Correct Score Predictions

What a correct score bet is, and how it settles

You pick one exact scoreline for the match and the bet wins only if that's the final score after 90 minutes plus added time. Extra time and penalty shoot-outs don't count in most bookmakers' rules. Own goals count towards the score, and if a match is abandoned your bet is normally void, though the details differ from one bookmaker to the next, so read the rules on your slip.

Some bookmakers also offer "any other score", which covers every result they haven't listed. We don't deal with that here. This page is about the single score you'd name for a match.

How to read a row in the table

Each row is one match. You'll see the chance of a home win, a draw and an away win, the score those chances point to, and the number of goals the match is expected to produce. Take a row with 49, 25 and 26 and a predicted score of 1-1. The home side is the favourite at close to an even chance, yet the predicted score is a draw. That looks like a mistake, but it isn't.

A home win can happen in many ways: 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 and so on. Its 49% is shared out between all of them. A draw has far fewer ways to happen, and most of it sits on 1-1 and 0-0. So even when a team is favoured, the single likeliest score can be a draw. Most score predictors work like this, and it's why predicted scores bunch around 1-1, 1-0 and 2-1.

The scores that come up most often

We counted every final score in 14,617 matches across 18 European leagues between July 2024 and October 2026. These are the ten most common:

The most common score of all, 1-1, turned up in about one match in eight. Those matches produced 55 different final scores, and the five most common covered only 46% of them. More than half of all football matches end in something outside the top five.

Why correct score is so hard

Do the sum on the best case. If you picked 1-1 for every match in that sample, you'd have been right 12.1% of the time, which is about one match in eight. Fair odds on that score would be around 8.3. Every other score is rarer: 1-0 at 10.2%, 2-1 at 8.9%, and 2-2 down at 6%.

Skill helps, because you can pick the likeliest score for each match instead of the same one every time. But even a good method wins well under one in five. Bookmakers also shorten their prices to build in a margin, so the long odds come with long losing runs attached. A few good weekends prove very little.

How the score follows the match

The result you expect changes the scores that are likely. When the bookmakers made the home side a strong favourite (65% or more to win), the most common scores were 2-0 (11.9%), 3-0 (11.8%), 1-0 (11.3%) and 2-1 (10.1%), and those matches averaged 3.24 goals. The home side won 78% of them.

Evenly matched games look different. When no result was rated above 42%, 1-1 was the most common score at 14.2%, and 29% of those matches were drawn. If you see a 50-50 match in the table with a predicted 1-0, ask yourself how likely a draw is, because the draw takes a bigger share of the scores than people expect.

Leagues have habits

The league you're looking at changes which scores are likely:

La Liga leans hardest on 1-1, with its top five scores covering 52% of matches. The Bundesliga is the opposite. Its goals are spread over more scores, and 1-1 covers only 9% of games. The Eredivisie has almost no goalless draws, at 3.3%. That's why the same predicted score means different things in different places.

Five rules we follow

1. Treat the predicted score as the centre of a range. Neighbouring scores, such as 2-1 beside 1-1 or 2-0, are almost as likely.
2. Check the result and goals figures beside it. If the match is rated 49% for the home side, the draw is live even when 1-0 is the pick.
3. Know the league. A predicted 1-0 in La Liga sits on one of the two commonest scores. In the Bundesliga it's a much rarer outcome.
4. Judge any source over dozens of matches. A single weekend means nothing at a hit rate of one in eight.
5. Keep stakes small. At fair odds of 8 to 15 on common scores, most bets lose.

Common mistakes

The first is backing high scores because a match "should be open". Scores of 3-2 or 4-1 look exciting but each covers only a few per cent of matches. The commonest total number of goals is two or three.

The second is backing a heavy favourite to win 3-0. A home side rated 65% or more to win finishes exactly 3-0 only about one time in eight. It finishes 2-0, 1-0 or 2-1 about as often, and about one match in five goes some other way.

The third is chasing losses. A bet that wins roughly one time in eight will lose runs of five or ten in a row. That's normal, so decide your limit before the first kick-off and keep it.

Questions people ask

What is a correct score prediction? It's a forecast of the exact final score of a match, such as 2-1 or 0-0.

What is the most common score in football? 1-1, at 12.1% of matches in our sample, then 1-0 (10.2%) and 2-1 (8.9%).

Are correct score predictions accurate? Not often. Even the best single score for a match wins well under one time in five. A 12% hit rate is what you'd get from picking 1-1 every time.

Is 0-0 common? About 7% of matches finished 0-0. It ranged from 3.3% in the Eredivisie to 8.8% in Spain's second division.

Do penalties or extra time count? Normally not. The score after 90 minutes plus added time is what settles the bet.

Which leagues are the easiest for correct score? None are easy, but leagues like La Liga that put more than half of their matches on five scores are more predictable than the Bundesliga, where the goals are spread out.

Where can I find predictions for a particular bet? Use the pages for 1X2, over and under 2.5, both teams to score and Asian handicap. For a particular league, try the Premier League page or the La Liga page.

These are estimates, never promises. You must be 18 or over to bet, and you should only stake money you can afford to lose.