AFL betting from outside Australia 2025

The AFL, or Australian Football League, is the no.1 domestic sport in the country and runs from March to September each year, with it attracting huge betting interest. Betting on the AFL from outside Australia is a simple process, with most online betting sites featuring some odds on games, although we are yet to see an international bookie that covers it as well as the Aussies. Our AFL betting guide will break down how to wager on the sport from outside Australia, free AFL tips, latest AFL news, ALF betting strategy and much more.

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While AFL is primarily bet on in Australia, there is increasing interest in Aussie Rules overseas, with players like Mason Cox (USA), Allir and Leek Allir (Kenya) and Mac Andrew (Egypt) all born elsewhere, the game really does have an exotic sprinkling.

While AFL betting sites in Australia will offer many more markets, most bookies will offer head-to-head odds, goal-kicker markets and even, in some cases, possessions betting.

What betting sites you can register at will largely be determined by your location and the laws you are living under. For instance, many countries, including much of the USA, South Africa and Australia, all have regulated sports betting and have laws governing it. Other locations, including New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, where AFL has its fans are yet to regulate sports betting, which means you have various offshore Aussie Rules betting sites that will accept your custom.

A huge perk of betting on the AFL from outside Australia is the increased bonus offers and promotions you will find available. This is because new account incentives at Australian bookmakers are banned, however this is not the case for our overseas readers, who can take advantage of a plethora of bonus bet offers, cash back deals, free bets and basically anything else you can dream up.

Foreign AFL betting sites have less restrictions surrounding their payment options, with it possible to wager on the sport with everything from credit and debit cards, right through to payment processors, web wallets and even cryptos, like bitcoin and Ethereum.

Top foreign AFL betting apps

Most global betting sites will have betting apps available for their customers, with these generally coming on Android and iOS smartphones tablets; while most will also have fully-functional mobile websites.

Increasingly, particularly in Asia and Africa, Huawei’s Apps are becoming popular, with it possible to download both third-party and software from the AppGallery.

AFL betting apps on Android smartphones and tablets have a lot more flexibility than their iOS counterparts, with this because can download third party apps direct from sportsbooks, or via the Google Play platform. What options are available to you will come down to the laws and legislation you are under.

Apple smartphone users can download betting apps directly from the App Store, although these can be restricted in places where there is not regulated wagering. This includes some states in the USA, New Zealand, some Canadian provinces and various others.

Just remember, if you cannot find a way to download an AFL betting app, but a company will accept your patronage, you can bet via their mobile websites, which provide a similar service to apps.

What is Aussie Rules football?

Australian football (or Australian rules or Aussie rules) is the uniquely Australian football code that started out largely as a way for cricketers to keep fit in the winter and has become the No.1 sport Down Under.

Bookmakers and sportsbooks worldwide usually refer to the sport in their indexes as AFL, though this acronym actually refers to the No.1 competition in the sport, the Australian Football League.

Played between two teams which each have 18 players on the oval-shaped field, Australian football is a fiercely physical sport which has its roots in rugby and has some similarities with Gaelic football.

There is no offside, so players can (and do) roam the field at will, with the oval-shaped ball propelled by foot or by hand, though rather than throwing the ball, it must be hand-balled (held in one hand and struck with the other).

Players can mark the ball from a kick and once a mark is taken the player cannot be tackled until he continues play or the umpire calls play on. They may have around 20 seconds after a mark to take a shot on goal.

There are four posts at each end, with a goal (six points) scored by kicking the ball between the middle two posts, which are substantially taller than the two outer posts. If the ball passes between the larger posts and the smaller ones on the outside, or strikes the larger posts, a point is awarded.

The game is usually divided into four 20-minute quarters plus stoppage time, with short breaks between the first and second quarters and third and fourth quarters and an extended break at half-time (between quarters two and three). The AFL in 2020 introduced 16-minute quarters to truncate the games during the coronavirus crisis.

The non-stop nature of the game puts a premium on stamina, with frequent interchanges to freshen up the players.

Where is Australian football played?

The Australian Football League is the game’s top competition, with teams based in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Geelong and the Gold Coast. It attracts massive support and television numbers, not to mention huge interest from gamblers in Australia and elsewhere, and runs from March until the grand final on the final Saturday in September (or sometimes the first Saturday in October).

The game’s spiritual home is Melbourne and it is the dominant winter sport in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. It is also popular in NSW and Queensland but rugby league and rugby union hold sway in those states. It is hugely popular in the Northern Territory, hardly surprising given many of the great players have been indigenous Australians.

The next rung down from the AFL includes the Victorian Football League (VFL), South Australia National Football League (SANFL) and West Australian Football League (WAFL), while there are also strong state leagues in NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory and countless country and junior leagues.

