What Do Over 2.5 Goals Mean in Football Betting?

Over or under 2.5 goals is one of the favourite football betting markets for beginners and pro bettors. This bet lets you predict the total goals in the game without having to choose which team will win the game. This betting market follows these simple rules:

  • An under 2,5 goals means that the game needs to finish with two or fewer goals.
  • An over 2.5 goals mean that the game needs to finish with three or more goals

You don't have to guess the correct score; all you need to do is predict if there will be three or more goals scored. This market is different from the winning draw win market, as draws are not allowed in over 2.5 goals market.

Over 2.5 Goals Betting Tips

People usually like to bet on statistics for these kinds of bets. By checking out previous results of every football team, you can find out the average number of goals they score in the match. If every team usually has a high number of goals per game for both scored and conceded, they will also likely have an increased number of goals in their match.

However, looking at stats is the easy part.

You also need to analyze the kind of game that's coming up. For example, imagine if two strong teams are up against each other. In their last 10 matches against other teams, they might be winning at four-nil to five-nil every week. This makes their average score per match to be as much as 3.5.

However, the match might end up being stale, as both teams cancel each other out defensively. Because of this, the result is only a 1-1.

Here are some other tips for over 2.5 goals:

1.  Study The Form

The form is one of the best ways in a sport that can give you ideas of how things will work out. If a team is in bad shape, you can form an idea if they're likely to concede many goals or create a blank line on the other end. Indeed, there are no guarantees for sports and all forms, whether it's good or bad, will eventually end at a certain point.

You should obtain genuine information about teams from various football leagues. Check the team and player stats and determine a specific team’s current form. You can connect with experienced bettors to find out which market they're betting on. There are also many online tipsters with upcoming fixtures and recent stats of specific leagues. Besides looking at online sources, you can also catch ongoing matches and place live bets.

2. Look at Past Results

The past results are usually the first thing bettors look at when betting on both over/under goals market. This include:

  • The average goals scored or conceded by a team within the current season (Home and Away).
  • The average games with under 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 goals during the current season (Home and Away)
  • The average goals scored or conceded by a team during the previous games, this include the last 3 to 5 games (Home and Away)

As we look at the team’s past data, we can check out their average number of goals in a season, which is the average of every match before the match we want to bet on. This can greatly help us to predict the number of goals for the upcoming match.

3.  Expected Goals

Expected goals (xG) is used to analyze the shot’s quality of every game. Every shot has a value that shows every chance to become a goal.

There are many factors that determine this value including where the shot takes place, the angle from the goal and the body part used (whether its foot, head or others) to score the goal. Other things that may affect the values include playing speed, the assists that take place before the shot and others.

4. Check Out The Leagues

To find out how regularly games break through the two-goal milestone, researching the individual leagues should be the first thing you should do. The overall stats for football worldwide show that the average game ranges between 2.4 to 2.6 goals. This is one of the reasons why bookmakers set the line at Under or Over 2.5 Goals for most games.

A study from the Football Observatory in 2017 revealed that the highest averaged goals came from the Swiss Super League (3.3 per game), with the Swedish Allsvenskan ranked in second place (3.01 per game). On the other hand, the lowest averaged goals come from the Russian Premier League with only 1.99 per game.

Therefore, finding out which league tends to have a higher or lower average number of goals is an excellent place to start. Doing this research will also get you deeper into the individual teams within their respective leagues.

5. Look at The Individual Team Goal Ratios

Once you've looked at a team's over 2.5 goals record, you can start looking at upcoming fixtures and find out where two respective teams with high-scoring goals will meet.

For example, if Manchester United scores 75% of the games for over 2.5 goals for the season and are going up against Chelsea where their games feature over 2.5 goals 65% of the time, then there is likely a 70% chance of over 2.5 goals occurring in the match.

Final Thoughts of Over 2.5 Goals

Betting on the under or over 2.5 goals market can get you big profits with the right tips. This market doesn't require you to guess the result, as all you need is the number of goals.

When you decide to go for this bet, remember that you should be finding teams that love to attack or/and are poor at defending. The last thing to remember is that the more you know, the better, and the more you're familiar with every team and league, the bigger advantage you'll have. Check out our goal-based market guide to get more insightful tips.