The Primeira Liga is the top flight of men’s professional football in Portugal, and it’s also one of the world’s most popular leagues to place bets on, along with the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, and Italian Serie A.
If you are considering betting on Primeira Liga matches on a fully licensed and regulated online sportsbook (aka bookmaker, iGaming site, or sports betting site) but don’t have a clue which strategies might be worth using, don’t panic. We’ve got you covered.
Let’s dive straight in and take a closer look at several top strategies for betting on the remaining Primeira Liga matches in the current 2024/25 campaign, which is fast coming to an end with just four games left to play for each team.
Understanding the different ways to bet on football
There are many different ways you can bet on football these days, so it’s important to understand the main bet types and what other betting options are available to you before placing any wagers.
The main bet types to get to grips with to give you more betting options when you sign up to a legally permitted sportsbook in your country, whether you are based in the United States or the United Kingdom, are the following
- Accumulator (Parlay) betting
- Fixed odds betting
- Totals
- Handicap betting
- Draw no bet
The quickest and easiest way to learn about these main bet types is to head over to the globally renowned AskGamblers website, which covers each section in much greater detail.
Online sports bettors can also choose between betting on a football match long before the event has started, known as pre-match betting services, or during a live football match as the action unfolds, known as in-play (or live) betting services.
Additionally, although football betting can seem a little confusing to begin with, especially for beginners who haven’t ever wagered on a match before, it’s actually quite simple.
The main reason some beginners initially find football betting overwhelming is that there are so many individual betting markets (bet types) to choose from in a typical match.
For example, there are usually hundreds of ways to bet on football, but the most popular bet is match result, meaning will the home team (1) win, the away team (2) win, or will the match end in a tie/draw (X).
The match winner bet (outright winner) is also a popular bet, and there are many other betting markets to choose from these days in your average football match, especially when Portuguese giants like Sporting CP, Benfica, Braga, and FC Porto play against each other.
Examples include things like correct score, half-time/full-time score, over/under (goals), both teams to score, season bets, double chance, first goalscorer scorecast, total number of red/yellow cards, corners, throw-ins, and free-kicks, hat-trick markets, individual player markets, goal scorers, both teams to score, and so on.
How to understand what the odds are trying to convey about an event’s most likely outcome
The two most important things to understand before placing wagers on the Primeira Liga are the odds currently being offered for any given outcome and the implied probability rate associated with those odds.
Understanding this crucial information will help you place far more informed wagers, although it still doesn’t guarantee that your bets will return a profit because the odds-on favourites aren’t always guaranteed to win.
Sometimes, the outsiders/underdogs/longshots can upset the odds and beat the favourites, so don’t always expect to win when placing bets on the favourites, and only bet with money that you can afford to lose, just in case your bets don’t come in. Also, don’t forget that anything can happen in football to completely change the initial outcome that was predicted long before the event started.
Many of today’s safest online sportsbooks allow fully registered members to toggle how the odds are displayed on that site to their preferred format, meaning that at the click or tap of a button, you can change the display odds from fractional to decimal or American/moneyline odds, which makes it easier for some people to understand the odds and their potential returns.
For example, 5/6 fractional odds is the same as saying 1.83 decimal odds or -120 American/moneyline odds. It all means the same, but most people have been brought up in their country using a specific mathematical odds format, so stick to using an odds format that you’re most comfortable/familiar with.
The implied probability rate (IPR) associated for the odds mentioned above mean that the chance of this outcome actually occurring is 54.50%.
North America (the US and some parts of Canada) normally use the American/moneyline odds format. The United Kingdom (and one or two other UK territories) use the fractional odds format, and most other countries use the decimal odds format. Let’s take a quick look at a couple of other examples.
Let’s just say that an outsider/longshot/underdog bet might come with 100/1 fractional odds, which is 101.00 in decimal odds and +10,000 in American/moneyline odds. It means the IPR for this outcome is just 1.00%.
12/5 odds (3.40 or +240) have a 29.40% IPR. 1/1 odds, also known as EVENS (2.00 or +100), have a 50.00% IPR, and if the clear odds-on favourites for any event is priced at 1/100 (1.01 or -10,000), it has a whopping 99.00% IPR, and so on. Before betting, check the odds and then find out what the IPR is to make more informed betting decisions.
More useful tips for betting on the Primeira Liga
The odds can only tell you so much, so before betting, you should also try to gather as much relevant information as possible to improve your betting strategy.
For example, take a look at the previous results between the two teams when they normally face each other. Find out the recent form of both teams (for at least the past three to five matches) and determine the importance of the match.
Stay on top of the latest Primeira Liga news from reputable sources, and find out other key information, such as expected playstyles and formations, injury updates, new signings, new manager or head coach, current league standings, and starting line-ups.
Using this valuable information to your advantage can help you place more strategic wagers on the Primeira Liga. Hopefully, it should also help reduce the number of losing bets you normally place and enable you to hold on to your bankroll for much longer periods.
Conclusion
The current 2024/25 Portuguese Primeira Liga season is almost over, but there are still a few games to come. Sporting CP and Benfica are both currently equal on 69 points at the top of the table (first and second, respectively), above third-place Braga with 60 points.
In other words, it’s still too close to tell who might win the title outright. As it stands, many of today’s most trusted online bookmakers have both Benfica and Sporting jointly priced at around 5/6 (-120), meaning they both have a 54/50% chance of winning. Who do you think will come out on top this year?
