UEFA Champions League Betting – Ultimate Guide to UCL Betting

There is much more to UEFA Champions League betting than picking a team and hoping for the best. Many online bookmakers can be found for you to take advantage of. If you want to decipher the best Champions League betting odds to win the big bucks, you’ll need to know a thing or two about how the competition works.

Betting on UEFA Champions League is also available at Germany betting sites, where you can place Germany bets – no commission charged. You can find British, Belgian betting sites, Spanish sportsbooks, Swedish gambling sites, and all manner of European betting sites at your disposal. You can use these for Champions League group betting, or if you are feeling adventurous, you can have a crack at Champions League betting outright.

We will dive into the history of the competition, the types of bets you can make, as well as how the tournament is run. With our guide, everyone from Europe to those who favor Champions League betting in the USA will be in the know. Let’s begin by looking at the history of the competition.

There have been many cracking matches over the years. Most of the best have come from the recent incarnation of the competition, under its Champions League branding. Many people rank the following games as their Champions League favorites:

• 1998/1999 – Manchester United 2-1 FC Bayern München: After going behind to a Mario Basler strike in the sixth minute, Sir Alex Ferguson threw on two of the timeliest substitutes ever seen. First, Teddy Sheringham scored an injury-time equaliser in the ninety-first minute. Bayern hearts were broken just two minutes later, as Ole Gunnar Solskjær nabbed the winner in the ninety-third minute to see United bag wins in the Champions League, FA Cup and Premier League in one season.
• 2004/2005 – AC Milan 3-3 Liverpool (Liverpool win 2-3 on penalties): Milan stormed into an impressive 3-0 lead at half-time. Liverpool then shocked the world by scoring three in six minutes after the break, with Steven Gerrard, Vladimir Šmicer and Xavi Alonso adding their names to the scoresheet. The unlikeliest of comebacks was competed via a shootout.
• 2018/2019 – Manchester City 4-3 Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs with on away goals):
• Son Heung-min gave Spurs a narrow home win in the first leg. City’s inability to score an away goal would come back to haunt them. City may have won the battle 4-3, but Spurs won the war, with the hated away goal rule sending them on to an eventual defeat in the final to Liverpool.
• 2016/2017: Barcelona 6-1 Paris-Saint-Germain: Paris-Saint-German seemed destined to conquer, having won 4-0 at the Parc des Princes in the first leg. The wheels seemed to fall off in the second leg. Barcelona rallied in a thrilling 6-1 match to win 6-5 on aggregate.
• 2011/2012: Barcelona 2-2 Chelsea (Chelsea win 2-3 on aggregate): The Blues had taken a 1-0 win at home in the first leg. However, drama followed at the Camp Nou, as Barca struck twice in the first half of the rematch to take a 2-0 lead. The match ended up two apiece, and 2-3 in Chelsea’s favor on aggregate, and they would go on to win their first Champions League trophy on penalties.

Thirty-two spots are available in the Champions League Group Stage. Many of these are automatically filled by teams from nations with the highest coefficients, as mentioned. Champions from football associations ranked 52-55, and then 18-51 take part in Preliminary and First Qualifying Round matches. However, there are two other routes to get into the Group Stage and make up the final spots.

There are two paths a team can take in the Second and Third Qualifying Rounds. The first (Champions Path) is open to 20 European league champions from nations with lower coefficients, such as Sweden, Romania, Wales, Iceland, and the 17 league winners from the previous round.

The second path (League Path) is open to high-ranking teams more commonly ranked second to fourth in their domestic league, again based on coefficients. These two paths both involve knock-out rounds. These are all important information to take into consideration if you plan on mobile betting on a match.

The winners of the League Path will qualify for the Group Stage after the Third Qualifier Round. The winners of the Champions Path advance to the Play-Offs. There, four of the eight teams remaining from the Champions Path will make it to the Group Stage.

The knockout rounds begin after the group stage and are played over two legs (apart from the final). If aggregate scores don’t yield a winner, away goals come into play. Basically, if the aggregate score is even, the team which scored the most goals away from home progresses. Should no winner be determined, an additional thirty minutes (consisting of two halves of 15 minutes) is played, known as Extra-Time. If the scores remain equal at its conclusion, a penalty shoot-out will determine the winner, so consider betting on penalties. For many types of bets, like the win both halves or BTTS both halves bets for example, the extra time does not count.

There are plenty of different bets you can make when it comes to UCL betting. Some are positively outlandish (such as betting on the number of corners in a game). Others are far more straightforward. We would start with simple Champions League betting lines. Some of the more straightforward bets you can get to grips with include:

• Match Winner: A typical Champions League betting line involves predicting the winning team in an individual match. These make up the most common bets in football. Some bookies will also give you the result including extra-time and penalties, but some may stipulate that your bet is on the score at 90 minutes. You need to check this before you bet.
• Outright Tournament Winner: Another popular type of Champions League bet is the Outright Winner bet. This is one of the firm Champions League betting favorites around. In a nutshell, you’re basically wagering on the eventual UEFA Champions League winner’s betting odds. The earlier you bet, the more favorable the odds will be. Pay attention that the odds may not be available for all teams. Underdogs may be grouped under the name ‘bar’. What does bar mean in betting though? The bar price refers to the odds of contestants which were not listed individually.
• Top Goal Scorer: Another popular Champions League bet is a stake on who will be the top scorer. If you fancy Ronaldo or Messi bagging the Golden Boot, this is the bet for you.
• Oddities: As mentioned above, oddities can include bets on the number of cards handed out in a game, the number of fouls, corners, Asian corners, or simply anything, really. These have superb odds but are exceptionally difficult to predict. Using over/under bets may be the best way to go with these.
• Accumulators UCL betting also permits accumulators. These are several wagers on different matches but all on the same ticket. Players are typically required to win all the bets on their accumulator ticket (sometimes, just winning most of them is enough), but the winnings will be multiplied if you do so.

If you’re still a bit hazy on some aspects of the Champions League, let’s see if we can help you with our UCL-based FAQ guide.