PSL Goals Per Game

Last updated: July 2026. A living page — we add each completed season.

The Betway Premiership produces about two goals a game, and it has been falling for 27 years. The league averaged 2.46 goals per game across its first six seasons and 2.18 across its most recent eleven. Seven of the ten lowest-scoring seasons in PSL history have come in the last twelve.

This is the single most useful structural fact about South African football for anyone betting on it, and it is almost never stated with the full record attached. Here is the full record.

Every Season, 1996/97 to 2022/23

The 2023/24 season came in at 2.03 goals per game, the second-lowest on record.

The first six seasons were played over 34 rounds (306 matches); from 2002/03 the league settled at 30 rounds and 240 matches, which is why raw totals drop sharply in 2002/03 without the scoring rate moving.

We checked this table before publishing it. For all 27 seasons we recomputed goals ÷ matches from the published totals and compared the result against the published per-game figure. All 27 reconcile to within rounding — zero mismatches. That also independently confirms the 306 and 240 match counts, since a wrong denominator would have shown up immediately.

The Trend Is Real, Not Noise

Season-to-season scoring bounces around, so the eye is a poor judge. Fitting a straight line to all 27 seasons gives a decline of 0.014 goals per game per season — about 0.37 goals per game across the span of the league's history.

Grouped into eras, it is plainer still:

From the peak of 2.69 in 1999/00 to the floor of 2.00 in 2021/22, the league lost 26% of its goals per game.

Two caveats worth stating. The 34-game era's higher scoring may partly reflect a different competitive structure rather than a purely stylistic shift, and the 2010/11 spike to 2.51 — the highest of the 30-game era, immediately after South Africa hosted the World Cup — shows the trend is not a smooth slide. But every era average is lower than the one before it, and seven of the ten lowest-scoring seasons fall in the last twelve. That is a trend.

In Context: the PSL Against Europe

Comparative figures reported in the same season the PSL was setting its recent low:

The gap to the Bundesliga is more than a goal a game. Against the Premier League — the league most South African bettors watch most — it is roughly 0.8 goals per match, which over a season is the difference between a mid-table side scoring 40 and scoring 28.

Independent league rankings put the PSL among the highest "under 2.5 goals" leagues in world football, at around 69.6% of matches finishing under 2.5 — fifth of more than a hundred leagues surveyed. We quote that with attribution rather than as our own computation; the season-by-season table above is our own validation, the under-2.5 ranking is a third party's.

What a 2.0-Goal League Means for Betting It

This is where the data earns its keep. Four consequences follow directly.

Under 2.5 is the base case, not the contrarian call. In a league averaging around two goals a match, roughly seven matches in ten finish under 2.5. A bettor arriving from the Premier League carries an instinct calibrated to 2.79 goals a game, and that instinct is wrong here by a wide margin. This is the single most common mistake in PSL betting.

The draw is a live outcome. Our own analysis of 930 recent Betway Premiership matches found 29.2% of them drawn — close to three in ten, and stable season to season. Low-scoring leagues produce more level results, and 0-0 and 1-1 are ordinary here rather than remarkable. Our PSL analytics page sets out that computation and its method in full.

Both-teams-to-score fires less often. It follows arithmetically from a two-goal league: fewer goals to go round means more matches where one side fails to score at all.

Correct-score and goalscorer markets concentrate. When a league's scoring collapses into a narrow band, the plausible scorelines are few and the outcome distribution is tighter than in a high-scoring league.

We are not quoting prices for any of this. Odds vary by operator and move constantly, and a number written into an evergreen page is wrong within a week. What the data supports is the shape of the league — where the probability mass sits — and you should take that to whatever prices you find.

One clause on the economics, since it belongs on any page like this: bookmakers price these markets to retain a small margin, so a genuine structural insight narrows the gap rather than removing it. Knowing the league is low-scoring is worth having; it is not a system.

Why the Decline? What We Are Not Claiming

We measured the decline. We are not going to pretend we have measured its cause.

Plausible explanations circulate — more conservative coaching, defensive league structures, squad turnover from clubs being sold and dissolved, the physical toll of altitude and travel, finishing quality. Of the 18 clubs in the inaugural 1996/97 season, only four still exist as professional clubs, which tells you how much institutional churn sits underneath the numbers.

Testing any of that requires shot, expected-goals and tactical data across 27 seasons, which does not exist in a complete and verifiable form for this league. So we have published the trend, which we can stand behind, and left the causation to people with the data to test it. If a reliable long-run dataset becomes available, we will revisit.

FAQ

How many goals per game are scored in the PSL? About two. The Betway Premiership averaged 2.10 goals per game in 2022/23 and 2.03 in 2023/24, against a long-run high of 2.69 in 1999/00. The most recent eleven-season average is 2.18.

Is the PSL a low-scoring league? Yes — one of the lowest of any major league. It sits roughly 0.8 goals per game below the English Premier League and more than a goal below the Bundesliga, and independent rankings place it among the top five leagues worldwide for matches finishing under 2.5 goals.

Has PSL scoring been getting worse? It has been declining steadily. A linear trend across 27 seasons shows a fall of about 0.014 goals per game each season, roughly 0.37 across the league's history, and seven of the ten lowest-scoring seasons have occurred in the last twelve.

What was the highest-scoring PSL season? 1999/00, with 823 goals in 306 matches at 2.69 per game. The lowest was 2021/22, with 479 goals in 240 matches at 2.00 per game.

How many PSL matches end in a draw? 29.2% in our own analysis of 930 recent matches — close to three in ten, and stable from season to season. That is high by the standards of the leagues most South African bettors follow.

Why did the number of goals drop in 2002/03? The league moved from 34 rounds to 30, cutting the fixture list from 306 matches to 240. The total fell because there were fewer games; the rate per game did not drop with it.

This page is descriptive analysis of completed seasons, published for information. It is not a prediction of any future match, and no odds are quoted — prices vary by operator and change constantly. 18+ only. Gambling involves financial risk; bet for entertainment and never stake more than you can afford to lose. If gambling is no longer fun, contact the National Responsible Gambling helpline on 0800 006 008 or SMS HELP to 076 675 0710.