While it might seem obvious to the seasoned bettors and punters among us, terms like ‘Over 2.5 goals’ or ‘Under 9.5 corners’ can strike fear into people who are new to betting. The most obvious question it raises is why the half? Why can’t they just say ‘3 or more goals’? Well, the reason is pretty simple really. Read on to find out more and some stats that you should be checking out that will help improve your Over/Under betting choices.

What is Over/Under Betting?

The reason for the .5 is that betting companies don’t want any confusion when it comes to results. Let’s keep this simple, let’s have Manchester United taking on Liverpool at Old Trafford. Even though it tends to be a tight match, you fancy Liverpool to win 1-2 this season. The bookies are offering 1.91 and you think there’s some slim value (to read more about Value Betting click here Value Bets).

Should Liverpool win 1-2 your bet wins, however, if the match ends 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 2-0 or 0-2 your bet loses. Any result with three goals or more will see your bet win. So why then do we need the .5 goals? This is so that we don’t get void bets. If your bet was ‘3 goals’ then should the match finish 2-1, 1-2, 3-0, 0-3 then your bet won’t win, or lose, you’ll just be refunded.

Now, some bookies do offer these markets, but not so many, but let’s not get sidetracked. The thing to remember here is that the .5 goal is added to avoid confusion. And as well, ‘Over 2.5 Goals’ reads better than ‘3 Goals or More’ and takes up less space on a website.

A little recap then; if you bet Under 2.5 goals in a match you need the match to finish 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 2-0 or 0-2 for your bet to win. For betting on Over 2.5 goals, you need at least 3 goals to have been scored.

This is all relevant for betting on Over/Under corners, Yellow Cards etc. You just need to change the numbers.

Betting Over/Under 2.5 Goals

When it comes to making good choices regarding betting on Over 2.5 goals there are many factors you need to keep in mind. As you can see from the Bet Dynamo Insights page we’ve crunched the stats and given you the percentage of time Overs has landed in games involving both teams. Don’t be disheartened if our algorithm gives the game a low probability of Overs landing, this could be a great opportunity for an Under 2.5 goals bet.

Recent form is probably the single best indicator of how many goals are likely to be scored, if two teams are in good goalscoring form and strikers are netting regularly their confidence will be high for finding the back of the net again. But some caution is advised too. Is one of the teams keeping many clean sheets? For example, in last season’s Premier League title win, Manchester City kept 6 clean sheets in their final 8 matches to secure the title. Of those 8 matches only 2 ended with Over 2.5 goals being scored. If you’d backed Under in those games you’d have made a very tidy profit.

Of course you’re going to need to keep an eye on the current injuries affecting the team. As in the example above, should Liverpool be without Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane versus Man United, would you take the same bet if their front three were Adam Lallana, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Divok Origi?

Past meeting and rivalries must be looked at too, as are managerial changes. In a forthcoming article we’ll going more indepthly at what to pay close attention to when researching your potential Over/Under bets.