Over/Under betting has become huge since being introduced to the betting public and has become the second most popular market in football markets behind the Win/Draw/Win or Home/Draw/Away market.

The reason being that it’s quite a simple bet, there will either be more than, or less than, 2.5 goals in a football match. For newcomers, the 0.5 goal can be a little off-putting, afterall, how can there be such a thing as half a goal? However, this is just to make sure than a bet can either win or lose. If we were to bet on Over/Under 3 goals then when a match ended in a 2-1, 1-2, 3-0 or 0-3 then our bet would neither win nor lose and we’d just get a refund. So the reason for the half goal is so that there can be definite winners and losers when the match finishes.

In this article we want to write about a few pointers that will help you make better Over/Under 2.5 goals wagers.

Find the Best Odds

First of all, make sure that you’re getting the best value for your buck. We’re written before about how to calculate a bookie’s overround and what that means for your bets, you can read about it here. Basically, bookies make a commission on every wager placed with them, this can be anything from 1% to 10% so it’s important for you as bettors to get the best odds that you can. If you knew a 10% service charge was going to be added to a purchases every time you shopped in a certain place and that 2% was being added a few doors down you’d more than likely end up shopping where they only add 2%.

Use websites like Oddsportal or Oddschecker to shop around and look for the best prices for your bets. This is very important if you’re always betting with value because over the long run better with higher odds obviously leads to winning more money over a longer period of time.

Tips for Making Good Over/Under 2.5 Goals Bets

Recent Form

When researching your Over/Under 2.5 bets you should look at the recent form of the teams involved. It’s obviously very important to do your research into whether they are in good, or bad, goal scoring form and how many goals they are conceding in their matches.

Some websites will tell you to look at just five previous matches, but in our experience its better to look at five first, then twn, then fifteen and compare the differences in form. By further looking into team information like lineups and previous injuries you’ll be able to see then which players in particular usually mean that a team will score more, and concede more goals.

Head to Head Form

Head to Head from is very important too as some teams when playing against each other can produce very high, or very low scoring matches. For example, when Manchester United play Liverpool the tendency over the last few seasons is for matches to end with Under 2.5 goals, but when Liverpool play Arsenal these usually end up being very high scoring affairs.

Avoid Derby Matches

Derbies can often be very tight affairs and can be very difficult to predict, how many times have we sat down to watch a hyped derby match for it to end 0-0 and how many times have close derby matches ending as five goal thrillers with a few red cards in there as well? They’re very hard to predict and as such should be avoided. They say that the form book goes out the window in a derby and it’s true.

Team News, Injuries and Suspensions and Motivation

Too many bettors take on a bet looking at the odds rather than looking at things like team news. If Kevin de Bruyne and Sergio Aguero are out injured for Man City this weekend then betting on Over 2.5 goals is far riskier than were they included in the starting XI.

Pay attention to who will be playing, who is returning from injury or suspension and who is experiencing a good, or bad, run of form.

Also, don’t forget about motivation and momentum. Take Leicester City as an example, very few people expected Leicester to be second in the Premier League table in November, but there they are, they’re crushing teams of late and scoring goals like they’re going out of fashion. Momentum and form are huge in football and when a team is high on confidence they can be almost unstoppable and the same can be said for teams experiencing a bad run too.

These are just a few quick tips to help you make bettor Over/Under 2.5 goals bets. Always remember to be looking for value too and only take a bet when you have value on your side.