When it comes to football betting, there is naturally a large focus on the major competitions. Because of the headline-grabbing nature of the English Premier League, Serie A and La Liga, smaller competitions get swept under the rug.
It’s not often that you will see Denmark’s Superliga or Norway’s Eliteserien odds on the front page of an online betting site. However, that doesn’t mean that some of the smaller leagues should be ignored for football betting as they could be a treasure trove of opportunities.
But what are the best leagues to look at, to get away from the higher-profile action? More importantly are there good odds and wagering opportunities to snap up in the lower leagues?
Lack of Popularity and Advantage?
What potential advantages could come from betting on the lower leagues? For starters there is a lot less interest in them, so the markets are not swayed by public support. In a Premier League match, if there is a lot of support for a home win for Chelsea over Tottenham, the bookie will shorten Chelsea’s odds to make them less appealing, and lengthen the odds on Spurs to try and tempt punters to go with them.
So punters may not get the fairest representations. While this is going to happen on all markets, it’s not as extreme on matches from lower leagues, leading to potentially better value.
Differences
The world of the Premier League and League Two are oceans apart. Therefore, you can’t just take what you know from the Premier League and apply it to matches from the lower tiers. The same stats don’t apply.
For example, in the 2022-23 Premier League, there was an average of 2.21 goals per match. In League Two it was an average of 2.0 goals per game. Even the Championship only managed an average of 2.07 goals per game that season.
47% of Premier League matches went above 2.5 goals while only 41% of League Two matches did. These aren’t huge differences, but they matter. Football betting is all about fine margins at the end of the day.
The Unknowns
Because sports news sites are plastered with the latest Premier League news, it’s easy to know the stars of the top tiers. The extra coverage means that punters are far more informed, because of having more info put in front of them than they ever will about League Two.
Unless you especially follow League Two news daily, then the lower leagues are going to be a world of the unknown. It, therefore, requires a whole new set of homework. Put your Premier League betting strategies aside if you are going to look at Serie B, or Spain’s Segunda Division for example.
A More Even Field?
A feature of lower league football is that draws tend to be a little more common. The main factor for this is that there just isn’t a huge gulf of class between teams in the same division.
The Premier League in contrast is massively divided. A punter generally knows which familiar teams are going to fight for a top-six finish for example. The Premier League is almost like three leagues in one, the elite, the middle class and then those whose top-flight existence is all about survival.
Because the draw is a little more of a factor in the lower leagues, that means that you generally have the advantage of more balanced, longer odds on the other match outrights compared to Premier League win markets.
Markets To Stick To
That’s not to say that it’s worth straying far from the common bets that you would use for football betting from top-tier matches. Staples like Match Winner, Both Teams To Score and Over/Under 2.5 goals are well worth sticking to.
It’s how you approach them that matters. Look at the trends of average goals in matches. There are leagues out there where goal averages tend to be lower, which can influence your Over/Under bets.
You may also find a prevalence of drawn matches, and more common score lines like a 1-0 home win cropping up in a certain league. Dig into these areas and put the data to work for you.
In Conclusion
There can be some longer odds on lower league matches, as there is less interest in them in terms of bet volume. So it may become a little easier to spot value bets for your football betting. Playing into that is a greater unpredictability factor that could lead to some odds discrepancies in your favour.
We would suggest not going way off the beaten track because for betting on lower league football, you will still need access to good stats, team news and match reports to help you gauge your bets.
The second-tier divisions from Germany, France, Spain and Italy are good places to start, along with the lower leagues from England. There can be value in betting on the lower leagues, but it is important to approach these differently than major leagues and to keep an eye on the trends and data to make informed bets.
