What Does Both Teams to Score Mean?

Both Teams to Score, often abbreviated to BTTS, is an extremely popular bet unique to football where you bet on whether both teams in a match will score or not.

Why Place a Both Teams to Score Bet?

Well, the main reason to bet on Both Teams to Score is that you don’t have to predict the winner of the match. Regardless of who wins, your bet will come in if both teams get on the scoresheet before the final whistle.

Also, with the Both Teams to Score market your bet is not dead until the match is finished. If you back a team to win the match outright, they could be 4-0 down by half time and your bet’s over. However, if you back Both Teams to Score, a team could be trailing 6-0 in the second minute of injury time but a late consolation goal for them would mean a winning bet for you.

Another advantage is that as soon as both teams score in the match, if you’ve only backed one, or your accumulator, if you backed several, your bet is a winner and you can collect your winnings. Most online bookmakers will credit your account within minutes of the bet coming in. Therefore, you could be quids-in just a few minutes after kick-off if all goes well.

What if I Don’t Think Both Teams Will Score?

If you think neither, or only one team, will score, you can always bet “No” in the Both Teams to Score market. This means you will win your bet if one or both teams fail to score in the match.

Obviously, you may not have the luxury of the bet staying alive if both teams find the net early but the option to bet this way is there if you want it.

How Do I Pick a Good Both Teams to Score Bet?

When studying form, instead of looking at who has the best win record you must look at the goals for and against statistics. The best teams to look at when betting on Both Teams to Score are the ones who score a lot of goals but have leaky defences, especially if they are playing similarly attack-minded opposition.

For example, in the Championship during the 2016/17 season, Norwich City scored 85 goals and conceded 69 from their 46 league games. They also had a Both Teams to Score percentage of 63%. Fulham scored 85, conceded 57, and had a BTTS percentage of 65%.

So, when they played each other, there was an extremely high chance of both scoring. It proved to be a banker when they met, with the first meeting ending 2-2 and the second being a 3-1 Fulham win.

When looking for value in this market, it’s a good idea to look at top teams playing away against lesser opposition who are capable of scoring goals at home. Last season, Tottenham only had a 47% overall BTTS percentage for the season but it was 58% in away games. Hull City had failed to score in 42% of their games overall, but their BTTS percentage at home was 63%. When they met at Hull on the final day of the season, many bookmakers gave good odds on both scoring, and it was a bet which turned out to be great value when Tottenham won 7-1.

Variations of a Both Teams to Score Bet

A normal Both Teams to Score bet just requires you to bet “yes” or “no” to whether you think both teams will find the net. However, there are several variations on this with the most popular being:

BTTS & Result – This means you select a bet in the BTTS market as well as your predicted outcome for the match. Usually, there are six options available to you here. These are Yes and Home Win, Yes & Away Win, Yes & Draw, No & Home Win, No & Away Win, and No & Draw. Obviously, this is more difficult to predict and has more chance of losing than a simple BTTS bet but it will give higher odds.

BTTS & Over/Under – This combines a Both Teams to Score bet and Over/Under a certain amount of goals in the match, which is usually set at 2.5 by most bookmakers. So, not only will you need both sides to get on the scoresheet, you will also need there to be either under or over the amount of goals specified.

BTTS in Both Halves – This is an incredibly difficult market to find a winner in but it offers extremely good odds if you want to back “yes.” Basically, what this means, is both teams in a match must each score a goal in the first half and again in the second half. While it may be difficult to pick a winner, it could give you a great pay out if you do get lucky. Most bets in this market offer odds of between 9/1 and 50/1.

Some bookmakers, on rare occasions and for the biggest matches, offer other variations such as Both Teams to Score in one half. However, these are extremely rare and offered by only a couple of bookmakers, try btts tips.