Both Teams To Score (BTTS) Betting Strategy / System

Goals, Goals, Goals: the five basic rules for success

Best Strategies for Betting

Goals: they are what football is all about. Some teams score plenty of them, some teams don’t score enough of them. But one thing is for sure, and that is that both teams in any single football match will have chances to score. Hence the continued popularity of the Both Teams To Score (BTTS) betting market.

You are, quite literally, looking for games where you think both teams will score – it doesn’t matter how many, as long as they bag at least one each.

Now, as with all types of football betting, you have two choices: you can have a guess or – and this is, naturally, the route we prefer – you can do your due diligence, sit down and study the form guides and the league tables, and bet smart. It is this latter philosophy which tends to reap the greatest rewards.

Why BTTS?

football betting

We’ve all been there: picked six teams to win their matches and watched on in horror as one of our selections concedes a last minute equaliser.

And so the great thing about Both Teams To Score is that the end result is of little meaning to us: we simply just want both of the teams to find the net. Whether it’s in the 1st minute or the 91st, it’s all good.

Any team can score against another: the bizarre deflection, the 30-yard worldie into the top corner, the old fashioned long-ball routine….all of the football teams on this planet have their own unique way of scoring, hence the popularity of BTTS!

Is There Any Value in BTTS?

Simply put….yes there is! The odds on each game tend to range broadly from 8/11 to 23/20 (plus other more extreme examples in unique circumstances), and so a £5 treble can easily return £25 plus.

The bottom line is that the prices in this market are usually very agreeable, and it only takes a treble or an accumulator of four legs to create very long cumulative odds.

Now all you need to do is find those teams that will bring home the bacon! Here are five golden rules to follow:

Rule 1 – Do Your Homework

betting homework

Bet smart: this is how ‘gambling’ becomes ‘investing’. Sure, nothing in football is straightforward – and that’s why we love it as one of the most unpredictable sports on the planet. But what we can do as smart punters is take all of the necessary steps we need to ensure we are betting with logic and common sense: the rest should take care of itself.

And so we prepare a table like the one included below. This is the final English Premier League table from the 2014/15 season (with the three relegated teams omitted). As you can see, we have included columns for average goals scored and conceded both home and away:

Played (home) Average Goals For Per Game Average Goals Against Per Game Played (away) Average Goals For Per Game Average Goals Against Per Game
Chelsea 19 2.05 0.47 19 1.95 1.21
Man City 19 2.32 0.74 19 2.05 1.26
Arsenal 19 2.16 0.74 19 1.58 1.16
Man Utd 19 2.16 0.79 19 1.11 1.16
Spurs 19 1.63 1.26 19 1.42 1.53
Liverpool 19 1.58 1.05 19 1.16 1.47
Southampton 19 1.95 0.68 19 0.89 1.05
Swansea 19 1.42 1.16 19 1.00 1.42
Stoke City 19 1.68 1.16 19 0.84 1.21
Crystal Palace 19 1.11 1.42 19 1.37 1.26
Everton 19 1.42 1.11 19 1.11 1.53
West Ham 19 1.32 0.95 19 1.00 1.53
West Brom 19 1.26 1.37 19 0.74 1.32
Leicester 19 1.47 1.16 19 0.95 1.74
Newcastle 19 1.37 1.42 19 0.74 2.05
Sunderland 19 0.84 1.42 19 0.79 1.37
Aston Villa 19 0.95 1.32 19 0.68 1.16

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So what have we learned? Well, anything below 1.00 should be avoided like the plague when placing your BTTS bets. That’s why it’s a bad idea to add Chelsea or Southampton to your coupon when they are playing at home.

Instead, we should be looking for teams where BOTH columns are around the 1.30 mark or above. This tells us that they score and concede a good amount of goals either on their own soil or on their travels. The teams marked in red – Man City (away), Spurs (home and away), Crystal Palace (away), West Brom (home) and Newcastle (home) – will thus become the mainstays of our BTTS coupons.

It’s worth keeping an eye on these stats for all of the leagues that you are interested in betting on, and don’t worry: this information is readily available online, so you don’t need to go to the extreme of recreating this on your computer at home.

Rule 2 – Check the League Table

Even though the actual result of the match is irrelevant to us as ‘Both Teams To Score’ punters, we do need to ensure that there isn’t a huge disparity between the two teams involved.

In the table compiled above, we learn that Crystal Palace score a decent amount of goals on their travels. Even so, we still wouldn’t necessarily fancy them to trouble the scorers at Stamford Bridge, for example, so we still need to play the percentages and bet smart.

Even when the league table suggests that the goals will fly in, check the two teams’ respective positions and use this as a guide. Take a look at the Premier League Table here.

Rule 3 – Check the Head-to-Head Record

Do two particular teams have a habit of scoring loads of goals when they meet? Perhaps the opposite is the case? Maybe the two sides have already met this season….what was the score?

The smart punter adds precedent alongside research and common sense to their box of tricks to ensure they are betting logically. This information is readily available too – just head to a website like Soccerway (www.soccerway.com) and use their ‘head to head’ feature.

Rule 4 – Check the Form Book

Form is temporary, class is permanent, so the old saying goes. True enough; but there’s plenty of value to be had in backing the ‘form horse’ too.

If a certain team is banging in the goals then there’s no reason not to add them to your BTTS coupon. Likewise, if a team is struggling to find the net, or has a particularly solid defence, then avoid like the plague.

Rule 5 – Keep An Eye Out For Goal Machines

Harry Kane

We’d all love our favourite clubs to have one, but in truth only the lucky few can find a proven goalscorer; that special kind of player who always seems to get on the scoresheet no matter how their team are faring: from last season, Harry Kane at Spurs and Charlie Austin at QPR are two good examples. Basically, find some net-busting marksmen.

If these two were on form, then their respective teams had a great chance of scoring no matter where they were playing. On the flipside, if either was injured then their team tended to struggle to find an equally prolific replacement.