Draw No Bet Explained: How It Works, the Maths and How to Build Your Own

Draw no bet does what it says. You back a team to win a match, and if the match ends level your stake comes back. The price is shorter than the ordinary win price, because the bookmaker has removed one of the three ways you could lose. In football, where roughly a quarter of matches are drawn, that is a meaningful piece of insurance.

The market is usually written DNB and settles on the full-time result after 90 minutes plus stoppage time, not extra time, unless the market says otherwise.

Example: Liverpool to win at 1.80 on the match-result market and 1.40 on draw no bet. A £50 DNB bet returns £70 if Liverpool win, £50 back if it is drawn, and nothing if Liverpool lose. The same £50 on the 1.80 match-result price would return £90 for the win but lose on the draw.

If you have seen "Liverpool 0" or "Liverpool (0.0)" in an Asian handicap market, that is draw no bet by another name. A handicap of zero means no goals are added or subtracted; the team must simply win, and a draw is a push with the stake returned. Bookmakers that run both markets usually price them within a few hundredths of each other, and it is worth checking both, because one is sometimes a little more generous. Our handicap betting guide covers the rest of the Asian handicap ladder.

The DNB price comes from the three-way market. Take the implied probabilities of the home win and the draw, remove the draw, and rescale what remains. In fair odds, a home win at 2.50 (40%) with the draw at 3.40 (29.4%) leaves 70.6% of outcomes once draws are refunded, so the fair DNB price is 1 ÷ (0.40 ÷ 0.706) = 1.765. The bookmaker then adds a margin, so you might see 1.70.

Because DNB is just a win bet with a draw bet attached, you can construct it from the match-result market. Put part of your stake on the draw so that a draw returns exactly your total stake, and the rest on the win.

The DIY version returned 1.765 against the bookmaker's 1.70 in this example, because the bookmaker's DNB market carries its own margin on top of the three-way prices. The general formula for the effective odds is: win odds × (1 − 1 ÷ draw odds). Whenever that number beats the quoted DNB price, build it yourself. It takes two bets instead of one, and it also lets you use the best win price at one bookmaker and the best draw price at another.

It makes less sense when the favourite is very short. At 1.25 on the match result the DNB price is perhaps 1.12, and the insurance costs more than it is worth, because the draw was never the main danger.

Double chance covers two of the three outcomes: "home or draw", "away or draw" or "home or away". Compared with DNB on the same team, double chance pays out on the draw rather than refunding, so it is safer still, but the odds are shorter again. For a 2.50 favourite with the draw at 3.40, a typical ladder is: match result 2.50, draw no bet 1.70, double chance 1.42. Pick the rung that matches how worried you are about the draw and how worried you are about the loss.

Any sport that can end level offers the market: rugby union and league, cricket Tests, ice hockey (regulation time) and American football. In sports where ties are rare the DNB price sits very close to the win price and the market is of little use. In two-outcome sports such as tennis and basketball with overtime there is no draw to remove, so no DNB market exists.

Back a team to win; if the match is drawn you get your stake back; if the team loses you lose.

Yes. The settlement rules are identical; only the market name differs.

Normally no. It settles on 90 minutes plus stoppage time. Cup-tie markets that include extra time are labelled separately.

Yes. A drawn leg is settled at 1.00 and the acca continues on the other legs.

Because the draw, which would have lost you the win bet, now refunds you. You pay for that with shorter odds.

Related guides: how betting odds work for the implied-probability maths used above, and handicap betting explained for the full Asian handicap ladder.

Sources: Pinnacle, Betting Resources (operator educational material on Asian handicaps and draw no bet); and Gambling Commission, information for the public and players (official consumer guidance). Settlement periods for cup competitions are defined in each bookmaker's market rules.