Betting on NRL Try Scorer Markets: Anytime, First, Last and Multi-Try

Try scorer markets are where NRL betting gets personal. Instead of backing teams or predicting scorelines, you’re putting your money on individual players to cross the white line. It’s the most popular exotic market in rugby league for good reason — there’s something viscerally satisfying about watching your player dive into the corner and knowing the payout is landing with him. But beneath the entertainment value sits a market with genuine analytical depth, where understanding positional roles, set-piece routines, and opposition defensive weaknesses separates the punters who profit from the ones who just enjoy the ride.

Anytime Try Scorer: The Gateway Market

The anytime try scorer market is the simplest version: pick a player to score at least one try during the match, regardless of when it happens. If your player crosses the line once, twice, or five times, the bet pays. If they don’t score at all, you lose. No timing, no sequence — just a binary question of whether the player finishes the game with a try next to his name.

Pricing in this market is driven primarily by historical try-scoring rates and positional expectations. Wingers and fullbacks are typically the shortest-priced players because they occupy the positions most likely to finish off attacking movements. In the NRL, outside backs account for the majority of tries in any given round, and bookmakers reflect this in their odds. A winger with consistent try-scoring form might be priced at 1.50 to 2.00 for anytime try scorer, while a middle forward — who scores far less frequently — might sit at 7.00 or higher.

The value in anytime markets doesn’t always live where you’d expect. Backing short-priced favourites at 1.50 requires them to score in roughly two out of every three games just to break even, which is a demanding strike rate even for the most prolific wingers. The more interesting space is the 2.50-4.00 range, where you find centres, second-rowers, and hookers who score less frequently but whose prices sometimes don’t fully account for favourable matchup conditions. A ball-playing hooker who runs close to the ruck against a team that defends poorly around the middle of the field can offer genuine value at odds that reflect his season-wide average rather than the specific opportunity in front of him.

First Try Scorer: Higher Odds, Higher Difficulty

The first try scorer market asks you to predict which specific player will score the opening try of the match. The increased difficulty compared to anytime is reflected in significantly higher prices — a player at 1.80 for anytime might be 8.00 or 10.00 for first try scorer. The payoff is bigger, but the probability is obviously much lower, and the market rewards a different type of analysis.

First try scorer betting is less about overall try-scoring ability and more about who is most likely to be involved in the opening attacking opportunity. This is where understanding set-piece routines becomes critical. Many NRL teams have rehearsed plays designed for the opening minutes — a structured movement off the first scrum or a planned shift to one side of the field from a specific ruck position. If you can identify which player is the designated finisher on these opening plays, you gain an edge that the broader market doesn’t always price in.

The other factor specific to first try scorer is the left-right bias of early attacks. Some teams habitually attack the left edge in their opening sets, while others favour the right or run through the middle. This directional tendency narrows the pool of likely first try scorers considerably. A right winger for a team that attacks left in its first two sets of six is a poor first try scorer candidate regardless of how many tries he scores overall. Watching the first ten minutes of a team’s recent games gives you practical data on these tendencies that no statistical model will capture cleanly. See also the first try scorer guide.

Last Try Scorer: The Forgotten Market

The last try scorer market is the mirror image of first try scorer — predict who scores the final try of the match — but it receives far less attention from bettors. This relative neglect means prices can be less precisely calibrated, which creates opportunity for anyone willing to think about it.

Last tries in NRL matches tend to follow specific patterns. In close games, the last try often comes from a team chasing the result, which means it’s frequently scored by a back involved in a desperate late attacking set. In blowouts, the last try is often scored by a substitute or an outside back running onto tired defenders in the final minutes. In games where one team is protecting a lead, the last try might come from an intercept — a defensive play rather than an attacking one.

The practical challenge with last try scorer is its high degree of randomness. The timing of the final try depends on how the game unfolds, which is inherently unpredictable. For this reason, last try scorer is best treated as a speculative market rather than one you build a strategy around. The prices are generous enough that a well-reasoned pick at 12.00-15.00 can be profitable over time if your hit rate is even modestly above what the odds imply, but you’ll need patience and a tolerance for long losing runs between payouts.

