Goals, goals, goals!

I've recently started a job at Coral bookmakers - betting, not novel production - and had my horizons broadened when it comes to different bet types. I normally stick to accumulators, over/under 2.5 goals and the annual each-way bet for the Grand National. But, after chatting to colleagues, attempting some Lucky 31s or Yankees could prove beneficial. It gives a safety net when one team ruins accumulators. So it got me thinking: 2-1 is probably the most common football score, with odds roughly between 7-1 and 11-1, depending on the teams. Would betting a Lucky 31 (five singles, 10 doubles, 10 trebles, five 4-folds and a 5-fold) on four games to finish 2-1 make me rich?

Lucky 31 is normally better for horse racing because football tends to have shorter odds, but specific scorelines counter this problem. Of course, 2-1 is a better bet for close, hard to call games, rather than Chelsea vs Burnley or Man City vs Bury. But is 2-1 the most common score? I undertook some very basic research to test this hypothesis, looking at all scores from five major 2014-15 leagues (so far).




Several observations can be made from this. Overall, the most common score is actually 1-0, followed by 2-1 and 2-0. It is most common overall, as well as for each individual league. Wins have claimed the top three places, whilst the Premier League has the highest goals per game ratio. On top of this, England's top flight has had fewer anomalies so far - only six games have had six or more goal - highlights being Everton 3-6 Chelsea and Southampton 8-0 Sunderland. This means that the average game has more goals than in other nations.

(However, this doesn't necessarily mean the 'Greatest League in the World' is actually that - more goals doesn't lead to a higher quality, especially in defence. Whilst marketed the best, with more money than the rest, Premier League defences are getting leakier and continues to lose its star players to Spanish football.)

The Championship has the lowest goals to games ratio, with 1-1 as the second most frequent score. Most years, the league would have a clear leader by now but it is very congested this time - seven points separate the top 11. This spread of quality is reflected in results, with many tight games.

1-1 is a strange scoreline - very common in two league and rare in two others (Championship and Serie A, with the lowest goalscoring rates). 2-2 is least common in almost all five league, yet is a narrow third for the Premier League - further proof that English goals are flying in this year.

Honestly, most of these observations don't reveal much. They're either uninteresting, inconclusive or already known. Further research could involve graphs and finding the interquartile range of this season's scores - some genuine analysis of games, as opposed to this quick test. But what I do know is that my Lucky 31 bets will focus on harder to call games, all with a 1-0 prediction. I'll let you know how successful (or, most likely for me, unsuccessful) they are.

Next weekend?
Newcastle 1-0 QPR (6/1), Everton 1-0 West Ham (7/1), Watford 0-1 Derby (9/1), Elche 1-0 Cordoba (5/1), Parma 1-0 Empoli (13/2). Of course, they won't all win - although £3.10 potentially returns £4,712 - but two of those 1-0s will return a small profit, which is good enough for me!