Australian A-League betting

Betting on the A-League can be done from all over the world, although it is a particularly prominent betting meeting in home country, Australia. The top Australian football betting sites feature the A-League competition, which runs from October to May each year, as prominent fixture during the summer months. International A-League fans can also bet on the Australian professional soccer competition, with most football betting sites having odds for both pre-season and regular home and away matches. In fact A-League bet types also include things like goal-scorers, clean sheets and corners, on top of your head to head and line betting options. Our guide to A-League betting in 2024 should help you get started.

Top A-League betting sites

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Best Online bookmakers to bet on A-League with

If you want to land yourself a bet on Australia’s best soccer competition, you need to find a good bookie. Forget about trawling the internet, we have done all the work for you. The trusted online betting sites above offer the most competitive odds and the widest variety of markets. Make sure you sign up with more than one to ensure you can get the best odds on your chosen events.

Australians are spoilt for choice when it comes to betting on the A-League, with leading betting sites like Sportsbet, Neds, BetEasy and even global star Bet365 having extensive coverage of this competition. Having said this all Australian betting sites we have come across, that have sports betting, feature markets on the A-League and its players.

For International A-League fans, you will also be able to bet on the Australian National Soccer League, with most sports betting sites picking up odds for professional football leagues from around the world. Particularly football bookmakers based in the UK and Europe are likely to have extensive A-League odds. Remember our top A-League betting sites table above is geo-targeted to only show betting sites you can sign up at.

About the Australian A-League

The world is just starting to stand up and take notice of Australia’s premier soccer league. While it is still no where near the class of competitions like the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, and German Bundesliga, the A-League has been given a huge boost thanks to the Melbourne Victory’s pre-season wins over the likes of Juventus and Atletico Madrid in recent years.

Although Australia has had nationwide football competitions since the 1970s, the A-League was not founded until 2005.

It was the perfect time for a new league, because the previous National Soccer League had fallen into financial ruin and could not overcome bickering between clubs and a febrile fan culture.

Retail tycoon Frank Lowy was appointed the inaugural boss of the A-League, after Australia’s federal government launched an investigation and found the NSL was simply no longer a sustainable competition.

Eight teams kicked off the first season of the A-League, but it was a year later when it really came into its own, thanks to a single penalty from John Aloisi.

His spot kick propelled the Socceroos into their first FIFA World Cup in more than three decades and now the rest is history.

While clubs have come and gone, the A-League has managed to weather storm after storm and has become one of the premier club competitions in all of south east Asia.

A-League clubs and former teams

When the A-League launched in 2005, there were eight teams from eight different cities:

• Adelaide United
• Queensland Roar
• Central Coast Mariners
• Melbourne Victory
• Newcastle Jets
• Perth Glory
• Sydney FC
• New Zealand Knights

Auckland’s NZ Knights struggled from the off and lasted only three seasons. They were immediately replaced by another Kiwi outfit, with Wellington Phoenix buying up the abandoned licence in 2007.

Two new Queensland clubs joined in 2009, which caused the existing Queensland Roar to rebrand themselves as the Brisbane Roar. But it was a short stint for Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury, both of whom were out of business by the end of 2012.

It is safe to say the A-League’s expansion attempts have not exactly gone to plan thus far. However, two of their project clubs have stuck.

Melbourne Heart (now Melbourne City) hit the scene in 2010 and have gone from strength to strength ever since. The club has struck up a fierce local rivalry with Melbourne Victory and now enjoys a lucrative partnership deal with Manchester City.

Western Sydney Wanderers entered the competition in 2012 and wasted no time making their mark. After claiming the A-League Premiership title in their debut season, in 2014 the red and black went on to become the first Australian club to win the Asian Champions League.

2018/19 A-League outright odds

It is no surprise to see Sydney FC start the season as outright favourites for the A-League Championship. The Sky Blues dominated up until the finals last year and look stronger than ever with some key additions over the winter.

Melbourne Victory came from fourth on the ladder to win the title in 2017/18. It wasn’t a great allround campaign for Kevin Muscat’s men, but things should improve dramatically with the inclusion of World Cup stars Keisuke Honda and Ola Toivonen.

Melbourne City are still yet to top the ladder or reach the grand final, but they should be there or thereabouts again with Bruno Fornaroli back in action. Perth should improve with Tony Popovic at the helm, while Newcastle will only get better once star striker Roy O’Donovan returns from a lengthy ban mid-season.

