FA Cup Betting in the UK

Interested in betting on the FA Cup? You’ve come to the right place. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about betting on the FA Cup and the best FA Cup betting sites where you can place your bets.

Author: Annsley Payne , Last Updated on 04.12.2024

Top 5 FA Cup Betting Sites

In this section, you’ll find the best football betting sites UK which offer some of the best FA Cup odds on the market. Although the UK market is full of decent sports betting sites, we certainly have our favourites when it comes to FA Cup betting. Take a look at the table below for our top five picks.

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Further down this page, we’ll go into more detail about each betting site, including the variety of bets available and some FA Cup final betting tips for you to keep in mind. These sites offer punters a wide range of betting opportunities on this historic football tournament, from FA Cup outright betting, to FA Cup qualifying round betting and the best betting odds on FA Cup final.

The History of the FA Cup in the UK

When compared to major tournaments and competitions like the Premier League, the FA Cup is a smaller cup in this sense. However, the FA Cup has a much longer history, having been played every year since 1871! While the Premier League is played among the top 20 clubs in England, the FA Cup is open to lower division clubs who compete amongst themselves and against the Premier League clubs. To this day, the FA Cup remains one of the most popular domestic football cup competitions in the world not only to watch but also to bet on.

The FA Cup has been played every year since the first 1871/72 season and it’s organised by The Football Association, after which it’s named. The first ever winners of the trophy were the Wanderers FC, a team that dissolved years later.

Hundreds of teams enter the FA Cup because it’s open to any club from the Premier League all the way down to clubs as far as the 10th level of professional English football. The 20 professional clubs in the Premier League along with 72 professional clubs in levels two, three and four in the English Football League automatically entered in the competition at different stages. In the 2011-2012 season, a record number of 763 clubs competed in the FA Cup.

The FA Cup Tournament Format

It’s important to understand the format of the tournament and how it works before you can understand betting odds for FA Cup and place your bets. The first stages of the tournament sees six qualifying rounds where lower level clubs compete to advance to the next stage of the competition. From these first six qualifying rounds, 32 teams will progress to the First Round Proper where they’ll compete against the 48 professional teams from League One and League Two. The Premier League and Championship clubs enter the competition at a later stage which is the Third Round Proper. The winners receive the FA Cup trophy and automatically qualify for the UEFA Europa League.

The FA Cup usually begins in August with 12 rounds being played, followed by the semi-finals and the final match which typically takes place in May. The final match is usually played at Wembley Stadium, which has been the venue for the final match for more than 15 consecutive years now.

Take a look at this handy table for a visual explanation of the tournament format.

Qualifying Round

Competition Proper

Choosing the Right FA Cup Betting Odds Site

There are literally hundreds of online sportsbooks and betting sites that offer a variety of sports betting markets and bettors are always on the lookout for the best odds and sites to place their bets with. The FA Cup, like any other football tournament for the matter, is an entertaining sport to watch because it’s so intense, fast-paced, and many times, there’s so much at stake for the team you’re supporting. When you’ve got your money on that team, watching the FA Cup becomes a whole lot more entertaining because even more is at stake.

Betting on the FA Cup has always been very popular among football fans, from FA Cup preliminary round betting to betting FA cup winner when the tournament heads towards the semi-finals. You can easily find FA Cup betting at practically any sportsbook you come across, including a wide variety of different markets.

When it comes to the best in FA Cup betting, Ladbrokes is a great example of a premium FA Cup betting site. It’s also one of the best premier league betting sites and a great overall sportsbook offering very favourable odds on other top football leagues. Not all betting sites have the same standard when it comes to quality, variety, and safety for players, so it’s important to choose the right FA Cup betting site if you want to get the best odds and a fair experience.

Unique Features

There are several reasons why we rate these betting sites as some of the best ones on the market. One of the most important factors to consider when choosing a sportsbook is the variety a site offers because this is what ultimately sets a site apart from its competitors. When betting on football or any other sport, a good selection of different betting markets needs to be offered because different bettors have different preferences. Some bettors might prefer to place straightforward bets such as outright bets, while others who follow the sport more closely might want to bet on individual matches and players too.

