Serie A betting guide
Serie A is one of the best-known leagues in the world, and with its incredible history stretching back all the way to 1929, it is also one of the oldest. In our Serie A betting guide, we explore how to follow and bet on Italian Serie A matches.
Serie A in a nutshell
Serie A, which is technically called Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A, is the top flight of Italian football, which has been in existence in some form since 1898. It switched to the current round-robin format in 1929. It has fluctuated in terms of the number of teams that are included, but since 2005, there have been 20 clubs competing in the league.
Like other European top flights, the league is played in a round-robin competition with all teams playing each other twice in both home and away games. Three points are awarded for a win and one for a draw, and the seasons usually take place between August and May. The bottom three teams are relegated to make way for teams who are promoted from Italy’s second club tier, Serie B.
In the incredible history of the league, there have been many different winners and plenty of drama. The teams have also played a crucial role in Europe and continue to do so today, being amongst the most popular in football betting.
The teams that finish in the top four of the league all go straight into the group stage of the Champions League. The team in fifth place, and the team in sixth — if the Coppa Italia winner is in the top five, go into the Europa League. The next team down, either sixth or seventh, will join the last qualification round for the Europa Conference League, so there is always great Italian representation in the biggest continental tournament in the world.
The league has been won the most by Juventus, while both Inter and AC Milan have also won numerous titles. Legendary figures to have played in the league include the top scorer of all time Silvio Piola, who played in the league for an incredible 25-year spell.
Serie A top all-time winners
As of 2023, the teams who have won the league the most since its earliest inception back in the 1800s are listed below, along with the number of titles they have won:
- Juventus: 36
- Inter Milan: 19
- AC Milan: 19
- Genoa: 9
- Torino: 7
- FC Pro Vercelli: 7
- Bologna: 7
- AS Roma: 3
- Fiorentina: 2
- Napoli: 2
- Lazio: 2
Serie A top all-time goalscorers
Watching Serie A is always exciting, not least of all because of the likelihood that you will see plenty of goals. Below we’ve listed the most prolific goalscorers as of 2023, to ever grace the league as well as how many goals they have scored and who they played for:
- Silvio Piola: 290, Pro Vercelli, Lazio, Juventus, Novara
- Francesco Totti: 250, AS Roma
- Gunnar Nordahl: 225, AC Milan, AS Roma
- Giuseppe Meazza: 216, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Juventus
- José Altafini: 216, AC Milan, Napoli, Juventus
- Antonio Di Natale: 209, Empoli, Udinese
- Roberto Baggio: 205, Fiorentina, Juventus, Milan, Bologna, Inter Milan, Brescia
- Ciro Immobile: 191, Juventus, Genoa, Torino, Lazio
- Kurt Hamrin: 190, Juventus, Padova, Fiorentina, AC Milan, Napoli
- Giuseppe Signori: 188, Foggia, Lazio, Sampdoria, Bologna
How to prepare your Serie A bets
The history and the statistics can help you work out how to bet on Serie A. Below, in the remainder of our Serie A betting guide, we will walk you through some of the specific betting markets that may represent value or opportunity that are worth studying if you plan to bet on the league.
Some of the statistics and information below may give you some insight into Serie A.
Home field advantage in Serie A
In a lot of leagues throughout Europe, including the Spanish La Liga, playing at home seems to be a big advantage, and the statistics back this up. There are still plenty of long distances to travel in the league, with some away fixtures requiring a 500 km or longer trip. However, home advantage doesn’t seem to be as dramatic in Serie A as it is in some other leagues.
For example, in the 2021/22 season, while home advantage did seem to play a part, this was nowhere near the levels of other leagues. A total of 39% of the matches this season resulted in a home win, and 35% resulted in an away win. The rest of the games were drawn full-time. This is nowhere near the discrepancy level we saw in other leagues such as La Liga for the same time period.
The home advantage varies from one season to the next, but it doesn’t seem to be as much of an indication of the outcome of the game as some of the other leagues out there.
Average number of goals per game in Serie A
A lot of gamblers like to bet on the number of goals per game, and the over 2.5 goals market is particularly popular. Let’s look at roughly how many goals per game we see in this league and how this may inform your Serie A betting.
In the 2021/22 season, we saw an average of 2.87 goals per match. This is higher than many of the historic averages. For instance, in 2008/09 we saw an average of 2.6 goals per match, so there has been over a 10% increase in that time judging by these figures.
