Scottish Premiership

The second biggest league within the United Kingdom is the Scottish Premiership. Not at the same level of play as the English Premier League, but definitely an interesting division to follow and to bet on. The Scottish top flight is known to be dominated by two Glasgow giants: Celtic and Rangers. This rivalry has been interrupted by Rangers financial situation and we will elaborate on that matter later on. The Scottish Premiership consists of twelve clubs at the moment. It is quite a unique set up for a national football competition. It goes as follows: everyone plays their opponents thrice before the league is split into two groups; the bottom six will play in the relegation play-off and the top six will play in the championship play-off. Clubs will meet each other team in their group once.
As for the relegation group, the last placed team will go down to the First Division and the club that finishes one spot above last place will have to play a play-off against the number two, three or four of that season’s First Division clubs. Most of the championship play-off clubs will go into next season with a ticket for a European competition. The first and second placed team will go into next season’s qualification rounds for the Champions League (the second placed team has to survive more rounds). The third placed team, or the Scottish cup winner (unless one of the top two teams wins the cup) will be granted a ticket for the Europa League group phase. Number four and five will try to qualify for the Europa Conference League the upcoming season. If a lower ranked team than third spot will win the Scottish FA Cup things will shift and tickets will be divided differently. The Scottish Premiership scores relatively high when it comes to average goals per game but that is mostly because of those two top clubs scoring far more than the rest of the clubs. Alright, let’s see if the Scottish Premiership is interesting for you to bet on!

Scottish Premiership history

In 2013 the Scottish top flight changed its name and shape for the last time (until this day) but in 1890 the SFL was founded, initially as an amateur league but a couple of years later professional football was legalized in Scotland. Throughout history, there have been two clubs that have been absolutely dominating the highest Scottish football competition. Rangers and Celtic have won the national title for a staggering 85,1% of time as of today! They are miles ahead of any other club in the Scottish football league system. When it comes to European silverware, it has been somewhat bleak. There have been three clubs that have managed to win a European prize. As you would have expected, Celtic won one (Europa Cup I) and Rangers as well (European Cup winners Cup). The biggest surprise is Aberdeen winning the European Cup Winners Cup as well in 1983 with the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson as head coach. Arguably one of the best head coaches football has ever seen. Talking about big names that have shined in the Scottish Premiership. There are a couple we want to have mentioned here because they have been absolute gems for every football lover. Andy Robertson, Gordon Strachan, Graeme Souness, Dennis Law and of course Kenny Dalglish have all played in the Scottish top flight.

Popular teams that play in the Scottish Premiership

We’ve been mentioning it a couple of times before, Rangers and Celtic are the two dominant factors in the Scottish Premiership throughout the entire history. Rangers is the Record champion with 55 titles, earning them five stars to put on their kit. Celtic comes very close with 52 titles, which gives them the right to put five stars on their kit as well. There’s no other European top flight that has been dominated by two dominant forces that have also been so competitive amongst each other. To give you an extra perspective on how dominant these two clubs are, the third place when it comes to league titles is divided by three clubs. Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibernian all have just four league titles! The Scottish Premiership actually has been pretty boring for a while according to many football enthusiasts. Rangers went into administration and eventually went bankrupt in 2012. A forceful relegation to the fourth division was a fact and from there it was a long way back for Celtic’s biggest Rival. Due to the eagerness to come back to the highest division, a new board and the help of their die hard fans that still came to support the team in the wonderful stadium of Ibrox even when they were in a lower division. During the time of Rangers’ absence, Celtic have managed to win the title for many years in a row with so much ease that Celtic fans were almost ‘crying’ for Rangers to come back so they actually had some club to compete with.

Tips for betting on the Scottish Premiership

We’re starting off with the biggest con to betting on the Scottish Premiership which is actually also a big pro in our opinion. Many sports bettors tend to bet on favorites a lot. The fact that there are two giant favorites playing in this league makes it easy to slip up. These two clubs are so much better than the competition that odds are absurdly low. Even with handicaps it is hard to find any value in them. Especially when Rangers and Celtic have played some tough matches on a high level in European competitions during the week and the other club is well rested. It can be tricky and quite hard for those clubs to play small clubs in a very small stadium away from home after you just visited a European top club. Underestimation can be a huge factor so be aware when you’re betting. The upside to this is that you can also use these situations in your favor. Try to gather information on why one of those clubs could be underestimating a smaller club or signs of tiredness and injuries that can potentially influence a game. Payouts can even be very attractive with + handicaps in favor of the small club. That means that they can even afford a small loss for you to win your bet!

What type of bets are suitable for this league?

Just like most other leagues and also in general, we conclude that Asian handicaps are the best way to be profitable when it comes to betting. Are Asian handicaps not available on your bookmaker, try to switch to another sports book that supports Asian handicaps. If you don’t want to do that and still want to bet on handicaps, the regular European handicap is an alternative but it makes it quite limited compared to using Asian handicaps. Other decent markets to bet on are Asian totals or betting over or under a certain amount of goals. Big clubs might be struggling against defensive setups which makes chances slim for the defensive side score goals as well. Try to investigate and find these situations. Learning to recognize these situations and you could end up with a profitable strategy for this league.

Alternatives to betting on the Scottish Premier League

In some ways the Scottish Premiership can be compared to other leagues that have dominant forces. Best alternatives to this league are the German Bundesliga or the French Ligue 1. The only difference is that there are not two but one dominant force in those leagues. We have to say, the Scottish Premiership is pretty unique because of the dominance of these two football clubs as well as the whole structure. Talking about an abnormal structure and comparing the Scottish elite division to other national leagues when it comes to structure we can conclude that the Belgian Jupiler Pro league is most similar.

Bookies with Scottish Premiership affinity