The Best MLS Live System Bets
How to bet any MLS game live successfully.
If you never read another Juanners Report after this one, you should still be very profitable with these two soccer system sports bets. These are usually my go-to systems when betting any random MLS game I’ may have had little time to research prior to the first kick of the game. That’s not to say you won’t have to do any research at all, and you should always have just a general sense of each team’s goal scoring ability, but these systems are ones you can bet blindly and in most cases will come away with a profit. I’ve debated for a long time whether or not this should be behind a paywall or not, but I figure these systems are publicly available elsewhere and I’m probably not the first shmuck that tried to make a profit off of them. So, I’m gonna be sharing them with you all. I want to reserve the really good nuggets of information to my paid subscribers and showcase this to any free subscribers as a sort of advertisement to my paid substack. Like I said, if you don’t read any of my other Substack articles, this should be enough to at least make you look at MLS games from my betting perspective.
What is a System Bet?
A system bet means a bunch of different things and people are going to tell you various definitions. To me, a system bet is a bet that is placed once certain conditions and/or in game criteria are met. Those conditions can mean anything. From baseball park conditions to trend betting in the NBA, system bets can apply to anywhere so long as it shows continued signs of profit.
I’ve managed to just lock down two very good soccer bets which for me have made me profitable. These bets, paired with an appropriate unit size, can prove to be very lucrative. There’s also ways to minimize your risk as much as possible, but so too is a way for you to dabble with more high risk-high reward strategies. I’ll share with you the low-risk methods and reserve the high risk ones to the paid subscribers. Overall, I like to place my bets somewhere in the middle where I don’t get burned too much by a big risk but also risk enough to feel good about my profit. On to the systems!
The Dangers of the Moneyline
Lets say in the year 2022, you tuned in to see an MLS game between Team A and Team B. Both teams have played so far to a 0-0 and we have around 15 minutes left in the half. You notice that Team A, the home team, is lighting up Team B’s keeper. Team A have had 3 solid attacks so far, but they’re really good ones. With 3 separate shots, team A has an Expected Goals (xG) stat of 0.52. Theoretically, if they put up three more chances boasting .48 xG, between 6 shots one of them should surely be a goal, right? So, with better possession and a better attacking game plan than that of Team B’s 0 total shots, you decide to place your money on Team A’s Moneyline- you need them to win. Team A coming into the game was favored at around -175 and are now at -120 odds to win the game. You just need Team A to go to the half and come back rejuvenated and sort of let the coach adjust and reset them for the second half.
A couple of minutes later, Team A has continued attacking the goal and find themselves with a total of 0.64 xG. The momentum is definitely on their side, team B has yet to shoot the ball. Team A is just one quality chance away from breaking the dead lock while Team B continues to park the bus and concedes possession to Team A. With 3 minutes left in the half, both teams are slowing down and just trading possession until the first half whistle. Team B finds themselves wide with the ball at their winger’s feet and a couple of dribbles later, Team B finds themselves in their first threatening attack. The winger side steps, goes to shoot but suddenly collapses to the ground following a challenge from Team A’s defender. The player goes down easy and right as Team A is about to clear the ball, as if nothing was going to be called, the referee blows his whistle and points to the spot: penalty. In the 44th minute of the first half, the referee has given a golden chance to Team B who were merely getting by with a barrage of shots and crosses; they now have the chance to go 1-0 up before the half. In the 45th minute, Team B’s penalty was taken successfully and your Moneyline bet now looks dire. Now, imagine not only tuning into seeing that game but could you imagine if you were a supporter of Team A and Team B was the visiting rival? Could you imagine if you were a supporter in attendance for that very game and had a front row view to the penalty infraction? Now imagine if you were a supporter who not only saw Team B, who weren’t really playing the game, score a penalty but then who’s same penalty kick taker rushes over to immediately celebrate and taunt you in front of the section, you’d be pretty irked, right? Well, I didn’t have to imagine it because I lived it. The only difference being I don’t bet Moneylines at all for this reason. Now, was I mulling the idea of placing my system bet? My 1st go-to system bet that has made me some decent returns? I debated it, but ultimately didn’t feel like the goal was happening despite the value. Did I end up emotionally betting the Moneyline this one time because Team B were our rivals? Mayhaps.
