The ‘win draw win’ bet is a very common wager placed at a bookie or online betting exchange.
You will often see win draw win displayed as ‘1X2’ and on Betfair it is known as ‘Match Odds’.
It is simply a case of backing a home win, draw or away win over 90 minutes. Extra-time and penalty shoot-outs do not count, but bookies and betting exchanges add separate markets for those in-play.
A popular twist is ‘draw no bet’ which means that the draw is ignored, then ‘double chance’ which allows you to back 2 of the 3 outcomes.
Let’s go through all of them in detail.
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Win Draw Win Bet Explained
What Does Draw No Bet Mean?
What is Double Chance Betting?
Handicap Football Betting Explained
Asian Handicap Football Betting
Doubles, Patents, Trixies and More
Win Draw Win Bet Explained
As I already explained, win draw win is where you back the home win, draw or away win over 90 minutes.
Match Odds is the most popular market on Betfair, often with more than £1m matched by kick-off for fixtures played in the biggest leagues around the world. You can see an example below, a Premier League fixture between Wolves and Newcastle.
Wolves to win at home have been priced at 1.86 to back (blue) and 1.87 to lay (pink). Newcastle to win away are 5.5 to back and 5.6 to lay, while the draw is 3.5 to back and 3.55 to lay.
- If you back the home win for £10 and the match ends 1-0, 2-0, 3-1 or any other home win, your return will be £18.60 (£10 stake and £8.60 profit) less commission.
- If you back the away win for £10 and the match ends 0-1, 1-2, 0-4 or any other away win, your return will be £55 (£10 stake and £45 profit) less commission.
- If you back the draw for £10 and the match ends 0-0, 1-1, 2-2 or any other level score, your return will be £35 (£10 stake and £25 profit) less commission.
The Betfair market is saying that the home win is the most probable result as it has the lowest price, then the draw, then the away win.
At some online bookmakers, you will see win draw win labelled as ‘1X2’ with ‘1’ representing home win, ‘X’ for a draw and ‘2’ the away win.
You will also find a half-time win draw win market which is determined by the score after 45 minutes has been played. Because no team ever has to score in the first half of any match, you will find that the prices in this market offer better returns.
What Does Draw No Bet Mean?
Draw no bet – also known as DNB – removes the draw result from a win draw win bet.
This means that if you back Wolves and they win the game, you are paid out as normal. If Newcastle win then your bet loses, but if the match ends in a draw then your stake is returned to you.
You can see above that draw no bet protection comes at a cost.
Rather than backing Wolves to win at 1.86, if you choose the draw no bet option then you will only get odds of 1.33.
However, you can still back Newcastle at 3.9 which is a healthy return (if they win) and not too far below their Match Odds price of 5.5.
Draw no bet is a particularly useful option if you want to bet on a team, but you want a little insurance in case they don’t manage to win. It is also a popular way to build an accumulator bet (click on the link below to read about draw no bet accumulators).
What is Double Chance Betting?
Double chance is another popular football bet.
It is similar to win draw win, except that you are backing two of the three possible outcomes rather than only one. Therefore, you have ‘double the chance’ to win your bet.
In the example of Wolves v Newcastle, you can back ‘Home or Draw’, ‘Draw or Away’ or ‘Home or Away’.
Backing ‘Home or Draw’ will return a profit as long as the match ends in a home win or a draw. Essentially, you are laying Newcastle.
As you would expect though, if you cover more options in the market then your potential profit shrinks. Here’s how the price drops from Match Odds to Draw no Bet to Double Chance when backing Wolves:
- 1.86 – Match Odds (Home Win)
- 1.33 – Draw no Bet (Home Win)
- 1.21 – Double Chance (Home or Draw)
The price drop is quite a bit more dramatic when looking at options for backing Newcastle:
- 5.5 – Match Odds (Away Win)
- 3.9 – Draw no Bet (Away Win)
- 2.14 – Double Chance (Away or Draw)
That’s quite a price to pay for wanting a return on the draw. In that situation, I’d be much more likely to go with the draw no bet option.
One of the biggest issues with the Double Chance market is a lack of liquidity. With 9 hours to go until kick-off, the Match Odds market has £567,143 matched, Draw no Bet has £33,869 matched but Double Chance is some way behind at just £10,598.
And this is a Premier League fixture on a quiet Monday evening, so imagine how much worse liquidity is in League One on a Saturday!
The way around this is to Dutch the Match Odds market instead (click on the link below to read more).
Handicap Football Betting Explained
Handicap football betting is a little different from the bet types we have looked at so far.
Win draw win was a straight bet on the result, draw no bet took the draw result away and double chance added an extra result to your bet.
The handicap match result, however, adds or takes away goals from the final score.
For example, if you choose to go with Wolves +1 and the match ends 0-0, that will result in a 1-0 win once you add one goal for Wolves.
If you choose to go with Wolves -1 and the match ends 1-0, that will result in a 0-0 draw after taking one goal away for Wolves and your bet will lose. In order to win, Wolves will need to win by at least two goals, so 2-0, 3-1, 4-2 will all win but 1-1, 2-1, 3-2 will not.
This market is not available on the Betfair exchange, though you will find it at Betfair Sportsbook and most online bookies.
Asian Handicap Football Betting
Finally, Asian handicap betting – sometimes known as line betting – is another option.
You will find this market on the Betfair exchange and it works in a similar way to handicap betting, except that there’s also a .5 basis which eliminates the draw as a possible result.
If you choose to back ‘Wolves -0.5 & -1.0’ your stake will be split on the two different options. So if your stake is £10, then £5 will go on -0.5 and £5 will go on Leicester -1.
In this example, if the result is a 1-0 win to Wolves, the -0.5 part of the bet would be a winner, but the -1 section would be a loser. The +/-0 Asian Handicap market works exactly like the draw no bet market.
Asian handicap does appear complicated at first, but once you get your head around the various options it will make sense.
