There are plenty of moving parts in football matches, as well as plenty of different bets that you can place in order to try to find some value. One such bet is the Win Both Halves wager, which is exactly as it sounds. You are betting on one of the two teams taking part in a football match to either win both halves of the game that they are playing in or not. It is that simple.
The important thing to remember is that this bet essentially treats each half of the game as though it is a mini match all of its own. In other words, a 1-0 half-time score that finishes 1-0 does not mean that the team won both halves, even though they won the game.
It is Effectively Betting on 2 Mini-Matches
You might be of the opinion that if a team were to win the first-half of a game of football 2-0 and the match were to finish 2-0 then that would mean that that team had won both halves. After all, they scored two goals in the first period and didn’t concede any in the second, meaning that they won the match overall. In reality, however, what it means is that they won the first-half 2-0 but drew the second-half 0-0, meaning that Win Both Halves bets would’ve been losers. You need to think about whether a team is likely to start strongly and then fade away, or whether they often grow into matches as they go on.
It is a Value Bet
You might think that a team is an overwhelming favourite to win a game of football, but if bookmakers agree with you then you’ll find that there isn’t much value in the Match Odds on that team. As a result, you might want to look further afield for a bet that offers you value, which the Win Both Halves bet is likely to do. Take the Premier League game between Manchester City and Aston Villa at the Etihad in the 2023-2024 campaign, for example. Here is a look at a few different bets that saw City winning the game:
- Half-Time/Full-Time: Man City/Man City 4/5
- Half-Time/Full-Time: Draw/Man City 3/1
- Half-Time/Full-Time: Aston Villa/Man City
- Man City Match Odds: 1/4
You can see that in order to get any value at all in the wager, you’d need to bet on Man City either drawing at half-time or else coming from behind to win the game. The Win Both Halves market, meanwhile was 13/8 for Man City. That is obviously much better odds than the Half-Time/Full-Time bet but is essentially saying the same thing. The big difference is that Man City could win the first-half 1-0 and that be the final score, which would payout on Half-Time/Full-Time bets but not on To Win Both Halves wagers, which is why the latter bet type sees slightly longer odds in place for punters to consider.
Things to Research
As with every bet you will ever place, you put yourself in the best possible position of winning your wager if you do some research and look up some key statistics about the teams that are playing in the match that you’re betting on. If you know, for example, that a team tends to start slowly and comes alive in the second-half- it isn’t all that likely that they’re going to Win Both Halves of the match that they’re playing in. This is especially true if the side that they’re up against tends to start strongly but fade as the match wears on. There is plenty of information out there that will help you to know what to bet on.
As an example, here is a look at how the 20 teams playing in the Premier League during the 2022-2023 campaign got on in terms of winning both halves of the matches that they played in:
| Team | Number of Games When They Won Both Halves |
|---|---|
| Manchester City | 11 |
| Arsenal | 9 |
| Manchester United | 8 |
| Brentford | 6 |
| Leicester City | 6 |
| Newcastle United | 6 |
| Brighton & Hove Albion | 5 |
| Liverpool | 5 |
| Aston Villa | 5 |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | 3 |
| Fulham | 3 |
| AFC Bournemouth | 3 |
| West Ham United | 3 |
| Chelsea | 3 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 3 |
| Everton | 2 |
| Leeds United | 2 |
| Crystal Palace | 1 |
| Nottingham Forest | 0 |
| Southampton | 0 |
Man City won the league that season and yet only won 11 of their 38 games by winning both halves of the match. That is why To Win Both Halves isn’t always the best bet to place, even for the strongest of teams. It is also why doing your research could be key.