First Half Over 0.5 Goals
Betting on soccer is tough because each goal carries a lot of weight. They are the results of patient and surgical-like attacks defended by fortified defenses with chess-like strategies behind every possession of play. In MLS, a lot of this goes out the door. The league is still lacking a lot of the polish that European leagues have and that’s not a bad thing. It’s my favorite thing about the league- it is so chaotic on a weekend to weekend basis. The value of that chaos oftentimes gets priced incorrectly. This is why I love betting MLS and betting soccer in general. The bookmakers have a good understanding of the big leagues but MLS has yet to be tamed by the books as I say. They’re getting better each year, but again, the chaos of the league still prevails and is a lot of fun. Sportsbooks *know* that MLS is a wild league so they tend to price goals much more expensively than in a league like the Premier League. It’s harder to lay down an Over 2.5 goals for a match between Arsenal and Southampton than it would be to lay that same Over 2.5 for a match between Sporting Kansas City and LA Galaxy.1 Books price most Premier League games at 2.5 goals at -150 odds or worse. (Sometimes better if you get a good line paired with a good read.) For most MLS games, Over 2.5 total goal is -200 or worse with 3.5 being at plus money or better. However, books will price these games live, with wildly different goal expectations, the exact same in the 1st half progresses. Books sort of run soccer games on auto pilot with a decaying timer that usually is the same for every game. Meaning the late 35th minute goal in a 0-0 game will be priced for every league the exact same. Some games are exceptions, but in my experience, a first half goal in a 0-0 half are typically priced +250 to +300 around the 30th to 35th minute of play. As I type this at 1:36 AM, I am monitoring the odds for a first half goal in the Vietnamese Under 21 Championship between Viettel U-21 and Ha Noi FC U-21. The first half goal for their 0-0 game so far is priced at +300 in the 38th minute. No different than my first bet of the day in which I hit on a late first half goal between Westerlo and Royal Antwerp in the Belgian Jupiler Pro League. They are two wildly different competitions, but my book has priced each game the same for a late first half goal at +300 . The reason why betting MLS is much more profitable is because the chaotic nature of the league allows for more mistakes which leads to more goals. So, the system bet is simple.
If a game between two MLS teams reaches the 30th minute and is 0-0, bet a quarter (or a fifth) of your unit size on the first half goal at +300 odds or longer.
How often did this prop hit in MLS? Well, initially, if you had bet every game to have a first half goal, there would have been just 127 games where the scoreline was 0-0 at the half meaning you would have lost out on your bet. That comes out to 27% of games in the 476 schedule where neither team scored in the first half. For us 30+ minute bettors, the value of those goals were much better than if you had bet a first half goal before the game kicked off. You may have lost the bet in 127 instances, but your odds would have been a lot more valuable than the better who took them for a first half goal at -200 and stuck it into a parlay as a builder.
But what if you tune into an MLS game late in the first half when it’s 0-0 and decided to bet it at the 30th minute? What does that look like and is it profitable? I tried my best here to crunch what that number would look like especially because in the 127 games where there wasn’t a goal in the first 45, there were the rest of the 349 games where there was a goal before the half. I filtered out results in MLS where the home team scored exactly one goal in the first half and the match ended 1-0 just as a small sample size to see a random set of games and when the goals came about. To add to that sample size, I added in games of the inverse where the away team scores first and leaves 0-1. As a final addition, to boost the sample size, I added games that ended 1-1 with either side winning 1-0 at the half. We’re trying to pinpoint those games where at minimum one goal was scored in the first half. In total, I had a sample size of 51 game which is just a sample size of 14.6% of total games with first half goals and an even smaller percent of 10.71% of all total MLS game. Of just that small sample size, I categorized the data into three separate 15 minute intervals: 0-14th minute, 15-29th minute, and 30-HT. Below you can see the data. This footnote will show you the sample sizes of all the games.
So far, we have 178 games accounted for. The 127 that ended 0-0 were we lost our wager, and our sample size of 51 games where there was at least one goal in the first half. Since we’re only focused on the 30th minute and after, we can combine the 0-29 minute goals to combine for 30/51 games with a goal before the 30 (58.82%). The rest of the percentage is 41.18%. If we multiply our 298 games by the percentage’s decimal we’ll have a rough but close estimate to how many times our system bet hit.
When applying the math to the rest of the 298 games and then adding in our 178 games prior data, we would have an estimated 144 games where a goal was scored after the 30th minute. So, cut out the other games where our system bet isn’t used, and we have a share of 271 games. In 271 games, the score line was 0-0 by the 30th minute. An estimated 144 (53%) had a goal scored before the half and and 127 (47%) of them ended 0-0 at the half.
With odds percentages close to a coin flip and being offered +300 odds at the 30th minute, if you were to bet on each of the games you tuned in to in 2022 and placed 271 wagers of 10 dollars on +300 odds, you’d have a total of $2710 wagered in the first half with a win of $5760. Subtract your losses and you have $3,050 for a net profit of $340 and a ROI of 12.55%. Not bad if you only decided to bet this system. (This would be assuming your unit size is $40)
To adjust for your unit size, please see below2.
