Football betting: should sports bettors consider the role of referees’ style and behaviour in their betting decisions?

The role of referees in any football match is to make sure that the game is played according to the rules and that it runs as it should do, based on the basic specifications and regulations. To do so, referees are often required to make decisions and calls that reside in their subjective interpretation of events and therefore, such decisions may frequently be challenged, opposed or even strongly rejected by the footballers, the manares, the club executives, the sports journalists and ultimately by the viewers and fans.

The work of referees is difficult in that sense. They are often confronted with excessive disapproval, they get a lot of boos and sometimes they get to be highly disregarded by people who follow, watch or have any interests in a football match. And all this, simply because the role of referees can be very important in affecting the final score, the outcome or even the entire play out of a game.

Every bookmaker around the world, including the best betting site in Bangladesh, acknowledges the critical role of referees in any football match and for that reason they take into account this factor when setting odds for the different betting markets. So, when bettors are presented with specific odds in certain football matches, too often these odds incorporate or factor in the potential impact that the referees may have.

But is this something that sports bettors should also take into account? Should they consider the referees in their decisions and choices when it comes to football betting?

Well, first of all, before getting into that question, we should say that for anyone who is interested in obtaining statistics, data, past records and generally more precise information about football referees, there are several databases readily available on the internet. Football, unlike other sports like cricket or baseball, are now considered to be universal ones and there is plenty of information out there about nearly everything that has to do with this sport.

Now, let’s get back to whether sports bettors should evaluate the role of referees before placing any wagers. To answer that, let’s see how referees can influence a football match.

Referees make calls and decisions during the progress of a game. They give yellow and red cards, they validate goals, award penalties, give injury time, call fouls and so on. By definition, all these are critical episodes which can determine not only how the game will play out in the very moment of the decision being made, but also how the entire game will eventually unfold.

An early yellow card given to a striker, for example, may hinder the striker’s performance in the entire match, if the player feels he must be more cautious in order to avoid a second card. An uncalled off-side can really frustrate players and change the route and their dynamics in the game.

Or a foul in a very critical moment, that is really doubtful and which is opposed by the players can hamper the morale of the entire team and lead to a series of mistakes, which may ultimately influence the final score.

These are only a few, but explicit ways in which referees can affect the outcome of a football match. And the truth is that we don’t get to consider any bias or favoritism on the part of the referees, which is often explicit as well. There are plenty of examples where referees have shown great favoritism over home teams or generally over particular teams and in the end this has been said to have impacted the result of the match.

Despite efforts being made from authorities and executives to make the role of referees as fair and as impartial as possible and also despite the employment of technology and digital systems (such as VAR) in assisting with high precision analysis, the truth is that referees continue to make decisions and calls that are largely domained in their subjective interpretation of things during the football game.

And if this is so, then it is definitely true that as sports bettors, you should consider the role of referees before placing your wager on any football betting market. You should take into account anything that is deemed to have a critical role in the event.