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| Kevin Pullein
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| Friday January 26,
2007 |
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First Goal Scorer
It is such a
good offer that you think there must be a catch. And there is - but it is a
catch that it might sometimes be possible to escape.
One of the most
popular football bets is first goalscorer. In recent years, some bookmakers
have tried to gain a bigger share of this lucrative market by offering each-way
terms. And the most generous terms of all are now being offered by Ladbrokes
(in their shops only) and William Hill, who pay half the odds for a place,
which they define as being any one of the first three goals.
If your
selection scores the first goal, both your win bet and your place bet are
successful. If he scores the second or third goal, but not the first, your
place bet will pay out.
The true odds of a player scoring at least one
of the first three goals in a match will vary with the true odds of him scoring
the first goal, but the former will always be less than half of the latter. In
other words, Ladbrokes and William Hill are offering terms that are more
generous than they should be. |
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The catch is that those bookmakers' place
odds will represent a good bet only if their win odds represent a fair bet, or
something reasonably close to it. And, like all other bookmakers, they nearly
always quote first goalscorer odds that are much, much worse than they should
be. It is why they love this type of betting so much.
But even the best
of bookmakers will sometimes make mistakes. And if we are to find them, we need
a guide. In the Premiership games last season in which at least one goal was
scored, 52% of goals were scored by forwards, 35% by midfielders and 10% by
defenders, while 3% were own-goals. In some games, of course, no goals were
scored. In a typical match between typical teams, fair odds for the first
goalscorer would be, on average, around 8-1 for a forward, 25-1 for a
midfielder and more than 50-1 for a defender. Obviously, these will vary
enormously with individual players and individual teams.
Watch out,
too, for positional changes. Wayne Bridge was quoted at 40-1 to score the first
goal in Chelsea's Carling Cup semi-final first leg at Wycombe Wanderers. The
odds presupposed that he would be playing in his usual position of left-back.
As he played on the left wing, they represented value for money, because even a
bad forward is always more likely to score than a good defender. On that
occasion, it was the bookmakers who were caught out.
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