Will the total number of goals be an odd number or an even one? That is the whole market. There is no skill in it, no form to study and no angle to find — which makes it a useful place to understand what a betting margin actually costs you, because everything else has been stripped away.
How it settles
Add the goals scored by both teams. An odd total — 1, 3, 5 — wins Odd. An even total — 2, 4, 6 — wins Even.
Zero is an even number. A goalless draw wins Even, and this is the detail that produces most of the disputes about this market. It is not an operator quirk; it is arithmetic.
| Score | Total | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 0-0 | 0 | Even |
| 1-0 | 1 | Odd |
| 1-1 | 2 | Even |
| 2-1 | 3 | Odd |
| 2-2 | 4 | Even |
| 3-2 | 5 | Odd |
It is not quite a coin toss
Over a large sample of football matches, odd totals come in slightly more often than even ones — a little over half the time. The reason is that the most common individual scorelines cluster around one, two and three goals, and the distribution is not symmetric.
Bookmakers know this, which is why you will usually see Odd priced marginally shorter than Even, something like 1.85 against 1.95. Those two prices imply 54.1 per cent and 51.3 per cent, adding to 105.4 — a book of about five per cent.
What that margin costs, exactly
This is the part worth taking away, because it applies to every market on the site.
Suppose the true chance of Odd is exactly 52 per cent. A fair price would be 1.92. You are offered 1.85. Back it a hundred times at £10:
- You win 52 times, returning £18.50 each: £962
- You lose 48 times: nothing
- You staked £1,000
You finish £38 down having been right about the probability. No losing run, no bad luck — the margin simply took it. That is what a five per cent overround does to a bettor with no edge, and it is why accumulators, where the margin compounds on every leg, are so expensive.
The variations
- Odd/even by half. First-half totals are lower, so the balance shifts: 0 and 1 dominate, and the split moves towards Odd.
- Odd/even by team. Only one side's goals count. Zero is still even, so a side kept out wins Even.
- Odd/even corners or cards. The same structure applied to a different count, with the same near-coin-toss properties.
Where it is genuinely used
Two places, neither of them serious handicapping.
The first is as an accumulator filler, when a bettor wants a near-even-money leg on a match they have no view about. That is an expensive habit for the reason set out above, but it is what the market is for.
The second is in play, where it becomes marginally more interesting: at 2-1 with ten minutes left, Odd is winning and the price on Even reflects the chance of one more goal. That is a real bet about a real question, and closer to the over/under markets than to a coin toss.
Other sports
Odd/even exists in most sports that keep a score: total points in the NFL and basketball, total games in tennis. The higher the scoring, the closer the market gets to a true fifty-fifty, and the more clearly the margin is the only thing separating you from break-even. In tennis, total games odd/even is about as close to a pure coin toss as betting offers.
Frequently asked questions
Is 0-0 odd or even?
Even. Zero is an even number, so a goalless draw wins Even bets.
Does extra time count?
No. Like other football goal markets, it settles on 90 minutes plus stoppage time.
Why is Odd usually the shorter price?
Because odd totals occur slightly more often than even ones across large samples, given how football scorelines are distributed.
Is there any strategy?
Not really, before kick-off. The market is close to random and the margin is the only reliable feature of it. In play, once the score is known, it becomes a genuine question about whether one more goal arrives.
Related guides: total goals · over/under betting · accumulators · football betting