How Often Does a Team With 15+ Shots Fail to Score?
About one in six teams that rack up 15 or more shots still finish without a goal. The on-target count tells you which ones.
- 17.6%Teams with 15+ shots that failed to score
- 36,149Team-matches with 15+ shots
- 58.7%15+ shots but 0-2 on target: failed to score
- 4.6Avg shots on target when 15+ shots and no goal
Shot volume looks like the cleanest argument for a team scoring. If a side gets 15 or more efforts away, surely it finds the net? For a BTTS bettor that assumption matters, because one dominant side blanking is exactly how the market dies. I tested it across 21 European divisions and 67,047 matches with full statistics.
The headline answer: teams with 15+ shots failed to score in 17.6% of 36,149 team-matches, about 1 in 6. Volume helps, but what separates the blanks is shots on target, which is what I check first when I put together today's BTTS tips.
Q1Does taking more shots steadily reduce the chance of blanking?
This chart covers 134,094 team-matches, split by total shots. The drop at the low end is steep: teams with 0-4 shots failed to score 57.8% of the time and teams with 5-9 shots 35.6%. By 10-14 shots it is 24.7%.
View the data: failed to score, by the team’s total shots
| Share of 134,094 team-matches with no goal scored | |
|---|---|
| 0-4 shots | 57.8% |
| 5-9 shots | 35.6% |
| 10-14 shots | 24.7% |
| 15-19 shots | 18.6% |
| 20-24 shots | 15.2% |
| 25+ shots | 13.5% |
Past that point the curve flattens. It is 18.6% with 15-19 shots, 15.2% with 20-24 and still 13.5% with 25 or more. Each extra batch of shots buys less protection than the last, and a side with a huge shot count still blanks more often than most people would guess.
Q2When a team shoots a lot, how many goals usually follow?
Blanking is only half the picture. This chart shows how goals are distributed for teams with 10 or more shots. With 15-19 shots, a team scored exactly once 31.4% of the time and three or more 24.3%. That one-goal outcome is the most common result in that band.
View the data: goals scored by teams with 10+ shots
| 0 goals | 1 | 2 | 3+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-14 shots | 24.7% | 34.9% | 24.5% | 15.9% |
| 15-19 shots | 18.6% | 31.4% | 25.7% | 24.3% |
| 20-24 shots | 15.2% | 28.1% | 24.8% | 31.9% |
| 25+ shots | 13.5% | 24.5% | 24.0% | 38.0% |
Only at 25+ shots does three or more take over, at 38.0%. For BTTS this tells me heavy shooting usually produces a goal, but often just the one. That makes the other side's attack just as important to the bet.
Q3How much do shots on target change the blank rate?
This is the chart I keep coming back to. Among teams with 15+ shots, those with only 0-2 on target failed to score 58.7% of the time. That is a fair price of 1.70 on the blank, so a busy, wasteful side is closer to a coin flip than a scoring certainty. With 3-4 on target the rate falls to 32.3%, with 5-6 to 17.4%, and with 7 or more to 6.6%, a fair price of 15.15.
The averages tell the same story. Teams with 15+ shots that blanked averaged 4.6 on target, against 6.7 for those that scored. The quantity of shots barely separates them. Accuracy does.
| Shots on target | Team-matches | Failed to score | Fair odds no goal | Fair odds to score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0-2 | 1,665 | 58.7% | 1.70 | 2.42 |
| 3-4 | 7,166 | 32.3% | 3.09 | 1.48 |
| 5-6 | 11,642 | 17.4% | 5.74 | 1.21 |
| 7+ | 15,676 | 6.6% | 15.15 | 1.07 |
One caveat runs through the whole study. These are full-match totals. A side chasing a deficit piles up late, low-quality shots, so a high count partly reflects game state, and none of it is known before kick-off. Read this as a guide to how teams create chances, not a pre-match signal.
Q4Do lower-division teams waste high shot counts more often?
The 11 top flights in the sample are compared here with second to fourth tiers. With 15-19 shots, top-flight teams failed to score 17.4% of the time and lower-division teams 19.9%. With 20-24 shots the gap is wider: 13.9% against 17.0%.
View the data: blanking with 15+ shots: top flights vs lower
| Top flights | Lower divisions | |
|---|---|---|
| 15-19 shots (13,177 / 12,907 team-matches) | 17.4% | 19.9% |
| 20-24 shots (4,499 / 3,361 team-matches) | 13.9% | 17.0% |
| 25+ shots (1,441 / 764 team-matches) | 12.1% | 16.0% |
The gap holds in every band, and lower-league finishing is the likely reason. When I back a lower-division favourite to score in a BTTS angle, I trust its shot volume a bit less than I would in a top flight.
The playbook
How we would use these numbers before the next BTTS bet.
- Track on-target, not volume. When building a team's profile, weight shots on target per match well above total shots. Among 15+ shot teams, 0-2 on target blanked 58.7% of the time against 6.6% with 7 or more.
- Discount lower-league shot counts. A lower-division side with 20-24 shots still blanked 17.0% of the time, against 13.9% in top flights. Treat their attacking volume with extra scepticism.
- Check the other attack. Teams with 15-19 shots scored exactly once 31.4% of the time, so a dominant side often supplies only one goal. BTTS still depends on whether the underdog can create anything.
Data & method
- Data: 21 European divisions, 2016/17–2025/26, 67,047 matches with full match statistics.
- One row per team per match; shots and shots on target are the team's own full-match totals.
- Failed to score = 0 goals at full time for that team; own goals by the opponent count as goals scored.
- Top flights are the 11 first divisions in the sample; lower divisions are the second to fourth tiers.
- Fair odds = 1 / observed frequency, no margin.
- Caveat: Shot counts are full-match totals: a team chasing a deficit piles up shots late, so high shot counts partly reflect game state.
- Caveat: Shot volume is known only after the match; the rates describe outcomes, not a pre-match signal.
Quick Q&A
- How often does a team with 15 or more shots fail to score?
- In 17.6% of 36,149 team-matches, roughly 1 in 6. Even with 25 or more shots, teams blanked 13.5% of the time.
- Do shots on target matter more than total shots for scoring?
- Yes. Teams with 15+ shots and 0-2 on target failed to score 58.7% of the time, while those with 7 or more on target blanked just 6.6%.
- How often do both teams score when one side has 15+ shots?
- Both teams scored in 57.2% of the 33,259 matches where at least one side had 15 or more shots. One team's volume does not stop the other from scoring.
I'm Beatrix Lund, a betting writer who's narrowed right down to Both Teams To Score markets, where patient research into goal patterns tends to pay off.
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