Scottish League Cup odds

The Scottish League Cup (currently known as the Viaplay Cup due to the sponsorship) is Scotland's version of England's EFL Cup. This cup competition includes 45 Scottish teams in leagues from the Scottish 4th Division to the Scottish Premiership with 95 fixtures to bet on during the entire competition. The competition begins in July, which is typically during the off-season in English and Scottish football and ends in December, just before Christmas.

The five clubs competing in the European Competitions (UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League) receive a bye to the second round of the competition and do not have to participate in the Group Stages.

Betting on the Scottish League Cup Group Stages

Betting on the Scottish League Cup Group Stage can be a very unique way of betting on an international competition. With Premiership clubs regularly facing off against League two clubs and vice-versa, we see some massive upsets in the competition. However, Premiership clubs don't dominate as much as you would think, these are the stats from the 2023 Scottish League Cup Group Stage.

Premiership Clubs: 20 wins, 8 losses = 71.43% win

Championship Clubs: 26 wins, 14 losses = 65% win

League 1 Clubs: 22 wins, 21 losses = 51.16% win

League 2 Clubs: 9 wins, 27 losses = 25% win

Lowland League: 1 win, 7 losses = 12.50% win.

Premiership clubs have the highest win percentage. However, both League 1 clubs and Championship clubs still have a positive win percentage, this includes penalties, so not all of these games would necessarily payout for a victory if you selected the outright winner online sports betting market.

Some of the shock results from the 2023 Group Stage include: Stirling Albion & Stenhousemuir beating St Johnstone and The Spartans beating Dundee United.

Betting on the Scottish League Cup Winner

Typically of Scottish Football, the Scottish League Cup has been dominated by Rangers and Celtic who have won 53.1% of the competitions. The next highest is Aberdeen who have won just 7.9% of Scottish League Cup competitions. Out of the last seven competitions, Celtic have won six of them, only Ross County have beaten Celtic in the competition during this time, a 0-2 victory at Celtic Park in November 2020. St Johnstone won the competition that year.

So, that brings the question of betting on particular teams in this tournament. It is very difficult to bet against Celtic every year. However, in 2023 Kilmarnock beat Celtic in the second round, meaning that we're likely to see a new winner that we haven't seen in some time. The four teams remaining are:

Hibernian, Aberdeen, Hearts and Rangers.

Rangers sit as favourites to win the competition and their 4-0 win over Hibernian in Philippe Clement's opening game as manager has led to the club dreaming of better times, a Scottish League Cup could be an excellent way for the Belgian manager to introduce himself to the fans. However, the team who might be the hungriest for success is Hearts, who haven't won this competition in over 60 years, could Steven Naismith bring the competition to Hearts of Midlothian and end their drought?