Guide Throw-ins Betting: The Most Overlooked Football Prop Market (And How to Actually Use It)

[Betting Forum]

Nobody talks about throw-ins betting. That's mostly because it sounds absurd - betting on a player's throw-in count feels about as serious as betting on how many times the manager adjusts his tie. But there's a real market here, the lines are genuinely soft at most books, and the logic that drives the numbers is traceable and consistent in a way that most prop markets aren't.

This guide is for bettors who've already worked through the basics and are looking at the outer edges of the player prop landscape. If you haven't read the center back passes or tackles articles in this series, the underlying possession mechanics covered there apply here too.

Recommended USA sportsbooks: Bovada, Everygame | Recommended UK sportsbook: 888 Sport | Recommended ROW sportsbooks: Pinnacle, 1XBET

What Actually Generates Throw-ins​

Before anything else, you need a clear picture of what a throw-in actually represents in a football match. A throw-in is awarded when the ball crosses the touchline. It goes to the team that didn't put it out. The team that retrieves it near the line throws it back in.

So what determines how many throw-ins a given player takes? Three things, primarily.

First, his position on the pitch. Fullbacks take the vast majority of throw-ins in most systems, because they operate closest to the touchline and are the natural retrievers when the ball goes out of play in wide areas. A central midfielder or a striker can have a monster game and record zero throw-ins if the ball never goes out near them.

Second, the team's style of play. Teams that play a direct, wide, high-tempo style - pumping balls into channels, using the full width of the pitch - generate more out-of-play situations along the touchlines. Teams that are more compact and central in their build-up generate fewer. This is a style characteristic that's measurable from data and fairly consistent across a season.

Third, the specific matchup. How the opposition defends wide areas affects how many times the ball gets forced out of play on each flank. A team pressing aggressively on the wings creates more out-of-play situations. A team that defends narrowly and funnels play inside creates fewer. The interaction between your team's width and the opponent's defensive structure is what produces the final throw-in count in any individual match.

Books pricing throw-in lines tend to account for the first two reasonably well. The third - the matchup-specific interaction - is where the lines get soft.

The Fullback Question​

Throw-in markets are almost entirely a fullback story. Occasionally you'll see an attacking winger with high throw-in counts because they track back and retrieve balls in their defensive third, but the dominant profile by a significant margin is the fullback who plays the full game and operates on a wide, active flank.

Within that, not all fullbacks are equal. The one you want is a fullback playing in a system that deliberately attacks wide - someone whose manager asks him to overlap, pin the opposition wide midfielder deep, and engage in high-volume wide play. That player is repeatedly involved in situations where the ball crosses the touchline. On average across a season, wide-playing, high-tempo systems produce fullbacks with throw-in counts 25-35% higher than fullbacks in compact, central systems.

The highest throw-in counts I've noticed consistently cluster around a specific type of match: an attacking, wide-oriented team against a side that defends with a narrow mid-block. The wide team keeps pushing the ball into wide areas. The narrow defensive team keeps showing them outside, happy to let them play there. The ball goes out of play repeatedly on both flanks. The throw-in count for the wide team's fullbacks goes through the roof.

That's the setup worth hunting for.

Why the Lines Are Soft​

Throw-ins are low-status data. They're not in the traditional football stats conversation - nobody's talking about Trent Alexander-Arnold's throw-in numbers on Match of the Day. Data providers track them, but the cultural attention paid to them is minimal, which means the modelling effort at most books reflects that low attention.

Most throw-in lines I've looked at are priced from season averages with minimal matchup adjustment. That's the same weakness as the tackles and center back passes markets, except it's arguably more pronounced here because even the better books seem to treat throw-ins as a low-priority line to sharpen. The implied assumption is that not many serious bettors are playing this market, so spending resource on refining the model doesn't pay off.

That assumption is probably right about the current state of the market. Which is exactly what makes it interesting. The sharpening will come eventually - niche markets always get tighter as they attract more attention from people who've figured them out. The window for soft lines tends to be a few years at most before the model improves.

The Data You Need and Where to Find It​

Unlike some prop markets where the underlying data requires paid subscriptions or manual collection, throw-in data is available without much digging.

Sofascore tracks individual player throw-in counts at the match level across most major and second-tier European leagues. You can pull a fullback's last 10-15 games and get his throw-in average, and more usefully, see the variance across games - which tells you whether the number is fairly stable or heavily context-dependent. A fullback averaging 12 throw-ins but with a range of 6 to 21 across recent games is telling you the number is highly context-sensitive. A fullback averaging 11 with a range of 9 to 14 is more predictable.

