The FIFA World Cup is the most prestigious international soccer tournament in history. It was first contested in 1930 and has taken place every four years since then, with the exception of 1942 and 1946 due to World War II. In this event, the top international soccer teams from each part of the world convene in one host country, playing a series of matches to determine which country is the best in the world. Continue reading more on FIFA World Cup Betting, Odds, and more.
FIFA World Cup Knockout Stages
FIFA World Cup 2022 Odds
Team | Odds |
---|---|
Brazil | +400 |
England | +700 |
France | +600 |
Spain | +800 |
Argentina | +700 |
Germany | +1000 |
Belgium | +1400 |
Portugal | +1200 |
Netherlands | +1200 |
Denmark | +2800 |
World Cup Group Odds
To Win Group A
Team | Moneyline |
---|---|
Netherlands | -250 |
Senegal | +450 |
Ecuador | +600 |
Qatar | +1400 |
To Win Group B
Team | Moneyline |
---|---|
England | -300 |
Wales | +600 |
USA | +550 |
Iran | +1600 |
To Win Group C
Team | Moneyline |
---|---|
Argentina | -250 |
Poland | +450 |
Mexico | +500 |
Saudi Arabia | +2000 |
To Win Group D
Team | Moneyline |
---|---|
France | -250 |
Denmark | +300 |
Tunisia | +1400 |
Australia | +1000 |
To Win Group E
Team | Moneyline |
---|---|
Spain | -120 |
Germany | +110 |
Japan | +1400 |
Costa Rica | +5000 |
To Win Group F
Team | Moneyline |
---|---|
Belgium | -190 |
Croatia | +250 |
Morocco | +1000 |
Canada | +1200 |
To Win Group G
Team | Moneyline |
---|---|
Brazil | -225 |
Switzerland | +450 |
Serbia | +550 |
Cameroon | +1200 |
To Win Group H
Team | Moneyline |
---|---|
Portugal | -165 |
Uruguay | +200 |
South Korea | +1200 |
Ghana | +1200 |
*Odds as of November 1st at BetUS Sportsbook
FIFA World Cup Picks
World Cup History
Host nations have been named around the world in the history of the FIFA World Cup. European nations like Germany and France have served as the host nation in the past, as have South American destinations like Brazil. But there have been hosts located in Africa, North America, and Asia as well over the history of the tournament, where representatives of those continents look to represent themselves well.
To get into the FIFA World Cup Betting, teams must qualify through their respective confederations. Those confederations are Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, North and Central America, and Oceania. Each confederation is allotted a specific number of spots in the World Cup, with the best teams filling those slots to make up the tournament.
Once the World Cup field is set, the teams are drawn into groups, with each team playing each member of its group once in the first round of the tournament. The best teams from each group after that group stage qualify for the knockout rounds, which consist of single-elimination games until a winner is crowned. During the group stage, draws are possible after 90 minutes without a winner, while the knockout rounds see games go to extra time and penalties if necessary.
Over the history of the World Cup, teams from Europe and South America have dominated the proceedings. These are the continents that have the countries that have the biggest names in the world in soccer, so it does make sense that those continents have had a disproportionate amount of success in the World Cup all-time. But other countries in other continents are always working to catch up to those traditional powers and will look to break through sooner rather than later.
There have been over 40 million attendees at World Cup matches all-time, but that has nothing on the number of viewers the event gets each year. Billions of fans are estimated to watch the World Cup each time it runs, with fans all over the world overcoming the time zone differences to watch the matches. This is one of the few universally beloved sporting events around the world.
Betting on the World Cup
There are several types of betting picks that can be made on the FIFA World Cup. The most common of these picks are single-game wagers, where bettors are asked to predict the outcomes of one game at a time. Bettors can do this with goal-line markets, which serve as a point spread bet, moneylines, or over/under bets.
Sports Bettors can also wager on prop bets for each individual match, where they can predict things such as whether or not a player will score a goal in a game or how many corner kicks will be taken. These types of in-depth prop bets allow bettors to use their in-depth knowledge of the participants in the FIFA World Cup Standings to find value in the betting markets where it may not have been otherwise.
Outside of single-game wagers, bettors are able to wager on futures and outright markets pertaining to each edition of the World Cup. These can involve team-based wagers, such as which team is going to win the tournament, as well as individually-focused markets, such as who the top goal scorer will be in the event. Since there are more choices in these outright markets, there are often bigger payouts possible if a bettor can accurately predict who comes out on top in each of them.
Since the World Cup is such a heavily watched event around the world, there are usually more outright markets up for grabs than there are in most sporting events. Bettors can wager on what stage of the tournament each team will be eliminated in, what place each team will finish in their group, and which team will do the best out of each confederation. There are tons of other FIFA World Cup outright markets that are available each time the tournament comes around, and bettors should look intently throughout their preferred sportsbooks to see all of the choices.
