First-Half and Second-Half Results: All 9 Pairs vs Chance
I split 75,530 matches into two separate 45-minute results to see whether the second half remembers the first. It does, but only faintly.
Most HT/FT thinking quietly assumes the second half is shaped by the first: a team that leads keeps leading, and a cagey opening stays cagey. I wanted to test that properly, so I treated each half as its own result and counted how often all nine first-half and second-half pairs turned up across 21 European divisions.
The short answer is that the halves are linked, but far less than instinct suggests. Both halves were drawn in 15.7% of matches against 14.7% if the halves were unrelated, and the same side won both in 20.3% against 19.3%. Split halves landed exactly on chance at 18.5%. If you use my free HT/FT picks page, this is the base layer I read every selection against.
Test 1Draw then draw is the single most common pairing
The heatmap reads first-half result down the side and second-half result across the top. The brightest cell is Draw / Draw at 15.7%, just ahead of Draw / Home at 14.9% and Home / Home at 12.8%. The faintest is Away / Away at 7.5%.
That middle row matters because drawn first halves are the biggest group by some distance: 41.5% of first halves were level, compared with 33.5% won by the home side and 25.0% by the away side. Whatever happens after the break, a large share of matches start from level ground.
View the data: first-half result × second-half result
| 2nd: Home | 2nd: Draw | 2nd: Away | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st: Home | 12.8% | 11.3% | 9.4% |
| 1st: Draw | 14.9% | 15.7% | 10.9% |
| 1st: Away | 9.1% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
The two crossover cells sit almost side by side, with Home / Away at 9.4% and Away / Home at 9.1%. A comeback in second-half terms is no rarer one way than the other.
Test 2Actual pairs barely drift from what chance predicts
Here each pair's actual share sits next to the share you would expect if the two halves had nothing to do with each other. The dots overlap more than they separate. Draw / Draw and the two "same side wins both" pairs sit slightly above chance, while the mixed pairs such as Draw / Home and Draw / Away sit slightly below.
The pattern is consistent but small. Stalemates repeat a touch more than chance would suggest, and dominant sides repeat a touch more too. My main caveat lives here: these are base rates pooled across leagues and team strengths, so some of that small lift simply comes from strong teams winning both halves, not from momentum carrying over.
Expected = first-half rate × second-half rate.
View the data: each half-result pair vs independent halves
| If independent | Actual | |
|---|---|---|
| Home / Home (9,690 matches) | 12.3% | 12.8% |
| Home / Draw (8,516 matches) | 11.8% | 11.3% |
| Home / Away (7,085 matches) | 9.3% | 9.4% |
| Draw / Home (11,249 matches) | 15.3% | 14.9% |
| Draw / Draw (11,876 matches) | 14.7% | 15.7% |
| Draw / Away (8,227 matches) | 11.5% | 10.9% |
| Away / Home (6,895 matches) | 9.2% | 9.1% |
| Away / Draw (6,317 matches) | 8.8% | 8.4% |
| Away / Away (5,675 matches) | 6.9% | 7.5% |
Split halves at 18.5% against an expected 18.5% is the cleanest line on the page. Nothing about winning the first half makes losing the second any likelier than the raw rates already imply.
Test 3The first half nudges the second, it does not decide it
This chart flips the question around: given a first-half result, what happened next? After a home first-half win across 25,291 matches, the second half went home 38.3%, draw 33.7% and away 28.0%. After a drawn first half, the draw was the most likely second-half outcome at 37.9%.
The away row is the one I find most interesting. After an away first-half win, the away side won the second half 30.0% of the time, its best figure in the chart, yet the home side still took the second half more often at 36.5%. Home advantage seems to reassert itself after the break, whoever led at the interval.
View the data: second-half result after each first-half result
| 2nd half Home | 2nd half Draw | 2nd half Away | |
|---|---|---|---|
| After 1st half: Home | 38.3% | 33.7% | 28.0% |
| After 1st half: Draw | 35.9% | 37.9% | 26.2% |
| After 1st half: Away | 36.5% | 33.4% | 30.0% |
For HT/FT betting, that means a first-half leader is not a second-half favourite by default. The second half behaves mostly like a fresh 45 minutes with a slight lean towards repetition.
Test 4The pattern holds steady across every season tested
The final check was whether this is a fixed feature or a passing phase. Across the seasons from 2016/17 to 2025/26, the share of matches where the same side won both halves stayed between 19.7% and 21.1%. Split halves moved between 17.6% and 19.7%.
Both lines are flat enough that I treat these as stable base rates rather than trends to chase. Same side winning both stays slightly more common than a split in every season shown, though the gap narrows towards the later seasons.
View the data: same team wins both halves vs halves split
| Same side wins both | Each side wins one | |
|---|---|---|
| 2016/17 | 20.6% | 17.9% |
| 2017/18 | 20.4% | 17.6% |
| 2018/19 | 20.4% | 18.1% |
| 2019/20 | 20.1% | 18.7% |
| 2020/21 | 20.1% | 17.9% |
| 2021/22 | 20.3% | 18.7% |
| 2022/23 | 20.5% | 18.2% |
| 2023/24 | 21.1% | 19.7% |
| 2024/25 | 20.0% | 19.2% |
| 2025/26 | 19.7% | 19.2% |
Lab verdict
| Draw / Draw has substance | Both halves drawn is the most common pair at 15.7%, slightly above the 14.7% chance figure, so it deserves a look when two sides are evenly matched and slow to start. No half-result prices are in this data, so the frequency alone says nothing about value. |
|---|---|
| Don't extrapolate the interval | After an away first-half win the home side still took the second half 36.5% of the time, ahead of the away side's 30.0%. A half-time lead is information, not a script. |
| Compare against chance first | Split halves at 18.5% matched the independent expectation exactly, so any second-half angle needs team-level evidence beyond the pooled rates. I check a specific side's habits before trusting any pair. |
Questions bettors ask
How often are both halves of a football match drawn?
In 75,530 matches across 21 European divisions, both halves were drawn 15.7% of the time. That makes Draw / Draw the single most common half-result pair.
Does the team winning at half-time usually win the second half too?
Only slightly more than chance suggests. After a home first-half win, the home side won the second half 38.3% of the time, and the same side won both halves in 20.3% of matches against an expected 19.3%.
Is the away side winning both halves rare?
Yes, Away / Away was the rarest of the nine pairs at 7.5% of matches. Home / Home, by comparison, happened 12.8% of the time.
I'm Daniel Pendleton, and after years of obsessing over match patterns, I now focus my betting writing on HT/FT outcomes and corner markets.
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