First goalscorer betting: rules, odds and examples

First goalscorer odds are the price on a named player scoring the first goal of a football match. If he scores first, you win at the quoted odds. If anyone else scores first, including a team-mate, you lose, even if your player scores three later. Because the player has to beat 21 others to the first goal, first goalscorer prices are long, and the bookmaker's margin is wide.

How a first goalscorer bet settles

The rules differ slightly by bookmaker, but most follow the same pattern, per Sky Bet and bet365:

• Own goals do not count. If the first goal is an own goal, the market moves on to the first goal scored by a player.
• No goal, or only own goals. "No goalscorer" wins where it is offered; every player bet loses.
• Substitutes. If your player comes on before the first goal, the bet stands. If he comes on after it, or does not play, the bet is usually void and the stake returned.
• Normal time only. Extra time and penalty shoot-outs do not count.

Tuesday's first goals

Champions League night on 3 November gave clean examples:

Match	Score	First goal	Minute
Barcelona v Aston Villa	3–0	Lamine Yamal	7
Feyenoord v Inter	0–3	Yann Bisseck	8
Galatasaray v Stuttgart	2–0	Alexey Batrakov	12
Atlético Madrid v Bayern	0–2	Lennart Karl	54

Raphinha scored twice for Barcelona, per watson, and a Raphinha first goalscorer bet still lost, because Yamal got there first. Inter's first came from a defender, Yann Bisseck, per BBC Sport, which is why centre-backs are priced at all. In Madrid the first goal did not arrive until the 54th minute, per the Guardian, so any Bayern substitute who came on at half-time had a live bet.

How to work out a fair price

You need three numbers: the chance the match has a goal at all, the share of first goals your player's team should get, and the player's share of his team's goals while he is on the pitch.

Take an illustrative match: the home side expects 1.6 goals, the away side 1.0, so 2.6 in total. Using a Poisson model:

1. Chance of at least one goal. The chance of 0–0 is about 7.4%, so a goal comes 92.6% of the time.
2. Chance the home side scores first. Their share of expected goals is 1.6 / 2.6, about 61.5%. Multiply by 92.6% and you get about 57.0%.
3. The striker's share. Say he takes 30% of his team's goals and plays the full game. Multiply: 57.0% × 30% is about 17.1%.

The fair price is 1 / 0.171, about 5.85. A bookmaker offering 5.0 implies 20%, so that price is shorter than fair. One offering 7.0 implies 14.3%, about three points under our illustrative chance. How to read that gap is in what a positive edge actually means.

First, anytime and last goalscorer compared

The same striker, the same illustrative match:

Market	What has to happen	Chance	Fair price
Anytime goalscorer	He scores at any point	38.1%	2.62
First goalscorer	He scores the match's first goal	17.1%	5.85
Last goalscorer	He scores the match's last goal	about 17%	about 5.9

The anytime chance comes from his own expected goals, 1.6 × 30% = 0.48, so 1 minus e to the power of −0.48, about 38.1%. First and last are close when he plays the full 90 minutes; last goes down if he is likely to be substituted. The anytime market has its own guide in anytime goalscorer odds explained.

Why the margin is wide

A first goalscorer board lists 30 or more players plus "no goalscorer". Add up the implied chances of every price and the total runs well over 100%, much further over than on the match result. A long price can still be poor value. What that excess costs you is in what the bookmaker's margin really costs you.

Where the match result fits in

The team part of the sum comes from the same place as a match-result card. On Thursday's Desk card for Crystal Palace v Hoffenheim we give Palace 36.3%, the draw 26.9% and Hoffenheim 36.8%: a near-level game, so neither side gets much more than half of the first goals. Our full card is in Crystal Palace vs Hoffenheim prediction, odds and team news.

Desk card, Palace v Hoffenheim	Our chance	Fair price
Crystal Palace	36.3%	2.75
Draw	26.9%	3.72
Hoffenheim	36.8%	2.72

What could make the sum wrong

Penalties change everything: a player on penalties gets a bigger share of first goals than his open-play numbers suggest. Line-ups, a late fitness test or an early substitution move the share too. And the team's expected goals is itself an estimate, so every error there passes straight into the player's price.

What this does not tell you

It does not give you a first goalscorer price for any real player. BAI8 does not price goalscorer markets; our Desk cards price the match result only, and the worked example is illustrative. It is an estimate method, not a promise.

18+. Bet only what you can afford to lose.