In this article…
Most pre-match bets ahead of Spain v France and Netherlands v England will be settled at full time, even if the matches require extra time and even a penalty shootout to decide a winner, we’ve got a handy Euro 2024 set-piece and penalty-takers guide too. So what are the best practices and smartest bets for extra time once your pre-match bets have settled? We’ve done the research so you don’t have to.
Our Euro 2024 predictions include some of the best freely available football tips on the internet. There are fouls betting tips, shots on target predictions, cards betting tips and daily Euro 2024 acca tips for you to indulge in ahead of the semi-finals.
We have £200 in Euro 2024 Free Bets available in one convenient place.
Onto the extra time betting insight…
How to Bet on Extra Time
With the semi-finals upon us it is prudent to look at extra-time in some depth to work out how to attack the extra time markets as and when they occur on bookmakers’ sites.
Most of the time, extra time markets will become available in-play, when it becomes possible that an extra 30 minutes is going to be required.
At such a time a bettor can use this guide to help them navigate the available markets to place some value wagers based upon historical trends in extra time.
How often do games require extra time?
Remarkably, 10 out of the last 14 Euros semi-finals, since Euro 96, have gone to extra time, so backing the draw in these semi-finals is probably a good starting point. For reference, a draw in Spain v France is priced at 2.75 and in Netherlands v England it is 2.8, so the prices are fairly skinny for a draw, but this is probably because of the background figures discussed.
In terms of the research conducted into extra time periods, there have been 28 cases of extra time played in the last five major tournaments so far, this includes the five so far at Euro 2024.
We have delved into the stats of those 28 extra time periods to find out what the trends are and therefore what might be the best angles to take for those extra 30 minutes.
🥅 Goals
16 of the 28 extra time periods didn’t feature a goal (19 out of 28, 68%, went to penalties), so a goal in extra time should be priced up as slightly odds against. If the odds come out as anything 2.5 or greater, it could be a value bet to back a goal in extra time. Only five of the 28 (18%) matches featured two or more goals, and four of the 28 (14%) saw both teams score.
The layout of the teams in the table puts the pre-match favourites first, of course many of these matches were priced very closely so in many cases the order doesn’t really matter, but what was discovered from doing this is that the pre-match favourites did score slightly more goals than the underdogs. Indeed, only Croatia (v England in World Cup 2018), Portugal (in Euro 2016), and Ukraine (in Euro 2020) won extra time periods as an underdog.
🎯 Shots
Many people associate extra time as 30 minutes of football in the build-up to penalties, where not very much happens between two tired teams.
This is sometimes the case, but the table shows that many teams do try to win the match in extra time. Spain are the standout team in the extra time period in terms of shots taken, albeit they were also the dominant team against both Russia and Switzerland in their standout displays here (both went to pens), though they did beat Germany in extra time in this tournament.
The average number of shots taken in extra time is 9.57, which is the key number to remember when assessing the markets. Favourites shoot more often, 5.46 v 4.11 according to the historic data.
🚩 Corners
The corner numbers in most cases are surprisingly low. Only Portugal in Euro 2024 have managed more than a single corner in the 30 minutes of extra time.
The mean number of corners won in an extra time period according to data from 2016 – 2024 is 3.25 in total. Again, there is a slight bias towards pre-match favourites, 1.93 to 1.32 in terms of corners won.
🟨🛑 Cards and Fouls
The final area that we can look at in extra time markets is the disciplinary aspect of the final 30 minutes.
Fouls are generally more regular than they would be in normal time, but there isn’t a huge difference with a mean of 8.18 fouls per extra time period.
For those expecting an avalanche of cards due to tiredness or accumulation of fouls across 120 minutes might be disappointed by the truth. There is an average of 1.61 yellow cards given out during the extra time period.
If one is considering betting on yellow cards given in extra time it may pay to concentrate on the pre-match underdogs. They average 1.14 yellow cards received compared to 0.46 yellow cards given to the pre-match favourites. This is a pretty big differential given the sample size.
* All odds displayed correctly at the time of publishing *
Written by an Andy verified content writer
18+ please gamble responsibly.
