What Does Draw No Bet Mean? Draw No Bet Explained Right Here

Peter Addison

Sports betting writer

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If you’ve been exploring your options for sports betting and football betting in particular, then you’ve probably come across the term ‘draw no bet’. Unless, like us, you’re a betting expert, you’ve probably asked yourself what does draw no bet mean? What does draw no bet mean in football, as it seems to be mainly focused on the round-ball game? Is it available with other sports?

Well, wonder no more as this page will fully explain what does draw no bet means, and how you can add this betting option to your sports wagering set of tools at any of the bookmakers on our list of the top UK bookmakers online.

Explaining Draw No Bet in Betting: What it Means and How it Works in the UK

The main idea of any sporting contest is to determine a winner. There are two competitors – teams or individuals – and those competitors do battle to find out who, on the day, is better. That’s easy enough to understand.

However, in some sports a draw or tie is an accepted outcome. The two sides are evenly matched, and the final score does not separate them. At the end of the day, neither competitor is declared the winner.

The existence of the draw or tie is an annoyance to many sports bettors. Statistically, predicting a draw is the hardest result to get right. Older bettors may remember the days of the old football pools in which the aim of the game was to correctly predict eight scoring draws – an almost impossible task that was completed by only a few dozen people down the years.

Most people want at least one side to win, and those who bet on sport are most likely to want to bet on the winners, and not for bragging rights to be shared. This means that people will chose the ‘1X2’ odds in football or other sports where ties are permitted, but still select who they think will be the winning side.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could eradicate the draw? … well you can, with the ‘draw no bet’ type of wager. If you decide to back a team on a ‘draw no bet’ basis, then should the game actually finish in a draw the result is what is known as a push – i.e. your stake is returned to you. With a ‘1X2’ bet if you back a team and the game results in a draw, then your money is lost, as it is if the side you didn’t back wins.

You may ask yourself why anyone would bet on a team to win using a ‘1X2’ bet when ‘draw no bet’ is available. That’s a question with a simple answer – the odds are less attractive on a draw no bet basis than 1X2. We’ll take a look at the difference a little further on in this article.

How to Place a Draw No Bet Wager

Once you’ve understood what does draw no bet mean, you’ll also soon understand how to place a draw no bet wager. It really is barely any different than placing any other kind of wager – you just have to make sure you are placing it correctly.

For our example, we are going to go to one of our favourite betting sites, BetUK. We want to place a draw no bet wager on Manchester United at home to Chelsea. It’s a big game, so it’s easy to find on the site! The ‘draw no bet’ option is not readily available via the main page, so you need to click the ‘+488’ number which will give you the full list of markets for this game available (and yes, that does mean there are 488 markets!)

For the next step you need to scroll down the page until you find the draw no bet odds. This should not take you very long to do.

To select the bet, just click on the odds. Here we are going to place a ‘draw no bet’ wager on Manchester United.

We’re confident of a Manchester United win (Frank Lampard is the current Chelsea manager after all) so we’ve placed £5 on our bet in the hope of winning £6.20. Remember if Chelsea do manage to hold the Red Devils then our stake will be returned, but if the unthinkable does happen and Chelsea win, then our bet is a losing one.

To confirm our bet all we need to do is hit ‘Place Bet’.

Draw No Bet in Football

The ‘draw no bet’ option is most commonly used with football bets, mainly because (a) a draw is a perfectly valid and accepted result in football and (b) football is the most popular sport in the UK!

One thing that is important to remember is that when it comes to betting, football is more or less a 90 minute game. As far as bookies are concerned, the game ends once the referee blows for full time. Extra time and penalties do not count when it comes to football betting, so if you back a team to win on a ‘draw no bet’ basis and it’s 2-2 at full time but they go on to lose in extra time or on penalties, then your wager is still paid out as a draw.

The same goes for two-legged matches. Say the team you are backing were 1-0 down from the first leg and at full time in the second leg they are 1-0 up. Overall, the game is tied so (depending on the rules of the competition) extra time is needed. If the final result of the second leg game after extra time is 1-1, then your bet is paid out as a win to the team who ended the game 1-0 before extra time. If you are confused in any way just remember that in football betting terms, extra time and penalties just do not exist!

Draw No Bet in Other Sports

There are a handful of other sports where ties are permitted, which leads us to ask the question ‘what does draw no bet mean in betting, and can it be used on sports other than football’. The easiest answer to this question is ‘nope!’.

