The scorecast market is one of the most popular bets for a lot of punters, mainly because of the high payouts for a relatively small investment. The bet itself is actually two bets into one, including predicting the first goalscorer of a match and the correct full time score for that match.
Many people often get confused surrounding the Scorecast bet, mistaking it for a double, when actually it’s a single bet. The main reason behind this is that the two markets will conflict with each other, making them dependent markets.
For example, if a player were to score the first goal in a match, then this would have a huge effect on the final result market, meaning that the two results (as a double) cant be wagered. A good way to compare it is thinking along the lines of if a bookmaker would accept a bet like Chelsea to win 2-1 and Chelsea to win as double. This would never happen as both bets essentially affect the same results market.
Popularity
Over the last 10 years or so, online punter have absolutely lapped up the scorecast market and rightly so! The market is actually a very tough one to call and if you were to break it down into two separate bets, it’s already hard enough on their own.
Selecting the first goalscorer in a match is often a tough, but lucrative win fall. The same can be echoed with the correct score as well. The bet is so volatile that it only takes one incident to scupper the whole thing.
But, increased difficulty means that the odds for that bet will also see a sharp increase, which most punters often love. Bets can start from anything around the 10/1 mark and range well into the hundreds for a single unit bet. This highlights the difficulty of calling the bet, but also the potential rewards from the bet as well.
It’s worth noting that the price of the bet won’t necessarily reflect the two odds individually. For example, if we were to take the individual price for a certain player to score first and the individual price for a particular correct score line, you would get much larger odds as a double than you would with the scorecast. But, obviously we know that you can’t get them as a double bet as they are related bets.
Example
Let’s run you through a quick example of a bet that highlights the price difference of a scorecast compared to a theoretical double. There is a random game in the Championship currently taking place this evening that we are going to use as our example.
We decide to break down the price for what the theoretical double would have been. The odds on Player A to score first is 10/1. The price for the correct score of 2-0 for Team A to win is 8/1. I standard double bet for these bets would then be 98/1. But, if we decide to take this selection on the Scorecast, we actually see that the bet is priced at 25/1, much less than the double.
There is no real formula as to how the bookmaker works these types of bets out, but the dip in price is seen as a ‘good will gesture’ towards the bookmaker for offering up a combination bet like this.
Are Scorecasts Good Value?
This leads us nicely into the question of are scorecast bets good value. Well, it’s tough one to answer really, because if you look at the odds of the individual bets then you would have to suggest that no, they aren’t good value.
But, and this is a pretty massive but, it’s the only way to place a bet like it. If we use the example above, and we placed the first goalscorer bet and the correct score bet as two singles then we would get £180 profit. But, if we took the scorecast bet then we would get £250 profit. Although, the single bets don’t both need to come in to return a profit, which again offsets it.
Alternative Scorecast Bets
There are few alternative versions of the scorecast bet which apply the same principle in that the two markets are closely related, but with different markets involved.
Wincast
The wincast market requires you to select the first goalscorer and the full time result. So, unlike the scorecast where you need to pick the first goalscorer and correct score, with this you only need to select either a home win, away win or draw. This will mean that the chances of winning increase, but the odds for these types of bets are lower than that of a standard scorecast.
Timecast
The Timecast market requires us to pick out the player to score first and the time of the first goal. Don’t worry, you don’t have to select the exact minute, but a period of time that is usually broken down into 1-20 minutes, 26 – 45 minutes and 46+ minutes.
Anytime Scorecast
The anytime scorecast is pretty self explanatory in that instead of having to pick a player to score first, you can select a player to score at any point in the match. But, you will still need to select the correct result on top of that to have a successful bet.
Scorecast Strategy
The first part of the strategy advice for scorecast betting is pretty simple and that is to make sure you shop around for the best price for your bets. This may sound super obvious, but the odds for these types of bets will range massively form bookmaker to bookmaker and even small stakes can often see a difference of hundreds of pounds just for making sure you select the right bookmaker.
The nature of the pricing structure surrounding scorecast bets means that they are fairly subjective between each bookmaker. Instead of being a straight up double, the bookmaker factors in a number of details before coming up with their scorecast formula. You can use odds comparison sites to find the best price if you wish, but we always feel that having 3-5 bookmakers that are registered with and trust will easily allow you to find pretty much the best price in the industry.
Statistics
As with all football betting, you will need to be on top of your game when it comes to your research for these types of bets. The problem with the scorecast bet is that you have two highly volatile aspects of the bet to contend with; the first goalscorer and the correct score.
Both markets are tough to call, so the best way to go about it is breaking it down into two separate bets and researching each. For the first goalscorer you likely want to be looking at either teams top goalscorer. It sounds obvious, but these guys have done it in the past and are likely to do it again. You don’t need to get too creative, for example looking at defenders to score first or even midfielders, try and stick to the strikers as it’s these guys who are more likely to get the most chances and in turn, the first goal.
The correct result is a tough one, but with this market we like to look at previous head to heads between the two teams in question. Try and find a pattern as to how each team have performed against each other both home and away. It’s important that you take into account where the game is being played for the correct score. A firm favourite who is playing at home will have a much better chance of bagging the first goal and going on to win the game compared with a favourite away from home.