Betting on Football Scores
There are several different ways to bet on the score of football matches. The most common way to bet is on the total score, selecting over or under 2.5 total goals. For punters looking for more value, other options are available as well. Here are the most common ways to bet on football scores.
Total Goals Scored
Total bets are also commonly referred to as over/under bets. At most online bookmakers, the standard total is 2.5 goals. All a punter needs to do is decide if the teams will combine to score 3 or more goals (for the ‘over’), or two or fewer goals (for the ‘under’). Odds for total goals scored tend to range from 1.50 to 2.60, but occasionally they can be even wider.
Over/under coupons are popular for a few reasons. First, they are simple bets to make. Also, they can offer better odds than other types of football bets, and can potentially be more profitable. Another reason they’re popular is because it’s often easier to predict if a match will be high or low scoring than predicting which team will win.
Alternative Totals
Some online football betting sites also offer alternative totals that can be bet on. For example, instead of betting the over/under on 2.5 goals, punters can bet on totals of 1.5, 2, 3, 3.5 or more. Of course the odds vary for each total, but sharp punters can often find extra value in alternative totals.
Asian Handicap Split Totals
Instead of a regular total bet, Asian handicap totals allow punters to split their wager 50/50 on two totals. An example might look like this: (2, 2.5) or (2.5, 3).
In this type of Asian Handicap football bet, the punter still picks the over or under side of the bet. Then, their money is split on each of these totals. As an example, let’s assume the total is (2, 2.5), and you’ve bet the under. If the final total of the game is 1, both bets are lost. If the total score is 2, one bet is pushed (2), and one is lost (2.5). If the total score is 3+, both bets win.
For another example, let’s assume a total of (2.5, 3) and you bet the over. If the final total is 2, you lose both bets. If the total is 3, you win one bet (2.5), and push the other (3). If they score 4 or more, you win both bets.
These are more creative ways to bet on the over/under in a game, and can be more conservative or more risky depending on how you bet.
Half Time/Full Time Coupons
Half time/full time coupons are wagers on the result after the first half has ended, and the result at the end of normal time. These coupons are generally offered in two forms.
The first way to bet on half time/full time coupons is to pick which team will be leading after the first half (or if it will be a draw), and then the same at the end of normal time. So, no actual scores are involved in this bet. For example, if it was a game between Chelsea and Arsenal, you could select between 9 possible outcomes. They would be:
- Chelsea/Arsenal
- Chelsea/Draw
- Chelsea/Chelsea
- Draw/Chelsea
- Arsenal/Chelsea
- Arsenal/Draw
- Arsenel/Arsenal
- Draw/Arsenal
- Draw/Draw
Full Time/Half Time Correct Score
The other way to bet on half time/full time coupons is by picking the correct score after the first half, and at the end of normal time. Of course these are much more difficult bets to win, but the odds are much greater as well. For serious punters working with a bankroll, we recommend keeping these bets to a maximum of .5 – 1% of your total bankroll. It’s fun to go after big wins on bets like these, but they can also drain a bankroll very quickly.
Correct Score
Correct score bets are exactly as they sound. They are wagers based on the punter picking the exact score of a match at the end of the game. If a punter thinks team A will beat team B by a score of 2-1, they can select that exact score to bet on. Punters can also bet on draw scores, like 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 and so on.
Of course these are more difficult bets to win than over/under bets, but the odds are much greater as well. In fact, the odds are generally good enough that multiple scores can be selected while still turning a profit. Although the odds might allow this, this isn’t a recommended way to bet on the correct score. Since only one correct score can win per game, punters are guaranteed to lose on all except one bet they place. If you like making these types of bets, we recommend that you keep these limited to a single score per game, and find other games to bet on instead.
Half Time Correct Score
These bets are exactly the same as full time correct score bets, except they are based solely on the first half. These are popular bets because they offer more instant gratification for punters. The problem with half time correct score coupons is that they can be more unreliable than full time scores. It’s the same idea as a large sample size versus a small sample size. When two teams play for 1000 minutes, the results should be more predictable. However, if you take any random twenty-minute portion of those 1000 minutes, anything might’ve happened.
While I tend to stay away from half time correct scores, when I do place these bets, they’re usually when I’m getting good odds on an underdog who is strong on defense. In cases like this, I might take the underdog to be leading 1-0 after the first half – hoping their defense can hold off the favoured offense for the first half of the match. I can usually get better odds this way, with a realistic chance at a win.
Goal Brackets
Goal brackets are simple bets where the punter needs to choose from groups of total scores in a game. They are usually 0-1 goals, 2-3 goals, or 4+ goals. In certain cases when a game is expected to be high scoring there might be some fluctuation to this, but the vast majority of games have this bracket setup.
Since there are three betting options for goal brackets, they are typically harder to predict than regular over/under bets. However, the odds are better as well.
Goal Scorers
Another interesting way to bet on football scores is to bet on who will do the scoring – and when. Punters can select between almost any player in a match, and then choose them to be the first to score in the game, last to score in the game, or to score at any time during a game.
Of course it’s much more difficult to predict if a certain player will be first or last to score during a game than it is to predict if they will score at all, so the odds are much greater for these coupons.
For ‘anytime’ goal scorers, odds generally start as low as 1.70 for top goal scorers, but they can be even shorter.
To consistently win these bets, punters must be very aware of both teams and how they play. It’s not enough to assume that a great scorer will score a goal simply because they are top scorers. Punters also need to be aware of opposing defenders skill levels and how they match up against each other. Will that player get his chances, or will he be played more effectively than he usually does? What type of defense will the opposing team be playing, and how will it affect that player? Odds on these types of bets can be relatively low for ‘anytime’ coupons, so betting without deeper regard to strategy is a losing proposition.
It’s also very important to know who the penalty takers are and which order they’re likely to go in. You’ll feel very smart if you win this bet because you’ve done your research on this. You’ll also feel very stupid if you lose the bet because you didn’t.
There are other variations of goal scorer bets as well, depending on the bookmaker. However, most of the other variations are very difficult to predict, and therefore poor choices for serious punters.