Shots, Tackles and Sucker Bets: We Spent a Weekend Betting Nothing But Player Props

Scroll through any UK betting app on a Saturday morning and count the markets for a single Premier League fixture. Match odds, sure. Over/unders, obviously. But buried underneath you'll find 200-plus bets on individual players: shots on target, tackles, saves, fouls, offsides, 'to have a shot'. It's a gold rush — and like most gold rushes, the people selling shovels are the ones getting rich.

We wanted to know exactly how much worse these markets are than the traditional stuff. So we asked an odds compiler (who'd rather we didn't name him, but let's call him Dave), ran a weekend of prop-only betting, and compared it to a bog-standard match odds acca.

What Dave Told Us Over a Pint

"Match odds, we run at maybe two to five per cent margin," Dave told us. "Player props? Depends on the market, but eight, ten, sometimes fifteen per cent. And punters don't check. They'll shop around for the best price on Arsenal to beat Brentford, then take whatever shots-on-target price is on their app without a second thought."

Fifteen per cent. Read that again. For every £100 staked on a badly-priced prop market, the bookie expects to keep £15 long-term. On a typical acca leg at 2%, that's the difference between a grind and a slow bleed.

Why the gap? Volume and information, apparently. Player props are priced in bulk, often off statistical models with limited data — a keeper's save markets, for instance, might hinge on a couple of inputs. And because every bookie prices them slightly differently, there's no easy benchmark like the exchange gives you for match odds.

Our Weekend: Props vs the Classic Acca

We split £60 down the middle. £30 on a four-fold of player props — a striker to have 2+ shots on target, a midfielder to make 3+ tackles, a keeper to make 4+ saves, and a winger to be fouled twice. £30 on the same four matches, match odds, as a traditional acca.

The props were a mixed bag. Two landed, two didn't — including our keeper, who made a very personal three saves. The acca? Died on Sunday when one team decided a draw was fine, actually.

But the interesting bit wasn't the results. It was the prices. We compared every prop we took against the best price available across five major UK books. Average shortfall from the best line: nearly 9%. On match odds, shopping around got us within 2-3% of the theoretical fair price.

Which Props Are Actually Beatable

Not all prop markets are equal, Dave reckons. Here's the rough hierarchy:

• Shots on target for star strikers — the most liquid, most competitive prop market. Prices are tighter because everyone bets it. Still worse than match odds, but the least-bad option.
• Tackles and fouls for defensive midfielders — genuinely volatile, and the margin reflects it. Avoid unless you've got team-specific knowledge.
• Keeper saves — a coin flip dressed up with stats. The model knows about as much as you do, but takes a bigger cut.
• Anything 'to have a shot' — vague, wide margins, and the settlement rules vary between books. Check whether a blocked shot counts before you lump on.

The Verdict

Player props aren't a scam — they're just expensive. If you enjoy having a personal interest in whether Bruno Fernandes gets a shot away in the 73rd minute, crack on. But if you're chasing value, the old-fashioned stuff still wins. Shop your match odds around, keep accas small, and treat props like the pub quiz of betting: fun, but nobody's making a living at it.

Dave's parting advice? "If a market's fun to bet, it's usually priced to be fun. The boring markets are where the decent prices live."

Cheers, Dave.