Payment Methods

The payment options offered at a site must also be taken into account since this can tell you a lot about its trustworthiness. Any reputable sports betting site should offer an array of reliable and secure banking methods. For example, most of the sites mentioned above are betting sites with PayPal, meaning they offer you the option to make transactions with one of the most reliable and convenient online payment methods.

Bonuses and Promotions

When talking about the best FA Cup betting sites, we can’t forget about the bonuses and promotions offered as well. The betting sites listed above all offer very good offers that will give you the chance to bet on matches without using your own money. These bonuses typically include a Welcome Bonus, free bets, or enhanced odds, all of which we’ll explain in further detail in this page.

Consider FA Youth Cup Betting

FA Youth Cup betting is also quite popular although not nearly as much as the FA Cup. Nevertheless, it can also be very fun to bet on if you know what you’re doing. The biggest online sportsbooks like William Hill usually offer FA Youth Cup betting, but you won’t come across this as often as regular FA Cup betting which is available at practically any online betting site you can think of.

What Makes the FA Cup so Popular?

There are several reasons why the FA Cup has remained so popular for all these years, the most significant being that it has such a historic place in the world of football. Let’s take a closer look at what makes this competition so popular.

The world’s oldest football tournament: The FA Cup has a prestigious place in the world of football with an interesting history of more than 140 years during which 43 different football clubs won the trophy. In fact, it’s not only the oldest cup competition in England, but in the whole world.

Open to all teams: Hundreds of football clubs have the opportunity to participate in the competition – practically any club can play and that’s the beauty of the FA Cup. Smaller teams have the chance to face the top Premier League teams if they qualify. The fact that every team has a chance to participate makes for some very exciting matches between small teams and the giants in football. The format of the FA Cup has also resulted in a few surprises in the past. For example, in the 2012/13 FA Cup, Wigan Athletic made history when they won the final match against Manchester City.

A coveted trophy at stake: The FA Cup might not be taken as seriously by major football clubs because it’s not as financially rewarding as other competitions, but the title itself remains very prestigious and every team fights hard to win it.

Different FA Cup Betting Markets

There are loads of different options when betting for FA Cup although you might not find all of them available on the one betting site. Some online sportsbooks offer a basic selection of the most common types of bets such as the outright winner of the cup and the top goal scorer since these are some of the most common bets. However, other sportsbooks offer a whole array of betting markets to choose from. In our opinion, we’re always happy to see a large variety of different bets because bettors can split their money over multiple bets without being restricted to the usual two or three.

Once the tournament kicks off, several pre-match and in-play markets open up. Let’s take a look at the most popular betting markets for the FA Cup that you can bet on in the 2021/2022 tournament.

Outright Winner

This is the most common betting market that any FA Cup betting site offers. This is simply a wager on the team that will win the trophy in the final. Before betting on the winner, it’s important to look at the FA Cup final betting odds and compare odds on different betting sites to see who is most likely to win and which team is the least likely to win. Keep in mind that these odds fluctuate often, which is why recommend keeping yourself updated on the odds at each stage of the FA Cup.

Match result

This is the most common and most straightforward bet of all the FA Cup betting markets. You can usually place this wager in both pre-match and live betting markets. With this type of wager, you’ll simply be betting on who will win the match. FA Cup betting outright is the most ideal bet for beginners as well, since all you need to do is look at the odds and decide which team you want to bet on.

Top Goal Scorer

This is another wager that’s typically offered at all of the FA Cup betting sites and it allows you to place a wager on which player you think will score the highest number of goals throughout the whole tournament. This is a popular bet that many football punters like to advantage of when they have a good idea of who is likely to score the most goals. It’s important to do your research on previous matches in other tournaments and leagues as well to improve your chances on winning with this bet.

Next Team to Score

This is a type of live match betting where you’re trying to predict which team will score the next goal during a match. This bet is a great way to add some extra adrenaline to an ongoing match and it’s easy to keep track of if you’re watching the match at the same time. There are several different factors that can affect the odds of this bet and make it a tricky one to predict correctly. Before putting your money on a team, consider the momentum of the match so far, the form each team is in, the number of goal attempts each side has made, and how much time is left in the match.

Next Scorer

The next scorer bet is similar to the bet described above but instead of predicting which team will score the next goal, you’ll be trying to predict the player who will score next. As you can probably tell, this is much harder to predict than the next team to score but the payout is also significantly higher if you get it right.

