Poisson football calculator
Enter the expected goals for each team to get win, draw and loss probabilities, over/under, both teams to score and the most likely scorelines. Add the Dixon-Coles adjustment for low scores, and optionally enter bookmaker odds to compare. Everything runs in your browser.
Estimate expected goals from team strengths
Strengths are relative to the league average (1.0 is average; defence above 1.0 concedes more). Home goals = league home average × home attack × away defence.
Home win
52.7%
fair odds 1.90
Draw
25.3%
fair odds 3.95
Away win
22.0%
fair odds 4.54
Over 2.5
55.4%
Under 2.5
44.6%
Both teams score
56.8% yes
Most likely scorelines
Scoreline grid (home goals down, away goals across)
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 6.6 | 5.0 | 3.3 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| 1 | 8.8 | 12.0 | 6.0 | 2.2 | 0.6 | 0.1 |
| 2 | 8.9 | 9.8 | 5.4 | 2.0 | 0.5 | 0.1 |
| 3 | 5.3 | 5.9 | 3.2 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| 4 | 2.4 | 2.6 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| 5 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
Optional: compare with bookmaker odds (decimal)
With odds entered, each result card shows the margin-free market probability and the gap in percentage points. A big gap usually means your expected goals are off, not that the market is wrong.
How it works
1. Expected goals to scorelines. If a team is expected to score 1.8 goals, the Poisson formula gives the chance of exactly 0, 1, 2, 3 goals and so on. Multiplying the two teams’ chances gives the probability of every scoreline.
2. Add up the scorelines. A home win is every scoreline where the home team scores more, a draw is the diagonal, and over 2.5 is every scoreline with three or more total goals.
3. Fix the low scores. The Dixon-Coles adjustment corrects four scorelines where plain Poisson is known to be off, then rescales so everything still adds to 100%.
Want to build it yourself?
Follow the Poisson football model in Python guide, or remove the bookmaker margin with the odds calculator. For live probabilities in code, see the football prediction API.
FAQ
Get match probabilities in your own app
Probabilities, odds, fixtures and live scores as JSON over one REST API. Try it free for 14 days, no card needed.
curl https://api.predictiqpro.com/predictions/live \ -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_API_KEY"