how each team stacks up against each other.

Here is how a good long-term Futsal betting strategy should work –

• Look for betting opportunities on your favorite bookmaker
• Once you’ve found a match, research it for more details
• If you can find factually-based predictions, rely on that to make bets
• If you can’t find any predictions with any facts to back it up, DO NOT BET
• Regardless of whether you bet or not, watch the match live
• After each match, take notes of each team and how they performed
• Use a spreadsheet to keep match results and notes of your own
• In the future, you can rely on your own notes to make bets

Follow this strategy and you’ll be on your way to becoming an expert bettor that only bets intelligently on Futsal games.

To begin with, you may have less information to go off, so it may make sense to keep your bet size low until you’ve watched more games. As you learn more, you can increase your bet size.

We hope the tips in this guide have proven to be useful. Good luck on your next Futsal bets!

This weekend sees the highly anticipated rematch of last year’s controversial ‘Supremacy’ fight between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and ‘GGG’ Gennady Golovkin.

Battling to a draw at the T-Mobile Arena last September, the two best middleweights on the planet will do it all over again on Saturday night, with a score to settle for both…

Marred by judge Adalaide Byrd’s controversial 118-110 scorecard in favour of Canelo in the first fight, the Kazakh, Golovkin, will be looking for revenge after feeling he was the clear winner in the opening fight. A clear winner, perhaps not, however, there is no way ‘GGG’ only won two of the twelve rounds contested last September; Golovkin will be looking to draw a thick line under this rivalry.

Canelo’s failed drugs test has also added to the narrative of this rematch. Originally scheduled for Cinco de Mayo earlier this year, the Mexican was banned for six months for levels of clenbuterol in his blood; contaminated Mexican meat was the excuse given.

The undercard features high-profile clashes between David Lemieux and Gary O’Sullivan, Jaime Munguia and Brandon Cook and Roman Gonzalez and Moises Fuentes.

With the talking over, where do the advantages lie on fight night? What are the markets worth looking at?

Canelo-GGG – Canelo to win on points @ 21/10 [BetFred]

With Canelo 6/4 in the outright fight market, backing the Mexican to win on points is a sure way to mark up your price with limited risk. Sure, Canelo has KOs on his record, but with the granite chin of Golovkin in front of him again, the likelihood of the Mexican winning this by stoppage is unlikely.

Adding to this, we have the history of Canelo and the judges. The Mexican is often heavily favoured by judges (unjustly or not), so backing Canelo to get the nod on the verdict shows a sensible system, with this fight expected to be even closer than the first.

Canelo-GGG – Will the fight go to the distance – Yes @ 4/9 [BetVictor]

You only have to look at the first fight to see why this price is so short. Both threw bombs, both took bombs, with neither fighter’s chin ever looking in real danger. Golovkin is tipped to be the most likely fighter to stop the fight, however, a year on from the first, the Kazakh’s power is highly likely to have diminished by a couple of percent at least. So much is on the line for both guys, and if you are reluctant to pick a winner in this pound-for-pound top ten clash, then backing the fight to go the distance is beneficial.

Canelo-GGG – Draw @ 22/1 [BetVictor]

Surely not, again?! I mean, thunder can often strike twice in boxing. I am not saying that a repeat draw is likely to occur, but at a price of 22/1 it’s worth a small stake considering how closely matched these two fighters are. Jack-Stevenson, Jack-DeGale, Canelo-GGG, KSI-Logan Paul (cough, cough), there have been plenty of high-profile draws in the past 18 months; but don’t get me wrong, there will be outrage if there is another!

David Lemieux vs Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan – David Lemieux win @ 8/15 [BetVictor]

Since being schooled by Billy Joe Saunders in Canada last December, the 39-4 middleweight is back to challenge the colourful Irishman Spike O’Sullivan. Spike is tough, and may allow this fight to go rounds, however, if Lemieux connects then Spike may retreat in this fight. We saw O’Sullivan struggle against the flawed Chris Eubank Jr.; his Canadian challenger has more of a varied skillset.

Lemieux needs a win to climb back into the conversation at 160-pounds, 8/15 isn’t a fantastic price, but it’s surely a safe bet against the 34-year-old.

Competition can manifest itself in many forms; physical, mental, and now virtual. Competitive gaming has been around since we first put our initials on the leaderboard of an arcade machine.

