What is Head to Head Bets?

How Head-to-Head Bets Work 

So, what does h2h mean in betting?

The most important element of a head-to-head bet is that it’s a two-runner market. So, in that sense it’s very different to say a horseracing winner market where there might be 10-12 horses in the race/market or a first goal scorer betting market in football, where any one of the 22 players named in the starting line-up can be the winner.

In the vast majority of cases, the winner is either one runner or the other, although in exceptional cases the two runners could be dead-heated as we’ll illustrate in a minute, or the bets on both could be void. 

Types of Head-to-Head Betting Markets

As we started by saying, head-to-head sports betting markets come under two main categories.

Winner-takes-all

It’s not necessarily called that, but the first type applies to sports where there are just two possible outcomes- Player/Athlete/Team A wins, or B – which will inevitably lead to a winner. Examples of this would be:

• Any tennis/squash/badminton/padel match. 
• Any game of limited-overs cricket. 
• Any darts and snooker match.

All of the above don’t (usually) have a draw of any sorts so as we said, either one wins, or the other does.

In US sports like basketball, NHL, NFL or baseball, though the match can go to extra time (or overtime) if tied at the end of normal time, it will eventually be settled based on who wins that. So moneyline markets on those sports are all head-to-head markets as well.  

Who comes out best?

These are less common ones but if you looked around, you’d still see plenty of them. 
With these, it’s not about winning a contest such as a tennis match but rather, about who will fare best between two runners, which isn’t always the same thing. 
For example: 

• Golf- Will Golfer A or Golfer B shoot the lowest round in Round 1 at a golf tournament? This by the way, is a case of a market where there could be a dead-heat as both could shoot exactly 68 (shots) in which case they’d end up on the same score; there’s no tie-breaker when this happens. In most cases, you just win at half your stake. In other cases, a tie like this would lead to a void market and you’d just have your stake returned.  
• Horseracing- The bookie will pick two horses available at similar odds on the race winner market and ask you to pick which one will finish best. The horse you pick doesn’t need to actually win the race; it just needs to finish better than the other named horse.

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Examples of Head-to-Head Bets

We’ve already mentioned a handful of examples of head-to-head betting markets, both of the type where the market is asking who will win the contest, and the type where one runner just needs to perform better than the other. Other examples would be:

• Which one of two named players will have the most points/assists/rebounds in an NBA match. 
• Which of two cricketers will take the most wickets/score the most runs in a particular match. 
• Which of two Formula One drivers will finish higher in a particular race or over the course of the Championship. 
• Even an over/under 2.5 goals market in football is a head-to-head market of sorts. The match will either have over 2.5 goals in it, or it won’t. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Head-to-Head Bets

Here are some pros and cons of head-to-head betting.

Advantages 

• You only have to worry about which one of two runners will win, not a load of different runners. 
• In many cases where two players/horses of similar ability have been deliberately paired against each other, the odds are close to evens, so they’re simple to play rather than punters having to worry too much about odds. 
• Head-to-head markets are far easier for hedging your bet than markets with multiple runners. For example, if you backed Golfer A to shoot a lower score than Player B and Player A was ahead after 9 holes, you’d only need to then back Player B as a hedge, rather than several runners.

Disadvantages

• With the possible exception of tennis or cricket matches where there could be hot favourites and big outsiders, many head-to-head markets don’t have big odds on one runner or the other. So, if you like betting at big odds of 20.0 or higher, you might have to look at other markets beyond the head-to-head markets. Such as a correct score in football or the winner market in a golf tournament. 
• A lot of betting companies at the moment tend to focus free bets and other offers around Bet Builders and accas, so you’re likely to get less freebies to place on head-to-head markets, than other types of markets.