At the other end, it looks like a two-horse race for the wooden spoon. Central Coast took that dubious honour last term, but the bookies are favouring a Wellington outfit that lost much of its top-end talent in the off-season.

A-League popular betting markets

• Win-Draw-Win
• Correct Score
• Total match goals
• First goal scorer
• Last goal scorer
• Premiership
• Champion
• Golden Boot

A-league betting tips

As we said before, the international soccer community has finally started to take the A-League seriously and the same could be said about the punting community. With every game covered across Pay TV and free-to-air, the A-League offers a great opportunity for punters to enhance their sporting experience. While competitions like the Premier League still attract the punters’ dollar, more and more are turning to the A-League and the bookmakers are following suit. Here are a few tips to help you get the best experience out of your A-League betting hopes.

• Gamble responsibly:
  If you’re going to have a bet on the A-League – or any other sport for that matter – we must caution you to make sure you’re betting with money you can afford. Please ensure you’ve met your obligations for the week, the rent or house loan has been paid off, utilities covered and food is on the table for your family, before you decide to splurge on the punt.
• Home ground advantage:
  As with most sports, several of the A-League clubs have a pronounced home ground advantage. And others are very poor travellers. While of course there can be upsets, it is often easy to predict who will win a game, just by looking at the records of the teams at home and away. There are some big trips in the A-League – like New Zealand to Perth, so be wary and know where your teams are located.
• Marquee men make a difference:
  The A-League is beginning to attract some superb talent from all over the world and that increases the overall quality of the competition. While it lacks the overall depth of some of the bigger leagues, it can attract classy men from all over the world. Stars like Alessandro Del Piero, William Gallas, Dwight Yorke, Emile Heskey and Robbie Fowler have graced our shores and, when they played, their teams usually won.
• Look deeper than the glitz:
  Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC are considered the competition’s glamour clubs and they are both very good sides. But it’s not simply a case of lock them in every week. Often the odds will be dictated by the name of the team and nothing else, meaning you can certainly find some superb odds on underdog teams that have a great chance of winning.
• Forget the goal less draw:
  Critics of the A-League say that it is a bunch of blokes running around for 90 minutes without scoring a goal. But, in reality, there have been less than 70 goal less draws in the competition’s 10-year history. There will almost always be a score in the game, so get around the correct score bets, but forget about picking the boring 0-0 result.

Best players to ever play in the A-League

We’ve already mentioned some premier talent from across the world, but who are among the best players ever to spend an Australian summer down under?

Thomas Broich:
A pair of Johnny Warren Medals, plus a supreme ability to control a game from start to finish make the Brisbane Roar’s Thomas Broich arguably the best player ever to play in Australia. That’s not to say he is the most talented, but, on performance alone, it is hard to go past the German star, who has won three titles with the Roar.

Besart Berisha:
If he plays for your team, you love him. If he plays against it, you love to hate him. But there is no doubt this man is the best striker ever to grace our shores. Now calling Melbourne home, Belisha needs 10 goals in 2016-17 to become the all-time leader in strikes – with a ridiculous 81 win just 130 appearances.

Archie Thompson:
To give you an idea how good Berisha’s strike rate is, Thompson, he of the golden smile, leads the competition all-time in goals, with 90, but it took him 224 games to do. And that’s pretty good going. The Socceroo never quite made it big on the international stage, but he is a beloved face in Melbourne, where he won a title with the Victory.

Kevin Muscat:
We really need to get off the Victory wagon, but it’s hard to go past this bloke for the best defender in the game. Much like Berisha, you either loved him or you hated him, and perhaps you didn’t respect him, but every time he played, the forwards knew they were in for hell. He now stands on the sidelines as the coach of the Victory and he is still as angry and combative as ever.

Michael Theo:
More titles, more premierships than any other player. Perhaps the best goal keeper to ever play in the A-League and, if not that, then certainly the most successful. He won two titles with the Victory and three with the Roar and finished top of the table four times in a glittering career that would be the envy of every other A-League goal keeper.

Dwight Yorke:
The man who put the A-League on the map. The former Manchester United jet was the first really big signing the competition could hang its hat on. And man, did he deliver. He led Sydney FC to the title in his only season in Australia and the A-League was all the better for the trailblazer.

Alessandro Del Piero:
Was as old as father time when he arrived in Australia, but the Italian star, who made his name as a goal machine with Juventus, could lay claim to being the most talented player ever to step on an Australian soccer pitch. The fans came form every where to see him play and he did not disappoint, providing highlight reel plays almost weekly in his two-year stint.