For team-level data on playing width and style - tracking which teams play the widest, which teams defend narrowest - you're back to FBref and the passing width metrics available there. It's a bit manual to assemble but not complicated.

The cross-reference you're building is: fullback's average throw-in count in games where his team had high wide activity, versus the specific opponent's tendency to defend wide or narrow. That comparison against the line is your signal.

A Word on Sample Size and Noise​

Throw-ins have more game-to-game variance than tackles or center back passes. A single early red card changes everything. Rain makes the ball slippery, which indirectly affects how often it goes out of play. A tactical change at half-time that pulls the wide fullback inside. Injury substitutions changing the team's structure mid-game.

I'm not saying this to talk you out of the market - it's worth playing with appropriate stakes. But the uncertainty range on individual throw-in counts is wider than it looks from averages, and sizing bets accordingly matters. This isn't a market where you go heavy based on a clean pre-match analysis, because the situational noise is high enough that even a well-reasoned bet can miss for reasons that had nothing to do with your logic.

The way I'd approach it: treat throw-in props as smaller-stake plays relative to your usual prop sizing, and look for situations where the analysis is very clear - strong setup, clear line discrepancy - rather than playing every marginal case. The edge, where it exists, is meaningful enough that you don't need to stretch into grey areas.

What the Under Side Looks Like​

Most of the discussion above is framed around overs - situations where high wide play and matchup dynamics push throw-in counts above a line anchored to an overall average. But the under side has its own logic and is sometimes the cleaner play.

The classic under setup is a fullback from a wide-playing team who faces an opponent that presses high and wide - a team that actively contests the flanks rather than sitting back. When both teams are competing aggressively for wide areas, the ball gets moved inside faster, wide play gets disrupted, and the throw-in count on each flank actually drops because neither side is dominating the wide channels long enough to force repeated out-of-play situations. It's counter-intuitive on first inspection, but an aggressive pressing opponent compresses throw-in counts differently to what you might expect.

The other under case is more straightforward: a fullback from a compact, central-build-up team who averages low throw-in counts anyway, priced at a line that's already at the low end but still marginally too high because the book didn't fully adjust downward for the specific context.

Combining Throw-in Bets With Other Props​

One thing worth knowing: throw-in props correlate with certain other markets in ways that can be useful for building a coherent match-level view.

If your analysis is pointing toward a wide, high-volume, possession-imbalanced game - the favourite's fullbacks generating high throw-in counts because they're dominating wide areas - that same game structure probably has implications for the underdog's defensive midfielder tackle count (covered in the last article) and potentially for corners volumes. You're essentially betting on a game script rather than isolated statistics.

That correlation isn't a problem. If anything it's useful, because it means several different prop lines might be mispriced in the same direction for the same underlying reason. Just be aware that if the game script goes badly wrong early - that unexpected underdog goal, for example - the whole set of assumptions unravels together. Not a reason to avoid the approach, but a reason to be thoughtful about how much of your session bankroll is on the same underlying game narrative.

Anyway, throw-ins are a real market with real edge available for anyone willing to do the matchup work. The fact that nobody's talking about it is the point.

FAQ​

Q1: Are throw-in markets available at most major sportsbooks?
For Premier League and La Liga, increasingly yes - most books covering player props now include throw-in lines for starting fullbacks. Coverage drops off significantly for lower leagues and for positions other than fullbacks. If you're finding the top-flight lines are already too sharp, the same logic applied to Championship or Bundesliga 2 games, where the lines are less considered, often produces better value.

Q2: Does the specific fullback's throw-in technique matter - like, can one player just be better at retaining throw-ins and therefore take more?
There are a few fullbacks known for taking quick throw-ins as a tactical weapon - retrieving the ball fast and throwing before the opposition sets up. That does slightly inflate their throw-in count relative to a fullback who waits for teammates to position. Worth noting in your research if a player has that characteristic. But it's a minor factor compared to the positional and tactical drivers. The system and the matchup still dominate.

Q3: What's a realistic edge on these markets if the line is soft?
Genuinely hard to generalise because it depends on how far off the line is and how clear the matchup logic is. What I can say is that the combination of a soft modelling approach and clear directional setup can produce situations where you're looking at meaningful expected value per bet - the kind of number that makes the market worth including in a prop portfolio even at lower stakes. But I'd be making things up if I gave you a precise figure. Track your own results over a sample and see what the data shows for your specific selection criteria.