Now, in a perfect world, the 41.18% number from above is tried and true and you’re always offered +300 odds at the 30th minute. There will be a lot of variance and you may get better odds. You may tune into a game in the 40th minute and you’re offered +500 or greater odds for that goal. If anything, I want to illustrate the value of that late first half goal and while you’re bet is against the clock, this is still a system that can be lucrative if you just want to blind bet a game. Even if your wager loses, there is still another profitable system with 0-0 halftime betting.
0-0 HT System
Lets say you got burned by the previous bet and you are seriously regretting trusting Juanners for getting you hooked on late first half goals. The game you bet on is 1 of 127 where no goals were scored prior to HT. There’s a system in place for this as well. It requires more goals, but overall has a solid return rate if you know how to utilize it. Lets take a microscope into those 0-0 halftime games and see what happened in the other half.
If a game between two MLS teams reaches halftime and is 0-0, bet three quarters of your unit size on Over 1.5 total goals at +150 or better.
For this one, we want both teams to come out of half time and go for the game and total. There’s a lot less math involved since we have all 100% of the data accounted for. In the 127 games where the HT score was 0-0, a total of 29 of those ended 0-0 or 22.83%. This means that a a little bit more than 1 in 5 games you bet the, you’d lose your wager. That gives us
There was 58 games where 2 goals (or more) were scored after halftime or 45.67%. But wait, less than half the time your bet is going to lose? What gives?
Well, that’s why we only bet it if it’s at +150 or better and never anything less. Overtime, you’ll make profit so long as you hit those odds or greater and your wins and losses should even out to a little bit of a profit.
But what about the games where it was 1-0 either way? 40 of the 127 matches, (31.50%), ended with just one goal by full time. Combined with the 0-0 games, that 69 (nice) games out of 127 that ended with our system bet losing and makes the difference of our initial 45.67% with 54.33%.
Mitigating Risk.
Now, this is an extension of the 0-0 HT system, but the safest way to make some money on the second half of 0-0 games is to bet the Asian line total. The Asian line total for those unfamiliar is one where bets can be refunded and voided depending on the result. For example, if you bet the Asian line total for a game at 2, after 2 goals you’ll be refunded your wager but a 3rd goal would cash your initial bet. At half time, the line is set at around +100 sometimes more, sometimes less. Some of the more chaotic teams in MLS will have this be priced a lot less. If you bet this Asian line at +100 at half time, you’ll have 45 minutes for either team to score a goal for your wager back. That means you’re backing the rest of 77.17% of games that did have a goal after the first half. You wont profit all 77.17% of the time and you’re still hoping for a game to not finish 0-0, but either getting your money back with a push or winning a wager on 77.17% is a lot better than losing 45% of the time.
Now, this assumes that at HT you’ll get +100 for the asian line. You may have to wait until a certain minute to place the bet. If a 0-0 game reaches 60 minutes into a game and the Asian line is still not +100, don’t bother betting it. The push on that line becomes a lot less valuable and that’s where you can start looking at 0.5 Total Goals as a potential prop to monitor.
The information laid out is only really useful if you have a solid idea of your bankroll and unit size. For me, I can’t afford to lay down a full unit every time on the first-half +300 goal, so I’ll just bet a quarter of my unit. If it wins, I collect my money and am done with the game unless have other looks or bets already. If the game is 0-0 at half, I’ll place the last three quarters of my unit on the halftime system to round out the unit.
Now, I’ll admit, I’m not the most disciplined and have had my fair share of bad bets outside my unit size, but my hope here is to weed out those bad tendencies and habits in favor of more positive and profitable ones. I can’t preach to people about appropriate unit betting when my units have historically been all over the place. That’s why I hope that this Substack can keep me grounded and a lot more modest with the bets I make. And I hope that you can take as much as the analysis as I’ve provided and take something away that will make you at least half-interested in betting MLS.
Thank you for reading through all of this. I know it was a very dense piece. For your time and dedication to reading, I’d like to offer you a premium Juanners Report Substack subscription for 75% off. This deal ends next Friday, January 6th and will be at its original price for the rest of the season. Thanks for your read and have a great rest of your weekend.
All teams have a combined average of Over 2.5 goals. Arsenal and Southampton are still in season with 67% and 56% respectively. In 2022, LA Galaxy had 59% of their games hit over 2.5 and SKC had 56% of their games hit over 2.5
Reminder, this is in a perfect world where all conditions are met.
0-0 so far in the first half
+300 odds are offered on a first half goal. This number may change throughout the year
47% loss rate and 53% win rate for a season. This number will change throughout the year.
271 bets (b) * .25 of your unit size (u) at +300 odds for each wager (3) = Potential (p) money if all bets win (b * u * 3)=p
To calculate losses,
P * .47 = Losses (L)
P - L = Wins (w)
The difference between your wager (b*u*3) and your win is how much you’ve profited.