Towards the end of the football season, betting can be even more fraught with risk.
There’s teams facing the ultimate pressure, with title wins, promotion and relegation matters to be settled. And there’s also those said to be ‘on the beach’, with mid-table security lending itself to a sense of apathy after a long, gruelling campaign.
But teams that are already promoted can become complacent, while those whose relegation has been mathematically secured can be freed from their shackles and suddenly start playing better.
And there’s even a sense that some players, eyeing a potential transfer in the summer, will start delivering their best performances in the hope of attracting a suitor or two.
It can be a minefield to navigate, but historically the Easter weekend – when many promotion and relegation battles are decided – has been good for one thing: goals… and lots of them.
One Betfair punter leant into that concept over the weekend and turned a £5, 12-fold acca into a payout of over £25,000… aided by four of their selections winning courtesy of goals scored in the 87th minute or even later!
Net Busting
The English Championship has not been a big scoring league in 2024/25.
In fact, just 45% of the division’s games, with two rounds of matches to be played, have witnessed three or more goals, but that trend well and truly went out of the window on Easter Monday – nine of the 12 contests played had a minimum of three goals, with five of those breaching the Over 3.5 Goals market.
| Home | Score | Away |
|---|---|---|
| Cardiff | 1-1 | Oxford |
| Hull | 2-1 | Preston |
| Hull | 2-1 | Preston |
| Leeds | 6-0 | Stoke |
| Millwall | 3-1 | Norwich |
| Plymouth | 3-1 | Coventry |
| Portsmouth | 1-0 | Watford |
| QPR | 1-2 | Swansea |
| Sheffield Wednesday | 2-1 | Middlesbrough |
| Sunderland | 0-1 | Blackburn |
| West Brom | 1-3 | Derby |
| Burnley | 2-1 | Sheffield United |
There was a similar vibe in League One, where the seasonal average for three or more goals in a game has been 50% – that was up to 75% on Easter Monday, while League Two saw a marginal rise in goal-laden matches; the 46% seasonal average of Over 2.5 Goals increased to 50%, with Chesterfield’s barn-burning 3-3 draw with Bradford City the pick of the bunch.
In short, if you had bet on the goals markets in the EFL on Monday, your chances of landing an acca were – compared to the season’s average outcomes – considerably higher.
Just one punter to benefit from the trend was the anonymous Betfair customer, who placed a £5 wager on 12 different EFL games to breach the Over 2.5 Goals line.
And they really couldn’t have timed their bet any better; albeit four of the games on their coupon were reliant on some late, late action.
Better Late Than Never
Some of the selections landed in plain sailing fashion. In the Championship, three relegation-haunted teams – Plymouth, Luton and Derby – all won 3-1, with each of them crossing the Over 2.5 Goals threshold inside 70 minutes… Plymouth leading Coventry 2-1 at half time.
Our punter was similarly well treated in their Lincoln vs Bolton selection, which was 2-2 at half-time, while Reading’s 5-1 demolition of Mansfield saw them lead 3-0 after 57 minutes.
The aforementioned Chesterfield vs Bradford pick had landed by half-time too, but that was it as far as the plain sailing was concerned – for the rest of their games, the Betfair customer would have been left chewing their nails in hopeful expectation.
Things improved in the 78th minute of the 15:00 kick offs. Port Vale, leaders of League Two at the start of the day, found themselves 0-2 down against visitors Grimsby, but pulled a goal back after 78 minutes – good news for our punter.
Meanwhile, over in Cambridge, the hosts’ 1-1 stalemate with Leyton Orient came to an end when the visitors’ Jamie Donley netted to make it 2-1 to the Orient after 78 minutes… another of our punter’s picks had landed.
That left four of their 12 picks – a whopping 33% – still adrift with less than 15 minutes of the various games to go. But, as is often the case with these huge winning accas, there would be yet more twists in the tale.
Stockport’s game with Huddersfield was locked at 1-1 heading into the dying embers, before they were awarded an 88th minute penalty – Oliver Norwood stepped up and slotted home the third goal of the contest.
Sheffield Wednesday were also in stalemate with Middlesborough at 1-1, but substitute Anthony Musaba was not about to let the game fizzle out into a draw – his 89th minute strike enough to secure a 2-1 victory for the Owls.
Ethon Archer’s 89th minute goal put Cheltenham 2-1 up against Notts County, leaving our punter with just one game left to run: Doncaster coasting to a 2-0 win over ten-man Colchester as that match entered injury time.
With their cash out offer now suspended, it was all or nothing in Yorkshire… so what a moment it must have been when Doncaster’s Patrick Kelly found a late, late third for the hosts.
A HUGE #EFL winner 🤯
One lucky Betfair punter turned their £5 Over 2.5 Goals 12-fold into £25,768.68! pic.twitter.com/3BWPw8tEQ3
— Betfair (@Betfair) April 21, 2025
And so £5 became £25,768… not a bad way to spend your bank holiday Monday!