How to Calculate a Draw No Bet from 1X2 Odds ?

In this article, we will explore what a Draw No Bet is and walk through a manual example.

Using the 1X2 Market to Produce Draw No Bet Odds

What is Draw No Bet ?

When betting on full-time soccer results covered by 1X2 odds, bettors often seek the simplicity of a two-way market. There are two common options for this: Double Chance – combining a home win and a draw or an away win and a draw as the two options (explained in detail here) – or Draw No Bet, which, as the name implies, removes the draw option from a bet, allowing bettors to wager on either a home or away win. They win if their team wins and get their stake back if the match ends in a draw.

In comparison, if bettors bet on a straight home or away win, success depends solely on that outcome – if the match ends in a draw, they lose. It is therefore logical that your return on a Draw No Bet (and accordingly, Draw No Bet odds) will fall somewhere between the 1X2 odds and Double Chance.

Bettors can thus combine 1X2 odds to mimic a Draw No Bet. To do this, they need to cover the stake on a home win with their profit from the draw; this way, if the match ends in a draw, their net profit will be zero, which is effectively the goal.

Alternatively, Pinnacle offers numerous Asian Handicap lines. As explained here, the Asian Handicap +0.5 works exactly like Double Chance, while Asian Handicap 0 is known as "PK." What Draw No Bet offers that an Asian Handicap does not is the chance to add extra value to your bet by shopping around.

Example of a Draw No Bet at Pinnacle

Let’s look at an example where you would use a Draw No Bet at Pinnacle. You believe Everton is too strong for Tottenham, and you want to stake €100 on Everton at odds of 6.75 to win, but you want insurance – your money back – if the match ends in a draw.

Other bookmakers price this bet at 4.90 and 5.50. This means your €100 stake would yield a profit between €390 and €450.

Do you now have to use other bookmakers who are offering worse odds? Let’s investigate.

As mentioned, Pinnacle offers odds of 6.75 for Everton to win, the draw is priced at 4.86, while Tottenham’s win is at 1.46. Can we use these odds to our advantage?

For our example, our stake on Everton to win is labeled S; the stake on the draw is then (100-S), as we want to bet a total of €100.

If Everton wins, you will win (6.75-1)*S on that bet, and you will lose (100-S) on your draw bet; so, your net profit is:

(6.75-1)*S – (100-S), or

5.75*S – 100

If the match ends in a draw, you will win (4.86-1)*(100-S) from that bet – you want that profit to exactly cover your loss on a home win, which is S, therefore:

(4.86-1)*(100-S) = S

This equation is relatively easy to solve, which gives us a value for S of €68.40, which is your stake on a home win. The stake on the draw is then (100-68.40) = €31.60.

Let’s check our calculations; your profit from the draw will be (4.86-1)*31.60 = €122.28, which is just equal to your loss on a home win bet, so you have achieved your goal: you break even in case of a draw.

Now let’s see what happens if Everton beats Tottenham in this example. You win (6.75-1)*68.40 = €392.30, and you lose €31.60 on the draw; so, you net a total of €360.70, which is between 20% more than the best industry offer on this market (you remember, €450) and as much as 8% more than the rest of the industry. So, was it worth the hassle? A 20% to 8% profit increase should be sufficient motivation to calculate the stakes.

From the above example, it’s easy to derive a general rule for the stakes. If you label the total amount of money you want to risk as TOTAL, odds for Home Win as HOME, Away Win as AWAY, and odds for Draw as DRAW, then:

(DRAW – 1) * (TOTAL – S) = S

Which gives you the stake for a home win as:

S = TOTAL * (DRAW – 1) / DRAW

As you can see, the stake depends only on the odds for the draw, which will simplify your calculation – it’s the same for both home Draw No Bet and away Draw No Bet. But if you want to calculate the effective odds, then you need to include the odds for home win and away win.

Remember, odds represent the ratio of return to stake. Using the same labels as above, in the case of a home win, our return is:

HOME * S, or, when we replace S from the formula above:

HOME * TOTAL * (DRAW – 1) / DRAW

Therefore,

Decimal Odds = (HOME * TOTAL * (DRAW – 1) / DRAW) / TOTAL

Or, after simplifying this formula:

Decimal Odds = HOME * (DRAW – 1) / DRAW

Similarly, for an Away Win Draw No Bet:

Decimal Odds = AWAY * (DRAW – 1) / DRAW

You are now able to quickly calculate Draw No Bet stakes and odds from a 1X2 market, allowing you to identify the better value Pinnacle offers compared to other bookmakers, and additionally to employ this calculation across two bookmakers to potentially engineer even better odds than using Pinnacle alone.