I totally get what you're saying about football betting being a bit confusing. As someone who's new to this too, I think it's important to do your research and make sure you understand how everything works before placing any bets. You're right that when you bet on a football team, you're essentially betting on their performance and not against the gambling platform. So, if your team wins, you win, and if they lose, you lose. It's definitely a bit different from casino gambling, but I think it can be just as fun and exciting if you're into football.
If you think football betting is a little bit too complicated and confusing for you maybe you should try a simpler sport that does not have as many variables, one example of this is boxing, in which you do not have to take into account the performance of tens of players in order to come to a conclusion about who could win the match, in boxing you only need to keep track the performance of two people, massively simplifying the process of trying to determine who could win, and once you are comfortable making predictions about boxing you could try a more complicated sport.
Yes, better devote your time in a one-to-one athlete sports event if you can't afford to follow a lot of athletes.
However, even 2 athletes involve like in boxing, there are still blind spots for a speculator.
This includes the actual performance of the athlete, their strategies, the promoter's plans, home advantage and so on.
But the bottomline here in sportsbetting, bet if you are familiar and comfortable with the sports.
You won't place a bet on a sports you don't know the athletes involve, it means, you are playing more on your luck on this case.
And if you think there's fixing involve, then, don't bet. As simple as that. But such act is hard to determine as you will only know it after the event.