Scorecast
A scorecast is a single football bet that pairs a named player to score the first goal with the exact final score, and both parts must be right for it to pay. You might back a striker to open the scoring and his side to win 2-1, all at one combined price. Because one fixed price covers both outcomes, the settlement rules for own goals, substitutes and players who never appear matter far more here than they do on a plain correct score single.
How a scorecast price is built
You place a scorecast through its own market, usually two drop-down menus near the foot of a match page: the first goalscorer on one side and the scoreline on the other. Paddy Power’s help pages say it must be struck there rather than as a first goalscorer and correct score double, and the reason is in the maths.
The two legs are linked. A striker scoring first makes his side more likely to win, so the bookmaker prices the combination instead of multiplying two separate prices.
A worked sum
Take an illustrative case, not a real market. Suppose a forward is 4/1 to score first, an implied probability of 1 ÷ 5, or 20%, and his team is 8/1 to win 2-1, which is 1 ÷ 9, or roughly 11.1%. Treated as an independent double, that would pay 5 × 9 = 45 in decimal terms, or 44/1, an implied chance of about 2.2%. The scorecast price will differ from that figure, because the bookmaker adjusts for the link between the legs and builds in its own margin on top, and you cannot see how much of each went in.
So the honest check is to convert whatever price is offered back to a percentage and ask whether it looks right to you.
What happens when the plan goes wrong?
Most of the confusion around scorecasts comes from settlement, and the published rules of the big firms broadly agree on four points while differing in the detail.
Own goals do not count towards the scorer leg. Sky Bet and bet365 both state that if the first goal is an own goal, the bet is settled on the next goalscorer and the correct score. An own goal still counts in the scoreline, though, so it can sink the correct score half on its own.
If the only goals are own goals, the bet reverts to a correct score single under both sets of rules.
A player who takes no part is the case that separates operators. Sky Bet, Paddy Power and bet365 do not void the bet; they settle it as a correct score single, and bet365 also does this where your player comes on after the first goal has gone in. Other terms elsewhere refund the stake in full or let the bet stand as a loser, so read the operator’s own wording rather than assuming a standard. A player who starts and goes off without scoring is a different matter again: that leg has simply lost.
The score is normally read at full time, meaning 90 minutes plus stoppage time, unless the market says otherwise.
Scorecast, wincast and the double
The term most often confused with scorecast is wincast, which swaps the exact score for the match result: your player scores and your team wins. Paddy Power and Sky Bet describe their wincast with an anytime scorer within the 90 minutes, which is why its prices run shorter than a scorecast’s.
Their absence rule differs too, and it is the bit worth remembering. Under those firms’ terms a wincast is voided completely if the player takes no part, with the stake returned, whereas a scorecast falls back to a correct score single.
Nor is the name fixed to the first goal everywhere. Some bookmakers sell anytime or last-goal versions under the scorecast label, so the scorer condition on your bet slip is what settles it.
Where a scorecast turns up as a free bet or a price boost, the usual free bet rule applies: winnings are paid without the stake, so a €5 free scorecast at 25/1 returns €125, not €130.
Read the slip before the price.