The percentage of games that had over 2.5 goals in the time period of the 2021/22 season was 56%, so 44% of games fell under that threshold. There are still plenty of lower-scoring games, and 1-1 is the most popular scoreline in the league based on the data of recent seasons.
Both teams to score
This is another popular market for gamblers and can be added or included within bet builders. To use the 2020/21 season as our example, 60% of games saw both teams scoring, which happened in 227 out of the 380 matches of that season. In 2021/22, 56% of the games saw both teams score. In many recent seasons, most games have seen both teams finding the net.
Matches drawn at half time
In 2021/22, 42% of all games were level at half-time, but the majority of games saw a victor by the end of 90 minutes. In our Serie A betting guide, this may be useful when it comes to betting on the half-time/full-time markets.
Corners in Serie A
Corners are another market that people may explore when they are looking to bet on the league. The total number of corners per match, as well as each team’s average number of corners, may play a big part.
In 2020/21, the average number of corner kicks per game in the Serie A was 9.66. Broken down, this came to an average of 5.03 corners for the home team and 4.63 for the away team. In total, there were 3,672 corners throughout the season.
It is worth looking at recent data for the corners market as this can change greatly from one season to the next.
Player form
As well as the form of teams and the patterns that may emerge and be helpful for Serie A betting, it is definitely worth looking into player form. There are plenty of Serie A betting markets that you can explore that can give you the chance to bet on specific players and their performance in games.
Goalscorer markets
If you think that a certain player is going to score in a game, then you can look into the goalscorer markets at LeoVegas. As well as betting on a player to score at any time, there are also markets such as first goalscorer and last goalscorer, and on in-play bets, you may be able to bet on who is going to score next in the game. If a player is on a hot streak of scoring goals or you suspect they will get one in the game, it could be a market to explore.
Player shots and shots on target
There are certain players you may know will usually test the goalkeeper or try their luck within a game, that’s why there are markets on LeoVegas such as the Shots and Shots on Target markets which relate to how many shots a player has had or whether they have had shots the goalkeeper needs to save. You can check the statistics of how many shots a player has on average per game and base your bet on this, as well as how likely it is that their team will dominate the game.
Player card
There are also possible bets regarding cards within games. If you think that a player is going to get a yellow or even a red card, it is possible to bet on this outcome. Some players are more prone to cards than others, and of course, Serie A has some very feisty derbies, including the Rome derby. Not many players get booked on a weekly basis though, so be sure to study the form.
There are a lot of different markets based on individual players as well as teams, and by using bet builder functionality you can combine different outcomes into one single bet which may provide you with longer odds than a simple scoreline bet.
Serie A history
Serie A is one of the oldest leagues in the world and has an amazing history. Beginning in 1898, when the league first formed in some format, there were two different regional championships. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) split the CCI (Italian Football Confederation) in 1921, which founded in Milan the Lega Nord (Northern Football League), which then became what we know as Serie A.
The split between North and South ended in the 1920s, and the 1929 version of the league format became what closely resembles the league today. Since then, there have been as few as 16 teams competing in the league in some seasons, and as many as 21 at the highest, but the current format with 20 different teams has been in place since the early 2000s.
The Serie A Championship is often referred to as the scudetto, which translates into English as the small shield. Since 1923, the winning team from La Liga gets to bear a small coat of arms on their jerseys which contains the Italian tricolour. This is a badge of honour that the champions get to carry, meaning that there are plenty of Juventus, Inter Milan, and AC Milan shirts out there with this shield on them.
Serie A’s recent history includes being the first of the major leagues across Europe to test out Video Assistant Referee technology.
How to bet on Serie A at LeoVegas
To bet on Serie A at LeoVegas, you just need to complete the simple process of signing up if you don’t already have an account. Once you are signed in, you can then go to the desired markets to find the bets you wish to place. The process is below, but you can skip step one if you already have an account and are logged in:
Open your account. Click “Open Account” and you can enter your details to create your account at LeoVegas. If you already have an account, simply sign in.
- Make a deposit into your account using your bank account or an alternate payment method.
- Go to the Sports category on the site and look for upcoming fixtures, including those from the Serie A.
- Choose a fixture you wish to bet on.
- Check out the markets that are available for that game such as goals, corners, player goals, and shot markets.
- Choose your markets and the outcomes you wish to predict and place your bets.
You wanted to know how to bet on Serie A? There we have it. Our complete guide to the markets, form, and judging what may happen in any given Serie A game. Remember that the markets may vary from one game to the next depending on who is playing alongside other factors.
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