La Liga, or Primera División, is the top Spanish soccer league involving twenty major clubs. It has established itself as one of the strongest leagues worldwide, with a second place in UEFA rankings. It has gained much attention from soccer fans, sports bettors, advertisers, and bookmakers worldwide.
Speaking about bookmakers, it’s not just the league’s popularity doing huge sports betting revenue from La Liga wagers. Traditionally, soccer is the most viewed and wagered sport:
- It has relatively straightforward rules.
- It’s simple.
- It usually offers a spectacular show on the field.
Overall, soccer betting has multiple basic strategies that are common for all existing leagues. Still, we’ll try to show you the insights into some special nuances of the Spanish Premier League and provide you with a simple guide on La Liga odds and betting options.
Understanding La Liga betting odds
To start, you need to understand your possible profits from one or another bet. The first question a sharp bettor has when entering a sports betting site: how much money can this bet bring to me? If they see that the chances to win are very high, but the odds are lower than average, they stick to alternative wager options or search for other betting sites.
How do they know if the option is lucrative or not, and how can the odds help you understand the chances for an outcome to happen? Let’s straighten it out.
Spanish La Liga Odds Terminology
La Liga odds are basically the same as the ones you see for any other betting event. The odds are nothing but a probability of an outcome expressed in various formats, including the most common American, fractional, and decimal. Let’s look at how these formats look. Remember: a format doesn’t change the odds but just shows the same things in one way or another.
As La Liga is mainly popular in Russia and Europe (obviously, Spain), you can really come across its odds in the Decimal format — the very widespread one in most European and CIS countries. Here is how it looks at a sportsbook:
- Real Madrid: 2.05;
- Atletico Madrid: 3.60;
- Draw: 3.50.
By the way, this sports betting wager type is called a Three-Way-Moneyline, and we’ll speak about it in detail later. For now, let’s look at these figures offered for every team. If you want to know how much you can get from a wager on one of the given outcomes, multiply your stake by the odds. For instance, you want to back Real Madrid and wager $100 on their victory. If they win, you will receive $205.
However, this is not your net profit: the amount includes your stake, so in fact, your net profit is $105.
As you may notice, Real Madrid has the lowest odds. It’s pretty evident that it means they have more chances to win, while the draw is the next most possible outcome. The highest odds are given for Atletico Madrid, which determines it as the underdog: you will get a significant payout but will risk a lot if you back them.
Fractional odds, usually used at British sportsbooks, look like that:
- Real Madrid: 21/20;
- Atletico Madrid: 13/5;
- Draw: 5/2.
The fractions that you see as the odds mean the same, so how to read them? The simplest way is to stick to the following formula: how much you win/how much you bet.
As the name implies, American odds are common for US online sports betting sites. They might seem a bit more complicated, but in fact, they are not at all harder to get. Here is another match market we showed to you with American odds:
- Sevilla: -160;
- Barcelona: +104
This market doesn’t contain a draw outcome: it is a classical money line or a match bet. So, we see positive and negative odds. The odds with a minus sign indicate a favorite and show how much you need to wager to win $100. Positive odds, the ones for an underdog, mean your possible winnings from a $100 bet. You don’t need to wager precisely $100: it will work the same if you bet any amount within a sportsbook’s limit.
How to read La Liga title odds?
When you come across La Liga title odds mention, know that you are dealing with the Futures bets. We’ll explain them in detail further in this review, so for now, these are the odds offered for the La Liga season winners. They look the same as the other odds and can be expressed in any of the three formats, but they are usually much higher than the ones on regular markets.
Such La Liga odds are usually located at a special separate section: you won’t find them in a standard match coupon.
Besides, if you prefer using American format, note that sometimes odds are all positive when it comes to La Liga title odds: it doesn’t mean that everyone on the list is the underdogs, of course, and only implies larger payouts.
How to Bet On La Liga?
La Liga’s betting strategies for beginners are mainly based on general tips for soccer betting. Most of them related to tracking stats of the previous matches and sometimes even the last seasons. Some prefer sticking to experts’ picks, and it helps in many cases; still, the others choose more long-term strategies and sometimes even fade the public, e.g., go against the majority’s opinion. Let’s consider the most working strategies available, even for rookie bettors.
