Soccer Over Under Betting

Soccer bettors are increasingly looking for more profitable markets than 1X2, for which a lack of goals or a late equaliser can deny even the best judgments a winning bet. A straightforward way to try and beat the bookies on the soccer front is with the Over/Under goals markets. This article offers a simple step-by-step guide on how to calculate probabilities for the expected number of goals in a match and convert them into odds, so that you know what to bet on and what to avoid.

• What Is Over Under Spread
• Over Under Football
• Betting Soccer Over / Under 2.5/3
• Basketball Over Under Betting Tips

The over/under is a staple in sports betting. So when you're sitting in a sportsbook and see someone praying for one more garbage-time touchdown in the final minutes of a 40-10 game, you'll. Jul 11, 2019 While all sports employ an over/under betting option, by far the most money wagered on this bet is in football and basketball. Sports like baseball and hockey offer over/under options, but the vast. Before a game begins betting over or under the total points scored is usually a -110 wager. Bettors will wager $110 to win $100 for a pre-game totals bet. If bettors wager a lot more on one side of the total, the moneyline might change before the actual point total moves. See full list on oddsshark.com. Soccer bettors are increasingly looking for more profitable markets than 1X2, for which a lack of goals or a late equaliser can deny even the best judgments a winning bet. A straightforward way to try and beat the bookies on the soccer front is with the Over/Under goals markets.

Step 1: Find the average number of goals per game

In comparison to most sports, scoring in soccer is a less frequent event and it is certainly not uncommon for a match to feature no goals whatsoever. This means that when it comes to betting, bookmakers study the average number of goals scored per match for the two teams involved in the fixture in question when assessing the odds for the Over/Under markets.

If over 2.5 goals for a Premier League match is available with Pinnacle at 1.925 and another bookmaker is offering the same bet at 1.800, you know that you are better off at Pinnacle. However, how you do assess if it is worthwhile betting your money on this market to begin with?

Suitably, the best place to start is with the same method as the bookmakers - by finding the average number of goals per game for the two teams involved in the match you are interested in betting on.

This is generally an easy figure to research online. To provide some detail, here are the average goals per game for several major soccer leagues and competitions during the last three seasons:

As the above table highlights, major soccer leagues and competitions have predominantly averaged between 2.5 and 3 goals per game in recent years, although any given league or competition should be considered on an individual basis. For instance, last season the Hong Kong First Division averaged a massive 4.12 goals per game, whereas the El Salvador Premiera Division only mustered a mere 1.83.

Step 2: Calculate the probabilities

The random nature of goal scoring enables statistics to follow a poisson distribution as a simple predictive model for Over/Under betting. It is important to establish what that means in practice.

What Is Over Under Spread

In his book Taking Chances, John Haigh drafted a table that calculates the probabilities of a team scoring none, one, two, three or four or more goals based on their average number of goals per game:

For a match where the home team has averaged 1.2 goals per game and the away side have averaged 0.8, it is easy to determine the probability for under 2.5 goals occuring by using the above table.

Firstly, determine the correct scores that will lead to a winning under 2.5 goals bet (0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 2-0, and 0-2). You can then find the respective probabilities for each team from the above table and mutiply them together to calculate the probability for each scoreline:

Since we know the individual probabilities of each potential score that can lead to under 2.5 goals occurring, we can add them together to get the overall probability of the match ending in under 2.5 goals and, therefore, a winning under 2.5 goals bet.

In this example, that would be:

13.5% + 16.2% + 10.8% + 12.96% + 9.9% + 4.2% = 67.5%

Over Under Football

Step 3: Determine what odds are worth betting on

Once you have established the statistical probability of the match to end in less than 2.5 goals, you are then in a position to determine which odds you should accept.

To convert probability into decimal odds, you use the following simple formula:

In the above example, a 67.56% possibility corresponds to an equation of 100 / 67.56, which equates to decimal odds of 1.48.

This means that you should only bet on under 2.5 goals for a match if you find a bookmaker offering odds of higher than 1.48.

Naturally, this approach does not guarantee a winning bet. However, it does provide an easy to apply betting strategy with positive expected value that should secure profits over a long span of time when aggregrating your long-term losses and profits.

Betting Soccer Over / Under 2.5/3

Do this research ahead of any match you are considering placing an Over/Under goals bet on and you can sit back and enjoy the action, knowing that you have put yourself in the best possible position to win your bet.

Over/Under video explainer

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Basketball Over Under Betting Tips

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