More than 3.5 billion football fans watch the World Cup every four years, making it the world’s most popular sporting event. Not even the Olympics attract more viewers.
Where there’s sports, there’s betting – and when it comes to the World Cup, conservative estimates place the number of bets in the tens of millions. Bookmakers have already set the odds for the 2022 championship in Qatar, even though the first kick won’t be made until November.
But that’s the finals. Qualifying tournaments have been underway since June 2019, so it is high time to gather some betting tips for the World Cup 2022.
6 Zones, 32 Teams
World Cup betting is a football fan’s dream. Thirty-two teams will converge on Qatar for the finals – 31 plus the Qatar national team, since the hosting country’s team is always included as a courtesy. The 31 other squads will be the winners of qualifying tournaments held in FIFA’s six continental football zones.
Qualifying games for 2022 began June 6, 2019 when Mongolia faced Brunei for the first game in a home-and-away series. Each team won at home, but Mongolia advanced to the second round of the World Cup qualifying series for the first time with an aggregate score of three goals to two.
It’s a fair bet that FIFA World Cup betting began well before Mongolia scored its first point on a ninth-minute free kick by defender Tsedenbal Norjmoo.
How much betting? FIFA says a record £123 billion was wagered with legal bookmakers on the 2018 championship. Given the rapid growth of online bookmaking in the UK and around the world, the 2022 total will surely surpass that total.
The bookmaking world is rife with opportunities for online World Cup betting even during the years when the tournament is not held.
If you have ever placed a bet on the World Cup, you probably noticed that the favourites come from a few countries that have achieved football dominance, countries like Germany, Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy, and Belgium. The UK is represented by four national teams: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
While many people bet on regional qualifying matches, the most popular wagers concern who will win the championship. You can place that bet today with any number of bookmakers.
Once the tournament starts, you will see there are dozens of ways to bet on every single match. You can wager on final results, the goal line, the exact score, the performance of individual players, goals over/under, red cards, number of penalties, and more.
FIFA Tournament Structure
To place bets on the World Cup like an insider, you should know that the tournament features two stages: the group stage and the knockout stage.
In the group stage, teams are organised into eight groups of four. Once each team has played its division rivals once, the top two teams from each group are sent to the elimination tournaments. It is at this stage that World Cup football betting starts to heat up.
As the tournament progresses, you will see an increase in betting. A total of 16 teams compete in the knockout stage, and the winning teams move on to the quarter-finals. The quarter-final winners advance to the semi-finals, whose winners meet in the finals.
The finals are where the stakes get high and the bets get aggressive.
Who are the Best World Cup Tipsters?
One way of improving your odds of winning is to follow a tipster who understands football and has tracked the performance of the leading teams. Tipsters are analysts whose in-depth knowledge lets them make informed predictions about which teams will advance and which will be eliminated from the competition.
The World Cup finals last for about a month, so you need to be very quick if you hope to find a tipster. The best football tipsters have a proven record of several seasons of profitable bets. All things being equal, it is reasonable to believe that their knowledge of the teams and their comparative strengths will allow them to continue placing winning bets in the 2022 World Cup.
Selecting the best World Cup betting options may differ a bit from betting on domestic football. The key principles apply, however. What types of football World Cup betting you enjoy depends on your personality and preference.
Maybe you’ll follow the majority and bet on the favourite. Maybe you’ll take the advice of a tipster. Or maybe you’ll play your own hunches. Some people do all three. It’s entirely up to you.
The next step: Find yourself a great bookmaker and place your bets.
Where Can I Find World Cup 2022 Betting Odds?
The ideal bookmaker is already accepting bets on the winner of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Most online betting sites can help you out. You can place some early bets right away. Once the tournament starts, you will have plenty of opportunities to bet on individual matches, winners of qualifying rounds, top-scoring players, in-play betting, and even accumulator or acca bet options.
Betting Strategies for World Cup Matches
If you are a novice punter, you might want to hedge your bets on the World Cup by seeking out games in which an underdog team is pitted against a traditional favourite. Betting on the stronger team is easy and you are likely to win, though you won’t see much of a payout.
Once you’ve got your feet wet, you can explore. You’ll find many kinds of bets to make your wagering more exciting and maybe even earn you a few pounds.
Here are some of the standard bets you’ll find:
Match Betting
With match betting, all you need to do is name a game’s result: a win for the home team, a win for the visiting team, or a draw. This is one of the simplest types of World Cup football betting.
Handicap Betting
In handicap betting, one team starts the match with a disadvantage – a handicap – for betting purposes. The handicap is set by the bookmaker and expressed as goals – typically just one or two.
If you think your team will win easily by slipping many goals past the opposition, try a handicap bet and increase your winnings compared to simple match betting. Handicap bets are also known as spread betting.
Over/Under Goals
Over/under betting is a fun alternative to betting the spread. You can bet over 2.5 goals if you expect a team will make three goals or more, or bet under 2.5 goals if you think there will be two goals or fewer.
You’re more likely to win an over/under bet if it’s based on understanding of the offensive and defensive strengths and vulnerabilities of both teams. With such understanding, World Cup football predictions are a bit easier to make.
Goalscorer Bets
In this type of bet, you predict who will score the first goal of the game, who will get the last goal of the game, or who will score a point at any time during the game. These goalscorer bets are very popular among football fans.
