Backing 2 goals ahead at Half Time in 0-0 games could be a Losing Strategy

Picture the scene. You wake one day and decide you want to become a full-time football trader.

So, you look through social media and you find various You Tube videos and blogs advising you to back goals in the second half of a football match with the primary thought process that the average goal production in a game around the globe is 2.60.

So, you then specifically look at games that have a half time score of 0-0, 1-0 or 0-1.

The thought process here is if there were few goals in the first half then by definition because we know factually that more goals are scored in the 2^nd half than the first, then these should be the games that we look for in terms of building a winning long-term strategy.

So far so good. We have identified the low scoring first half games that meet the criteria. Now we must build the strategy.

Next, we decide to look at home teams whose games have a high propensity to have lots of second half goals. This information is freely available on various stats-based sites at no charge. So, we then begin to back 2 or more goals in the second half.

(If it is 0-0, we are backing over 1.5 goals. 1-0 or 0-1 we are backing Over 2.5 goals)

We take a long-term view of the above strategy. However, we find after a few months that it is not bringing us a profit. So, we then look to dissect the strategy.

We then decide to look for a better price to back 2 goals ahead, so we then decide to wait a few minutes for the 2 goals ahead price to reach Evens (2.00). This could be around the 55–60-minute mark.

So now we are backing 2 goals ahead once the price hits evens (2.00) and we still discover that this is not long term profitable or at best we are we are breaking even.

Then we make an incredible discovery in the fact that 0-0 games at Half time globally have the lowest second half goal production with the 1-0 and 0-1 scorelines not far behind. See the Premier League Stats below

Games with more 1st half goals tend to produce more 2nd half goals

What we do discover is that games with more first half goals tend to produce a lot more second half goals. Now we do agree that the sample size is smaller. However, there can be no doubt that these matches do have the propensity to produce a lot more second half goals.

Now there is a big flaw in waiting for the price to hit evens (2.00) in the second half and consequently not looking to back goals that do have an early second half goal.

This is because a goal scored between the 46-55^th minute leads proportionally to further second half goals.

Now if we go back to our strategy, it is all right saying that out of 5000 games 3250 games ended 2 goals ahead. This sounds great because it would be producing a 65% strike rate. However, this is flawed because you must take out all the games that contained a goal between the 46^th & 55^th minute as you were waiting for the price to hit evens (2.00).

So now when taking out the 46^th to 55^th minute time band you have now got a smaller sample, along with a smaller sample win rate. However, your losing rate stays the same. So, what was a very good-looking strike rate of 65% has now been drastically reduced and is no longer profitable.

Summary

To summarise strategies like backing 2 goals ahead at Evens in 0-0, 1-0 & 0-1 at around the 55^th minute mark sounds logical given that there is on average 2.6 goals scored per game globally.

However, this is learnt behaviour and lacks any real data analysis. The reality is the average punter / Sports Trader wants to follow the heard mentality and refuses to look outside the box.

Instead, they are happy to blindly follow strategies such as the above purely and simply because the logic sounds good.

The reality is if you are looking for goals you should always be asking questions such as if no goal is scored should I Red Out? If there is a goal what should I do. You can also hedge unders with overs and here at Trade on Sports we have a strategy that uses this when looking at 3 goals ahead.

We also have a Bot that highlights game states where goals are anticipated between the 46-65 minute.

If you are using and following strategies like backing over 0.5 first half goals after 25 minutes in 0-0 games or backing 2 goals ahead at Evens in the 2^nd half of 0-0, 1-0 & 0-1 games then the probability is you along with thousands of others are losing long term.