Cricket

Cricket is a game where, famously, two teams can play for five days and there still not be a winner at the end of the match. The final batting team must surpass the other’s side total to win, but if they have wickets remaining at the game’s conclusion, the game is a draw rather than a loss. Games can also end with both sides scoring the same amount of runs, in which case the game is declared a tie.

So, is ‘draw no bet’ available on cricket matches? The answer, disappointingly perhaps, is no.

American Sports

Americans do not like ties in their sports, although ties are possible. In baseball, they just keep on playing until there’s a winner. Ties only happen if the weather intervenes while the game is tied. The last tie in baseball happened in 2016, and the one previous to that in 2005.

Ties are more common in American football. There’s a ten-minute overtime period if a game ends in a tie in normal time, and if the scores remain level after that, then the game is declared a tie. On average though, there are only one or two tied American football games a season.

Moving on to basketball, a tied game results in an extra five minutes. The game continues with extra periods until one team ends a period in a winning position. In ice hockey there is also one five minute extra period, after which the game is decided by a shoot-out.

As you can see, ties are very rare in all American sports, hence ‘draw no bet’ is a pointless bet for betting sites to offer.

Other Sports

So, which other sports are ties or draws possible? Obviously, matches in most individual sports such as tennis, golf, snooker and darts never end with a tie, but what about team sports? Well, ties are possible in chess, boxing, Aussie rules (though extremely rare), motor sports, horse racing, greyhounds and rugby union, however, out of all these sports only chess sees a ‘draw rate’ as common as football, and who wants to bet on chess?

So, if you are looking for ‘draw no bet’ options on any sport that’s not football, you’re going to be disappointed.

Draw No Bet vs Double Chance

It’s easy to get ‘draw no bet’ mixed up with double chance, so as part of this ‘draw no bet explained’ article, we’re going to look at the differences between the two.

A ‘double chance’ bet allows you to combine two match results in one. In our Manchester United vs Chelsea example, the options would be as follows:

Manchester United win or draw
Chelsea win or draw
Manchester United or Chelsea win

You can eradicate the draw with a double chance bet, but if you do that you cannot select a specific side to win. You can also include the draw with the side you are backing, meaning that you get paid out if your backed team wins or draws.

So, is double chance better than a draw no bet wager? Let’s take a look at the odds and find out.

We’re going to assume you’re backing the Red Devils to win, but you’re worried they might rest a few stars as they’ve a cup final coming up and might draw instead, so you take the ‘draw no bet option’. Your odds are 1.25, so a £1 bet on Manchester United would return £1.25 for a United win, £1 for a draw and -£1 for a Chelsea win.

The ‘double chance’ odds for a Manchester United win or draw are 1.16. So your return from a £1 bet would be £1.16 for a Manchester United win, £1.16 for a draw, and -£1 for Chelsea win. The option you choose would depend upon your confidence of a United victory.

Draw No Bet and Asian Handicap

The draw no bet option is also similar to a handicap bet … well actually it is identical to the ‘Asian handicap 0’ bet. With an Asian handicap, if the score of a match is tied once the game is completed and the handicap has been applied, then it’s a push and your stake is returned.

Therefore, if you chose the ‘Asian handicap 0’ bet, then it is identical to a draw no bet. It would, however, be pointless in doing so as the odds of both bets would be identical.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Draw No Bet

So what are the pluses and minuses of a draw not bet? You can find them listed below.

Advantages:

Less chance of your bet being a losing one
Less chance of being undone by unexpected results
If your backed team draws instead of wins, you get some return.

Disadvantages:

Less advantageous odds
You will need to up your stake to get the same return as a 1X2 bet
Only available on football.

When to Use Draw No Bet – The Best Draw No Bet Strategy

Hint: if you don’t like maths, skip this bit!

The main draw no bet strategy is to learn when it is more advantageous to place a draw no bet wager, as opposed to a 1X2 bet. To do this, you’ll need to get your calculator out.

Let’s return once again to our Manchester United v Chelsea match. The normal odds are United at 1.61, Chelsea at 5.5 and the draw at 4.50. The draw no bet odds are United at 1.25 And Chelsea at 4.00.

To get draw no bet odds from 1X2 odds, we use the following formula:

Odds = 1X2 win odds x (1 – (1 / 1X2 draw odds)

Plugging in the numbers we get:

Odds = 1.61 x (1 – (1 / 4.50))
Odds = 1.61 x (1 – 0.222)
Odds = 1.61 x 0.777
Odds = 1.25

As you can see, the odds are practically the same, so there is no advantage in placing a 1X2 on a win and a draw as opposed to a straight draw no bet.

