Beginner’s guide to online Stake soccer betting
Soccer boasts the largest fan base globally, making it a premier choice for sports betting enthusiasts. Stake, one of the top sportsbooks in Japan, recognises the sport’s popularity and offers an ideal platform for wagering.
If you’re new to soccer betting, there are plenty of essential details to grasp before placing your first wager. This guide will walk you through the fundamentals of online sports betting for soccer at Stake:
What is soccer betting?: Fundamentals for beginners
Soccer sports betting means placing a stake of your own money on a predicted outcome of any soccer game or tournament. The betting offers are almost endless, from various domestic leagues to international tournaments and even virtual soccer events.
There are many kinds of soccer events happening in Japan alone. Many of which are minor leagues or college-level tournaments. They can be popular among locals, but international soccer betting platforms like Stake only cover the major leagues. A few examples of these events are the following:
Domestic cups
These events are organised per country, with matches played in local stadiums owned by participating clubs. Most of these domestic cups involve round-robin formats where clubs take turns playing for home and away.
Stake covers the major leagues in every nation, giving punters plenty of opportunities to place bets. The top domestic leagues among sports bettors at Stake are the following:
- Japan / J1 League
- Spain / La Liga
- France / Ligue 1
- Italy / Serie A
- England / English Premier League (EPL)
Continental championships
Just as domestic leagues are a proving ground for top clubs within a country, continental championships are the pinnacle of intercontinental competition. Clubs that become champions and top placers of their respective domestic leagues get promoted to this level of competition. In many cases, the clubs participating in this event are still playing in their domestic leagues.
There are seven continental championships that you can watch annually or biennially. Here are each of them as well as which continent is hosting that particular league:
- Europe / Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)
- Asia / Asian Football Confederation (AFC)
- Africa / Confederation of African Football (CAF)
- North America / Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF)
- South America / Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL)
- Oceania / Oceania Football Confederation (OFC)
International football competitions
The fun in soccer extends beyond domestic and continental levels. They go all the way to international competitions, featuring all of the national clubs from every association in the world. These events don’t happen annually like the previous ones. Instead, they can take place once every two to four years.
- FIFA World Cup
- FIFA Clubs World Cup
- FIFA Women’s World Cup
- FIFA Confederations World Cup
- Olympics
The biggest international soccer tournaments all sportsbooks celebrate are the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics. Both are the culmination of all professional athletes’ perseverance. The best players in the world are hand-picked to represent their home countries in these events. Athletes are chosen based on citizenship, but they can choose to play for their ancestral home.
Different types of soccer betting at Stake
What makes soccer match betting so thrilling for many gamblers is the variety of betting options available. These are called ‘betting markets’, and they are often focused on certain aspects of soccer matches. They’re often set up like questions with multiple choice answers.
For example:
- Who will win the match? Team A or Team B?
Simply wager which team you believe will win the game. These markets also have multiple types, like a handicap or guessing who will win the first or latter halves. Handicap betting also comes with multiple examples, which create many betting lines to choose from. Having so many possible outcomes in a given match makes sports betting so fun.
To have a better understanding of your sports betting soccer options, here are some examples:
Moneyline or winner bet
Betting on the winner, often referred to as moneyline betting, is the most standard way of soccer wagering. You have two teams to choose from, and the odds are often in stark contrast with each other.
Winner bets come with several variants in every soccer betting bookmaker. Here are the three main examples and the outcomes that you can choose in that market:
- Match winner: Bet on which team becomes the winner of the match. This includes the results of overtime, if any. The bet resolves at the end of the match.
- Home team / Away team
- 1x2 wager: The market 1x2 stands for home team (1), tie (x), and away team (2). It’s the same as the winning bet where you wager on either side, but you can also predict a tie.
- Home team / Draw / Away team
- Handicap match winner: An additional point is given to one side, and a disadvantage of equal value is deducted from the other. It always comes with a 0.5 extension to avoid cases of draws.
- Home team +0.5 / Away team -0.5
- Home team +1.5 / Away team -1.5
- Home team +2.5 / Away team -2.5
First score / First goal
First score or first goal is an example of a propositional bet. These are markets where you can predict an occurrence in the match without bearing on the game’s conclusion. In this case, you guess which of the two teams will score in the game first.