But, the initiative of human competition has propelled competitive gaming into the modern forefront, where a multifaceted global phenomenon has taken shape. This shape is most commonly known as eSports.

Similarly to how we use the term “Sports” to incorporate all competitive physical games. “eSports” is the term used to accumulate all of the various competitions that take place on a virtual playing field. When betting intelligently on an eSport, it is best to educate oneself on the different types of eSports, the rules of the game and the players who compete.

Types of eSports:

eSports can break down into five different sub-categories, each simplified with the acronyms: MOBA, FPS, RTS, BR, and FG.

MOBA or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena is a team based game in which all five members with assigned roles work towards a collective goal; with the viewpoint being isometric or third-person. Hosting a wide selection of unique characters to use; items can be bought to increase the base stats of the user. The most popular titles of this type include League of Legends, DOTA 2, SMITE and Heros of the Storm. However, Heros of the Storm favors team play over item use. Therefore item based mechanics are not used.

FPS or First Person Shooter is another team based game. The viewpoint is in the first person, and gameplay revolves around various projectile based weapons. Popular titles of this genre include Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, Rainbow 6 Seige, and the numerous Call of Duty titles.

RTS or Real Time Strategy is an individual player game. Only two players compete against each other at a given time. The perspective of the game is typically isometric, and mechanics vary from title to title. Popular titles in this category are StarCraft, StarCraft 2, and Clash of Clans.

BR or Battle Royal is a newly developing eSport. Battle Royal has seen tremendous growth in player base, creating a need for a competitive league. Popular titles include H1Z1, Fortnite and PUBG. However, many question the viability of BR because of the random nature of the core gameplay.

Lastly, FG or Fighting Games is precisely that. 2D or 3D Fighting Games that allow two individual players to fight against one another. Mechanics and technique can vary from game to game. Popular titles include Tekken, Street Fighter, DragonBall Fighter Z, and the diverse assortment of Super Smash Bros games.

Rules of the Game:

Before beginning to intelligently bet on eSports, knowing the rules of the game is vital. Regardless of the eSport’s sub-category listed above, not knowing crucial principals of the game can lead to foolish mistakes.

Every eSport has its own set of rules and regulations; due to the extensive list of said rules per each game, this article will not cover them for the sake of time. Tune-in to the various pro circuits of eSports and find which type of game suits you the most. Once you have that personal connection, learning the rules will help better your betting.

Players Who Compete:

Despite eSport’s advances, betting it is still remarkably primitive. The most common form of a wager in eSports is the Outcome Prediction or picking the better of the two teams that will be playing against one another. However, numerous betting websites are beginning to roll out new Fantasy League betting opportunities.

These Fantasy Leagues are structured similarly to those of Fantasy Football and Fantasy Baseball. Players earn points based off of in-game achievements, which in turn lead to an accumulative total. The individual with the most points at the end of an event wins. Thus, having an insight into the athletes and teams will lead to betting success.

Immersion is the Key:

When looking to bet on eSports or any Sport, the key to success is immersion. Enveloping yourself in the culture of the game, learning all aspects and striving to know more than the average fan. Betting is a prediction of what is to come. If you as an enthusiast of the game cannot visualize the things you bet on, the outcome will reflect as such.

eSports’ has become a way of life for individuals, much like the sports fans of the past. When choosing to bet on eSports, do it intelligently by knowing the types of eSports, the rules of the game, the players who compete and respecting the culture.

Chess. It may not be the greatest of visual spectacles, but it can be deeply engaging and absorbing wondering what is going through a player’s mind.

It’s a quiet, intense battle of minds which is in stark contrast the usual world of sport which is about being the quickest, the strongest and the most accurate. Not with Chess. It’s all about strategy, about moving and counter moving and trying to outthink your opponent.

Sometimes that opponent may be a computer like Deep Blue which is the computer designed by IBM that famously went out beat reigning World Champion Garry Kasparov who wasn’t particularly happy about it all. The Russian was visibly and mentally stressed in both of his meetings with the supercomputer. Anyway, back to the board game sport that is Chess and the betting opportunities which can arise from it.

Order and Structure

There is order and structure in Chess as there is in any sport. The sport even has its own Olympiad which is held every two years (nothing to do with the actual Olympics) and there is the World Championships for men and women as well. The FIDE Chess Grand Prix produces regular matches and there is also a World Cup. The pinnacle of the sport is becoming a Grandmaster which requires strongest conditions to be met before having the title bestowed upon a player.

