Football Betting — Free Bets, Offers, and Betting Options
It’s that time of the season again when all the major leagues are finished, and if you are a true UK punter, chances are you are looking for new football betting events. The good news is — football never sleeps, especially when we have a summer full of EURO 2024 and Copa America games. The 2024/2025 season also draws near, so it’s the best time to explore the best football betting sites and offers in the UK.
If you are searching for a more diverse selection of odds, we understand your concern, and that’s why we’ve made this all-in guide on football betting before the new season is set in motion.
We’ll enlist the best places where you can get a free bet bonus and bet on football in the UK, and you can feel free to check our list of the best betting sites for more info. Still, let’s keep it to the point and explain a bit more about football betting first, shall we?
The Latest Free Bet Offers Recommended by Our Team
If you are just getting started with football betting, welcome to the section that will change your perspective on things!
This is where our experts will give you monthly updates on the best football betting sites so you can make use of the most convenient free bet offers and other bonuses to rack up your winning odds. Here’s what’s new this month:
- Ladbrokes — New UK punters get a special offer of £20 in free bets when they join Ladbrokes as newcomers. All you need to do to get this offer is to deposit £5 and make an initial wager on the site. You get to use four £5 bets in return, and the odds are up to you, so select whichever event you’d like!
- William Hill — This one is a no-brainer since William Hill always has the best deals for UK bettors, and now they confirm it with a £30 free bet deal for newcomers who deposit £10. All you have to do is place bets on odds not lower than 1.50, and that’s it; you get a risk-free betting boost.
- Betfair — Betfair usually has tournament-specific offers and the same goes for this summer’s biggest events like the EURO 2024 and Copa America. You get to win £1 to £5 in free bets per goal on your favourite matches, plus the standard £20 free bet package for £10 deposits.
- PariMatch UK — With just a £10 minimum deposit on PariMatch, the operator awards you with an impressive £30 betting boost.
- Betway — Betway treats new bettors with a special £30 matched free bet deal, which means you can place a £30 bet, and if it doesn’t hit, you get your money in £10 increments as a free bet bonus.
Top Football Betting Sites in the UK
Before we get to the basics, let’s get straight to the point — here’s our list of the recommended top UK football betting sites. We’ve ranked these by their bonus offers, free bet deals, and competitive odds that bring something more than regular UK bookies:
- Rewarding and frequent promotional offers
- A large variety of casino games are available
- The ever-expanding sportsbook and varied markets
- Very strong odds
- Simple and user-friendly website and app
- Very limited payment options are provided
- Fewer live streams, when compared to peers
- Well-reputed and one of the biggest brands
- A wide variety of markets and sports are available
- Swift withdrawals
- Safe and secure
- Live chat support and proactive gambling support
- Regular promotional offers and free bets
- Many restricted countries
- Average website design
- Dedicated mobile app is present along with a mobile responsive site that is easy to use.
- Football betting markets are extensive allowing users a wide range of choices
- Gigantic Jackpots offer huge winnings
- Help Desk feature with its FAQs and guides provides useful information about all aspects of the bookmaker
- Promotions offered are minimal
- Betting margins are not generous
- User-friendly web interface
- Mobile responsive casino and sportsbook
- Diverse selection of games and sports
- Exemplary customer support
- Diverse and hassle-free payment options
- Does not support crypto payments
- Limited to only a few select countries.
- Great customer service
- Exciting free bets and promotional offers
- A wide variety of niche and popular sports and games are available
- Many payment methods are accepted
- Top-notch casino games
- Comprehensive FAQ section
- No mobile application is available
- Fewer welcome offers
- Limited live streaming options
- One of the most reputed and trusted bookmakers in the industry
- A vast number of payment methods are accepted
- Promotes safe gambling
- Excellent in-play betting and live-streaming service
- New and attractive promotional offers and bonuses
- Heavily information-loaded website
- Customer support is offered only through live chat and X
- New users keep their stake from welcome bonus
- Chance to get supercharged sports betting odds
- Cash out can also be supercharged
- Margins can be high for the industry
- Limited payment options available
- Few boosts offered on the sportsbook
- Smaller stakes are pooled and offer huge payouts
- Safe and secure
- Interesting bonuses and rewards
- Various bet types are available due to pool betting
- User-friendly app and website
- Top-notch racing live coverage
- Only debit cards are accepted for payments
- In-play betting is not offered
- Attractive welcome offers and scratch cards
- Amazing app and website experience
- Quick withdrawals with no extra charges
- Safe and secure
- Interesting Esports options
- Fewer payment methods as compared to other sites
- Fewer live streaming options
Football Betting Bonuses and Free Bets
This season was one of the most exhilarating football seasons in a while, and we’ve seen some big upsets with teams like Girona and Aston Villa booking their ticket for the UCL. However, the next 2024/2025 season could get even better if you use your football betting bonuses wisely.