The top junior league is the Coates Talent League, which is the most common pathway for young players to arrive in the AFL, through its national draft held late in the year.

There are organised leagues outside Australia, particularly in Asia and Europe, while players from outside Australia have risen to the highest levels of the AFL.

In particular many Gaelic footballers from Ireland have tried their hand and flourished, including Jim Stynes, who rose to become a superstar of the Australian game, landing its highest individual honour, the Brownlow medal, in 1991.

Brief history of Australian football

In the 1840s a game bearing some resemblance to modern-day Australian rules began to emerge, with some rules borrowed from soccer and rugby.

It was not until the late 1850s that the clear structure of a new game emerged in the greater Melbourne area. On June 15, 1858, St Kilda Grammar and Melbourne Grammar played the first recorded game of “Victorian rules”.

The well-known cricketer Tom Wills became involved as a pioneer. He had been sent to England to attend Rugby School where he played rugby to keep fit for cricket.

Wills co-umpired the famous match between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College on August 7, 1858, which is immortalised as the starting point of Australian football. There were 40 players a side, the ball was round and the field massive, and the two schools still play annually, though the rules are very different to that first match.

New rules, known as the Melbourne Football Club rules, were first set down in 1859 and this laid the foundation for the growth of the game, particularly in schools.

The Victorian Football League was formed in 1896 with eight of the most powerful clubs from the Victorian Football Association joining for the 1897 season: Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, St Kilda and South Melbourne.

The VFL had expanded to 12 teams by 1925 and was the dominant competition.

In the late 1980s, the VFL began to expand beyond Melbourne and after the 1989 season the league changed its name to the AFL. It remain No.1 on the Australian sporting landscape for TV numbers and attendances.

Types of bets on the AFL

There are hundreds of betting options for each AFL match as well as many options for betting on each round and each season.

Here are the most popular bet types on AFL matches and see here for our guide to sports betting.

• Head-to-head: Simply pick the winner of a match.
• Handicap: Pick the winner taking into account the plus or minus handicap.
• Margin bets: Pick a team to win by more than a nominated points margin.
• Under/over points total: Pick whether the total match points will be over or under a certain figure.
• Scorecast: Combine picking the winner straight-out or with a handicap with the total match points option to increase the odds.
• Quarter-by-quarter: You can take many of the above options but bet on a single quarter or half.

Futures/outrights

• Premiership winner: As soon as one season concludes the betting will open on the winner of the next season’s grand final. Can offer great value.
• Minor premiers: Bet on who will finish on top of the ladder at the end of the regular season.
• Top 4: Take the odds about your selected team finishing in the top four on the ladder at the end of the regular season.
• Top 8: As Top 4 but just need to make the top eight.
• Wooden spoon: Bet on a team to finish bottom of the ladder.
• Grand final quinella: Simply pick the two teams who will play off in the grand final come season’s end.
• Brownlow Medal: A massively popular betting medium for AFL fans, this involves betting on players to land the game’s highest individual award, which is voted upon by the umpires and is decided at an awards ceremony on the Monday before the grand final.
• Coleman Medal: Bet on which player will top the goal-kicking table at the end of the regular season.
• Rising Star: An award for the best young player in the game as voted on by a selection of football experts.

How do the AFL season and finals work?

Greater Western Sydney joined the competition 2012, bringing the number of teams to 18. The season proper consists of 23 rounds, with each team playing every other at least once and some other teams twice. This seemingly inequitable draw is based on finishing positions from the previous season. It sometimes gives teams finishing well down the ladder one season a great chance to surge the next, so it is well worth investigating the draw closely when placing long-term wagers on season outcomes.

AFL finals structure

The top eight teams after the home-and-away season qualify for the finals in September. The team finishing top is the minor premier, though as with many Australian sports, this is not considered overly important other than to give the team a favourable draw for the finals. Grand final victory is all important.

The finals run over four weeks as follows:

• Week 1: Qualifying finals: Team 1 v Team 4; Team 2 v Team 3. Elimination finals: Team 5 v Team 8; Team 6 v Team 7.
• Week 2: Semi-final 1: Loser from qualifying final 1 v winner from elimination final 1; Semi-final 2: loser from qualifying final 2 v winner from elimination final 2.
• Week 3: Preliminary final 1: Winner from qualifying final 1 v winner from semi-final 2; Winner from qualifying final 2 v winner from semi-final 1.
• Grand final: Winner of preliminary final 1 v winner of preliminary final 2.

International AFL betting FAQ

The AFL can be confusing for punters outside Australia, if you have any queries surrounding the game, rules or betting on it, reach out to us at contact@worldgamblinglist.com.