A-League Betting and Markets

The A-League was announced in April 2004, before the first official season commenced the following year (the A-League Women’s competition was subsequently launched ahead of the 2008/09 campaign).

This replaced the so-called “National Soccer League (NSL)”, which had previously been launched in the wake of the Aussie national side qualifying for their maiden FIFA World Cup finals in 1974.

The round-robin tournament flourished through the 1980s and 1990s before entering a period of decline, as several skilled and high-profile players who had made their name in the NSL left for overseas leagues. This left Sydney Olympic, Perth Glory and the newly established Adelaide United as the dominant sides, with little competition from other teams.

Since the formation of the A-League, the levels of competition have improved, while Sydney FC have emerged as the single most successful side by winning five major titles (the most recent of which came in 2020) and four Premierships.

Melbourne Victory have won four Grand Finals since 2006, while their local rivals Melbourne City claimed their first crown in 2020/21. Interestingly, City have also won the last three minor or regular season titles, highlighting them as one of the A-League’s most consistent sides.

Last season certainly saw Melbourne City crowned as the A-League Premiers, as they topped the regular season table with 16 wins and 55 points from 26 matches. This was the team’s third consecutive Premiership and third overall, while the side also finished as runners-up in the A-League in the 2019/20 campaign.

However, Melbourne City fell short in the A-League Grand Final in 2022/23, as the Central Coast Mariners (who had finished second during the regular season and 11 points behind their rivals) thrashed them 6-1 at the CommBank Stadium in Sydney. 

This was a huge A-League betting shock, especially as Melbourne has gone unbeaten against the Mariners during the regular season.

Below, we’ve prepared a table that charts the most recent A-League premiers and finals winners, dating back to 2018. As we can see, two sides have completed the coveted ‘double’ of Premiership and Championship wins, namely Sydney FC in 2019 and Melbourne City in the 2020/21 campaign.

Those of you who watched the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar will know that several A-League stars performed with distinction (primarily for an Aussie national team that reached the round of 16).

We’ve listed three standout performers below while closely examining their records for their respective A-League sides.

• #1. Matthew Leckie (Melbourne City): Striker Matthew Leckie has been key to Melbourne City’s recent A-League success, scoring 12 goals in 34 appearances since signing from Hertha BSC II in the summer of 2021. He also starred in the 2022 World Cup, scoring the decisive group stage goal against Denmark that secured the Socceroos’ place in the last 16. This is also one of 14 goals that Leckie has scored for his country.
• #2. Jamie Maclaren (Melbourne City): Next up is Leckie’s club and national teammate Jamie Maclaren, who became the A-League’s top scorer of all time last season (he now has 144 goals in the competition). He also struck 24 goals in 29 A-League games during the 2022/23 campaign, while he scored seven times in WC qualifying to fire the Aussies to Qatar. He’s also regularly among the favourites to top score domestically with the leading A-League betting sites, so he is a name to keep in mind.
• #3. Craig Goodwin (Al-Wehda): While Goodwin has since signed for Al-Wehda in the Saudi Pro League, the winger starred for Adelaide United in two spells on either side of the FIFA World Cup. In fact, he remains United’s all-time top goalscorer with 45 goals, while he won the A-League Premiership and Championship with the club in 2015/16. He also scored the opening goal as Australia took the lead against France in the FIFA WC group stage match between the two sides. At the same time, his deflected strike against Argentina gave the Socceroos hope in the round of 16.

The A-League betting odds are usually presented in decimal format by Aussie bookies. Decimal odds are single digits to two decimal places, while this number indicates how much a successful wager will return for every $1 wagered inclusive of your stake amount.

So, if Melbourne City are priced at 3.50 to win the A-League, a successful bet of $10 will return $35 in total (including a profit of $25).

If you’re uncomfortable with reading decimal odds, you can make a simple calculation to convert these to fractional prices.

For example, if you want to get on Sydney FC to win the next A-League at a decimal price of 7.00, just subtract a value of 1.00 to create fractional odds of 6/1. This won’t always work 100% accurately, depending on the exact decimal price and figure. Still, it can help you better understand the value and the risk/reward proposition.

Some of Australia’s best A-League betting sites (including BetsAmigo) also feature an odds widget that automatically converts odds into different formats, so you can see decimal, fractional and American prices depending on what you’re comfortable with.

You can also use any odds format to calculate the implied probability of a particular outcome. There’s a dedicated formula to achieve this, too, and in the case of decimal odds, it reads as follows:

(1/ decimal odds) * 100 = implied probability

To provide further context, let’s take the previous examples of backing Melbourne City (3.50) or Sydney (7.00) to win the A-League.

In the case of the former, you’ll divide one by the odds of 3.50 to create a value of 0.285, which is then multiplied by 100% to create an implied probability of 28.5% that Melbourne will prevail.

However, in the case of the less fancied Sydney, you’ll divide one by a starting price of 7.00 to create a value of just 0.142, indicating that ‘The Sky Blues’ have a statistical chance of 14.28% of being successful.

These are important considerations, as they help you to determine the probability of potential outcomes and estimate the most suitable stake amount.

There are also a handful of popular A-League betting markets, which may revolve around competing sides and the best individual players. We’ll explore these in more detail below while asking how you can navigate them successfully.

We’ve already referenced outright betting markets and odds earlier in this guide, and this type of wager requires you to back one or more teams to win the A-League.

This is a straightforward betting market, while it also tends to offer increased value and returns due to the number of potential winners (12).

If you are going to wager on the outright A-League betting winner, however, we’d recommend betting as early as you can and before the published prices start to drift and shorten.

Winner betting may also describe outright markets, but it’s most commonly associated with match wagering and backing teams to win individual games.

Last season saw 156 games played, while, like all footy match betting markets, there are three potential outcomes (including both teams to win and the draw). Match betting often carries prohibitive pricing, so you may want to combine selections into accumulator bets or ‘handicap’ short-priced favourites to create additional value.