Our team made sure only to recommend sites that feature diverse football betting bonuses, and these are some of the main boosts you can hope to achieve:
- Free Bets — Free bets are the main point of focus for every football bettor since you get to place a wager without having to risk your own funds. Or, you get your stake returned in the form of a risk-free bet, which is also a nice boost.
- Odds Boosts — Odds boosts or enhanced odds are also quite common on football betting sites in the UK. They are usually associated with major tournaments and events, as the sites give you higher odds for significant matches that lots of bettors are wagering on.
- Acca Boosts — Accumulator boosts and insurance offers are also pretty common if you know where to look, and our recommended sites should get you far with those. They are perfect for bettors who like placing multiples on their bet slip to get an extra odds boost.
Football Betting Tips From FreeBets Experts
Still feeling as if you lack the betting experience to hit it off with a banger for your first wager? Don’t worry, we’ll give you some starting tips to make sure you’ll get it right from your first made wager:
Take a risk of betting on unpopular markets
Sometimes, it pays off to bet on markets that aren’t as popular as outrights and match-winner bets. Football betting in the UK has gotten so popular now that we see bookies with hundreds of betting options emerge every day.
To hedge that opportunity and increase your profit, it’s enough to browse prop bets and markets that might give you higher odds than just betting on a home or an away team to win.
Create a Bankroll and Stick With It
Another important piece of advice would be to come up with a bankroll and never go beyond what you can afford to lose. Football betting is incredibly popular these days and the new 2024/2025 season will bring us hundreds of daily events on weekends, and top-tier UCL and UEL football during weekdays.
So, make sure to spread your bets evenly and set up a limit of what you can bet on for the day.
Use Free Bets and Odds Boosts
Last but not least, we have to advise you to always use free bets and odds boosts when possible. Our team goes the extra mile to bring you the best sites for football betting and make it more engaging for you to bet with an upper hand.
By joining the right site, you get to use all of the betting offers that you can land your hands on, and we encourage you to focus on free bets and enhanced odds first.
How to Start Betting on Football in the UK?
It might seem intimidating at first to see hundreds of betting options and events available on a daily basis for football matches in the UK. However, with the right pieces of advice, you can get started in no time, and here’s a breakdown of some key pointers to keep in mind:
- Choose a Sportsbook and Register — The first step on the road would be to find a sportsbook site and register as a new player. If you can’t decide among dozens of UK sportsbooks, you can use our list of recommended UK betting sites for inspiration.
- Make a Deposit and Grab the Bonus — Up next, you can just join the site and grab the welcome offer for new players as a novice member. The best way to do it is by scrolling through the bonus offers first, shopping around for the best option, and going with a site that has the best free bet and odds boosts.
- Browse football betting options — Once you are officially registered as a new player, you can move on by browsing through the football events and leagues. It’s always best if you can focus on just one or two leagues and teams and follow the stats week in and week out. Team form, player injuries, and league tables and standings are particularly important for making well-informed football bets.
- Explore football betting markets and get started — Finally, you need to do some digging on the best football markets to bet on. We already mentioned how important this piece of advice can be if you select a market that’s not as widely played as some basic options like 1×2 bets and total goals. Shop around, explore the options, and if you don’t know what to bet on, let our team guide you through the markets.
Football Odds and Betting Markets
Now we get to the most important part alongside free bets and football betting bonuses — odds and betting markets. These are crucial for making winning bets, and you can start by exploring the main football betting options below:
- Match winner bets — These are the basic 1×2 bets that you’ll see in every football match, and you can use them to predict the match winner. It can also be a draw, in which case you’d bet on the “X” option. If you see lower odds on one of the two teams, they are the favourites to win the game. However, if the odds are close, that means the game can be a tight one.
- Total goals — While exploring football betting options, you’ll likely see a lot of goal margins, going from 1.5 to 3.5 and even more. You can even bet on seven or more goals, and over/under totals are the most common option for players. However, you can also bet on the number of goals in a half-time or make combo bets for both periods.