Last score / Last goal
The opposite of betting who wins the first goal is guessing which team scores the last point. This does not include scores from overtime. At Stake, you can bet on either team of the match as well as the possibility of a draw, meaning neither team scores a point, resulting in a 0-0.
Total points bet
One of the most entertaining bets you can make in soccer sports betting is guessing the number of points that will be scored by either or both sides of the match. A standard soccer game can have an average of 0 to 3 points, but there are cases when it goes up to 10 or beyond. Bet whether the accumulated points can reach over or stay under a predicted mark.
Here are some examples of variety in markets:
- Total points (over/under): Total points count the sum of goals from both sides. It doesn’t matter who wins or loses the match—you just have to guess if their scores will reach over or under the following thresholds:
- Over 1.5 / Under 1.5
- Over 2.5 / Under 2.5
- Over 3.5 / Under 3.5
- Total points (Home team or away team): This market is a lesser-known variant of the previous one. In this case, you only guess over or under the same threshold but for one team. Specifically speaking, either home or away teams.
Total points (1st or 2nd half): Stake lets you bet separately on the total of both halves of the game.
A quick overview of how soccer odds work
Sportsbooks like Stake analyse the probability of an outcome and assign numbers on it.
Stake has six options you can choose from at the bottom of the sports betting page, namely the following:
Decimal | This format displays a number with a decimal point. To calculate your payout, multiply your stakes by the odds indicated. For example:
That means you win back your ¥100 stake and get ¥50 profit. |
Fractional | Odds in this format are written with a numerator and denominator. You just multiply this with your stake to get the payout. For example:
Multiply the stake by the odds’ numerator then divide it by the denominator. What you’ll get is the sum of your stake back and the net profit from winning. |
American | This format is also called ‘moneyline’, where odds come with a positive or negative value. Positive odds are for underdogs, indicating how much you’ll win if you bet ¥100. Favourites have negative odds, and it says how much you need to bet to win ¥100. For example:
These indicate net profit, not payout. It already assumes that you get your stakes back, so the odds only calculate what you stand to earn. |
Indonesian | Take the American format, then move decimal places of all odds to two digits to the left. That’s how you get this format, differentiating between underdog (+) and favourites (-). Calculating payouts using Indonesian odds assumes your stake is equal to 1 unit, and odds are also written in units. For example:
Getting your payout from bets on favourites takes an extra step. Make it a fraction with ‘-1’ as the numerator and the odds as the denominator. Then multiply it with your stakes to get the profit.
To clarify, these are calculated similarly to the American odds, not decimal or fraction odds. That means the results indicated are the net profit, while your stakes are automatically paid in full. |
Hong Kong | These are directly similar to the decimal format. The only difference is that 1 is deducted from the odds. For example, a standard decimal odd written as 1.5 will be converted to 0.5. This means that the calculated result will only be focused on the net profit. For example:
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Malaysian | The Malaysian odds follow the same rules as the American format but only in single digits with decimals rather than hundreds. Positive odds show how much you’ll win per ¥1. Negative odds show how much in Japanese yen you need to stake to win ¥1. The twist in Malaysian odds is that the values are reversed. Positive odds are for favourites, while negative ones are for underdogs. It achieves this calculation by simply making every odds less than 1. Therefore:
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Stake soccer promotions to make sports betting more fun
Stake offers all kinds of soccer betting promotions that you can claim. The most readily available ones are match deposits, where you get rewards scaling with the size of the money you topped up to your bankroll.
There are also cashback bonuses that give you back a certain percentage of your net loss. All of these can make your soccer betting experience more rewarding because rewards give you more chances of winning.
Bet on soccer at Stake.jpn.com
Ready to bet on soccer matches? Stake is your go-to destination for the best soccer sports betting in Japan. You can register easily and quickly on your smartphone and then deposit in your choice of fiat or cryptocurrency. Make the most of your opportunity to bet on matches and win real money with your successful predictions.
Don't miss out on the action—join Stake and make the most of your soccer betting experience today!
Frequently asked questions
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about soccer sports betting:
