Football correct score odds

What the market is

Each selection is a specific score such as 1-0, 2-1 or 0-0, usually with a catch-all selection for any other score. Exactly one selection wins in every completed match.

Because there are many possible scores, even the most likely ones carry long prices compared with the match result or goals markets.

How it settles

The market settles on the score at the end of normal time including stoppage time. Goals in extra time and penalty shoot-outs are not counted.

If the final score is not listed as its own selection, the catch-all selection wins where one is offered.

Reading the odds

Divide 100 by the decimal price to get the implied probability of each score. The probabilities across all selections add up to more than 100%, and in correct score markets that excess is typically larger than in two-way or three-way markets, because the margin is spread over many selections.

The shortest prices point to the scores the market considers most likely, which tend to be low-scoring results in closely matched games.

Movement

Correct score prices move with the match result and total goals markets. When the market prices more goals overall, higher-scoring results shorten; when a favourite firms, its winning scores shorten.

Odds.Directory records the opening, closing, high and low price for each listed score on every tracked match.

How it relates to other markets

Correct score prices contain the information of several simpler markets at once. Adding up the implied probabilities of every home win score gives a figure close to the home win probability in the match result market, and adding up the scores with three or more goals gives a figure close to the over in the corresponding half-goal total goals market. Differences between these sums and the simpler markets largely reflect the larger margin in correct score books.

On Odds.Directory the correct score selections sit in the goals tab of the full market list, next to the total goals and both teams to score markets. Reading them together shows how the market distributes its view of a match across individual scores.

Because each score carries a long price, a small change in odds can mean a very small change in implied probability, so movements here are clearest when read in percentage points.

Coverage in our data

Correct score is offered on 191 of the football events we track, across 16 competitions. On finished matches the page shows which score settled and how the market had priced it at the close.