So there is actually quite a lot of betting opportunities that are presented in Chess. You may have to go and look around for the right bookmaker that will carry more of the Chess markets that you are looking for. Commonly you may find bookmakers have limited markets only focusing on the outright winner of a given event, such as the Chess World Cup. But others can allow you to expand.

Expand your mind

How to bet on Chess intelligently is a pretty fitting notion to think about given this mentally tough and challenging game. There’s nothing wrong on betting on those outright markets if you find the right price for your selection against value. But there a far more detailed betting options to wrap your mind around. For example, you may find a Number of Moves market where you can guess the number of moves before a given event in a match happens (say the capture of a piece).

Moves betting in chess is pretty big and popular and these are market options where you decide how many moves a game will be decided in and these options are presented in over/under format, say for example over 45.5 moves. The average number of moves in a Chess game is said to be 30 while it’s rare that one goes over 60 moves.

There is also betting opportunities to be taken on the pieces in a game. Yes, Chess betting can get that detailed. You can back for example, a pawn to be the first piece to be taken in each of the first four games of a match, or whether or not a pawn will be turned in a queen over a set amount of games, and even down to how many pawns (or just pieces in total) would be left standing on the board at the end of a game.

Break it down

But breaking down how to bet on Chess intelligently is probably worth steering away from those very niche type of markets where more randomness can cut value. Really do you have a way to predict how many pawns will be left? Is it easier to just pick the winner of that game for a 50/50 shot as opposed to a 1/16 shot (a chess game starts with 16 pawns)?

It may be worth instead looking at the major markets such a match winner and the winning margin of a player in a game.

Other ways to try and gauge your options is by looking at the ELO ratings in the game which is a ranking system based on the relative skill levels of players. For those bigger fans of the sport, subjective options can also come from looking at things like opening moves and the defence of opening moves of the players involved.

The Biathlon is a test of not only physical endurance but also a test of nerves and accuracy. The Biathlon is a winter sport which combines the endurance trials of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.

So athletes not only have to dig deep and grind those muscles but then they have to also to then stop at designated sections, calm those pumping hearts and tame those adrenaline rushes to be as accurate as possible with a rifle aimed at a small target.

That’s the basic concept of the sport. The goal is to complete the course in the shortest time possible as with any race. The shooting skill aspect of it can reward or punish though. Missed shots on the course will amass time penalties that are added on. So there is a great balance and something that your betting on the sport will require a decision on.

Does the fastest athlete with the lower shooting skills trump the sharpshooting one who won’t be as quick on their skis?

Biathlon Events

There are individual events when athletes are on their own over 20 kilometres and a sprint version at half of that. Athletes have a staggered start because it is all based on individual times. There is a pursuit discipline where start times are determined by a previous sprint. There is a mass start version of Biathlon which is self-explanatory, everyone starts at the same time in a free-for-all and it’s first-come-first-served at the shoots. There is also a relay version of Biathlon.

Biathlon Betting Opportunities

So this is a massively popular winter sport and really the pinnacles of the sport are the Biathlon World Cup, the Biathlon World Championships and of course, the Winter Olympics. That is where you will basically come across the most betting opportunities for Biathlon at online betting operators.

Big events are naturally when the profile of the sport is going to be raised. It may need some time invested in looking around at different bookmakers to find the one that serves you the best options. This will solely be dependent on what you are looking for and the options on how to bet Biathlon intelligently simply boil down to odds comparison across the different bookmakers you will find.

Naturally, the sport isn’t going to lend itself to too many alternative betting markets. In football betting, for example, you find markets covering things like goals, discipline, score results, over/under and handicaps. It’s a bit more straightforward when looking at Biathlon betting. You are generally going to find straight single options to be taken on the outright winner of a given event.

Ante-post

What is nice to assess in thinking about how to bet Biathlon intelligently is finding a website which offers ante-post prices. That means well ahead of an event such as the Outright Winner in the Men’s World Cup a few months time, you may be able to find some bigger value than you will, come the final build-up to the actual start of the tournament. Why would that be?

Because the more that punters start getting interested and backing selections, the more prices are going to shift. If you have a favourite selection in the ante-post market, it can even be to your benefit to watch the odds to see for a while to see if they drift a little bit to try and get an even better price to back them at instead of waiting for last minute. Weigh all of this up though as the disadvantage is that you can’t apply form to ante-post markets.

Other Biathlon Options

So if you are looking at the IBU World Cup just for example or maybe the Olympics and you have found the right bookmaker then you could find yourself looking at other options. Some other common types of Biathlon bets which could be worth exploring for value are the Top 3 Finish, the Triple Head to Head and options for Team to lead at 1st, 2nd or 3rd exchange.

Betting intelligently on Biathlon really just takes a cool head and following your head and not your heart. Again it is a sport that you are not going to really be exploring a wide variety of different types of bets on. Just manage your bankroll wisely, and study all the statistics and form that you can get your hands on.

American Football garners a tremendous amount of betting interest, not only over in the USA but across Europe as well. Just as with any sport you will have your favourites and you will have your dark horses and you will have your underdogs.

It is a sport where you can dig down so deep in betting opportunities and markets that it can be a tricky thing to zone in on the right areas for you.

So how to bet American football intelligently may simply be a question of understanding the game a bit first. There is some logic to this that goes beyond stats. Of course, you can look at current standings in the AFC and if the top team is playing the bottom, then you immediately have a big idea of who is going to win that particular match up. But that, of course, creates a situation where there’s little value monetarily, or at least not without a big stake risk, in backing the favourite.

By knowing the game a bit, understanding the nuances of playing on the road, the power of a team’s set up in offence and defence, rivalries, star players and the like can really help you out in making intelligent betting decisions on the sport.

Moneyline

The money-what? The Moneyline will be an unfamiliar betting set up for a lot of European based punters who are more used to fractional and decimal odds. Most NFL markets for the match outright will be in Moneyline format. As an example of this, you may see the Philadelphia Eagles -600 at Dallas Cowboys +450. What this set up means is that you would have to bet 600 unit on the Eagles (the favourites) to win 100. The other option means that if you bet 100 units on the Cowboys you would win 450. You will also find Moneyline options for individual quarters and the halftime in NFL matches.

Points Spread

There are some sports that just lend themselves so well to handicap betting. While you’ll find it in everything from soccer to tennis, sports like rugby and American Football are actually more appealing. That is because the spread of points in a game are going to be bigger. That leads to more value variety. It is nothing much for an American Football match to end up 30-19 which is a much more dramatic scoreline than a 2-1 win for a soccer team.

Handicaps, or points spread if you like, are very appealing options. For example with a match between the San Francisco 49rs at Minnesota Vikings (the home team in NFL matches are listed second) may have an option of Vikings -7 in the Points Spread. What this means is that you can back them to win the match by a margin of more than seven points. If it’s exactly seven points their winning margin, that’s a ‘push’ and you lose.

Alternatively, you could back their opponents the 49s at +7 which means that you would back them to lose by no more than seven points in the match. So this is where Points Spread handicaps can be useful and often more valuable than straight single match outrights. If for example, the Vikings have their offence working well and have recently won by comfortable margins then you may not find too much of a stretch in moving them up to cover a -8 handicap for bigger value. Again this is part and parcel of how to bet on American Football intelligently. It’s not wise to just make calls like this off the top of your head.

Stats

Looking at these points spreads and how to bet American Football intelligently means one thing. Hitting those stats and hitting them hard. You can’t just pull out a random handicap margin out of thin air without backing it up. This is how the bookies can be beaten, by using your own assessments about how big a margin a team is likely to cover with their offensive power, or how close a weaker underdog may be able to keep in touch with a favourite and not lose by a huge margin.

Other key factors in all of this as well are team selections. In the 2017 NFL season Green Bay Packers star quarterback, Aaron Rodgers took a huge injury and guess what, the challenge of the Packers for fell away because of that. Injuries to key players like quarterbacks and receivers can be telling things ahead of a game and they, of course, can influence those margins.

Match outrights, points spread, 1st quarter winner, anytime touchdown scorer, total 1st half touchdowns, over/under points, the list of NFL betting markets goes on and on and that’s just for a given game. There are the Super Bowl championship winners, Conference Winners, Divisional winners, spreads the number of wins that a team will pick up over the course of the regular season. It’s a pretty involved betting sport.

Narrow It Down

How to bet American Football intelligently can be done by narrowing all of this down and focusing on one or two markets that take your fancy. THere’s no need to get pulled all over the place and into areas where you haven’t done as much research. Manage your bankroll onto areas where you have studied the stats so that you aren’t spreading yourself too thinly.

If you are dialed in on Over/Under points then stick with that and try and hone your prediction skills there. If it’s Parlays (accumulators) which are your thing or spread betting or just the straightforward money line, became a tactical beast at understanding them. Become as clued-in about the workings of them as you can and learn to hone your risk/reward efforts there instead of going for the big Hail Mary into the unknown.

Even though Alpine Skiing really only hits the headlines once every four years when the Winter Olympics come around, it is, in fact, a sport which offers plenty of betting opportunities for punters outside of that one specific event.

It’s not exactly realistic to think that all these skiers become such pro’s in just strapping on their skis once every four years with no competitive action in between.

Indeed not. The elite within the sport competes not only at the Winter Olympics but the World Championships and the FIS World Cup. The latter actually is a series of events which spans about five months, so that is a surprising amount of skiing betting opportunities that you can take a look at. So the big question of how to bet Alpine Skiing intelligently so that you can balance that risk & reward factor, can be answered quite simply by “form is the key”.

FIS World Cup Form

Because the FIS World Cup rolls along from season to season it is the best guide that you can take to a skier’s current form. Really it is like looking a tennis player over the course of a few months of action, or a football team’s run of results in a set period of time. It’s no different really when it comes to skiing betting. The FIS Ski World Cup is the top level of action outside of the Olympic Games, so this is where you will find the most betting opportunities with competitors in action on a regular basis.

So the form of the current FIS World Cup season for Alpine Skiing opportunities can provide a lot of detail for you. This is just the basics of betting on any sports, statistics are your friend and finishing places of a particular athlete at previous races are so vital to being able to bet Alpine Skiing inteligently. Just don’t get all snow blind and throw bets down wildly without reason. If an athlete has been quiet all season but wins a couple of races at the World Cup before heading to the Winter Olympics, their value may need to be reassessed.

Just as an example, if a great like Lindsey Vonn has been tearing it up with three podium finishes in her last five World Cup races, chances are she’s on top of her game and is worth considering for a successful time in her next race. To expand further, Austria’s Marcel Hirscher won just two of the opening ten races of the 2017/18 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup. But at the back end of the season, he won six of eleven, just ahead of going to the Winter Olympics.

Guess what? He won two golds at the Olympics as his form was strong and he won the first two races back on the World Cup circuit following that too.

Digging deeper and looking back over a few seasons of a particular race, you may see an athlete who just seems to only perform at their top ability at a certain track where conditions suit them. Skiers competing on their ‘home’ courses where they perhaps train the most, can add a little extra to their chances. These are factors to consider to try and prevent your skiing bet from going ‘downhill’.

Bookmaker coverage

As this is a seasonal sport, you will likely find that bookmakers will vary in the number of skiing markets that they put up. There are European-sports-centric bookmakers available that will offer more options when it comes to betting on alpine skiing and so that is something that you are going to want to shop around for. You don’t want to be left short of options when the new season of the FIS World Cup opens up for example.

So research bookmakers that carry skiing betting and look for the in-depth options for market variety. It’s never a bad idea to have more than one bookmaker available to you that offer good skiing markets. That way you can shop around a bit for the best value that you can get. That’s a valuable little tip on how to bet on Alpine Skiing intelligently.

Different Forms

Alpine Skiing is a blanket title which covers Slalom, Giant Slalom, Downhill, Super-G and Combined/Super Combined. These are the different disciplines of the sport and you will see athletes switching between them. But naturally, you are going to find more specialised performers in certain disciplines. For example, Lindsey Vonn has had a stunning career in Downhill and Super-G, but if she turns up for a Slalom, her chances there aren’t going to be great as a Slalom specialist. So never just back a name, check out race type and conditions.

Types of Skiing Bet

There is also a bet selection which is an important part of understanding how to bet Alpine Skiing intelligently. The most common type of bet in Skiing is just the outright winner of a particular event, be it the World Cup Slalom or the Winter Olympics Super-G. It’s a straightforward pick (not forgetting the value of each-way odds on bigger-priced selection) of who you think will win.

But there are options for skiing betting where you can branch out a bit to things like direct Head To Head markets between two competitors and a Top 3 finish for a particular race, which is just backing someone to fish in the top three places. So even though it is a seasonal sport, there are plenty of betting opportunities around on Alpine Skiing and never enough can we stress the value of reading form.