Corners betting in soccer: Value in a lesser-known market

Finding a niche market in betting can often lead to value. This can be anything from specialist knowledge of handball betting to extensive experience in betting on Japanese baseball. Providing you know more than the bookmaker, there is money to be made.

They also make for interesting and potentially profitable bets, as they can be a little more reliable and thus easier to forecast than some of the more popular markets.

Why bet on corners?

Corners betting in soccer has become increasingly popular in recent years. In addition to offering bettors a chance to take advantage of a bookmaker’s lack of knowledge or attention to minor details, the fluctuation of odds in live corners betting is another reason sharp bettors will choose this specific market.

Betting on corners in soccer is very different to other markets like the 1X2 or Handicap. The outcome of a match can correlate to the corner count for each side, but this isn’t always the case. Because soccer is such a low-scoring sport, draws and underdog victories are easier to come by compared to other sports. However, the corner count will be a lot higher and provide a more accurate reflection of a team's performance.

The outcome of a match can correlate to the corner count for each side, but this isn’t always the case.

Whereas goals are rare events, an average match features between 10 and 11 corners, and while strange outcomes can and do occur (for example, the massive underdog winning the game), the corner count is more likely to go with expectation.

In the five seasons of Premier League soccer between 2016/17 and 2020/21, 1,057 of the 1,900 matches (55.6%) were won by the favourite, but 1,208 (63.6%) saw the favourite also have the most corners.

While it’s not possible to have a straight bet on which side will win the most corners in a match, by using data that is widely available it’s possible to establish the likelihood of a successful bet on the markets that are on offer.

How to bet on corners

Pinnacle offers two different markets for corners betting - Total and Handicap - across the major soccer leagues in Europe and the Champions League.

Total corners betting explained

In this market, the bookmaker will set what they believe the total number of corners in the match will be and bettors can select whether to bet over or under that figure.

Total corners betting example:

Wolves vs. Arsenal, February 10, 2022

Over 10 corners (11 or more corners): 1.909

Under 10 corners (nine or fewer corners): 1.917

Wolves’ matches this season averaged 10.0 corners each prior to kick-off while Arsenal’s averaged10.3, so the bookmaker’s choice was logical and left bettors with a tricky decision to make. As the match went on to have 11 corners, the line was well selected and the outcome could easily have gone either way.

But as we will later see, there are things we can look at which can guide our betting choice for this market.  

What is Handicap corners betting?

This follows the same format as any other kind of Handicap bet, in that one side is given an advantage to level off the disadvantage they likely hold in reality and vice versa with the other team, with a sliding scale of options and odds available.

Handicap corners betting example, for the same Wolves vs. Arsenal match:

Wolves +0.5 corners: 1.961

Arsenal -0.5 corners: 1.869

In this example, the bet on Arsenal required them to have at least one corner more than Wolves. If you had opted to back Wolves, then your bet would have been successful providing that they had at least as many corners as the Gunners.

Arsenal’s average corner difference per game in 2021/22 was 0.4 prior to this match and Wolves’ was -1.5, so their records suggested that a bet on Arsenal would have been the sensible selection.

Yet the bet on Wolves proved to be successful, as they had seven corners while Arsenal had four. We shall see why this upset occurred later on when we consider the relevance of game state.

Corners betting analysis

A corner in soccer can come from various scenarios. It is widely accepted that corners come in clusters - this isn’t to say that one corner will always be followed by another, just that corners can come in bursts of two, three or even more in quick succession.

If you know how to bet on corners, the next thing to do is work out which teams are most likely to win corners and which teams are more susceptible to concede them.

In terms of winning corners, shots is obviously a big contributor - a lot of shots is an indicator of offensive dominance and they will often be deflected, which can result in a corner.

Below is a table showing the average shots per game for Premier League teams, with data included from 2014/15 - 2018/19:

When comparing this to a table of average corners per game over the same time period, the connection between shots and corners soon becomes apparent:

A similar approach can be taken when looking at who is most likely to concede corners in a game. The shots conceded and number of combined shots and crosses blocked per game stats highlight teams that are under more pressure and most likely to concede corners.

The tables below show how many shots, on average, each Premier League team conceded, as well as how many combined blocked shots and crosses each team made per game:

A table of the teams that have averaged the most corners conceded per game shows how valuable the previous statistics can be when betting on corners:

Recent corners betting analysis - using data to support your corners betting

As mentioned earlier, the outcome of a match can correlate to the corner count for each side but not always. But what about the correlation between goals scored and corners won, and goals conceded and corners conceded?

If we look at the 10 top-scoring sides from the last five full seasons of Premier League soccer, we can see that eight of them were also in the top 10 for most corners in that period.

Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient gives the Goals Scored and Corners Won data a score of 0.761 (where 1 is perfectly correlated and 0 is no relationship at all).

The link is not as strong at the other end of the pitch (0.662) but there are still plenty of sides who allowed the most corners among those who conceded the most goals.

The above statistics are for teams in a specific season, but if we look at the 12 teams who were consistently in the Premier League between 2016 and 2021, we can see the obvious link between their shots, goals, and corners statistics for the period as a whole.

While data on corners is easy enough to source, even a look at a team’s standing in the goals scored and conceded column can give us a basic but valuable insight into the corner betting markets.

Home advantage in corners betting

Home field advantage is an enormous consideration in sports betting and it certainly applies when placing a bet on the corners markets in soccer.

Over the last five full seasons, the average side in the Premier League had 4.7 corners per match when on the road but 5.7 when in front of their own supporters.

Of the 100 team seasons (20 teams across five seasons), only 11 featured more corners in away games, and just one (Hull City in 2016/17) averaged at least one per match more.

However, the stronger team often still wins out in terms of corners, irrespective of venue. Fifty-four percent of Premier League matches over the last five years saw the home side win the corner count, but the away side had the edge in 38% of matches.

Considering almost all teams win more corners at home than on the road, this margin is closer than you might assume.

Match winner odds

One important thing to note when betting on corners in soccer is that it’s not as simple as the favourite to win the match in the betting will win the most corners, nor is the team who wins the most corners the most likely to win the match. Continuing with the Premier League sample above, fewer than 3% of corners have been converted into a goal since the start of the 2012/13 to 2018/19, so corner total actually has a limited effect on match outcome.

In-play corners betting: the importance of game state

It is very important to consider game state if you are betting on corners during a match (known as live or in-play corners betting). You may expect one team to comfortably cover their corners handicap or contribute towards the bulk of the corner count, but if that team take an early lead, they may sit back or commit fewer players forward making them less likely to rack up more corners.

Conversely, if a team is chasing the game, they will be more inclined to commit people forward, take more shots and put more balls into the box - two things that we know can result in more corners. If you are betting on corners during the match, it’s not as simple as applying your pre-game research to the available markets, you need to think about what has or hasn’t happened and how this will impact how both teams play for the remainder of the match.

Corners betting tactics

While we’ve seen the link between shots and corners, we should also consider the tactics which a team employs. A side which relies on crosses to get the ball into the penalty area often has a lot of corners as their attempts can get cleared and deflected out of play.

At the time of writing, Brighton average the 10^th-most shots per game in the 2021/22 Premier League but the sixth most crosses. The Seagulls are seventh in the Corners per Game table, so in their case, it’s deliveries from wide areas which appear to have the greater influence on their corner total, rather than their shot tally.

Total Corners betting strategy

It may not be enough to simply look at how many corners each team’s matches have averaged when placing a bet on the Total Corners market, as much as that is a good starting point.

There are always unusual teams to keep an eye on. In 2019/20, just two of Wolves’ 19 home games featured over 10.5 corners, the fewest of any team in the last five seasons. Yet 10 of their away matches reached that benchmark, when the maximum for any side between 2016/17 and 2020/21 was 13 such games.

At the other end of the scale, when winning the league in 2016/17 Chelsea had 12 home games featuring at least 11 corners but only five on the road.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is this: no matter how many corners a team’s matches have on average across a campaign, the number of games with over 10.5 doesn’t vary that much. Among the 100-team seasons (see above) from the last five years, the fewest games a team had with 11-or-more corners was 10 and the most was 24. In other words, for most teams it will occur in between a quarter and half of their matches.

When betting on corners (or any form of attacking statistic) once a match is underway, it is vital to take account of the game state. If one team is losing, then they are likely to do more of the attacking from that point onwards as they look to get back into the game.

By the same token, the team who are ahead are going to be focussed on defending their lead and may not commit as many players forward when they do get opportunities to attack.

Our earlier case study of Wolves vs. Arsenal provides a perfect example of this phenomenon. The teams’ records in 2021/22 up until to that match suggested the Gunners would have more corners, and in the 26^th minute they scored the only goal of the game from their second corner.

Wolves had yet to have a corner at that point, but between that moment and the full-time whistle they had seven while Arsenal only had two, to give them a total of four for the match.

What would have appeared to be an unlikely corner count before the match began became a logical outcome as it unfolded, with the home side battling to equalise.

This shows the difficulty of predicting corner totals, either before or during a match. What may seem a likely outcome can easily be thrown off track by a goal.

But as far as one of the less common markets goes, there is an opportunity to take advantage of a little research when placing a bet on corners.

If you found this corners betting article useful you may be interested in reading about our half-time/full-time betting strategy.