Lets say though that our calculation worked out draw no bet odds of 1.3 from 1X2 odds, which are better than the site’s draw no bet odds – what then? Well, you place some of your stake on the win at 1X2 odds, and some on a draw. Just divide your stake by the 1X2 draw odds for the draw portion, and place the rest on the win.

In our (continuing) example, lets say the 1X2 odds for a United win are 1.60, and the draw odds of 5.33 (hence our 1.30 odds calculation). If we intended to put £10 on draw no bet, then to get the draw stake for the 1X2 bet we divide £10 by 5.33, to get £1.87. We therefore have our win stake of £8.23, so we put £8.23 on United to win, and £1.87 on them to draw.

Now let’s compare the outcomes:

United win

£10 on draw no bet odds of 1.25 = £12.50 return
£8.23 on 1X2 odds of 1.60 = £13.17 return

United draw

£10 on draw no bet odds of 1.25 = £10 return
£1.87 on 1X2 odds of 5.33 = £9.97 return

So, as you can see we’d make more profit if betting on 1X2 odds if United win, and would get practically the same return if United drew, making our own, ‘calculated’ draw no bet odds the better choice.

If you are bamboozled by the mathematics above, and are bamboozled by betting calculations as a whole, don’t forget you can make use of our neat range of handy bet calculators.

Top UK Online Bookmakers that offer Draw No Bet

We’ve hand picked five UK bookmakers which we think are the leading sites when it comes to placing your draw no bet wagers.

Wrapping Up

Now you have had the draw no bet explained, there should be no puzzling over how does draw no bet work, or how you can use a draw no bet strategy to increase your profits should your betting endeavours prove to be successful. If you’ve read this page, you will fully understand what does draw no bet mean in betting, and what is draw no bet in terms of alternatives, such as double chance and Asian handicap 0.

Why not try a draw no bet wager today? Pick out one of our favourite UK betting sites, or chose one based on the betting offers that they provide.

FAQs

What is draw no bet in football?

It's a bet on a football match where the draw is eradicated. If the match you've backed a side on ends in a draw, your stake is returned.

What does draw no bet mean in betting?

It's a bet that ends in a push should the final result of the game you've wagered on is a tie.

What does draw no bet mean in an acca and can I use it?

If you include a draw no bet wager in an acca, then should the game you've wagered on end in a draw, then your stake for the next acca leg will be the stake of the previous one. Yes, you can usual include draw no bet wagers within accas.

The side in my draw no bet wager were losing 1-0 at full time, but drew 1-1 in extra time and then won on penalties, but my bet wasn't paid. How come?

In football betting, extra time and penalties does not count. The result of the match is the score at the normal full time whistle.

What is the best draw no bet strategy?

Compare the given draw no bet odds of any match to the normal 1X2 odds. Sometimes it is more advantageous to place a split 1X2 bet on win and draw, as opposed to a straight draw no bet wager

Peter Addison

Sports betting writer

Peter Addison

Sports betting writer

Peter joined the BettingSites.co.uk team in 2023, having previously worked for many high-profile gambling-related sites such as RightCasino, JustSlots, WhichBingo and Gambling.com. An experienced head when it comes to all aspects of iGaming, Peter is a fanatic fan of sport, including football and US sports such as baseball and American football. He is also a multi-published fiction writer, although sadly, not a wealthy one.

All posts by Peter Addison

What Does ‘Draw No Bet’ Mean? A Comprehensive Guide for UK Bettors

Explaining Draw No Bet in Betting: What it Means and How it Works in the UK

How to Place a Draw No Bet Wager

Draw No Bet in Football

Draw No Bet in Other Sports

Cricket

American Sports

Other Sports

Draw No Bet vs Double Chance

Draw No Bet and Asian Handicap

Advantages and Disadvantages of Draw No Bet

When to Use Draw No Bet – The Best Draw No Bet Strategy

Top UK Online Bookmakers that offer Draw No Bet

Wrapping Up

Related articles

FAQs

What is draw no bet in football?

What does draw no bet mean in betting?

What does draw no bet mean in an acca and can I use it?

The side in my draw no bet wager were losing 1-0 at full time, but drew 1-1 in extra time and then won on penalties, but my bet wasn't paid. How come?

What is the best draw no bet strategy?