The Best Football Player Transfer Betting Strategies

Matthew Glazier

December 8th, 2021

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In recent years the best football betting sites have branched out when it comes to their range of markets. Not only can punters bet on individual matches or outright markets like Premier League winner, they can now also bet on football specials markets, with transfer specials always attracting customers.

After all, each year we have two transfer windows when there’s a huge amount of business done between clubs all over the world, with the summer window especially busy when it comes to players departing one club for another, while the January window also offers an opportunity for teams to make key recruitments ahead of a late push in the second half of the season.

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Throughout the year, there is always plenty of transfer speculation and several UK bookmakers offer customers the chance to bet on transfer specials. This means that you can have a financial stake in whether a player joins a specific club or whether they remain at their existing employer after the next window.

This article explains how to bet on football transfer specials and outlines the best strategy to generate a long-term profit. We highlight a few little tricks that are employed by the bookies and pitfalls that should be avoided to make sure that you can profit from the markets that are available.

Bet On a Player’s Club After Next Transfer Window

Many betting sites will create a football betting market for a specific player and it will be something like “Kylian Mbappe’s Next Club After the Transfer Window”, with this either referring to the January transfer window or the summer transfer window depending on what is coming up next.

You will find a list of clubs and accompanying betting odds for that player, with some bookies including the player’s existing club and others just listing potential new destinations. It’s important to understand a particular betting market before deciding which way to bet. If the player’s existing club isn’t included on the list, you need to understand whether your bet would be lost or simply voided should the player not sign for a new team.

It’s often the case that the bookies are in disagreement regarding which team are favourites to sign a particular high-profile player, so you might find that Bookmaker ‘A’ has 2/1 for Juventus, for example, and Bookmaker ‘B’ has 10/1. Therefore, we would always recommend comparing the prices with these markets when picking the selections you want to back.

For this market and similar betting options, you might find that a bookmaker limits your stake. That is because there are clearly people out there with access to inside information, so the bookies don’t want to get their fingers burnt by accepting a large bet on a player to sign for a new club - when this is already a done deal.

Bet on a Player’s Next Permanent Club

Sometimes you will find that a high-profile football player becomes a free agent, something that is the case when their contract runs out at a particular club. They may be injured or could be struggling to find a team who will pay the wages that they are accustomed to. That means there’s an opportunity to bet on their next destination.

The bookies will create a transfer betting market for this free agent and list a number of teams, while there might be a “grouped” option such as “Any MLS Club” or “Any Chinese Super League Club”. Those options cover several bases once a player heads to a club in the relevant league.

A free agent can join a new club at any point, although it’s worth sussing out whether the player has an appetite to continue playing professional football and coming up with a rough estimate of when they’re likely to return to action.

Bet on Whether a Player Will Leave or Stay

There is sometimes the opportunity to bet on a two-way market when it comes to a particular player’s future. Some customers love this type of two-way betting market as they don’t have to predict the future destination of a player and merely have to make the call on whether they will choose to leave their current club or stay put.

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Betting Tips for Football Transfer Betting Markets

It’s important to bear in mind that these betting markets are very volatile and the worst thing you can do is believe everything that is written in the media. After all, newspapers and football websites look to generate traffic by using clickbait to get readers to visit their site. They will therefore look to create transfer speculation which has little to no substance.

You should try to cut through the noise and listen to comments made by the manager of each club when it comes to recruitment. It’s also great if you can get information from the horse’s mouth and sometimes a player might take to Twitter, Instagram or another form of social media to outline their feelings about the next step in their career.

You should also take into account how much time the player in question has left on his contract as that can have an enormous bearing in whether they move to another club. If the player’s contract is coming to an end ahead of that particular summer transfer window, you can be virtually certain that they’ll be moving to pastures new and you don’t have to worry about the possibility of them not moving.

The online bookmakers offering transfer specials will generally only allow you to bet singles on these type of markets, so it’s not worth trying to piece together a group of short-priced selections for a football accumulator. You can check on the betting slip to see if there’s any way of combining certain picks, although the bookies are wary of paying out large amounts and getting caught out on these markets.

Watch Out For Transfer Betting Odds Changing Quickly

When it comes to simply betting on the result of a football match, you will find that the odds might change slightly leading up to kick-off, although it’s unusual to see a big shift in the prices that were originally set by the bookies. However, transfer special betting markets are subject to big changes, especially when the transfer window is open and there could be business conducted between two clubs at any stage.

Each bookmaker that offers transfer special betting markets will have traders carefully monitoring the players who are the subject of speculation. It’s entirely possible that a club that is 1/2 to sign a particular player could be 10/1 within the space of 24 hours, with press releases being issued to often admit or deny that there’s any interest in a certain player.

Sometimes odds will be cut massively when a club is holding personal talks with a player and his agent, only for the talks to then break down. So, even when the discussions reach a developed stage, you should always tread carefully with these betting markets.

It has even been known for players to fail a medical after agreeing terms with a football club and that can lead to the bookies reopening the betting market on this player and listing the remaining teams who were in the running to sign the player.