Common betting strategies on La Liga
To start, we must mention there is no all-in-one solution, and no strategy is universal. Still, when you are just learning to make wagers, you can stick to several widespread options.
Consensus Picks. La Liga avid fans always know who is currently on top and who has a chance to spurt into the lead. However, you can compare your choice with so-called consensus picks. Such picks are generated automatically and use the data from various sports betting sites to show how wagers are distributed between different outcomes. For instance, you can see the following betting tips for Granada vs. Osasuna match:
- Full-Time Prediction: 1;
- Over/Under 2.5 Prediction: Over 2.5
- HT / FT Prediction: X/1
- Total Goals Prediction: 3
- Team to Score Prediction: both teams
- Goal Scorers Prediction: Jorge/Molina/Vidal
This information can help you make your decision. Still, it doesn’t always need to coincide with public opinion. Choosing a smart pick based on consensus means analyzing the whole data and deciding whether to back the public opinion or to fade the public instead. Fun fact: crowds mistake more often than you think, and your knowledge might be more insightful, after all.
Mind the weather. The field conditions are more than important in soccer: when a game is played on an open field, rain, wind, or snow have a serious impact on goalkeepers’ and forwards’ performance. However, some particular players are more than okay with some gloomy weather and do their best under any conditions, so make sure you know who is playing as a goalkeeper in a particular matchup and how their game depends on the weather. Obviously, the live betting option (when you wager right during the match) will be very helpful to track current field conditions.
Stay cold-hearted. No one has insurance from a losing streak.
Thus, it doesn’t mean you need to play your losses back immediately. The basic healthy sports betting aka responsible gaming principles involves budget planning. To gamble responsibly, avoid a gambling problem, and get great results, after all, you need to determine your budget and never exceed it: patience is everything. Your bets might not work out because you are not really familiar with the league, so take your time to learn more instead of placing more wagers. For instance, we will give you some insights into the top teams and betting options further in this guide.
What is a La Liga Futures Bet?
We already mentioned Futures in the title odds section: they are bets you make on a large event at the end of the season. For instance, NFL popular Futures are made on the Super Bowl and MVPs; in La Liga, they are usually limited by the league’s winner.
Usually, most La Liga Futures bets are distributed between three top teams: Barcelona, Real Madrid, or Atletico Madrid. In fact, there are rarely alternatives to the championship titles favorites, so making Futures bets on La Liga is, on the one hand, not so risky but is not as profitable as some at some other leagues.
Three-way Moneyline
Now it’s time to discuss the most traditional betting options you can find at any La Liga sports betting site. The most straightforward of them all is the Moneyline or a Match Winner bet. When you wager on who will win the game outright, you basically have three markets to choose from:
- Traditional money line: a bet placed on the game’s winner. Implies two outcomes, if a game ends up in a draw, both bets lose, you don’t get money back. However, such a Moneyline can be rarely found for a soccer game: it is more typical for American football, basketball, or other team sports.
- Draw No Bet: you still wager on who will win, but if there is a draw, your bet becomes void, and a bookie makes a refund of your stake.
- Three-way Moneyline: a money line with three outcomes: you can bet on a team’s victory or a draw. The great three-way Moneyline advantage is that it offers better odds for the favorite, so even if you back the bookie’s and public’s opinion and wager on the outcome with the lower odds, you will still get a better payout as it would be in the 2-ways Moneyline. Statistics say many soccer games end with a tie score, and La Liga is not the exception, so note who is on the field and estimate the draw chances: it might be very lucrative for you as a bettor.
Over/Under Bets
Totals, or Over/Under bets, are also very popular in soccer betting. All you need to do is to predict whether both teams score more or fewer goals altogether than a given number. It looks like this:
Villareal vs. Mallorca
- Over 2.5: -123
- Under 2.5: +111
If the game ends up with, say, 1:1, your Over 2.5 bet loses, but the Under one will work out. As you see, the winner and a particular team’s score don’t matter for this bet, so you need to pay attention to how scoring both teams are.
The Over/Under number might vary from 1.5 to 7.5, but the most widespread is 2.5: total goals rarely exceed four in La Liga.
Spanish La Liga Parlay Bets
Depending on a sportsbook, you can find plenty of other betting markets for La Liga games. They involve point spread bets, Asian handicaps, First Team to Score, goal scorers, and more traditional and exotic bets. However, there is one more way to make your experience different: multiple bets.
