The both teams to score market is one which has exploded in recent years. Starting life as a novel coupon from Betfred, it has quickly grown into one of the most popular bets placed today. If you’re not sure how it works, the premise is quite simple – will both teams score? If they do, then your bet is a winner! You can also bet on both teams not to score at at many sites.
Because of the relatively short odds of the bets (usually somewhere just below evens), it is very common for BTTS bets to be placed as an accumulator – with 5, 6 or even more selections making up a larger bet.
Whilst the bet itself is fairly straight forward, there are a few things you can do to help tip the balance in your favour such as picking the right bookie for the bet, assessing correct value and using offers to your advantage.
Both Teams To Score Strategy
BTTS (Both Teams To Score) is one of the most popular bets in the industry at the minute, and for good reason! The concept is very simple in that all you need to do is choose a match where you think both teams will score. The number of goals for each team or the result of the match is irrelevant, with the only factor being that both teams get at least one goal.
But, there is an alterative to this betting market that is being able to back a game where both teams don’t score. It’s self-explanatory really, but for this all you need to do is pick a game where one or both of the teams don’t get a goal. Throughout this article we will be looking at the merits of betting on each BTTS outcome.
Statistics – What to look for
The first port of call for any successful BTTS is checking over the stats for each game. With BTTS betting is probably one of the easier markets to implement statistics into due tot the fact that it’s black and white formula, in that the team either have or they haven’t been involved in a BTTS.
The easiest to place to start is that of a betting statistics website such as WinDrawWin.com. On here you’re going to be able to see a very quick overview of games and results from around the world. With each team on their database – an extensive database at that – the site will be able to process the overall percentage of games that has seen a BTTS result.
The table above is a typical example of an overall shot of the information that you are going to get from the site. Here we see the percentage of games that have been BTTS and also the upcoming fixture plus the odds for that game. If we were to simply take this data and apply it to our bet then you wouldn’t go too far wrong backing any of these teams to produce a BTTS game in their next match based on their previous form.
Whilst these sorts of numbers are great, it’s unlikely that for upcoming games you want to target are going to see such a high percentage. It then becomes imperative to dig a little deeper into the process and get a little more creative with your bet.
Teams in the 80%> range are going to be few and far between to be honest, so you will likely need to research more data from the match to decide if teams around the 50% mark are going to be profitable bets. It’s still worth noting that teams with a low overall percentage of BTTS matches can still be a good bet for a specific match, of which we will mention.
Let’s assume that we are looking for games where want Both Teams To Score. For this result to come we need both teams to get a goal. So, that means we need to find teams that are good going forward and are ideally poor at the back. What you will find from this is that you are going to be seeing certain teams fit certain patterns for this bet type.
If we take the 2015/16 Premier League season as an example, there are two teams that immediately stand out as decent candidates for these types of bets; West Ham United and Liverpool. This is mainly because we can see that on average the scored 1.7 goals per game and conceded 1.3 goals per game. But, backing these teams each week will have it’s flaws as certain games will offset those results, such as a 3-0 win or 0-0 draw.
A good stat to take into consideration is how many clean sheets each team has had. Again, looking at the stats from the same season below, we can see a range of results. Let’s take Arsenal for example, they were one of the best teams going forward with 65 goals in 38 games, but they also had the joint highest number of clean sheets with 18. Whilst you would fancy Arsenal to bag at least one in most matches, for the BTTS bet you couldn’t be so confident due to the fact they shut out so many games that season.
The next thing you need to look is the head to head record and current form. It’s pretty simple really in that first off you want to see if the fixture has a record of goals being scored and secondly, if the teams are scoring and conceding goals in recent fixtures.
Ideally, the best way to go about finding a bet is by simply pulling all this data together and working out if you think both teams are capable to score at least one goal throughout the match.
Both Teams Not to Score
The flipside to this bet is simply selecting both teams not to score, sometimes represented by bookmakers as BTTS No. For these types of bets we are looking for the exact opposite to the BTTS Yes bet. We need tight defences and teams that often shy in front of goal.
If we take Arsenal from the stats above, we know that straight from the off they would have been a pretty solid shout in that last season for BTTS No with half of their league games finishing in one or no team scoring. These types of games are particularly suited when there is a notable gulf in class. For example, Arsenal against a team like Aston Villa (who averaged just 0.71 goals per game) would be a great bet, more for the reason that the likelihood of Aston Villa getting a goal was slim.
Straight Bets or an Acca?
The BTTS market is synonymous with acca betting and you will often see some fairly hefty returns when combining multiple bets into an accumulator bet. The beauty with this bet, over say a Win-Draw-Win market bet, is that with BTTS you’re never really out of the bet until the final whistle. A game can see a goal being scored at any minute and it doesn’t matter if one team is 5-0 and nicks a goal late on, you’re bet is in. If you backed the opposing team and they are 5-0 down then you’re acca is buried, regardless of the other results.
The single bet market is also popular with this bet type, but less so for the majority of bettors. The odds you’re going to get for the BTTS market will range from about 1.60 – 2.50, so a single bet for most wont yield massive returns. That being said, if you are high roller then these sorts of bets can still make you very wealthy from a single bet.
BTTS Acca Insurance
One of the best tools for BTTS acca bets is that of acca insurance. For those of you that don’t know, acca insurance is where a bookmaker will refund your bet should just one leg of your accumulator bet lose. Terms will vary from bookmaker to bookmaker, but usually they will refund your stake up to around £25 in the form of a free bet for acca’s that includes 5 or more selections. For a list of such offers, see our main acca page.
BTTS and Win Strategy
The BTTS and win market is essentially where you need to choose the result of the match and also whether both teams will score in that match or not. There are a number of different combinations of this bet, which might include the draw and also BTTS no, but the most common is the BTTS and win.
