Half Time / Full Time – Football Betting Strategy

Betting on Goals

The Half-time/ Full-time market has found many champions over the past few seasons.
It does give a little more interest than a straight result gamble.
Finding a suitable strategy makes the match(es) chosen, even more interesting.

This kind of betting can give a little more substance to games were the favourite is at fairly short odds.
However there will be many chances to back teams at even money or at shades of odds against but also get much bigger odds if being a little adventurous.
A good way to approach this type of betting is to look at past results . Not necessarily head to heads but how teams tend to perform in a more general manner.
Some teams like to tire-out their opponents and then go in for the kill. Others like to play cavalier style and go all out for goals from the start. Find out how the teams have fared in their last few matches, especially their scoring habits. The last six games should give a good insight into their scoring abilities. Know your team styles, would be a good motto here.

Imagine a match were the home side is favourite at evens (2). Not very inspiring unless you’re backing in hundreds.
However the half-time/full-time market is quoting five to one (6) for a draw at half-time and a home win at full-time.
So, how about this. Put a fiver on the outright result. A winning bet gives you ten pounds. Not a lot to write home about.
So knowing that an outright win will return you a tenner, invest half of your potential profit (five pounds) on, Draw at half-time and Home at full time. Potential returns of fifteen pounds. Add the returns from the initial bet for a gross pick-up of twenty-five pounds. providing your prediction is successful. Even if your chosen team go in at half-time winning, you still make a profit if the result remains the same at full-time. The profit is only two pounds fifty but still a profit. Apart from a complete reversal of your prediction, giving an Away win, your only enemies are Draw/Draw and Away/Draw.
Not the most inspiring of strategies but an ideal place for the less experienced punter to begin his march to hoped for profits.

A second strategy, although also a little uninspiring, again revolves around betting Draw/Home or perhaps Draw/Away.
The obvious choice would be to find a solid team who like to consolidate firstly and then hope to score later on.
Assuming your method of selection is successful at half-time, the second half then needs to be covered in the eventuality of things going wrong. So having arrived at half-time with a score line of 0 – 0 or 1 – 1 or even a larger all-equal score, we need to worry about what is to come.

Assume our bet is Draw/Home and it has reached half-time all square. We now need our home team to score. However we must consider the frailties of football. At some point during the second have the away side may score a fluke. Or be awarded a penalty, that only the ref sees. Or the home side has a player sent off. Any of these things can happen and if steps to cover then haven’t been taken, will almost certainly occur. Sod’s Law of Football.
The answer is to then LAY the Home team. As you will be able to back the original bet at odds of around 5/1 (6), LAYING at odds of a little under EVENS  to perhaps 4/6, or sometimes even shorter, gives a good platform for profit.
All that is required to make this bet a success is the selection of a match that is level at half-time.

There are many websites that too think there is a lot of milage in this type of bet. Unfortunately they seem hellbent on winning the JACKPOT with that favourite bet of horse racing punters the LUCKY FIFTEEN. True, just two winning selections will show a decent profit but remember most bookmakers DON’T offer increased odds for just ONE WINNER.

Perhaps a few stats will prove useful, especially for those of you aren’t too au fait with this type of betting.
As is usual. I’ll keep to the Premiership. Teams are listed in no particular order.

These stats cover the last five seasons. Under the year heading each team shows two figures the first is the number of Home games which were drawn at half-time and won over ninety minutes. The second shows away games where the team were drawing at half-time but lost in the end. This second figure may well prove the better of the two overall. (Last season Blackburn managed to, draw at half-time but then lose half of their games away from home). A good pointer at the time.
Perhaps a home team who prefers to consolidate in the first half and then apply the necessary pressure after half-time, entertaining a “Blackburn Rovers” of last season, would be a perfect game for this strategy.

             2010/11  2009/10  2008/09  2007/08  2006/07
Aston Villa   2   2    4   2    2   3    2   2    2   1
Man Utd       3   1    6   3    6   1    6   0    2   2
Wolves        2   4    2   2    -   -    -   -    -   -
Everton       5   1    6   0    2   2    5   3    5   2
'Spurs        3   2    1   1    2   5    2   3    3   3
Sunderland    2   3    3   4    4   5    3   6    -   -
Blackburn R   1   9    2   2    2   4    3   2    5   2
Bolton W      3   3    1   2    2   4    3   2    3   4
Liverpool     4   3    3   4    5   0    5   2    6   3
Stoke C       3   3    2   1    6   2    -   -    -   -
Arsenal       5   0    3   2    2   0    5   2    5   2
Man City      3   3    2   1    4   6    4   3    2   3
Newcastle U   0   3    -   -    4   3    2   5    3   6
W.B.A.        3   2    -   -    5   4    -   -    -   -
Fulham        2   2    2   1    2   6    3   3    4   1
Wigan A       4   3    3   3    4   3    3   4    1   5
Chelsea       5   2    4   3    2   2    3   1    3   1

Stats of course only tell part of any picture. And half-time full-time stats can throw up some interesting possiblities.
I’ll look at these next time plus a slightly different strategy on the basis of that outlined earlier.