Betting on corners has certainly not always been a part of football gambling but nowadays it is something virtually every bookie offers in some capacity. Its quick rise was driven by a growing desire from gamblers to have a much wider range of betting possibilities at their disposal. Although it has stopped short of becoming one of the main football markets, there is a considerable number of punters that regularly try their luck betting on corners.
It might be that corner betting is not for you, but by understanding how it works, and how to get the best value out of it, you will be in the perfect place to make an informed decision.
What Counts As A Corner?
Part of the reason some punters enjoy corner betting is its simplicity. All related markets feature very few rules but we will quickly go through the relevant points now. Firstly, imagine a situation in which a corner is taken but the ref almost immediately stops play as he has stopped some tugging inside the box. The corner is subsequently re-taken and play is allowed to continue, uninterrupted this time. This will always only count as one corner for the purposes of your bet and the official stats. Another point to stress is that a corner must physically be taken to count. If the ball hits the defender and goes behind the goal and hence a corner is given away, but the referee then blows for full/half time, this will not be included as the corner itself will not have been taken.
Providing the corner is actually taken though, what happens after that is irrelevant. The set piece can go straight out for a goal-kick or it can fly right into the top corner of the goal, it simply does not matter. The only thing that does matter is when the corner is taken because almost all markets will be settled after 90 minutes. This includes injury time, so a 90’+4’ minute corner is absolutely fine but your bet will not include any corners that take place during a 30-minute period of extra time.
The exception would be if you placed an in-play corners bet during the extra-time period itself. Any earlier in-play bets, much like pre-match bets, only relate to the 90-minute result (plus any injury/additional time that has been added to normal time). This is standard bookmaker policy and will apply no matter where you choose to bet.
What Markets Are Available?
Guessing exactly how many corners there will be in a match would be very challenging but fortunately, this is not what the main markets demand. Instead, what you will usually need to do is bet within a specific range, or over/under a certain amount. To show you how this works in practice, we have taken some odds offered by a couple of popular bookmaker for a Leeds versus Crystal Palace match.
First, there is the total corner market, with various bands provided. In this case, each range is inclusive so a bet on 5-7 corners with Bookmaker 1 will be a winner if there are 5, 6 or 7 corners. The bands that are offered vary from bookmaker to bookmaker, as demonstrated below, so do not think there is a consistent across the board. It is even possible for one bookmaker to offer several different bands depending on the match in question.
| Bookmaker 1 | Bookmaker 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Corners | Odds | Corners | Odds |
| 0-4 | 22/1 | 0-5 | 12/1 |
| 5-7 | 4/1 | 6-8 | 11/4 |
| 8-10 | 2/1 | 9-11 | 13/8 |
| 11-13 | 9/4 | 12-14 | 13/5 |
| 14-16 | 5/1 | Over 14 | 11/2 |
| 17+ | 11/1 | ||
Another popular corner market is betting either under or over a particular number being taken during the entire match. Most of the time betting options for this are provided as a .5 number, to help make it clearer what is a winning bet. A wager on ‘over 7.5 corners’ for example, would need at least 8 corners for you to register a winning bet. There are some bookies though that may write 8+ instead, but this is the same bet as the number is inclusive for over. For ‘under’ bets though, the number referenced is not included so ‘under 8 corners’ would require seven or fewer corners to be taken.
| Corners | Odds | Corners | Odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 5.5 | 12/1 | Over 5.5 | 1/200 |
| Under 6.5 | 7/1 | Over 6.5 | 1/20 |
| Under 7.5 | 19/5 | Over 7.5 | 1/7 |
| Under 8.5 | 23/10 | Over 8.5 | 2/7 |
| Under 9.5 | 5/4 | Over 9.5 | 4/7 |
| Under 10.5 | 4/5 | Over 10.5 | 10/11 |
| Under 11.5 | 9/20 | Over 11.5 | 31/20 |
| Under 12.5 | 2/7 | Over 12.5 | 23/10 |
| Under 13.5 | 1/7 | Over 13.5 | 19/5 |
| Under 14.5 | 1/14 | Over 14.5 | 6/1 |
| Under 15.5 | 1/50 | Over 15.5 | 9/1 |
Other Corner Markets
Although the above covers the three most popular corner betting options, it is far from a complete list. Punters also have the ability, for instance, to bet on corners for a specific team, rather than a combined total or to bet on a specific half rather than the full match. There is a lot more included than this too, as the below list shows.
- Home Over/Under Corners Taken – Betting on if only the home team will register over or under a specific number of corners. The team listed first on the fixture is always the home team.
- Away Over Corners Taken – Same as above but this time your bet will only relate to the away team’s corners.
- Most Corners Taken – Simply which team will register the most corners during the game. For this you will have the option of betting on a draw as there is a chance both teams end up on the same amount.
- 1st Half Over/Under Corners – Will there be over or under a certain amount of corners in the first 45 minutes of the match (including injury time)?
- 2nd Half Over/Under Corners – Exactly as above but relating to the second half instead.
- Time of First Corner – Usually the minute is provided (for example, 7:00) and you need to bet on the first corner occurring either before or after that time.
- Race to X Corners – There may be a few options for this but say you selected ‘race to 5 corners’, you would then be selecting the team to reach five corners first. If you think neither will reach five, this will be one of the betting options.
- Corner Handicap – For this, you will bet on a team to get more corners than their opponents with a handicap applied. Handicaps can work in both directions, either adding corners to a team’s total or taking them away.
- First Match Corner – Simply, which team will take the first corner of the match.
- Last Match Corner – Yes, you guessed, it, a bet on which team takes the final corner of the 90-minute match.
This covers the bulk of options although it is possible your bookmaker will offer a couple of slightly different options. Corner betting is available within in-play markets and they commonly feature within combined bets too; for example, over 2.5 cards, over 10.5 corners and both teams to score. By adding lots of fairly likely events from within the same match, you can end up with decent odds without requiring an upset.
How Many Corners Are There On Average?
When weighing up a bet on corners, it is useful to know what a typical number of corners per game is. Over the course of the 2020/21 Premier League season, the average number of corners taken by each team was 193. With two teams per game and 38 matches in a season, this works out to be 10.2 corners per match. As you might expect, there was a decent correlation between attacking threat and the number of corners recorded. Champions and top scorers Man City recorded the second most corners (247) with third-place finishers Liverpool topping the table with 257. At the other end, sitting rock bottom you had the comfortably relegated West Brom who earned just 145 corners.
The correlation is far from perfect mind you as the league’s worst team, Sheffield United, who only scored 20 goals, registered more corners than the likes of Tottenham and Everton. Also, be aware that there can be some differences between leagues. For the same year in La Liga, the average number of corners per game was 9.2, so a full corner fewer in each match on average. Generally though, anything between 9 and 11 is a very typical number for a league average.
When Should I Bet On Corners?
There are a few reasons why you might dip into the corners market. It could be that you simply fancy mixing up your betting or that you are finding most other main markets (e.g. match result, number of goals and so on) too hard to call. It can be argued that corners are a little more predictable as the whole bet cannot be sabotaged by one moment of magic, or one blunder. Alternatively, you may wish to include corners on a combination bet to increase your odds.
For the more serious gamblers among you, if you are prepared to do your research you could well find there is good value in corner betting. It will not apply to every match but there will be occasions where you believe the bookies are overestimating or underestimating the number of corners there will be. By taking advantage of these slight mispricings, you may find that corner betting works better for you than many other available markets. This is most likely to be possible on smaller games in more obscure leagues if you have some information that the bookies don’t.