Betting on Goals Scored (Over)

Online betting and in-play betting has revolutionised the way that football fans can add more excitement to a game and it has provided a whole new way to make money from sport. Whether your interest is as a fan of the game or as someone who wants to make money, having new ways to bet is of interest and the betting on goals scored (over) option is a great one for football fans.

Firstly, football is all about goals and this is what the majority of fans want to see. A team can play tremendously well but unless they score, they will not be able to win the game. This is why looking at goals is a great way to properly engage with the game and to keep an interest in the game until the final whistle.

The concept for this style of bet is simple

The concept on betting on goals scored (over) is simple and even if you are not a big football fan, it is simple enough to understand. What you are betting on here is the total number of goals scored in the game. It doesn’t matter if one team scores all of the goals or if both teams get on the score sheet. If Manchester United defeated Manchester City by 3 goals to 1, there would be 4 goals in total. Similarly, if Manchester United and Manchester City drew 2-2, there would be 4 goals in the game. It is important to remember that the actual outcome of the game isn’t relevant when betting on goals scored bets, only the number of goals.

What you will find when looking at betting on goals scored (over) options is that the bet will revolve around a half number and as you cannot get half a goal in football, all of these bets will either be won or lost. An example would be a betting site offering players odds of the amount of goals scored being over 1.5.

If you take this bet and think that there will be more than 1.5 goals scored in the game, you need there to be two goals scored. It doesn’t matter which team scores the goals but there needs to be 2 goals scored. Examples of the outcome of this bet in relation to certain scores are:

Manchester United 0 v Manchester City 0. With this score, 0 goals have been scored and the bet is lost.

Manchester United 0 v Manchester City 1. With this score, 1 goal has been scored and the bet is lost

Manchester United 1 v Manchester City 1. With this score, 2 goals have been scored and the bet is won.

Any winning score line of 2-0, 2-1 or any greater number of goals for either team will win an over 1.5 goals bet and a draw of any score from 1-1 upwards will win an over 1.5 goals bet.

This principle is the exact same, regardless of the bet that has been offered, many bookmakers will offer odds of goals scored over 2.5 goals or goals scored over 3.5 goals. You will also find that in-play bets for games where there have already been a lot of goals scored will provide goals scored over bets of a higher value, but it will always end in a .5.

This style of football bet is popular, it can provide great returns and it ensures that football fans can have an interest in the game right up to the final whistle.

Goals Scored Betting Strategies

Choosing your markets

These sorts of betting types often come with a wide range of markets. In this case they will be in the form of the amount of goals the spread is set upon. The most common will be 1.5, 2.5 and even 3.5 with each market offering up more risk than the other; the general trend will be the odds increase the more goals you are looking to bet over. With each game it’s important to select the market that will yield the greatest amount of profit, i.e. which game will comfortably hit their game quota.

League and game selection

Game selection is without doubt the most important part of this whole betting market. When betting on the over a certain amount of goals, you obviously want games that are going to be high scoring. A good way to do this is by checking for teams that are good at going forward, but have a poor defence. Remember, you don’t need the goals to be spread out between the teams; an 8-0 thrashing is just as good as 4-4 classic!

As a by-product of this, it’s always going to be beneficial to find leagues that are high scoring. There are tons of sites that provide information on leagues from around the world and how many goals per game they average. This sort of information is exactly what we need to start narrowing our decisions down. Don’t just look at the major leagues as well, look at smaller nations that will have high goals per game ratios. Places such as Japan and Holland are two countries that notoriously have high scoring games throughout the season and should definitely be targeted.

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