Both teams to score (BTTS)
Both teams to score is a football market that pays out when each side scores at least one goal during the match, whatever the final result. You will see it listed as BTTS, or sometimes as GG/NG, with a Yes and a No option. The winner of the game makes no difference here, so a 1-1 draw and a 3-2 away win settle exactly the same way. What matters is whether either goalkeeper keeps a clean sheet before the final whistle of normal time.
How a BTTS bet is settled
The market settles on regular play, which means the 90 minutes plus whatever stoppage time the referee adds. Extra time and penalty shootouts are ignored, so a cup tie that sits at 1-0 after 90 minutes is a losing BTTS Yes bet even if the other side equalises in the 105th minute.
Own goals count, and they go to the team that benefits.
A penalty awarded during normal time counts like any other goal, while a shootout kick does not count at all. If a match is abandoned, the common rule is that bets are void unless the outcome was already decided: when both sides had scored before the stoppage, Yes is settled as a winner because nothing after that point could change it. Coral’s published football rules, for instance, set out exactly that approach, but rules on abandoned and postponed fixtures differ between bookmakers, and what I check first on any new site is that section of the betting rules rather than the headline market.
Where you meet it
On most sportsbooks BTTS sits among the goals markets for a fixture, and it turns up again inside bet builders and as a pre-set combination with the match result, such as “Home win and both teams to score”. Some sites also offer first-half and second-half versions, which settle on that half alone.
Reading BTTS odds and the margin
Because the market has only two outcomes, it is one of the easiest places to see what the bookmaker is keeping for itself. Convert each price to an implied probability, add the two together, and anything over 100% is the margin, or overround.
Take a typical example where Yes is priced at 4/5 and No at evens. A fractional price of 4/5 implies 5 ÷ (4 + 5), which comes to about 55.6%, and evens implies exactly 50%.
Added together, that book sums to 105.6%, so the bookmaker’s margin is roughly 5.6% before you have formed any view on the game. In decimal odds the same prices read 1.80 and 2.00, and the sum is 1 ÷ 1.80 plus 1 ÷ 2.00, which gives the same answer. Those prices are an illustration of the arithmetic, not a quote from any operator, and margins on BTTS vary between bookmakers and between fixtures.
A bet only has value if your own estimate of the chance beats the implied figure after that margin is taken off.
If you are using a free bet on this market, remember that a winning free bet usually returns the winnings only, without the stake. A €10 free bet at 4/5 therefore pays back €8, not the €18 a cash stake would return.
What BTTS is often confused with
The most frequent mix-up is with over 2.5 goals, because the two markets often land together, yet they are separate bets. A 1-1 draw wins BTTS Yes and loses over 2.5, while a 3-0 home win does the opposite.
BTTS No is also misread fairly often.
It does not mean a scoreless game. It wins whenever at least one team fails to score, so 0-0, 2-0 and 4-0 are all winners for No, and that broad spread of results is why No is frequently the shorter price in fixtures with one strong favourite. The other confusion is with the “to score” lines on a single team, such as “Away team to score: Yes”, which needs only one side to find the net and so settles on half the condition BTTS asks for.
Finally, BTTS combinations are not the same as two separate bets placed side by side. In a pre-built “win and BTTS” price both conditions must land, and the bookmaker prices the link between them, so multiplying the two single prices together will not usually give you the figure on screen.