World Cup Odds Explained
The odds for FIFA World Cup betting markets are structured the same as they are in other sports. Odds that begin with a minus sign signify the amount that bettors have to wager in order to win $100, such as -110 odds meaning that a bettor has to risk $110 to win $100. And betting odds that start with a plus sign signify the amount a bettor would win if they risked $100, like +200 odds meaning a $100 bet would net $200 in profit.
In World Cup betting, options that begin with a minus sign signify the favorite in most cases, with over/under and spread bets being the exception where both options start with minuses. Bettors will see heavy favorites at times during this tournament, as its structure can often create mismatches early in the tournament between traditional powers and smaller countries that made it into the tournament. But upsets do happen in soccer, and bettors shouldn’t be afraid to back underdogs where they see fit.
Something else that bettors need to do is make sure to compare betting odds from one sportsbook to the others for every bet they are thinking about making. While the differences in odds between sportsbooks can seem small for each game during the World Cup, those small differences can add up over the long run. Small differences of $5 to $10 per bet can mean tangible differences in profitability over a sample size of hundreds or thousands of bets.
The most important thing bettors should consider when looking at World Cup odds is that they are not obligated to bet on every match. As tempting as it is to get involved with the entire World Cup, bettors should only get involved when the odds suggest that there is value on one side or the other. Being selective and comparing odds are the two biggest keys to successful World Cup wagering.
FIFA World Cup Betting Stats
Betting Statistics are challenging to utilize when betting on the FIFA World Cup, thanks in large part to the lack of substantial sample sizes for each of the teams involved. International soccer is played in between portions of the club soccer schedules around the world, with teams only playing a couple of games at a time during international breaks. And while they dedicate more time to events like the World Cup, this means that there isn’t a lot to work with prior to the World Cup.
Instead, bettors may be best served relying on statistics that are generated from the FIFA World Cup tournament itself, waiting until the later rounds to bet using that statistical information. That way, bettors are using data that only pertains to the current version of each national team, which is using players that are actually with them for the World Cup. Otherwise, bettors could be using stats from an entirely different version of each international squad, which doesn’t do much good.
Numbers that are amassed during the World Cup qualification games for each team could be useful in projecting how a team is going to perform over the course of the World Cup Finals tournament. But bettors should look at those qualification rosters to make sure that they are looking at stats from teams that had their best players on the field, the way that they will when the World Cup begins in earnest.
Overall, though, there isn’t a lot of pure data that bettors can rely on when they wager on World Cup matches. Instead, bettors would be smart to look at the rosters for each team participating in the tournament and project how well those teams will mesh together after a limited time training with one another before the start of the World Cup. This could be more effective than relying on stats that might have no bearing on World Cup results.
FIFA World Cup Trends
Some Sports bettors really like to rely on trends when they place their bets on sporting events, using those figures to justify their selections. But that is something that is difficult to do when betting on an event like the FIFA World Cup. The reality of the situation is that there aren’t many trends that can reliably apply to international soccer teams, given how rare it is that they meet up against one another at full strength.
For example, bettors might see a trend that says that one nation has beaten another nation in each of their last five matches. But bettors would have to do their own research into when those meetings took place to avoid being stuck in a situation where they are betting on a trend based on several years ago. With how drastically rosters can change in international soccer, bettors have to apply the proper context to any trend that they even consider using to place a World Cup bet.
There are also trends pertaining to the success that different parts of the world have had during the World Cup. For example, no team outside of South America or Europe has ever won the FIFA World Cup. But those types of trends don’t provide a ton of insight into the current day teams that are participating in the World Cup, and there is always the chance that a country from the winless confederations could shock the world.
For bettors who prefer to use trends to inform their betting decisions, there are other soccer leagues that they can use to more effectively rely on those trends. For now, there are not enough reliable trends to use when betting on the World Cup, which is natural given that the tournament is only played once every four years by teams that change drastically in each campaign.
How to Bet FIFA World Cup
To bet on the FIFA World Cup, bettors need to speculate more than they would in events that take place on a more regular basis than once every four years. It is unlikely that bettors have seen many matches featuring the rosters that are set to play in the current World Cup, especially against other top-level teams like the ones they will face in the World Cup. Instead, bettors have to project how each team will perform with its current roster.
To do this, bettors have to look intently at the players who are slated to participate in the World Cup at each position group. They can then get an idea as to how each midfield will interact with its forwards and defenders, as well as how each defense will hold up. Goalkeeping is another vital part of betting on the World Cup, as bettors cannot afford to ignore the strength of each team in that facet of the sport.
Whether or not each team has a manager capable of delivering them to a FIFA World Cup Betting is something that should also be evaluated. Some managers have documented histories of international success, while others simply lack those credentials. When betting on the World Cup, managerial prowess is another item that should be factored in.
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