Both Teams to Score (BTTS) trading on Betfair means backing or laying whether both sides will score. The Yes price drifts steadily as scoreless minutes pass and crashes once each team scores; the No price does the opposite. The most common strategy is laying BTTS Yes pre-match or early in cagey, low-scoring fixtures and trading out as time decay shortens the No — but a single early goal to one side leaves the position dangerously live.
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This is a cluster sub of our advanced football trading guide, and it tackles a market that looks like a cousin of Over/Under but trades quite differently. Both Teams to Score does not care how many goals are scored — it cares whether each side gets on the board. That distinction is the source of both the opportunity and the way people get caught out, so it is worth understanding properly before you put a stake on it.
What the BTTS market is
Both Teams to Score is a binary market: BTTS Yes wins if both teams score at least one goal; BTTS No wins if either team fails to score, including a 0-0. On the Betfair Exchange you can back or lay either side, and as always laying BTTS Yes is mathematically the same as backing BTTS No — you choose the side and direction that expresses your view and offers the best price. If the back/lay symmetry is not yet automatic for you, the lay betting guide is the foundation.
The key contrast is with the goals total. A match can be high-scoring and BTTS No — think 4-0 — or low-scoring and BTTS Yes — a 1-1 draw. So BTTS is not a proxy for Over/Under; it is a separate question about distribution rather than quantity. That independence is exactly why traders use it: it lets you express "I think this game is one-sided" or "I think one of these attacks is blunt" in a way the goals total cannot.
How the BTTS price behaves
BTTS Yes behaves like a goals market with two triggers instead of one. Before kick-off in an average fixture, BTTS Yes might sit around 1.70–1.90. From kick-off, every scoreless minute nudges the Yes price out, because there is less time for both teams to find a goal — the same time decay that drives Over/Under. The difference is that BTTS needs two distinct events, so the decay can be steeper late on: with twenty minutes left and one team yet to score, "both teams score" is genuinely unlikely and the Yes price reflects it.
Goals move the price in a way that depends on who scores. The first goal of the match shortens BTTS Yes only modestly — one team has scored, but the other still has to. The decisive move comes when the second, different team scores, at which point BTTS Yes is settled and the price collapses to 1.01. Conversely, if one team races into a two- or three-goal lead while the other stays blank, BTTS Yes drifts hard as the clock and the game state both turn against it. Reading that two-event structure is what separates BTTS trading from simply guessing.
Laying BTTS Yes: the time-decay trade
The staple strategy is laying BTTS Yes — equivalently, backing BTTS No — pre-match or early in-play, then trading out as the Yes price drifts. You are betting that at least one team will fail to score, and you are using time decay as your tailwind: with each scoreless minute, or each minute where only one team has scored, your lay moves into profit and you can back BTTS Yes again at a longer price to green up across both outcomes. It is the BTTS expression of the same swing logic behind Over/Under trading and trading the low goal lines.
The appeal is that you do not need a 0-0; you only need one team to stay quiet. A 2-0 or 3-0 result is a full win for the layer of BTTS Yes, and one-sided games are common, especially where a strong side meets a weak, defensive one. That gives the lay-the-Yes trade a wider set of winning scenarios than laying the Over, which needs goals to genuinely stay away. But the trade has a specific failure mode that you must respect, and it is not the same as the Over's.
The one-goal trap
Here is the trap that catches everyone exactly once. When the first goal goes in, BTTS Yes only shortens a little — so a trader laying the Yes often feels fine, even comfortable, because the price has barely moved against them. The danger is that the match is now primed: if the other team equalises or pulls one back, BTTS Yes settles instantly and your lay is a full loss. The position can look safe right up until the moment it is dead, because the killer event is the second team scoring, not the first.
This is the opposite psychology to laying the Over, where the first goal hurts immediately and obviously. With BTTS, the first goal lulls you; the second guts you. The discipline is to treat a 1-0 not as a near-win but as a live, two-sided situation — one team only needs a single goal to bust your trade — and to size and exit accordingly. No stop loss helps here either: the second goal gaps the price straight to 1.01. You manage it with stake size and by trading out when the game state genuinely favours you, not when it merely looks calm.
Fixture selection is the whole edge
BTTS trading lives or dies on which matches you choose. The lay-the-Yes trade wants fixtures where one team is likely to be shut out: a dominant side against a defensive one that parks the bus, a game with a clearly toothless attack, a derby where both teams prioritise not losing, or a dead-rubber where one side has nothing to play for and sits deep. You are hunting matches the market over-rates for "both teams scoring," and that read comes from knowing the sides and their recent shape, not from the price alone.
