What Is a First Scorer Bet? First Basket, Goal & TD

A first scorer bet is a wager on who, or which team, scores first in a game. The most common versions are first basket in basketball, first goalscorer in soccer and hockey, and first touchdown scorer in American football. The bet is settled on one event, the opening score, so it either wins or loses. Because many players could plausibly score first, prices are long, with individual players often listed at odds such as +500 or +900. That is also why the market attracts so much attention: a small stake can return a large payout, and a large payout is only possible because the probability of winning is small. This article explains what each version covers, how the bet settles and pays out, what can void it, and the misunderstandings that most often confuse readers. Every odds figure used below is a hypothetical example, not a current price from any sportsbook, and nothing here is a prediction or a recommendation to bet.

What a First Scorer Bet Covers

A first scorer bet is a proposition on the opening score of a game. Instead of asking who will win, the market asks who will score first. Sportsbooks list it under player props or game props, and it comes in a few related forms that are worth separating from the start.

The player version asks which named athlete records the first score. In basketball this is usually called first basket or first field goal, in soccer and hockey it is first goalscorer, and in American football it is first touchdown scorer. The team version asks only which side scores first, which makes it a two-way market in most sports and much closer to a moneyline in structure. Some sportsbooks also offer a method-of-first-score variant, such as a three-pointer, a header or a rushing touchdown, but that is a separate market with its own rules.

It helps to compare it with neighbouring markets. An anytime scorer bet wins if the player scores at any point, so it has a far higher chance of winning and far shorter odds. A first scorer bet is stricter: timing is part of the bet, and a player who scores in the second half has still lost it. Both are individual-athlete markets, which puts them in the wider family of player prop bets, though a first scorer bet is a yes/no outcome on one named person rather than an over/under on a statistic.

How First Scorer Bets Work and Settle

The mechanics are the same in every sport: you choose one selection from a list, place a stake at the listed odds, and the bet is graded on the first qualifying score of the game. What counts as qualifying is where the sports differ, so settlement is best understood sport by sport.

First basket

In basketball the market is generally settled on the first made field goal, which includes two-point and three-point shots. Some sportsbooks also count a made free throw as the first score, others do not, and that single rule changes which players are realistic selections. Because the first scoring play is often a quick shot off a set play, the market tends to cluster around starters, and the rules sheet should tell you whether a player must be in the starting lineup for the bet to stand.

First goalscorer

In soccer the market names the player who scores the first goal of the match. Own goals are commonly excluded from player grading, which means the bet may stay alive until the first goal that does count, but this is a sportsbook-specific convention. If the match ends 0-0, every named player loses, and the no goalscorer selection is the one that wins. Markets are normally graded on regular time plus stoppage time, not extra time or penalty shootouts.

First touchdown scorer

In American football the market grades the first touchdown of the game, whichever team scores it. Touchdowns by a defense or special teams, such as an interception return or a kickoff return, are treated differently from book to book: some credit the returning player, some use a separate selection, and some grade only offensive touchdowns. If the game has no touchdown, the no touchdown scorer option wins. Field goals and safeties do not count as touchdowns.

Worked Examples With Hypothetical Odds

The table below shows three hypothetical selections. Each payout includes the original stake, and each profit is the stake multiplied by the odds divided by 100, because all three prices are positive American odds. The implied probability column shows the break-even win rate for that price, calculated as 100 divided by the odds plus 100.

Take the first row. A $20 stake at +900 wins $180 in profit and returns $200 in total if Player A scores the game’s first touchdown. If anyone else scores first, or the game has no touchdown, the $20 is lost. The same logic applies to the other rows. These are illustrative numbers only; real prices change with lineups, injuries and sportsbook margin.

How to Read First Scorer Prices

Every price implies a probability, and in this market the implied probabilities are low and add up quickly. If three NBA players were listed at +450, +600 and +800, their implied probabilities would be 18.18%, 14.29% and 11.11%. Together those three players account for 43.58% of the implied probability of the entire market, even though they are only three names on a list that may run to a dozen or more. A complete list of selections, including every player and any no-scorer option, always adds up to more than 100%, and the excess is the sportsbook’s margin. For a fuller explanation of the arithmetic, see what implied probability means in sports betting.

The team-to-score-first version shows the same idea in a simpler form. Suppose Team X is -130 and Team Y is +110. A -130 price implies 56.52% and +110 implies 47.62%, which sum to 104.14%. The extra 4.14 percentage points are the built-in margin, the cost of betting that exists before any question of skill or luck. Margins on long-priced player markets are usually wider still, a pattern explained in the article on the favorite-longshot bias.

The practical reading is that a first scorer price tells you how the sportsbook rates the chance that one person scores first, not whether the bet is a good one. Bettors who study usage, lineups and shot patterns are making their own probability estimates, and those estimates can be wrong in either direction.

Common Mistakes and Misconceptions

The first misconception is that the best scorer is the best first-scorer bet. A star may be the most likely single player to score first and still be far below a 25% chance, because the opening score depends on which team has the ball, which play is called and who is on the floor or field. Being the favourite on the list does not make a player likely.

The second is treating the bet as a near-miss when a player scores second. Timing is the whole bet, so a player who scores the second basket or the second touchdown has lost it exactly as completely as one who never scored. The third is confusing it with an anytime scorer market, where the same player might win comfortably.

The fourth is assuming that a pattern in recent games predicts the next one. A player who scored first in three straight games has not become more likely to do it again; small samples of rare events produce streaks by chance alone. Finally, many readers assume all sportsbooks grade the market identically. They do not, and free throws, own goals and defensive touchdowns are the usual points of difference. Chasing a losing first scorer bet with a larger one is also a poor idea, since the odds on the next game are unaffected by the last result.

Where These Markets Appear and What Voids Them

First scorer markets are pregame markets, posted once lineups and injury news begin to firm up. They normally appear in the player-prop or game-prop section of a sportsbook, often near the anytime scorer market, and are most prominent on high-profile games where bettor interest is highest. Once the game starts the market closes; live next-score markets are a different product with different pricing.

A first scorer bet can win, lose or be voided, and it cannot push, because there is no number to land on. Voids are the way a stake comes back. A common void condition is the selected player not playing, but sportsbooks differ on the exact trigger. Some void only if the player does not take part at all, others also void if a basketball player is not in the starting five, and a few treat a late scratch as a loss. Postponed or abandoned games are typically voided too, though some books grade a game that was abandoned after the first score. Because the conditions are sportsbook-specific, the rules attached to the market are the authority, not general convention.

Related Concepts and Next Steps

Readers who want to compare this market with a different kind of opening-score bet can read how a race to points bet works, which asks which team reaches a points threshold first rather than which player scores first. For sport-specific context on how usage and game flow shape individual player lines, the guide to NFL player props is a logical next step. Whatever the market, a long-odds bet is a high-variance bet: it will lose far more often than it wins, so stake only money you can afford to lose and treat any result as one outcome among many possible ones.