Opposition Defence: The Variable Most Bettors Underweight

Bookmakers set try scorer prices based heavily on a player’s own try-scoring record, which makes sense as a starting point. But a player’s likelihood of scoring in any given match depends just as much on who he’s playing against as on his own ability. A winger facing a team that defends its edges poorly is a fundamentally different proposition from the same winger facing a team with the best edge defence in the competition.

The defensive statistics worth examining for try scorer bets are tries conceded by position and tries conceded by field zone. Some NRL teams leak tries predominantly down one edge — their left-side defence might be solid while their right side concedes at nearly double the rate. If you can identify which edge is vulnerable and match it against the opposing team’s likely attacking finishers on that side, you’ve found a targeted bet that the market’s season-average pricing doesn’t fully capture.

Set-piece defence is another layer. Teams that defend poorly off opposition scrums give up tries in structured situations where the attacking team has time to execute planned movements. The players who benefit from these opportunities are usually the centres and wingers on the side the scrum feeds to, plus any second-rower or fullback who inserts into that attacking line. If a team concedes a disproportionate number of tries from scrum plays, the try scorer prices for the attacking team’s finishers on that side should be shorter than the market average — and sometimes they aren’t.

It’s also worth tracking how teams defend in the red zone (inside the 20-metre line). Some defences hold firm when pressed close to their own line, conceding penalty goals or forcing turnovers but rarely conceding tries from close range. Others collapse under sustained pressure and give up soft tries to forwards charging from dummy-half or short-range pop passes. If the opposition bleeds red-zone tries, hookers and middle forwards become more attractive try scorer candidates than their season-wide prices suggest.

Multi-Try Scorer Markets: When One Isn’t Enough

Several bookmakers now offer markets on a player to score two or more tries (a brace) or three or more tries (a hat-trick) in a single match. The odds are substantially higher — a player at 2.00 for anytime might be 8.00-10.00 for two or more and 25.00-40.00 for a hat-trick — reflecting the added difficulty of scoring multiple times.

The maths behind multi-try markets is worth understanding before you stake. If a player has a 50% chance of scoring at least one try (implied by anytime odds of 2.00), his chance of scoring two or more is not simply 50% x 50% = 25%. The tries are not independent events — if a player scores once, it often means the attacking patterns are working in his favour, the opposition edge is vulnerable, or the conditions suit his style. This correlation means the actual probability of a second try, given that the first has occurred, is higher than the base rate. Bookmakers account for this, but the adjustment isn’t always precise, which is where value can appear.

The ideal multi-try scorer candidate has three characteristics: high involvement in the attacking structure (measured by number of involvements inside the opposition 20), a favourable matchup against a defensive weakness, and a game script that projects a high-scoring affair for his team. If only one or two of these conditions are met, the anytime market is the safer play. When all three align, the two-or-more market offers a leveraged position on a bet that’s already in your favour.

Hat-trick betting is a different animal entirely. Three tries from one player in a single NRL match happens a handful of times per season across the entire competition. The prices reflect this rarity, and the variance is extreme. If you bet on hat-tricks, do so with very small stakes and the understanding that you’ll lose the vast majority of these bets. The occasional win at 30.00+ makes up for the losses in aggregate, but only if your selection process is disciplined and your stakes are sustainable.

Building a Try Scorer Strategy That Lasts

The try scorer markets reward specificity over generality. Blindly backing the shortest-priced player each game will grind your bankroll down over time because the prices on obvious candidates rarely offer value. The edge comes from identifying situations where the bookmaker’s assessment — based largely on season averages and positional norms — doesn’t account for the specific conditions of a particular match.

Build a pre-match checklist before selecting any try scorer bet. Start with the opposition’s defensive profile: where do they concede tries, and which positions on your team will attack those zones? Then check the team’s recent set-piece plays: has the coach introduced any new attacking structures that target a specific player? Then consider the conditions: wet weather suppresses the wide try-scoring opportunities that wingers thrive on and increases the relative value of forwards and hookers who score from close range.

This methodical approach turns try scorer betting from a lucky dip into a research-driven exercise. You won’t win every bet — the variance in individual try-scoring outcomes is too high for that — but you’ll consistently back players at prices that overstate the difficulty, and over a full NRL season, that’s the entire formula for long-term profit in these markets. NRL try scorer markets on rugby league betting tips.