The new Ethiopia Premier League season didn’t just start; it changed shape.
 For 2025/26 the competition expanded to 20 clubs, drawn into two groups of ten, with fixtures staged in four host cities and a full schedule of 380 matches between October 18, 2025 and June 30, 2026.

For anyone who bets on local football, that structure matters. The fixture list now comes in “pods” instead of one long single-table grind, so form lines and fatigue patterns look different from last season. For many regulars, slips live on 1xBet Ethiopia - the best betting site, where the entire 20-club schedule appears in one lobby but still carries the fingerprints of that two-group design.

A New Shape For the Same Trophy

The headline facts are simple enough:

• 20 clubs, instead of the smaller fields of previous seasons.
• Two groups of ten used for scheduling, rearranged during the year so each side still plays every opponent.
• 380 matches in total, running from mid-October to late June.

From a sporting angle, the league company wanted more clubs and more games without losing the fairness of “everyone meets everyone.” From a betting angle, that translates into:

• clusters of fixtures where certain teams repeatedly face opponents with similar styles,
• travel and neutral-venue patterns that repeat for a few weeks at a time,
• and a table that can swing quickly when those pods reshuffle.

So even though most live-score sites present one overall standings page, the underlying calendar still behaves like two mini-leagues that keep being shuffled together.

Early Table: Sidama Out Front, Pack Right Behind

Eight rounds in, the overall table has a clear frontrunner and a very busy chasing group. BeSoccer’s combined standings for 2025/26 currently show:

Sidama Bunna have opened with six wins from eight and the best goal difference in the league. They don’t just edge games; they combine steady defending with enough goals to make home fixtures feel “anchor-friendly” on multis.

Just behind them, Fasil Kenema are unbeaten and stingy, with only two goals conceded so far. That defensive record quietly shapes a lot of total-goals markets. St George, Ethio Electric, Mechal, Hawasa and Adama are all close enough that a single bad week can drop them several places at once.

So the table already has a few clear personalities:

• Sidama as the high-energy leader.
• Fasil as the safety-first grinder.
• Adama as the “low score, low drama” specialist with just four goals scored and two conceded in eight games.

It’s tight, but not random.

What This Means When You’re Building Slips

With that shape in mind, some patterns stand out for people putting tickets together:

• Defence-driven unders
  • Fasil Kenema, Ethio Electric and Adama all sit in the top seven with goals-against columns between two and three. Their matches tend to pull totals down and make “win to nil” or “under 2.5” a serious part of the conversation.
    
     
• Sidama as a coupon pillar
  • When they play lower-table sides, Sidama’s record so far makes them a natural single or multi anchor, especially at home. That doesn’t mean blind backing, but they’re one of the few teams already sending a clear “favourites” signal.
    
     
• Volatile contenders
  • St George’s mix of wins and losses (no draws yet) creates those love-or-hate fixtures: good for straight 1X2 calls, riskier for cautious combos.
    
     
• Crowded mid-pack
  • With Mechal, Hawasa, Bahardar, Shire Endaselassie and others bunched together, mid-table clashes often come down to small edges like rest days, altitude or unusual venues rather than pure “who’s better” logic.

None of this guarantees a winning ticket, but it’s already enough to move beyond name value. The two-group fixture structure means some clubs keep running into tough blocks of opponents, and the table tells you who’s handling those blocks better than others.

Slips vs Side Games: Keeping Roles Separate

All this league detail feeds into the thoughtful side of a betting account: picking singles, small multis and long-term outrights based on tables, form and context. That’s the slow rhythm: ninety minutes for each major decision to play out.

On the same login, there’s a completely different gear: instant titles like Chicken Road 1xBet in the games section. Chicken Road is a crash-style mini-game from InOut Games where you guide a chicken across tiles, each step raises a multiplier, and one hidden trap ends the round and wipes the stake. Official descriptions highlight four difficulty levels and provably fair technology that lets players verify results.

That kind of game sits on a different timeline:

• League slip: one stake, one match, a long sweat.
• Chicken Road round: one stake, a few seconds, a sharp spike of tension, then repeat.

Both live inside the same wallet, but they serve different moods. Ethiopia Premier League bets lean on tables and trends; crash games lean on nerve and quick decisions.