Beat the Bookmaker – Football Predictions, Betting Tips
About Beat the Bookmaker
Our mission is simple – to provide an in-depth match preview, league preview and tournament preview resource without resorting to a paywall or a subscription model. With our carefully researched football predictions and expert betting tips, this is your best chance to finally Beat the Bookmaker!
Why trust Beat the Bookmaker for Premier League predictions? We don’t claim to be able to predict the future, but our analysts are well-versed in predicting the likely flow of the game and analysing teams’ respective strengths and weaknesses – which is all anybody can do. Correctly predicting a victory for team B when their xG stat is 0.23 compared with team A’s 2.56 xG will yield a profit for that game, and probably at impressive odds, but in the long run, betting on such an outcome against the run of play isn’t a good idea – 9 times out of 10, you lose your money.
Though like other football fans our analysts do have their favourite Premier League teams and others they have a soft spot for, we do our utmost to remain objective and impartial. While we see it as both proper and accurate to praise and criticise certain elements, whether they be tactical or individual, we endeavour to avoid stereotypes and dogma as well as getting carried away with good and bad runs of form. Things can change quickly in football – we’ve all heard of the inevitable ‘reaction’ from a side coming in off a bad defeat and taking it out on their next opponent to record an impressive victory, so we try to avoid jumping on bandwagons because very often, they don’t go anywhere.
When it comes to Champions League predictions, much like the Europa League things can get tricky. Unlike domestic league predictions, such as the Premier League, La Liga or Serie A, the Champions League can involve teams who don’t regularly play each other in both the group and knockout stages. This is compounded by the difficulty in comparing runs of form and attainment by teams in different leagues. Will a team who finishes fourth in the monied Premier League be stronger than the team who wins Portugal’s Primeira Liga or the Eredivisie? Without a pool of common opposition and intense TV coverage surrounding these leagues, comparisons and judgments can prove to be difficult.
So how do we navigate these issues? Firstly, and it seems simple enough, by keeping up to date with those teams in question. While nobody has the time to watch every football match around Europe, our analysts ensure that they are constantly watching highlight packages in addition to a couple of matches on the weekend from the biggest leagues – particularly involving those who are involved in European competitions. While a few insights can be gleaned by looking at the domestic form table and Champions League form for that season, those who don’t bother to watch the games will often fall into trouble, particularly at the start of a Champions League campaign which can be an unknown quantity. Teams selling and acquiring players plus progression and regression of players from season to season means that last season’s team isn’t necessarily the same as this season’s.
Similar to the nature of Champions League predictions, Europa League predictions present their own unique challenges when compared with Premier League predictions or those of the other major European leagues. Again, the uncertainty lies in the absence of a common pool of form to draw upon. What we mean by this is that with teams competing in different competitions of varying quality, it can be tricky to figure out whether or not a team who say, finished as runners-up in Denmark is as strong as the weakest French qualifier. This is especially apparent during the qualification phases for the groups and for the early part of the group stage itself. As the competition progresses, it’s possible to get a feel of the relative strengths and weaknesses of certain teams, but the early stages can be an unknown quantity.
Although football is prone to variance at all times when compared to some other sports due to its low-scoring nature, missed chances, packed defences and presence of a goalkeeper, the Europa League provides some interesting opportunities for betting – if you’re willing to do your research. It’s important to understand that while yes, most players will aim to play in Europe’s big leagues for competitive and financial reasons, some talented players remain at clubs in lesser leagues for a myriad of reasons. Such reasons include the chance of winning regular silverware, competing in European competitions regularly as opposed to fighting relegation at a bigger club, and also sometimes lifestyle choices based upon location and family. Therefore, it’s somewhat more complicated than blithely suggesting that the English club beats the Czech club, for example.
Football Predictions
Premier League Predictions Sunday 28th May 2023
20:00 GMT
Champions League Predictions Saturday 10th June 2023
Europa League Predictions Wednesday 31st May 2023
20:00 GMT
Today’s Betting Tips
Our bets of the day PLUS our mega-odds accumulator pick!
About Our Football Predictions
Our team of highly skilled football analysts strive to produce the best football predictions out there, offering detailed analysis of the key points likely to affect any given match. While we acknowledge that luck, variance in terms of performance by players and coaches, and coaches employing unexpected tactical strategies from time to time means it’s impossible to get EVERYTHING right, we’re confident that we can, more often than not, predict the flow of the match which is why we have our predictions archive available. We don’t predict and then delete or hide previews like some of our competitors.
Why Should I Choose Beat the Bookmaker?
We Work Harder Than the Competition
Some of our competitors are incredibly lazy when it comes to compiling their football predictions. While we do post team news and expected lineups, we don’t waste 300 words talking detailing every player who is going to miss out unless it is tactically relevant. We’ve noticed in some instances that this constitutes half of the preview. That kind of word-padding has no place in a useful, concise analysis.
Some of our competitors who rank highly for search traffic simply post the team lineups for the last game, suggest that they think it will be a ‘tight game’ and then post a scoreline that looks vaguely sensible. Zero insight should generate zero confidence, shouldn’t it? Don’t reward these companies with your time, because they clearly can’t be bothered to give you theirs.
Consistent Competency
Our team contains analysts who consistently rank within the top 1% for prediction games across the Premier League, Champions League and Europa League competitions, and one of our esteemed contributors is ranked 2nd globally from 4,835 competitors in Superbru’s Serie A prediction game for the season. Another is ranked 90th from 349,022 in the Europa League game after the group stage. If you’re expecting perfection then you’ve been mis-sold a dream from a competitor or you’ve unrealistic expectations, but we’re confident that over the long-run we outperform the bookies.
You Can’t Predict the Future – So Why Should We Trust Your Site?
Generally speaking, a large part of successfully predicting football matches over the longer term is correctly predicting the flow of the game. What we mean by this is accurately predicting how a team will line up, how they will play when faced with their opponent’s expected tactical approach and how likely it is that they will be able to exploit their opponent’s weaknesses. Despite all of this, football is a low-scoring game which is prone to individual errors – we’ve all seen a superior team dominate, create a half-dozen clear-cut chances and lose 1-0 via a half-chance to a weaker opponent’s only shot on target. In the long run, despite the upsets, correctly predicting the flow of the game will yield a profit when it comes to sports betting.
We Don’t Hide Our Incorrect Predictions
Football is inherently a high-variance sport – there are fewer clear chances to score and more individual errors when compared with other sports such as basketball. If we get a result wrong, we don’t delete the page or put the prediction out of view – we add it to our predictions archive on the home page. That way, you can look at whether or not we accurately predicted the flow of the match and make up your own mind as to whether or not our pre-match analysis held up against the events of the game.
Anybody on the street can randomly predict the outcome of a football match without even knowing the teams involved, as there are three binary choices – win, lose or draw. In fact, some of the largest sports gambling wins ever recorded are from complete novices who simply guessed on an accumulator bet, with teams winning who certainly weren’t likely to win and who experienced sports bettors would never back to win in those games. However, could the novice do this consistently? Absolutely not. Over the long term, we almost always get a reversion to the mean which is why, in most cases, the better teams win competitions – particularly in a league format.