Elsewhere on this site, you can read about the fact that Correct Score is one of the toughest things to predict when it comes to football betting. That is because of the specific nature of the wager, with a huge number of moving parts to consider.
Scorecast bets not only ask you to predict the Correct Score of the match, but also the the First Goalscorer. It is a combination bet akin to a mini accumulator, with both parts of the bet needing to come in in order for your wager to be a successful one, which is why the odds that you’ll get are normally higher than one of those bets alone.
Correct Score Betting
The first thing to do is to consider the Correct Score side of the bet. You are literally betting on what you think the final score of the match will be, needing to be exact with your answer in order for your bet to win. In other words, you might think that the match is going to end up as a 3-0 win for the home team, in which case that part of your bet will be a successful one if that is exactly how the match ends up. If the away team wins 3-0 or scores a goal, for example, then the entire bet will be a losing one because one part of the wager wasn’t right.
Correct Score betting is very difficult to get right because any goal will count, including own goals. We also tend to overestimate how many goals will be scored in a game, meaning that figuring out the exact score at the end of the game is extremely tricky. Even so, it is something that you will need to do if you want to win a Scorecast bet, because it is one half of the overall wager. Do plenty of research before selecting your Correct Score prediction, looking at the two teams as well as the key players, giving yourself the best chance of getting it right.
First Goalscorer Betting
For the majority of bookmakers, a Scorecast wager asks you to predict the First Goalscorer alongside the Correct Score. It is important to look into the terms and conditions of the bet, however. This is because some bookies are happy to ask for you to select an Anytime Goalscorer with a Scorecast, although these are usually referred to as Anytime Scorecasts. We are going to assume that is the First Goalscorer that you need to think about, which is a really difficult aspect of any bet. All sorts of moving parts go in to figuring out who will score first.
You can do huge amounts of research into it, but it can still all change because of something really simple like a heavy deflection of a fellow attacker from a shot taken by the player that you bet on the score the opening goal of the game. One good thing is that own goals don’t count for this part of the bet. In other words, if an own goal is scored as the opening goal of the game, it will count towards the Correct Score part of this bet but won’t count as far as the First Goalscorer part is concerned. You can ignore it and be happy if your chosen player gets the next goal.
Both Parts Need to Win
The reason Scorecast bets are so tricky to win is that you need both parts of the wager to be correct in order for your bet to be successful. In other words, if you select Mo Salah as the First Goalscorer and he scores the opening goal that’s great, but if you select 3-1 as the Correct Score and it finishes 3-0 then your bet is a losing one. Similarly, a selection of 3-1 with Mo Salah as the First Goalscorer will lose if the final score is 3-1 but the First Goalscorer was Ben Doak. This is why it is so tricky to get the selection right without at least one part of it going wrong.
There is also an argument that, given the difficulty, it might not even be a particularly good value bet. When Burnley hosted Manchester City on the opening day of the 2023-2024 Premier League campaign, the odds on the Cityzens winning 2-0 were 5/1. The odds on Erling Haaland scoring the opening goal were 12/5, whilst the Scorecast odds on Erling Haaland and a 2-0 City win were 14.5/1. You can decide for yourself whether that is good value, but you might well have been better off placing two separate bets than combining them into one considering the unlikelihood of both sides of the bet coming true.