It’s pretty straightforward: you add several picks from different games to the bet slip and combine them in one bet. There are various types of multiple bets, and the most popular one, available in literally all bookies, is a Parlay, or Accumulator.
In Parlay, all odds from your picks multiply, so your potential payout is very large. However, your Parlay wins only when all selections are correct: if even the only part of your Parlay loses, you lose the whole bet. Many pro bettors avoid parlays for being very risky, but if you are looking for fun or pretty sure in your picks, it’s worth trying.
Some sports betting sites offer special promos for Parlays: for instance, increased payouts or insurances. The insurance works like this: if one pick loses, you can still get a payout for the rest of the selections. Besides, several bookies have single-game parlays and allow you to add different markets given for the same match.
A brief history of La Liga
Professional soccer in Spain started in 1901 with the creation of the Catalan Championship. La Liga appeared later, in 1929, so until 1940, Spain was proud of two leagues, successfully co-existing alongside. However, the Catalan league was canceled, so La Liga became the largest and the oldest professional soccer league in the country.
At first, La Liga had only a single division consisting of ten clubs that were expanded to 20 in 1987.
The current 2021-22 La Liga season is pretty unique: it is the first season since the beginning of century without the top league’s goalscorers Lionel Messi and Sergio Ramos, so making accurate prediction might become more challenging.
You don’t probably need much of the La Liga history for successful betting, but some knowledge of the club’s historical performance won’t hurt and might become very useful for your next decision. Let’s look at who was previously on top and what are the best La Liga teams today.
Recent La Liga title winners
The history of La Liga counts sixty-two teams, and the top winners are Real Madrid and their major opponents Barcelona. Atlético Madrid joined the list twice within the past nine years, but nobody else came even close to the golden trip.
Here is how the recent winners’ list looks:
- 2013–14 Atlético Madrid
- 2014–15 Barcelona
- 2015–16 Barcelona
- 2016–17 Real Madrid
- 2017–18 Barcelona
- 2018-19 Barcelona
- 2019-20 Real Madrid
- 2020-21 Atletico Madrid
Past La Liga winners
So, Real Madrid won the biggest number of titles: thirty-three, while Barcelona is proud of twenty-six. In fact, the situation has never been much different from the current one: when anyone else won a title, it became a big sensation. For instance, here is a statistic from 1995 until 2004:
- 1995–96 Atlético Madrid
- 1996–97 Real Madrid
- 1997–98 Barcelona
- 1998–99 Barcelona
- 1999–2000 Deportivo La Coruna
- 2000–01 Real Madrid
- 2001–02 Valencia
- 2002–03 Real Madrid
- 2003–04 Valencia
Of course, these separate statistics won’t be helpful for any bets without any further information of current rosters, coaches, and other essential factors; however, it gives a particular understanding of the League overall and possible outcomes.
Conclusion
La Liga is a comparatively easy option for making the first wagers: the results are more or less predictable, while the games remain exciting and beautiful. Our guide is enough for even a rookie bettor: you now know how to read the odds and make the simplest bets. As you grow as a bettor, you find more insights into La Liga betting — or you can read more of our guides and reviews at SuperBetting.com.
FAQ
All European, British, and most American bookies offer odds for La Liga games. However, if you want to shop the lines and find the best offers, you can check our Odds section: we publish the most accurate odds from various sportsbooks and choose the ones with the best profit.
Like the ones for every other sport, if the odds come in a decimal format, just multiply them by your stake amount to see a potential payout. American odds work like this: negative odds mean how much you need to wager to win $100, positive odds show your payout from a $100 stake. Fractional odds are best understood from a formula ‘how much you win/how much you wager.’
If a legal US sportsbook offers La Liga lines, you are welcome! Although most American bookies are mainly focused on NFL, they still provide odds for European soccer and often include La Liga in the list. However, you will hardly find many bonus offers like free bets among the bonus offers.
The odds always imply the outcome probability. For instance, if you use decimal format, lower odds show the outcome is very probable, so it won’t bring much profit. American odds with a plus sign indicate an underdog, whose winning is also less possible than the favorite’s (coming with negative odds).
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