What is football reverse betting? A technical analysis

Struggling to find an appropriate answer to ‘what is football reverse betting’? Your search is over. Today, I’ll be giving you the required information that will give you the knowledge to answer this question with confidence. At the same time, the knowledge acquired will give you the courage to sample such wagers if you choose to do so.

Additionally, while this form of sports betting wager may seem a little complicated on the surface, once you delve into how they work, you’ll see that they’re not so scary after all. With that said, there is still some key information that you have to know and understand to answer this question appropriately. 

football reverse betting

So without further ado, let’s dive into ‘what is football reverse betting’ right now.

Introduction – what is football reverse betting?

You may commonly hear reverse bets described in the same breath as ‘if bets’, and there is good reason for that. Essentially, both bets operate using the same fundamentals, only the respective wagers and ‘order’ of the bets are adapted between the two. And to understand football reverse betting, it’s first important to understand ‘if bets’. 

So – what is an if bet, first and foremost? These are similar to accumulator bets where each leg is dependent on the previous one. For example, if you made an accumulator-style ‘if bet’ with three legs, your first leg would need to win to trigger the next leg, and the same is true for the third leg. However, not all selections need to win for a return to come through, which is why ‘if bets' are not technically accumulators.

Instead, if the first leg won, you’d be paid out, and a portion of the winnings would automatically be assigned to the following leg – hence the ‘if’ part of these wagers. Of course, the proceeding stake is only assigned to the next leg ‘if’ the previous leg wins. If it doesn’t, the bet is over. 

But where is the connection between if bets and football reverse betting? Don’t worry, you’re about to find out.

Football reverse betting and the connection to ‘if bets’

You need to keep the structure of if bets in mind here, as the fundamentals are directly applied to football reverse bets. Yet if you recall, I touched upon the order of these bets, as this is extremely important from a tactical and functional standpoint. 

After all, you could chop and change a three-leg accumulator six different ways, right? This means you could structure the bet in six different sequences. Welcome to the world of football reverse bets! That’s exactly what these wagers do – they remove a ‘set sequence’ essentially. And the reasons for doing so are that you then have no worries about the sequence of your selected markets.

It really doesn’t matter, as football reverse bets will then operate using all of the available sequences and subsequent scenarios. However, as you may have gathered, reverse bets then require more wagers to be placed, and as a result, your overall exposure is higher. 

What is football reverse betting? Specifics of such wagers

At this point, I hope that the general idea of football reverse betting and its connection to ‘if bets’ is clear. If not, please read the previous sections again, as it is critical that you understand how the wagers operate before delving into the specifics that I am about to share. But assuming you’ve grasped the fundamentals, you can move into the specifics and advanced details of these wagers now.

Typical football reverse bets

In a typical football reverse bet, you’d usually choose between two and six markets. Adding to that, many bookmakers will only allow reverse bets for this number of selections anyway, so you haven’t got infinite flexibility with these wagers. Anyway, as an example of these reverse bets, you might choose the following:

  • Bet 1 – Chelsea to beat Brighton
  • Bet 2 – Manchester United to beat Sheffield United
  • Bet 3 – Arsenal to beat Newcastle

The number of ‘if bets’ involved

Now that you know that these bets have between two and six chosen markets, typically, how about the impact this has on the number of ‘if bets’ placed? I’ve revealed the impact below:

  • 3 selections – 6 bets
  • 4 selections – 12 bets
  • 5 selections – 20 bets
  • 6 selections – 30 bets

Note that the numbers work out this way as football reverse bets are designed to cover every possible sequence.

Understanding the stake

What does all of this mean for the stake? Well, as you might have guessed, the assigned stake is multiplied by the number of ‘if bets’ to cover the overall wager. So if you’d staked £1 and your football reverse bet had six selections, your total stake would be £30.

Advantages of football reverse bets

Lastly – why would you want to engage in such bets? If you’ve taken a punt on accumulators before, you probably know! Football reverse bets remove the need to win every selected leg to gain any kind of return on your wager. They are also far more flexible, as you end up covering the whole sequence. 

Of course, the possible returns aren’t as impressive, but if these bets come off – it’s better than winning nothing at all.