In its current form, the Russian Premier League was founded in 2001. Currently, it is the top tier of football in the country. It was initially known as the Russian Football Premier League before the name was shortened after a rebrand in 2018.
Top-level football in the country has changed a few times over the years. From 1992 to 2001 the top tier was called the Russian Football Championship. While the fall of the Soviet Union and the various rehashes of the sport has led to much change, the major teams from around Moscow and St Petersburg especially have remained consistently big names in the game.
Read on for our guide to Russian Premier League Betting.
Russian Premier League Betting
16 teams take part in the Russian Premier League season and it looks set fair to stay that way. All sides play each other in a familiar format; every team matches up once on their home ground and once away to complete a 30-game campaign in total.
After 30 games for each side are completed, the final league table is where the season ends for all bar two of the clubs as relegation matters are the only thing not quite yet decided.
European Qualification and Relegation
At the completion of the season, the team at the top are crowned champions of Russia and are joined by the runners-up in qualifying for the UEFA Champions League.
Those finishing in third can enter the Champions League qualifying rounds, while the fourth-placed side qualifies automatically for the UEFA Europa League. The teams in 5th and 6th enter the Europa League qualifiers.
Down at the bottom end, the 15th and 16th finishers are relegated outright to the First Division while the two immediately above enter and promotion/relegation play-off scenario.
Russia’s Biggest Teams
In its current guise, Russia’s top division has been won most by CSKA Moscow and Zenit St Petersburg. Rubin Kazan has won it a couple of times and had some notable success in Europe too. For example, when they beat Rangers in the final of the 2008 UEFA Cup in Manchester.
They, along with Lokomotiv Moscow, Krasnodar, Spartak Moscow and Arsenal Tula are all capable of making their mark while there has been a recent downturn for the previously huge Dinamo Moscow.
Key Betting Markets in the Russian Premier League
Betting can be tricky in Russia, so backing favourites blind even for cheap accumulators is not recommended without seeing the stats.
Only 2.26 goals per game were scored in the whole of the 2018-19 season and that sort of number is standard for the Russian Premier League. During this time the tight nature of the league was also highlighted by the split of win percentages for ‘home’, ‘draw’ and ‘away’ at 43-29-28.
At a glance that makes things not so easy for us, however, if the stats remain consistent, we can always use them to our advantage.
Here is the best way to do it:
- Handicap Betting – home sides win 43% of all games here which is close to the average, but not ideal. The flip side to that coin, of course, is that 57% of all games are not taken by the hosting team and so, given the low goals tally too, betting on away teams at -0.5 can often pay dividends. There are a large number of games here ending in draws for which the home favourites were around 10/11, leaving away handicap backers with reasonable odds a high chance of success.
- Total Goals – at 2.26 goals per game things are often tight. The way to use that is to take out any obvious mismatches such as top two versus bottom four etc, with the rest of the fixtures statistically very likely to produce very few goals. Betting on under 1.5 can then pay off so often and sometimes at juicy odds too if you remain picky.
- Ante-Post – betting on the Russian Premier League winners is a long-term option. New signings and departing players can sharply change the makeup of squads in Russia, so check on the overall transfer value of each squad in the league and bet on the highest value one to win the championship. There is a good choice the favourite will be priced up based on reputation, not on true squad value.
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