What Are Totals Or Over/Unders? | Sports Betting For Beginners
A total or over/under is a bet on whether the combined number of points in a single game will be over or under a given value.
For example, consider the following game between Arsenal and Sunderland:
Let’s say you bet on ‘Under 1.5’, with odds of 8. If the total number of goals scored by both Arsenal and Sunderland doesn’t exceed 1.5, you win the bet.
In other words, as long as the game ends either 0–0, 1–0 or 0–1, you win.
Note: Unless otherwise stated, most bookmakers consider the end of regulation time as the end of the game. This means that goals scored in extra time will not necessarily be part of the total.
ASIAN TOTALS
As an alternative to betting on the totals of a game, where you either win or lose, you can also bet on games with .25 or .75 totals, which adds an additional two possible outcomes.
This means that you could either win or lose the bet just like normal, but also half-win or half-lose the bet.
What you receive as a payment, however, is also different, and is repaid in different amounts.
- If the bet ends in a half-win, you will receive half of your potential winnings
- If the bet ends in a half-loss, you will get back half of your stake at the game
As this might be hard to understand at first, we have made a few examples below.
ASIAN TOTAL EXAMPLE
Let us say that we continue with the low-scoring affair between Arsenal and Sunderland. The game ends 0–0.
If you bet an Asian Total of 0.75 goals in the game, these are the results for your bet:
- Under 0.75 is a WIN
- Over 0.75 is a LOSS
However, if the game ends at 1–0 or 0–1, the results of your bet changes, these are the results of your bet:
- Under 0.75 is a HALF-LOSS
- Over 0.75 is a HALF-WIN
It becomes clear that this is a safer alternative than strictly betting on the totals with whole numbers, since you will get back a certain amount of your bets if you don’t get it exactly right.
In addition to having a bet result of a win, half-win, loss, or half-loss, it can result in a “push” or “void”, which means that your stake will be returned without you earning anything on it. In the situation we are in, with a 1-goal-game and a bet of 1 total goal, these are the results of your bet:
- Under 1.0 is a VOID (PUSH)
- Over 1.0 is a VOID (PUSH)
Now, if we look at how the bet would result if you played at 1.25 in total goals, we go back to the game ending 0–0. The results would be:
- Under 1.25 is a WIN
- Over 1.25 is a LOSS
Should the game end 1–0 or 0–1, these would be the results on the same bet:
- Under 1.25 is a HALF-WIN
- Over 1.25 is a HALF-LOSS
To have a complete circle of examples, we will also take a look at a game where we bet on the total of 1.75. We go back to the game ending with 0–0, with these results:
- Under 1.75 is a WIN
- Over 1.75 is a LOSS
Then we move to the result being 1–0 or 0–1, with the bet resulting in the same;
- Under 1.75 is a WIN
- Over 1.75 is a LOSS
However, if the game where to end with either 2–0, 1–1 or 0–2, these would be the results:
- Under 1.75 is a HALF-LOSS
- Over 1.75 is a HALF-WIN
To have a full win or a full loss, the game would have to end with three or more goals.
As a conclusion you could say that if the game ends within .25 of your Over / Under bet on total amount of goals, you either Half-win or Half-lose, depending on whether you played over or under.
Here’s a video where trademate’s Alex Vela talks about the different betting markets.
DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENT ODDS TYPES?
We have written articles explaining them: