Comparison
Touch Line Bets vs Football-Data.co.uk
Twenty years of free CSVs, and the reason nobody should sell historical football odds.
No affiliate link on this page and no commercial relationship with Football-Data.co.uk. Pricing is from published sources cited at the foot of the page and was checked in September 2026.
Who Football-Data.co.uk is
A long-running free resource publishing historical football results and odds.
What it does
Downloadable CSV files of results with closing odds from multiple bookmakers, going back decades across many leagues.
What it costs
Free. Free, and has been for twenty years.
Side by side
| Touch Line Bets | Football-Data.co.uk | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free. |
| Focus | UK and European football only | Twenty years of free CSVs, and the reason nobody should sell historical football odds. |
| Bookmakers | 21 UK books | See features below |
| Publishes tips or picks | No, never | No |
| Takes bookmaker affiliate money | No | Varies |
| Closing line value on your own bets | Yes, against UK football closing prices | No |
| Automatic bet import | No, manual entry | No |
Football-Data.co.uk strengths
- Free, complete, and the canonical source for football betting research
- Bulk download means no rate limits and no API keys
- Trusted across the entire football analytics community
Football-Data.co.uk weaknesses
- A file download, not a product. No interface, no per-fixture view, no live prices
- Closing odds only, not intraday movement
- Requires you to be comfortable with a spreadsheet or Python
Where Football-Data.co.uk beats Touch Line Bets
- Historical depth we will never approach
- Completely free
- Better for any research task that involves more than one fixture at a time
Verdict
Not a competitor so much as a standing rebuke to anyone planning to charge for historical football odds. If your research need is bulk historical data, download it here and pay nothing. Touch Line Bets exists for the live, per-fixture, per-bet job that a CSV cannot do.
Questions
Is Touch Line Bets a good Football-Data.co.uk alternative?
Only for a specific job. Touch Line Bets covers 48 football competitions across 21 UK bookmakers and keeps a personal record of the prices you took against the price at kick-off, and it is free. Football-Data.co.uk historical depth we will never approach. If that is what you need, Football-Data.co.uk is the better choice.
How much does Football-Data.co.uk cost?
Free. Free, and has been for twenty years.
Does Touch Line Bets sell betting tips?
No. Touch Line Bets publishes no tips, no selections and no model probabilities. Everything shown is a checkable fact about prices bookmakers have published.
Does Touch Line Bets take affiliate commission from bookmakers?
No. That is why the best price on an Touch Line Bets page is simply the best price, with no bookmaker paying for placement.
Sources
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