Brazil top of boards at 4/1

As the English Premier League and the PSL come to their conclusions this weekend, punters can start looking ahead to June and the start of the World Cup in Russia.

Bookmakers are rightly preparing for a rush of new business as Bob from accounts decides to finally put his money where his mouth is.

There will be something for everyone, with betting on the outright winner and other long term markets such as the golden boot.

Brazil are the ruling favourites to win the tournament at 4/1 with the defending champions Germany quoted at 9/2 and my personal favourites, Spain, at 6/1. England are often heavily fancied heading into World Cups but not this time around – you can get 18/1 about their chances.

An interesting market is the team to score the least goals, where Panama are 31/4 with Costa Rica, Iran, Australia, Saudi Arabia all quoted at 39/4 on the World Sports Betting website. But how about the team to score the most goals? Here we have France priced at 37/10, ahead of Brazil 17/4 and Germany 9/2.

The top scorer is always an interesting market and the top of the betting is loaded with quality with Messi the 33/4 favourite, ahead of Neymar 37/4 and Ronaldo at 12/1. In case you are wondering, Mo Salah is a rank outsider in this market at 38/1 which factors in that he is not playing for one of the fancied teams.

There is plenty of African interest and Senegal are priced at 37/20 to be the top African team ahead of Egypt and Nigeria at 5/2. Morocco at 13/2 and Tunisia at 9/1 complete the betting.

Aside from the opportunity to take a bet on one of the long-term markets there will be hundreds of betting markets on each and every match.

Sports betting is about so much more than who will win and lose and you will be able to bet on the numbers of goals, the first scorer and, frankly, too many other markets to mention.

Brent Graham is a sports betting blogger at

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