Conversely, avoid laying BTTS Yes in open, end-to-end fixtures between two attacking teams with leaky defences — those are exactly the games where both teams score early and your lay dies in the first half-hour. The football trading section covers how to filter fixtures by attacking and defensive profile, and the same fixture-reading discipline underpins lay the draw. Get selection right and the rest of BTTS trading is mechanical; get it wrong and no exit technique will save you.
The match: a tight local derby between two defensively-organised mid-table sides, both with poor recent scoring records. The market priced BTTS Yes at 1.82 pre-kick-off, which I judged too short for this profile.
Entry: I layed BTTS Yes for £50 at 1.82 — liability of £41 if both teams scored.
What happened: a cagey first half ended 0-0, and with neither team threatening, BTTS Yes had drifted to 2.30 by the 55th minute. The home side then scored — but BTTS Yes only edged in to 2.05, since the away team still had to score. With the away attack offering nothing, at the 75th minute, still 1-0, BTTS Yes was out to 3.4.
Exit: I backed BTTS Yes for £26.80 at 3.4 to green up across both outcomes, locking profit regardless of a late away goal.
Result: a locked profit of about £23.20, roughly £22.05 after 5% commission, banked with fifteen minutes to play and no exposure to a late equaliser. Had the away side scored before I greened up, the lay would have been a defined loss — the one-goal trap in reverse, avoided by exiting once the game state clearly favoured No.
Laying BTTS Yes carries the one-goal trap: a quiet 1-0 can become a losing 1-1 in seconds, and no stop loss can cap the gap when the second team scores. Most football traders lose money over time, and BTTS punishes poor fixture selection harshly. Size liability so a single bad result is survivable, never bet more than you can afford to lose, and remember past results do not guarantee future returns. Support: BeGambleAware.org.
In-play BTTS and combining markets
In-play, BTTS rewards patience over reaction. Because the first goal moves the Yes price so little, there is rarely a frantic scramble to react the way there is on Over/Under; instead you are watching the game state and the clock, deciding when the probability of the quiet team scoring has fallen far enough to exit your lay profitably. The best BTTS exits often come around the 70–80th minute of a 1-0 or 0-0, when time decay has done its work and the remaining goal is genuinely unlikely.
BTTS also combines well with other markets to refine a view. Pair it with correct score trading when you have a strong scoreline opinion, or with Over/Under to separate "few goals" from "one-sided goals" — a 3-0 expectation is Over and BTTS No, and trading both expresses it more precisely than either alone. For reacting to live goals across these markets, in-play goal trading covers the mechanics, and reading the order book before you commit comes back to reading the market.
Related football markets and next steps
BTTS is one tool in the football trader's kit, strongest when your read is about the shape of a match rather than its goal count. Build the surrounding skills from the cluster: Over/Under for totals, correct score for precise scorelines, and lay the draw for the match-odds angle. For the full framework return to the advanced football trading pillar and the football trading sport page. Master fixture selection first; on BTTS it is not part of the edge, it is the edge.
BTTS rewards reading the match, not the price. Lay the Yes in one-sided, defensive fixtures, respect the one-goal trap, and exit on game state.
Football Trading Pillar Open Betfair Account →FAQ
What does Both Teams to Score mean on Betfair? BTTS is a market on whether both teams will score at least one goal each. BTTS Yes wins if both sides score; BTTS No wins if either side fails to score (including 0-0). On the exchange you can back or lay either side, and lay BTTS Yes is functionally the same as backing BTTS No.
How do you trade Both Teams to Score? The common approach is laying BTTS Yes pre-match or early in-play in low-scoring fixtures, then trading out as the Yes price drifts with each scoreless minute. You profit from time decay if goals stay away or come only to one team. The risk is an early goal to each side, which crashes the Yes price against you.
Is laying BTTS profitable? It can be, but only with disciplined fixture selection. Laying BTTS Yes profits when at least one team fails to score, so it suits defensively-minded matches and games with one toothless attack. It loses fast when both teams score early. Most football traders lose over time, so selection and staking decide the outcome, not the market itself.
What is the difference between BTTS and Over/Under? Over/Under is settled on the total number of goals; BTTS is settled on whether each side scores at least once. A 3-0 win is Over 2.5 but BTTS No. A 1-1 draw is Under 2.5 but BTTS Yes. They overlap but are not the same bet, and combining them refines the view you are expressing.
Can you cash out a BTTS trade? Yes — on the exchange you trade out by placing an opposing bet at the current price, locking a profit or loss across both outcomes, which is the manual version of cash out. Because a goal can gap the price instantly, you cannot rely on a stop loss; you manage BTTS risk with stake size and exit timing.