What the draw is worth in football odds
The draw is the result most people ignore and the one that quietly decides most football bets. How to read its price, with real numbers from this weekend.
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The draw is worth more than most people think. Between two evenly matched football teams it often happens more than a quarter of the time, and its price tells you how close the bookmaker thinks the game is. In our numbers for La Liga matchday 8 the draw sits between 28% and 30% in all three matches. If you back either team to win, that is how often the draw alone beats you.
How to read a draw price
Turn the price into a chance first: one divided by the decimal price. A draw at 3.40 implies 29.4%. Then compare it with your own estimate. Our draw for Rayo Vallecano v Athletic Club is 29.1%, which makes the fair price 3.44. Anything longer than 3.44 is better than fair on our numbers, anything shorter is worse. That is all an edge is, and how to read a football match odds market does the same sum for all three results at once.
Remember the bookmaker's margin is spread across all three outcomes, so the three implied chances add up to more than 100%. Before you compare, take the margin out, as in what the bookmaker's margin really costs you.
What makes a draw more likely
Two things, mostly.
How even the teams are. The closer the two sides, the more of the probability lands in the middle. Lens v Lyon is a good example: we have Lyon 37.7% and Lens 36.2%, and the draw takes the remaining 26.0%.
How many goals you expect. Fewer goals, fewer ways for the score to come apart. The classic way to see it is a simple goals model, where each side's goals follow a Poisson distribution (the approach in Maher's 1982 paper). With both teams expected to score 1.2 goals, it gives a draw 27.7% of the time. At 0.9 goals each it is 32.9%. At 1.6 each it drops to 23.4%. A mismatch, say 1.8 against 0.8, takes it down to 22.6%. Dixon and Coles showed in 1997 that this plain model actually undercounts low-scoring draws, so real draw rates in tight, cagey games can run higher still.
What the draw does to the other bets
You can use the draw without ever backing it.
- Draw no bet hands your stake back if it is a draw. On our Rayo numbers, removing the draw gives Rayo a fair draw-no-bet price of about 1.89.
- Double chance pays on a win or a draw. Rayo or the draw is 66.6% on our numbers, a fair price of about 1.50.
Neither is better or worse than the straight win. They are the same probabilities sliced differently, so check each against its fair price.
What this does not tell you
It does not tell you which games will be drawn; a 29% chance means seven times in ten it does not happen. The goals-model figures above are illustrations of the shape, not our forecast for any match. And a draw rate from one league or season does not carry over neatly to another.
Common questions
How likely is a draw in a football match?
It depends on the match, but between two evenly matched sides it is often in the high twenties as a percentage. In our La Liga matchday 8 numbers it sits between 28% and 30% in all three games.
How do you work out the fair price of a draw?
Divide one by the chance. A 29.1% draw has a fair price of 1 divided by 0.291, about 3.44. Any price above that is longer than fair, any price below is shorter.
Why do low-scoring games have more draws?
Fewer goals means fewer ways for the score to separate. With both sides expected to score 0.9 goals, a simple goals model gives a draw about 33% of the time; at 1.6 goals each it falls to about 23%.