Both Teams to Score
Another very easy kind of bet involves whether you think both teams will score in the game. This is less complicated than most bets on the World Cup – it’s a simple yes or no.
Corners Bets
Corners betting means wagering on anything that involves corners in the games. This can cover everything from predicting the total corners in a game being over or under a certain number or one team having more corners than the opposing team. For example, if one of the major teams is about to face a weaker team, chances are good that there will be more corners in that game.
Half Time/Full Time
This is a betting strategy that allows you to wager on who you think will be leading at halftime and at the end of the match. There are nine distinct outcomes to bet on with this type of World Cup betting, including:
- Team A/Team A
- Team B/Team B
- Team A/Team B
- Team B/Team A
- Team A/Draw
- Team B/Draw
- Draw/Team A
- Draw/Team B
- Draw/Draw
Accumulator
An accumulator or acca is a complex bet that combines four or more simpler bets into a single wager. With this bet, you get a payout only if all of the component bets are winners. As you might imagine, it can be a pretty difficult bet to win, but the winnings are high. This is the most complicated type of bet you’re likely to encounter during FIFA World Cup betting.
The trouble with accas is that experienced punters and newbies can be lured in by the big payouts that come from picking six or more winning bets. One of the best accumulator tips we can give: Don’t make accas and other complex bets if you’re a beginner.
Price Boosts
The World Cup is one of the most popular events when it comes to betting, and that means bookmakers will work hard to make special offers and welcome bonuses for new customers. Among the best are price boosts, in which the betting site offers new users unrealistically favourable odds on a few bets.
Free Bets
Some bookmakers even offer free bets. To be eligible for these free bets, you typically need to create a betting account, make a first deposit, and play your first bet at the site. Once you’ve made that bet, the bookmaker may offer you a free bet – either as a regular promotion for new users or as a special promotion for the World Cup.
In-Play Betting
Many experienced players have discovered that waiting to bet until the match is underway can give them an advantage when it comes to finally placing their bets in World Cup 2022. In-play betting gives you a chance to understand how the match is being played and find out which side has an edge so you can make a more accurate bet based on calculated guesswork.
All bookmakers will offer you in-play tips and betting options, and since the matches will be televised, online bookmakers will be vying to offer you all sorts of additional bets, including total goals, next team to score, next player to score, and all the rest.
World Cup Football Betting Tips For the Finals
Betting on the 2022 World Cup elimination stages will be huge. Betting on the finals will be enormous. Here are some of the bets you can make on the finals:
World Cup Winner
With this bet, you name which team will be the outright winner of the 2022 World Cup Finals. You can bet on this before the World Cup even starts or even when the matches are underway. The odds will fluctuate in every round.
Name the Finalists
For an even higher payout on your bets on the World Cup, specify which team will be the winner and which team will compete with it for the trophy. The teams you select will need to face each other in the finals for your bet to win. If you think that is too risky, just name two teams you think will make it to the final round. If your selected teams make it to the final round, regardless of who wins the match, your bet will win.
Top Scorer
This is one of the most popular bets in the World Cup. A top player’s chances of scoring the most goals in the FIFA World Cup 2022 are pretty high. Currently, Cristiano Ronaldo stands at the top when it comes to making the most goals, so betting on him as a Golden Boot winner may seem like a good option.
However, World Cup top scorers bets can be pretty tricky. A lot of unexpected players have bagged the Golden Boot award, including Colombia’s James Rodriguez in 2014.
World Cup 2022 Betting Tips: Look at Past Winners
Miss football? No problem. You can already place your bets on World Cup 2022. Let’s check the odds on teams that have won the World Cup in the past. These odds will fluctuate, typically among the top five World Cup favourites, until the results of the finals are announced.
| Year | Country | Odds |
| 2018 | France | 13/2 |
| 2014 | Germany | 6/1 |
| 2010 | Spain | 4/1 |
| 2006 | Italy | 10/1 |
| 2002 | Brazil | 7/1 |
| 1998 | France | 7/1 |
| 1994 | Brazil | 10/3 |
| 1990 | West Germany | 7/1 |
| 1988 | Argentina | 4/1 |
2022 World Cup Top Scorer Tips
According to historical data, there have been some expected Golden Boot winners and some unexpected ones as well. Here are some past winners who could repeat this year:
| Year | Goalscorer | Country |
| 2018 | Harry Kane | England |
| 2014 | James Rodriguez | Colombia |
| 2010 | Thomas Mueller/David Villa, Diego Forlan, Wesley Sneijder | Germany/Spain/Uruguay/Netherlands |
| 2006 | Miroslav Klose | Germany |
| 2002 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Brazil |
| 1998 | Davor Suker | Croatia |
| 1994 | Hristo Stoichkov/Oleg Salenko | Bulgaria/Russia |
| 1990 | Salvatore Schillachi | Italy |
A closer look at statistics regarding the World Cup top scorers in previous years can shed some light on who is likely to become the best scorer this year:
- In seven out of 18 World Cups where there has been one top scorer, the top scorer’s country played in the World Cup finals.
- In two out of five of the most recent tournaments, a top scorer also played in the finals.
- Teams that make it to the semi-finals play a total of seven matches, regardless of the result of the semi-finals.
- Teams that don’t reach the semi-finals play a maximum of five matches.