One of the key things in football is goals. It is why strikers cost so much money and there is also such a premium on the goalkeepers and defenders that stop them from getting on the scoresheet. Goals win games, so even one can be crucial to the outcome of a game.
For the players themselves, they always want to score more than one, so two is good and three is better. There is a temptation for the punter to place a wager on a hat-trick being scored, because some players seem to be in good form heading into games. That is where the Hat-Trick market comes in.
To Score a Hat-Trick Market
When you look at the To Score a Hat-Trick market, you will find a list of players taking part in a match and the odds on them scoring a hat-trick during the 90 minutes plus stoppage time that constitutes a football match. You are literally betting on them doing exactly that, with a hat-trick being three goals. All three goals must be scored for the team that the player plays for, so own goals won’t count towards your bet. The goals also need to be scored during the match, meaning that extra-time and penalties won’t count, should you be watching a cup match in which that can happen.
It doesn’t matter how the goals are scored, provided they are scored legally and are given to the player that you’re betting on. That is to say, it could be a perfect hat-trick scored with left foot, right foot and the head, or it could be three goals that go in off the player’s kneecap. However the goals are scored, as long as the are register to the player that you’ve placed your bet on then you will end up winning your wager. Bookmakers usually have an outside company that they look towards to confirm such a thing, with the likes of OPTA being popular services on that front.
Another key point to remember is that the player that you’ve bet on can score more than three goals and your bet will still be a winner, but they can’t score fewer. That is to say, the player might end up scoring two goals, which is great, but it won’t qualify as them having scored a hat-trick. If they score four times, on the other hand, they will have scored a hat-trick on their way to scoring those four, so your bet will be a winner. If they score six, that doesn’t mean that they’ve scored two hat-tricks and you’ll win your bet twice, sadly. That being said, some bookies do offer promotions along those lines.
How Often Are They Scored?
If you’re thinking of betting on the scoring of a hat-trick then it might be handy to think about how many tend to be scored. Whilst they are noteworthy as achievements, that isn’t the same as saying that they happen all the time. Here is a look at the number of hat-tricks that were scored across five seasons of Premier League football:
| Season | Hat-Tricks Scored | Games Featuring Hat-Tricks |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 7 | 1.82% |
| 2021-2022 | 13 | 3.42% |
| 2020-2021 | 12 | 3.15% |
| 2019-2020 | 11 | 2.89% |
| 2018-2019 | 11 | 2.89% |
Across the five seasons in question, 1,900 games were played. Of those, just 54 featured hat-tricks. In other words, a mere 2.84% of matches are likely to feature hat-tricks. That doesn’t meant that you shouldn’t bet on one being scored, just that you should bear that in mind before you go to place your bet. There will always be some players that are more likely to score hat-tricks than others, with Sergio Aguero notching up 12 during his time with Manchester City, for example. Yet they are still very rare, considering that the Argentinian played 275 league games for the Cityzens.
With this in mind, it is worth considering whether or not bookmakers are offering you good value with their To Score a Hat-Trick betting market. The odds won’t be all that high, in spite of the fact that the likelihood of it happening is extremely low. Look at the attacking nature of the team that the player you’re thinking of betting on plays for possesses, as well as how solid defensively the side that they’re going up against tends to be. Once you’ve considered both of those factors, you’ll know if there is any value to be had in placing a wager on a hat-trick being scored in that game.
Obviously we’ve just looked at the Premier League here, but that can be extrapolated across most leagues and competitions, such is the rareness that hat-tricks are actually scored.