World Cup 2018 Qualifiers Betting & Fixtures » Find the Best Odds Here
Now that 2018 is already here, it is time football fans tilt their attention to the forthcoming football World Cup that will take place in June 2018. The awaited games will be held in Russia, for the very first time. This comes after the rigorous qualification process that has been taking place the better part of last year for all the regions.
Selecting the 31 qualifiers with the exclusion of the host, Russia, was definitely no easy task considering there are over 200 FIFA members. This meant a lot of tournaments running every now and then in the hustle to pick the best of the bests. A good chance for football bettors to make their scoop, but only if they have a grip on the qualification process.
Regional Betting
When betting is concerned, it is impossible to separate sports betting trend with regions. The teams are normally grouped according to regions that is the geographical demarcations and then the regions do their own grouping. More to that is that odds are also customised as per the different regions and groups in the regions. A bettor can bet on the different teams playing in the different regions.
Europe
To come up with the qualifying teams in Europe, UEFA the Europe’s governing body oversaw the process. The process was done in two rounds, wherein the first one the 52 teams took place while grouped in 9 divisions, subdivided into two, ie. a) 7 groups each with 6 teams and b) 2 groups each with 5 teams. Here bettors had a lot to select from in this region as the teams in the groups use the round robin play format where the home team plays against the away team and the group winners proceed to finals. In the second round, the first 8 teams in the finals compete against each other and the best 4 gets their place in the World Cup. This level may have proven a hard nut to crack for bettors, with the odds at a close proximity.
With all these games available in the Europe regions qualification process, it would be right to say that this region had rich qualifiers bets, with some of the best odds. France and the Netherlands had quite a competition on the odds and winners stood for high prices.
Asia
Asia had 40 teams in total, which were broken down into 8 groups each having five teams. Just like in Europe, the round robin format was adopted for the group level which was the first round. Betting on this region at this level was less tight until the second round where the winners of the eight teams had to face each other. Nothing was tougher than this and though some of the most awaited games, football punters at this level were engaging in a riskier game than before, worth it if the predictions go right. AFC, the football confederation in Asia oversaw the process, as it is its responsibility. And chose the top four out of the eight group winners to be representatives in Russia.
South America
Betting on this region in the qualifiers matches might have been tricky and interesting at the same time. The tight competition, especially among the last six teams, was a hard nut to crack. This may not have been so easy for football punters and making a right prediction may have been one hard task, not to mention an anxious one. CONMEBOL the selecting body normally has a simpler job than the rest of the regions since the region has only 10 teams viable for FIFA World Cup. The teams play against each other and the top four qualifies for the World Cup for this case being in Russia.
North America, Central America, and the Caribbean
This is where CONCACAF, the football confederation in this region gets busy. For the 2018 World Cup qualification process, 35 teams were in the line all in the run for a spot in the World Cup qualifiers list giving quite a market to make a betting on.
For CONCACAF, the last 14 as ranked by FIFA got into a two-legged knockout. Seven winners were selected and added to the 9th to 21st positions got into the second round of the match. Another round of betting was presented as punters try to predict the next 10 winners of this round. The third round was for the 10 winners and the last two positions of the untouched 8 teams. The six winners from this round and the top six were combined then divided into teams of four in three groups.
This region has a sophisticated selection process, while the games on the several rounds provided many chances to place bets on the teams from the region. Betting tor Mexico was a safer deal for bettors considering the challenges they had faced on their way to the top.
Africa
With almost all African countries belonging to FIFA, the team overseeing the process, CAF, had quite a task working with 53 national teams. The Africa region was quite a large market for bettors. In the four rounds, which start with the last 26 teams having 13 two-legged, second round of the 13 winners and the rest having another two-legged tie. This does not mean that no more bets for this region, but instead meant that the odds were getting better with the games becoming tighter.
The remaining 20 teams after the 2nd round opened up to the last round where five groups of four teams each were made and the round robin format applied. The five winners found their way to the World Cup.
Oceania
Under the oversight of Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is mainly composed of island countries in the Pacific. Has three rounds and the fourth being a play-off. Oceania betting can be interesting though shallow. New Zealand is the greatest team after Australia, had a better chance of winning and safer for betting.
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