Punters found themselves let down by England yet again after Roy Hodgson’s men fell to defeat against Uruguay in the World Cup – so just how can you corner the market when betting on the Three Lions?

Bookmakers saw a surge of bets yesterday as confident gamblers got behind England in large numbers, forcing the pre-match fixed odds price to move from 6/5 to odds on.

It was a pattern seen in the previous defeat against Italy in Manuas when England again started the match as odds-on favourites after heavy backing for England before kick-off despite Italy having been slight favourites in the days preceding the clash.

Ultimately the confidence proved misplaced, of course. So, if patriotic punters can’t bring themselves to bet against their home nation in the form of an ‘emotional hedge’, then how about looking at other ways of trying to make money from England’s antics on the pitch, in particular, by betting on corners?

Why should punters look at betting on corners? Well, in England’s last 12 competitive matches (the two games in the World Cup so far and their 10 qualifying matches), the number of corners per game has averaged at just over 13.5.

And although England only had six corners against Uruguay in Sao Paulo, in the 17 games (including friendlies) since the turn of 2013 before that, England corners alone have averaged at over 9 per match.

Fixed odds corner betting v spread betting on corners

When placing fixed odds bets on corners, you can choose from selections such as over/under a set number of corners for the full game or per half, team to win the first corner, team to win the most corners or whether the total number of corners will be an odd or even number.

However, football spread betting on corners is when this type of betting really comes alive. Here there are a multitude of corners-based markets to choose from – and when you play any of these markets, you really will end up watching a game of football in a different way!

The most obvious market to start with is number of Match Corners. So for the Uruguay match, Spreadex’s quote was 10.5 – 11. This means if you had bought Corners for £10 a point at 11 you would have made £20 ((13 – 11) x £10).

It’s important to remember that with spread betting you can lose more than your initial stake should your bet go against you – so the worst case scenario for the above bet would be if no corners ended up being taken at all in the game and the bet lost £110 ((0 – 11) x £10).

If you want more volatility you can bet on Corners Squared, which made up at 169 for the Uruguay clash (13 x 13), Multicorners, which is based on the number of first half corners taken multiplied by the number of second half corners taken, or Cross-Corners, which is based on the number of corners taken by Team A multiplied by the number of corners taken by Team B.

Further options are the Corner Supremacy (predicted difference in corners taken by Team A over Team B as set by a spread betting firm), Time of First Corner or Goals x Corners, which would have made-up at 39 for the Uruguay v England game (3 x 13).

All these markets, with the exception of Cross-Corners, are also offered per team i.e. Total England Corners, England Multicorners or Time of First England Corner.

Remember that with spread betting the in-play element is one of the big draws for punters meaning you can open or close bets at any time during the action on constantly updated price, to either take a profit or cut a loss.

For example, if you had bought England Corners at 6.5 against Uruguay and closed out before the end of the first half after a flurry of corners midway through the first-half you could have made more than 2 x profit on your stake. However, if you had let the bet run its course it would have settled within the spread resulting in no profit and a loss of half your stake (6 – 6.5).

So if you can’t bear to put your money behind England against Costa Rica but still want some interest on the action, take a look at bets involving flag kicks and see if you can corner the market on this type of betting!