These bets are very popular in the betting industry at the minute, mainly because they often run for pretty favourable odds. Favourites for the match and also the most likely BTTS outcome will often be priced around 3.00, ranging right up to 10.00 and even higher for some outcomes.
Break The Bet Down
The best way to go about this bet is to break it down into two sections; outright result and the BTTS result. If we take the outright result of that match first, then we need to be looking at what’s the most plausible outcome for the match; home win, away win or draw.
For this we can start to look at each teams recent form along with their current league standing. It’s best to check how both teams have got on over the last 5-10 games and asses whether they are on good or poor form. Ideally we would have a situation where one team are on good from and the other on poor form, making our decision for this market pretty simple.
But, the beauty of combining the two bets into one means that, those short priced favourites become a much more enticing prospect. This is why these bet types have become popular and also where they are best used.
The BTTS is probably the easier part of the bet to call, as the information is a lot more effective than simply going off the form guide. For this part we are looking at games where we think that both teams will score. There are a plentiful number of sites that specialise in this information, but the best is probably that of WinDrawWin.com. On here you are going to see a break down of each teams BTTS to score percentage and then from that you can apply that to your strategy as to whether you think the game will fit the bet.
What a lot of people tend to oversee from these types of bets is that you are able to back the result and BTTS No, meaning that you don’t think both teams will score. It’s easy to see that a team may have a very low BTTS percentage and dismiss them, but try to look at the flip side of this and see if it might yield value backing them in the BTTS No market instead. As this section of the bet is least popular, you will often get bigger discrepancies in prices from a bookmaker, so it’s worth checking as many as you can before placing your bet to ensure the best odds possible.
Goal Galore
Goals Galore has been devised by the bookmaker, Betfred. The concept of this betting market comes on the back of the BTTS (Both Teams To Score) bet, but Betfred have added in their own unique twist to the whole process.
What you get from Goals Galore is a list to choose from where you need to select which games you think both teams will get at least 1 goal in that match. Remember, for each of these games the final result of the match is actually irrelevant and all you need for a successful bet is to simply select a game that has a goal scored by both teams.
Betfred actually offer up two lists for this; Goals Galore Long List and Goals Galore Bonus. The long list includes a wide range of games to choose from and as you increase the number of selections the odds for that bet will increase. It’s also worth noting at this point that the odds are fixed for a certain number of selections from the list. For example, 3 games will pay out at 3/1, 7 games will pay out at 28/1 and right up to 15 games paying out at a massive 1350/1, with everything in between.
The Goals Galore Bonus list actually pays out at higher odds for the same number of selections than the long list. So, on the long list 5 correct bets will pay out at 10/1 whilst the Bonus list will pay out at 16/1. But, there is a catch and that comes in the form of the games being much tougher to select from the bonus list.
How it Works
Placing a bet on Goals Galore really couldn’t be simpler. First off you will need to navigate on over to the Betfred bookmaker and from there find the Goals Galore list for that day. The list will show you all the games that have been selected for those specific days matches and from there you simply select which teams you want in your list.
You need to make sure that you have 3 or more selections in your slip and as you increase the number the odds for that bet will increase. Remember, the odds are fixed priced, so bear that in mind when adding in teams for your bet.
Goals Galore Strategy: Finding Value
The whole concept of Goals Galore is to encourage people to bet on the BTTS market and in turn, you can generally get significantly better value than if you simply backed games as a single bet. This is all to do with the fixed odds for each game.
For example, each long list might have upwards of 50 games to choose from, but the chances are that each game wont be the same price for their BTTS price. As the odds are fixed for this bet it means that there will be matches that you can dig out to include on your list and get a much higher price using a Goals Galore coupon rather than simply making an acca from the BTTS market.
Let’s show you exactly how to go about finding this value.
The first thing we want to do is select the Bonus coupon. This is where you are getting significantly better odds for each selection in your bet. This does become trickier as the number of games are fewer and are often more competitively priced, but value can still definitely be had.
Our next step is to open another bookmaker. Navigate over to the Both Teams To Score section and start looking for short prices for the ‘yes’ result.
Why do we need short prices for the ‘yes’ result I hear you cry? Well, we know that if they are a short price – by this we mean anywhere from 1.80 and lower – then the bookmaker clearly thinks that is highly probable that both teams will score in that match. Because our prices are fixed on the coupon, we don’t need to find a price that is going to give us a great return for out money, simply a result that is more than likely.
The trick is here to check out the games that are on the list and compare it the odds on offer from another bookmaker. Any bet that is around 1.80 and lower we can add to our bet slip for comparison.
Looking through this weeks games we have found the above selections that are all priced as BTTS on there with the same ones taken from the Goal Galore Bonus list. As you can see, the price that you are going to get for those selections is just shy of 13/1, whilst the fixed price you can get on Betfred from the Bonus list is that of 16/1 for 5 correct results. This gives us £30 more for every £10 wagered on this bet using the Goals Galore Bonus section rather than a tradition BTTS acca.
Also, due to the pricing structure of each bet, we can assume that these are more than likely to come in with each being 1.75 or less. But, we would state that it’s always best to do full research with each game to see if that price did reflect the chances of the BTTS occurring or not. So treat it more as a starting point rather than a list of what matches to back.
Goals Galore Payout v Both Teams To Score Odds
It should be fairly obvious that when backing matches with BTTS odds of 1.8 or less, you’re better off doing it through the Goals Galore bonus coupon. But the converse is also true. For well research BTTS bets which have odds of more than 1.8, you’ll get better value by backing them in a straight both teams to score bet.