Adding Extra Value to 1X2 Bets: Part 1 - The HT/FT Market

It has been a question that has been at the forefront of most football punters' minds since the expansion of betting to include diverse and unusual betting markets.

How do I gain that little bit of extra value? 

This value hunting will go alongside my assessment of the form, and then be compared to the bookmaker prices. 

Bookies often lower the price of a favourite to such a price so there is little or no value in backing it, despite the general consensus that that team will win. 

They are content that the vast majority of gamblers will still take the price

The overriding notion is to look for the winner rather than the value.

Many punters try and elongate the prices of various favourites by combining them into long accumulators of 8 or 9 runners, which never, ever come through.

That is not to say that there cannot be value found in backing the favourites for games, though one must be slightly more creative in the majority of cases, and that is the point of this series of blogs. 

On this football, blog I will be looking at how to use the various goal markets to add that much sought after value to your bets. 

Hence allowing you to back the team you strongly believe will win without having to take on a price that only suits the bookmaker. 

Gaining value by using the HT/FT market

Those who use the ‘Hot Tips' feature of the website, will notice that a lot of the time when a very heavy favourite is involved, the HT/FT option on that team is often highlighted.

It is true, of course, that the Win/Win at HT/FT is usually the most likely outcome.

This can add some vital muscle to your price, but simply going for a team that is for example 1.05 to win overall to win at Half Time and Full Time at a price of, say 1.4, is not necessarily good business, 

Football form study needs to be conducted prior to making these bets to ensure that team is actually likely to be leading at half-time. 

Many regular winners actually tend to score the majority of their goals, and hence winners, in the latter stages of games, making the draw/win HT/FT option far more lucrative.

In the 2019/20 EPL season, Wolves only lost 3 second halves, which was better than both Liverpool and Manchester City who both lost 6 second halves. 

Being against Wolves in the 1st half and backing the draw and win in the second half would have seen a great return. 

There are many examples of teams who do score early and see out games, and so offer more value than most in backing them to win both HT and FT. 

The Odds for the straight win were Bayern Munich 2.08, Barcelona 3.6, Draw 4.2. 

You would return £20.80 for the straight win but £32.00 for the HT/FT bet, based on a £10 bet. 

The  HT/FT odds for the Champions League qualifier between Barcelona and Bayern Munich were as follows.

HT/FT Options	HT/FT Betting Odds
Bayern Munich/Bayern Munich	3.2
Barcelona/Barcelona	5.75
Draw/Bayern Munich	5.75
Draw/Draw	8.0
Draw/Barcelona	9.5
Bayern Munich/Draw	15.0
Barcelona/Draw	16.0
Barcelona/Bayern Munich	23
Bayern Munich/Barcelona	34

Therefore if you are backing any of these teams to win, at pretty much any price, you may want to consider going for the HT/FT market instead.

This isn't just confined to these teams though, and there are likely to be many more examples of teams that are worthwhile backing to win HT/FT. 

The source I generally use for looking at goals is Soccerway, and in particular by clicking on the ‘H2H comparison' tab at the top of the page, having clicked on a specific match.

 To give another I looked at the Liverpool vs Everton game by scrolling down I get to the subsection titled ‘TEAM'.

Listed in this section are various stats, but I am looking in particular at goals here.

I can see immediately that Liverpool, on average, score their first goal when playing at home in the 26th minute of games, and concede their first goal of the game in the 60th minute.

I can also see by looking at the ‘Scoring Minutes' graphic that they have scored 60.3% of their goals in the first half of games. 

Those more familiar with scoring minute statistics will already know this is a strange stat in comparison to most sides, with an average number to expect around the 40-45% mark.

 It can also be seen that when Everton play on the road, the majority of the goals come in the second half of games.

Surprisingly for a team in such a high position, and with such a decent away record, they, on average, concede earlier than they score, with their first goal conceded coming, on average, in the 50th minute, while the average time they open their own scoring book is on 63 minutes. 

A remarkable 72.2% of Everton's goals scored have come in the second half of their games.

This game has offered me the perfect example to show how the HT/FT market can be used to your advantage due to the perfect opposition between the two sides' statistics, and so I can now suggest a couple of outcomes which depend on the final outcome which is preferred by the punter.

If you think Liverpool are going to win

The stats clearly show that Liverpool is most prolific in the first half of games, and are likely to outscore an Everton side who struggle for first half goals, particularly on the road. 

Therefore the HT outcome of ‘Liverpool win' could be backed (2.37), or when looking at the HT/FT market, 

It seems straight-forward that if you think that Liverpool will win the game, then they will almost certainly be winning the game by half-time. 

The HT/FT bet of Liverpool/Liverpool is therefore recommended, which was available at 2.75.

If you think the game will be drawn

With Everton scoring so few goals in the first half of games, and in particular when playing away from home, and Liverpool a very powerful goalscoring team, especially in the first half of games, it would seem unlikely that we will see the most common ‘Draw/Draw' HT/FT result unless we see a nil-nil scoreline.

If we are going to see a draw in this game, it seems unusually probable that this will be on the back of an Everton comeback, and with Liverpool on average scoring first in the 26th and conceding their first in the 60th minute, a ‘Liverpool/Draw' selection looks to hold excellent value and is available at the long price that is expected at 17

If you think Everton will win

If Everton is going to win this game it seems likely they will have to hold Liverpool until half time. 

If they can get to the second half on level terms, then according to the stats they will have as good a chance of taking the win as their hosts. 

It seems unlikely considering the goalscoring exploits across the season of both sides that Everton will be taking a lead into the half-time break, and so for those more daring and who believe in the away win, the value is definitely likely to lie within the ‘Draw/Everton' selection, which can be backed at 11. 

The above example is one of the better games out there in terms of finding extra value in using the HT/FT markets in order to find extra value, and by applying knowledge of scoring minutes and trends we are able to add considerable bulk to the odds we take on the 1X2 market, often at least doubling the potential profitability of the selection.

Finding value in backing strong favourites to win via ‘Draw/Win' route

As mentioned many teams are prime examples of where using the ‘Win/Win' HT/FT can add great value to very low prices that are available when simply backing them to win.

However, a more profitable approach in my past has been in finding the kind of teams who are regularly made heavy favourites to win games but often wait until the second half to strike that crucial blow. 

With prices often between 4 and 5 for the ‘Draw/Win' selections in these kinds of games, there is certainly good value to be found when selecting the right teams to fulfil this bet. 

You can see the odds on the Bayern/Barcelona - Draw/Win market. 

HT/FT Options	HT/FT
Draw/Bayern	5.75
Draw/Barcelona	9.5

An interesting table can be found at stat-football.com which shows how the percentage of teams' wins have come.

With this knowledge, and by combining it with the stats of their opponents, we can often find good examples of games where a Draw/Win outcome is more likely for the favourite, and so much better value can be found.

Tottenham was the perfect example of a team to back in this manner when under AVB, as the majority of their wins were gained by late shows in the second half. 

Hopefully, this information will help with finding that extra bit of value which makes a bet really worthwhile. 

Look out for the next blog in the series, which will look into the ‘Highest Scoring Half' market, as well as some more specific and unusual markets, based around scoring minutes.

Follow me on Twitter @DanBradleyTips.

Football Form Advice Article.