How To Bet On Over Unders

Yes, the recent form should be taken into account. But a sure way to continually come out on the wrong side of an Over/Under bet, is to become easily seduced by a recent run of high or low scoring games.

And more to the point, it’s recent form that the naive betting public is often seduced by, which means their are opportunities in the Over/Under markets for those of us who like to consider true potential rather than impulsive knee-jerk reactions to a mere few weeks of form.

So the point should be clear, that when considering the Over or Under in a particular contest, consider where the game is being played and how either club has performed in that situation.

Now let’s say that two of those 15 matches were particularly high scoring, for example, a 4-2 and a 5-1 result, seeing a total of 12 combined goals scored. These two irregular results have severely distorted the average, which would be 2.53 in the other 13 matches.

What may have looked like an excellent opportunity to bet the Over 2.5 goals, suddenly seems less enticing.

So while averages can be helpful in large sample sizes, in general, it’s best to track occurrences. Look at how many times a team has gone over or under a particular goal total. In our Chelsea example, it could well be that while the average for the 15 home matches may be 3 goals per match, but that the actual number of times Chelsea home games have gone Over 2.5 goals could be less than 50% with a few high scoring matches giving an inaccurate and distorted impression. Perhaps Chelsea home games have only gone over 2.5 goals on 7 occasions.

Even if the average is 3 goals per match, would you feel good about betting the Over if the occurrence rate was so low? Probably not.

But in general, we would encourage you to stick to the basics and concentrate on ‘even money’ Over/Under lines. You’ll find your results to be far more consistent.

In terms of analysis, it’s far easier to find historical odds data resources for analysis on the web for these markets than it is the more exotic variety.

On the other hand, if you see that the clubs have consistently gone over 2.5 goals in each of their last 4 meetings in the last 2 seasons, then that is just the thing you want to make a note of in your analysis.

These sorts of things are good to take into account in your overall analysis, and can often give you an edge and an angle that the general betting public just simply isn’t aware of.