Both teams to score

With this kind of bet, you’ll be putting your money on whether both teams will score or not. The number of goals isn’t relevant here, it’s simply a bet that both teams will score at least one goal or not.

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FA Cup 2021/2022

The 2021 FA Cup kicked off on the 5th of November 2021 and the final is scheduled to take place on the 14th of May 2022 at Wembley Stadium. Leicester City won the previous edition of the FA Cup with a 1-0 victory against Chelsea in the final. This was the very first FA Cup win for Leicester City, but in the 2021/22 season, they’re not among the favourites to lift the trophy, as you can see in the following section.

Currently, the third round of the competition is nearly over and bettors are keen to get their hands on the FA Cup third round betting tips. So, we’ve compiled a list of the strongest clubs that we recommend placing your wagers on. Manchester City is at the top of the list, which comes as no surprise considering that this club is usually a favourite in every football league they’re in. This makes them the safest option to bet on, but since the odds are relatively high, the potential return isn’t so rewarding. Chelsea, for example, are the second most likely to win the trophy, having won three times and defeating Manchester City in the previous edition’s semi-finals.

Here is the current favourites list:

1. Manchester City
2. Chelsea
3. Liverpool
4. Manchester United
5. Arsenal
6. Tottenham

FA Cup Betting Offers

One of the best FA cup betting tips we can give you is to look out for different FA Cup final betting offers that betting sites offer during the FA Cup tournament, especially towards the semi-finals stage. Here are the best FA Cup betting offers you should look out for before placing your bets.

Free Bets

Free bets are one of the best offers you can get your hands on when betting on the FA Cup. These can usually be used to bet on specific matches without using your own funds. If you win, the funds will be all yours to keep or withdraw.

Enhanced Odds

This is another great offer that punters can take advantage to improve their FA Cup betting odds win chances. Enhanced odds is a type of promotion where the odds are increased artificially by the betting site to give you a bigger return on your wager.

Deposit Bonuses

Deposit bonuses are a common type of bonus offer that can be found at online betting sites and online casinos too. This offer usually matches your deposit by 100%, so if you deposit £10, you’ll be able to bet with £20. There is usually a playthrough requirement which means you’ll need to wager the bonus funds a number of times.

Previous FA Cup Results – The Champions of the Last 5 Years

If you’re interested in FA Cup winners betting, it’s important to take into account the most recent winners of the FA Cup and which team has won the most FA Cup trophies. There are, of course, several other factors which have an influence on betting odds FA Cup, but looking at recent cup results is always a great way to start forming your predictions.

Currently, Arsenal holds the record for the highest number of FA Cup wins with 14 cup titles, four of which were all in the last five years. Manchester United has the second highest number of wins in the FA Cup with 12 wins, followed by Chelsea FC and Tottenham Hotspur who have both won the title eight times. Chelsea have been runners-up in the last two years, losing to Leicester City in the 2020/21 edition.

FA Cup Betting Tips

Before we wrap up this page about FA Cup betting sites, let’s look over some football betting tips FA Cup that you can keep in mind before you submit your bet slip.

• Reputation Matters: It's important to choose a reputable sports betting site for several reasons. A licensed and regulated site will give you the most protection as a punter, so in the unlikely event something goes wrong, you can feel confident there is a professional and friendly customer support team ready to answer any questions you may have.
• Scores: While this may seem like an obvious tip, look at head to head scores. This will give you the best indication of how teams typically play against each other.
• Underdog: Have you ever considered betting on the underdog? It certainly happens from time to time and when it does, this means the odds will be in your favour for a bigger payout.
• "The 12th Man": Don’t forget about the home advantage! The crowd isn't called the 12th man for nothing. Having your team play on their home turf is another factor to look out for when placing an FA Cup wager.
• Bet Responsibly: We all see this phrase when it comes to betting but it should be taken seriously. Betting on the FA Cup should purely be about entertainment only and as a way to turn up the excitement a little more. If placing wagers no longer becomes fun, then you should take a break from betting and only return when you use it for a source of entertainment. Check out www.begambleaware.org if you want to find more information about gambling responsibly.

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