When it comes to betting on the various competitions that take place in the world of football, most bettors will know about the obvious wagers that they can place, such as a bet on the outright Winner. What some might not realise is that there are other bets that can be placed, which will sometimes offer a little bit more value because of the number of choices available for you to bet on.
One such bet is the Top Goalscorer option, which is often referred to by different names such as the ‘Golden Boot’ winner. It is important to know what the differences are between the various names before placing your bet.
What You’re Betting On
If you’re thinking of placing a bet on the Top Goalscorer in the likes of the FA Cup, Champions League or the European Championship, it is important to understand what it is that you’re betting on. In simple terms, you’re betting on the player that you think will score the most goals during the competition. There are some bookmakers that will offer you a wager on the Golden Boot, which is a specific trophy that is awarded at the end of the tournament and has specific requirements in order to decide upon the winner. When this happens, the bookies will also follow those specific requirements to decide whether to pay out or not.
In the European Championship, for example, the Golden Boot is decided first and foremost by the number of goals that each player has scored. If there are two or more players tied on goals scored, it then goes down to how many assists the player managed. At that point, a lot of bookmakers will employ the Dead Heat rules, which see your stake divided by the number of players tied for the win. Imagine you’ve placed a bet of £12 on Harry Kane to finish as the Golden Boot winner and he ends up tied on four goals and two assist with Kylian Mbappé and Jude Bellingham. In such an instance, the following happens:
Your bet of £12 is divided by three, as that’s how many players are tired for the Golden Boot. That means your stake becomes £4, which is then paid out on the odds of 5/1 that you received when you placed the bet, seeing you get a payout of £20 plus £4 of your stake for a total payout of £24. It is always worth reading the small print, with some bookmakers employing Dead Heat rules if the players have all scored the same number of goals irrespective of the assists that they’ve managed to rack up. They will tell you this when you place the bet, but it’s important to see what you’re actually betting on.
Each-Way Betting
If you have a feeling that a player is going to do well in a particularly competition but you’re not 100% confident that they will end up as the outright winner of the Top Scorer award, one of the things that you can do is to place an Each-Way bet instead. Each bookmaker will have their own way of handing Each-Way rules and it might well change from one competition to the next, so it is always worth making sure that you know exactly how an Each-Way wager will be settled before you place it. It is possible that a bookie might say that they will pay out to four places and the payout will be at 1/4 odds of the original bet you placed.
In other words, if you placed a £5 Each-Way bet on a player to be Top Scorer with odds of 20/1, those odds will be divided by four for the Place part of the bet. If the player ends up as the Top Scorer in the competition then you’ll be paid £5×20 for the Win part of the bet, seeing you get £100 in winnings and your £5 stake back for a total return of £105 on the Win side of things. You’ll also get £5×5 for the Place part of the wager, which is the odds of 20/1 divided by four. That will see you get an additional £25 plus your £5 stake for a complete return of £135. If they finish third in the race for the Top Scorer honour, you’ll only get the Place part of your bet back.
Top Scorer Without X
If there is an outright favourite to finish as the Top Scorer in a particular competition, it is possible that a bookmaker might offer you a ‘Top Scorer Without X’ market. This means that you’re betting on who will end up as the second Top Scorer, given that it is assumed that ‘X’ will win it. Although this is a good market to bet on when there is a runaway favourite, do bear in mind that the odds will be lower than if you were to just bet on the Top Scorer market. Say the odds of them being Top Scorer are 12/1 in the main market, they might drop to 9/2, for example, in the Top Scorer Without X market, which will obviously see you get a smaller payout if they win.