How to Analyze a Team’s Form for Sports Betting

Analyzing team form can help you make more informed sports betting decisions. Most online bookmakers provide in-depth stats on previous performances. Your job is to utilize the statistics and results to your ability to make informed bets and find value. 

What is Team Form?

Team form relates to the recent performance level of a sport side and its players. Form can be tracked over several games to gauge winning or losing streaks. Similarly, you can track a player’s points, goals, or passing yards record in previous games. 

Benefits of Studying Team Form

•    Improve your understanding of the sport
•    Track patterns in previous results
•    Calculate which team to back in the 1X2 markets
•    Calculate which players to back in goalscorer markets
•    Find value in the betting markets

Analyzing Team Form at Online Bookmakers

Top online betting sites usually provide full stats for each match and game they provide odds for. 

Bookmakers use official statistics, either from the relevant league or from data providers such as SportRadar. You can view recent head-to-heads, upcoming fixtures, or current league tables. SportRadar also supplies an archive of results for dozens of sports. 

Performance / Previous Results

The most basic way to gauge team form is to look at previous results. Bookmakers display the previous 5 or 6 results for that team. They also show you average goals/points per game, total goals, and highest win. 

Previous team performance is a good way to gauge how well a team will play in their next game. Start by looking at the strength of the teams your pick last played. 

You can also look for stats such as xG (Expected Goals), which is the likelihood of a shot resulting in a goal or point scored. 

Previous H2H (Head to Head)

Head-to-head form can trump a team’s overall performance form. You can use data-driven analysis as well with tools such as Statscore. 

Previous Scores

Tracking a team’s previous scores is ideal for betting on one of these markets:

•    Total Goals (Over/Under)
•    Correct Score
•    Asian Handicap
•    Both Teams to Score (BTTS)

The sportsbook data page will display recent stats on the average goals per match too. 

Injuries

Gauging current injuries is good for betting on correct score and anytime scorer bets. Team form may be high when a certain player is in the team, pulling the strings and scoring goals. On the flip side, it may drop when the star player is injured.
You can view team line-ups for previous games to see whether missing players affected the final score. If you bet on football, look up xG (Expected Goal) stats when a star striker was playing compared to when they weren’t. 

Using Current Form in League Situations

We have used an international tournament to see how you can use team form to gauge your bets. But does long-term form give you more information?

For regular seasons (taking football as our example), checking the last 8-9 games is a good way to gauge “current form”. This gives you enough data to analyze the merits of how teams will perform next time. It also includes enough home and away games to give an even balance. 

Though the league table shows total points, total wins, losses, and draws, it doesn’t display the current form. A current form table would indicate more accurate information:
•    Increase/decrease in points scored per match
•    Average points per game
•    Goals scored/conceded
•    Comparison to overall season points per game

Using Team Form to Find Value in Sports Betting

By using team form, we can get a better idea of what the odds should be for any given market. It’s irrelevant what the bookmaker’s odds are right now, just whether they offer value. 

Let’s use our England v Slovenia example. In Slovenia’s first two group games, this bookmaker priced the draw at 3.60 and 3.70 respectively. They didn’t fancy Slovenia’s chances based on international ranking and made Serbia and Denmark odds-on to win. Slovenia frustrated both teams to draw both games. 

Let’s look again at the odds displayed for England v Slovenia: