Scorecast: bringing two great markets together.

What's the result going to be – and who’s going to score the first goal?

How do these new markets work?

Take any discussion about a given game of football, and two topics are bound to come up: the result and first goal scorer.

Betfair’s new Scorecast markets allow you to combine your view on the two into one bet which could provide a handsome payout for relatively low stakes.

The new market launches for Wednesday night’s friendly between England and Switzerland, and will be available for selected Premiership matches as well as for the Champions League and major international games.

It’s quite simple – we list a number of players who are among the most likely to score the first goal in the game, and alongside them we give a suggestion for what the final score of the game might be.

So, your first decision might be whether you think one of the players listed will score first. Let’s say you decide Wayne Rooney is your man in Wednesday’s England game. Click on Scorecast, and you’ll find a number of possible first scorers and match results. You then pick one (or more) of those. So, you might take Rooney to score first and England to win 1-0, and/or Rooney to score first and England to win 2-0.

Then you sit back and watch the game, hoping Wayne and England do the business.

Of course, you could decide you are certain of what the final score will be, and opt to cover different players. In that case, you could back Rooney and 1-0, Michael Owen and 1-0 and Steven Gerrard and 1-0.

It’s a simple, popular bet that can give excellent returns for a small stake.

Overs, unders, goals – it’s a question of value

If you are someone who likes betting on goals, have you considered the Total Goals market? It provides an alternative to the ‘Overs’ market – after all, ‘Over 2.5 goals’ is the same outcome as ‘Three goals or more’.

Total Goals is the ‘lesser-used cousin’ of Overs/Unders, but it could provide you with a value option if you don’t like what is available for Over 1.5, Over 2.5 and so on.