- Half-time/full-time bets — Another common type of football bets that we see players often palcing are halftime/fulltime bets. You can predict the winner of the halftime and the winnier of the full game, or bet on goals and handicaps in this range.
- Outrights — Before a major tournament like the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA Champions League starts, you’ll get a list of outright odds on our recommended sites. Use it to predict team placement at the end, make qualifying bets, or even predict tournament winners.
- Exact score — Exact score bets allow you to predict the exact scoresheet result, and of course, these come at fairly rewarding odds.
- Both teams to score — This one is among the UK punters’ favorites since you get to bet on both teams to score at least one goal in the game.
- Handicap bets — If you place a handicap bet, that means your team needs to win by a designated margin for the wager to win.
- Props — Prop bets are getting more and more popular among UK bettors by the day, and you can bet on goalscorers, yellow and red cards, and even the number of corners or set pieces in a game.
- Draw no bet — If you bet on this one and the match ends with a draw, you get your stake returned at the odds of 1.00.
Along with the betting options, you also need to know more about reading the odds. UK bookmakers usually place decimal odds (for example, 1.50 or 2.00) and fractional odds (½ or 1/1 in the same case).
Some bookies also let you set American odds, which are a bit more complicated and expressed as profit. An example of this is the +300 bet which implies you’d win $300 in the US if you’ve placed a $100 bet. However, you’ll mostly spot decimal odds on UK bookies.
So, just multiply your wager amount with the odds, and you get your winnings. If you place a £100 bet on odds of 3.50, that means your total win would be £350 if it hits, and you’d pack a £250 profit.
Live Betting on Football
Betting on football is so intuitive and rewarding with the best UK betting sites since you get to use the live betting feature. In other words, you can bet on live football events and place your desired wagers on in-play matches.
These can be reading for several reasons — first, you get to watch the game and see where it’s headed to make well-informed bets, and second, the odds are changing constantly. So, if you would have bet on Manchester City to beat Brighton, you’d get odds like 1.30 or 1.40 pre-match. However, if the result is still 0-0 after the first half, the odds would likely jump to at least 1.60 or even higher, depending on team forms and the table.
The same goes for totals and bets on the number of goals. The more you wait, the higher your odds will be, assuming that nothing changes on the pitch score-wise.
Best Football Betting Leagues and Events
Betting on soccer is so great in 2024 because of all the options you’ll have, and that doesn’t only reflect on the top leagues. Instead, you can even bet on some less popular niche leagues like Iceland’s second-tier women’s league and U20 matches.
However, if you wish to stand a higher chance of winning, you can do it by following one of the top leagues every week to stay abreast of the latest changes in positions and team form. So, these are our recommendations for the top football betting leagues:
- UEFA Champions League
- UEFA Europa League
- English Premier League
- Spanish LaLiga
- French League 1
- Eredivisie
- Italian Serie A
- Portuguese PrimeiraLiga
- German Bundesliga
You can also bet on lower-tier divisions like the Championship or cup tournaments like FA Cup, FIFA World Cup, and Copa America.
Where to Find Best Football Betting Apps and Sportsbooks?
Here at FreeBets, we’ll give you everything you need to make a well-researched football bet. We’ll give you all the betting sites in the UK that feature fair and competitive odds, the best bonuses, and a wide range of betting markets for football matches.
So, make sure to check our list of the best football betting sites regularly for the latest updates, and we’ll do our best not to let you down with our football betting site recommendations.
FAQs
What are the best football betting options?
The best football betting options depend on your perspective, but the most widely played options include 1×2 bets, totals on goals, handicaps, and props.
Where can I get a free bet for football matches?
You can get the best free bets for betting on football in the UK on sites from our list of recommended sportsbooks like Ladbrokes, Bet365, William Hill, Betway, and Betfair.
What are the main football betting bonuses?
The main football betting bonuses include free bets, accumulator boosts, enhanced odds, and acca insurance options.
I don’t understand reading football odds. Can you help me?
Reading football odds isn’t difficult once you get the hang of it, and it depends on the odds type. If you are dealing with fractional odds, the first number represents winning potential, while the next one represents your wager. So, odds of 3/1 mean you can win £30 for placing a £10 bet.
On the other hand, decimal odds can be understood by multiplying your wager with the odds. So, the odds of 2.50 mean you can win £250 by wagering £100, so your profit would be £150.