Betting on football draws

I've been going about the value in backing draws for a while on my blog. I follow the top five European Leagues where I use ratings to predict results and the strike rate on 'strong' draws is currently 34.23%, which is showing a nice profit given that only in Serie B is the draw price likely to be below a price of 2.92!

The strike rate is actually slightly higher if I exclude the Bundesliga, 35.23%.

You might want to look up Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster system too - he picks three draws a week from the EPL and is well in profit so far this season. I don't like the idea of having to find a fixed three a week though - some weeks there may be eight, others none.

Good luck with that.
Will watch your progress with interest. Something I've often thought about looking into in a bit more detail.

Green All Over is the blog. Google it. Start from September and read posts where I go on about 'srong draws'.

when money's coming for both teams, it pushes the draw price out. whereas it surely suggests the draw's more rather than less likely.

The Draw is almost always the least backed of the three Match Odds markets (unless it's a Serie B game...) in a game that's reasonably 'even' - e.g. Wigan v Newcastle, the draw is about 25% of the market. Chelsea v Wigan, and the percentage on the draw is less than 3%! And then you have all the Lay The Draw people pushing the price out.

Your selections aren't that different to mine, although I think I pick a few more than you do. Have some great weeks, but some where I make big losses. If draws were such good value, you'd think you could just back them all blindly and make a profit, but you'd make a loss, so there has to be a bit more to it. It's fairly easy to narrow down the selections, and some weeks it makes a profit but then you get weeks like today with no draws in EPL, or weeks where the only draws are surprise ones.

true, cpfc - though with the cross-matching it's hard to treat those figures as authoritative.

watching markets immediately pre-KO, it's quite striking that when the market suggests two teams are evenly matched the effect on the draw price is completely counter-intuitive.

I worked a system of backing draws between 2005 and 2009. I stuck to the top divisions in England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy plus the Championship in this country.

The system basically involved looking at each team's last dozen matches and backing the draw when both teams had been involved in plenty of drawn matches recently. I was particularly interested when a home team with plenty of recent home draws was playing an away team with plenty of recent away draws.

As with most systems, good initial profits became marginal profits and ultimately losses. What went wrong?

Italy and France were the first to fall by the wayside. In both countries the draw price is short to start with. In France you have the curse of the 1-0 result. Time and again, if one team could sneak a goal, then French defences proved so well organized that an equalizer was impossible.

One of the biggest myths is that if teams are unlikely to score, then a draw is more likely. It's not that simple imo. Just because drawn games tend to have fewer goals, it doesn't necessarily follow that fewer goals are likelier to result in draws.

Across Europe generally I found that the draw price was getting shorter and shorter in the games I was looking to back the draw. This coincided with the exchange markets becoming ever stronger. The problem is that so many punters no longer back the team they fancy, but rather lay the team they don't fancy. And of course, every punter who lays Team A is in effect not only backing Team B, but also backing the draw.

To get the best price about the draw, particularly after commission, I had to use bookmakers, and even in the Premier League it did not take long for every bookmaker to restrict me to a maximum take-out of £100 or £200. Prices about the draw in betting shops are nearly always shorter than those quoted online.

If there is still any value in the draw, it might be in La Liga in Spain and the German Bundesliga. There are indeed fewer draws there, and those that do occur involve a lot of heart-stopping 2-2 and 3-3 scorelines, but you are compensated by the much higher odds available. There might be some mileage in backing draws in the correct-score markets?

2 more losses today in the Spanish league 2

it is weird sometimes when you see

team a)   2.77
draw )    3.45
team b)   2.77


doesn't make sense on the face of it

cpfc4me: Shouldn't some consideration be given to the relative grade of opposition, i.e. whether the draw was a result of one team underperforming (less predictable) or the result of both teams performing to expecation (more predictable)?.

I couldn't argue with that. After all, the fact that my system no longer works indicates better and more detailed analysis is needed.

The reason I took little account of teams' previous opposition was that I was concerned with teams' outlook and playing styles rather than trying to rate raw ability. I was looking for teams who perhaps lacked the striking talent to grab a winning goal at home or who set out their stall for a draw on the road.

On reflection, I think the biggest factor in my early success was quite simply that five years ago the draw was still often underbet and overpriced. Over the years, as so often happens since Betfair emerged, that hint of value has been noticed and eroded.

The draw price is pretty constant and compilers can put that
in straight away, then concentrate on the other two prices,
English football I am referring to, as it is what I concentrate
on. For me the important ingredients are each sides average
goals per match, the less goals average, the more likely the
draw, then the relative league positions, the home side below
the away side ideally. I don't differentiate between home form
and away form, simply because I think of any reason why I should.
It's interesting that this season so far in the Premier League
the 4 sides with the lowest average goals per game, also happen
to be the same 4 sides who have accumulated the most draws. I
wouldn't expect that to continue in tandem, but perhaps pretty
close. We will see.

Draws have always been a bit of a lottery.

I guess that's why all the pools punters felt they might as well swap to the real Lottery when it came along.

Derby and Middlesbrough were draws, so would have been a profit

The draw is the most interesting thing about Football betting imo.

here's a sort of match i like (from me notepad)

Go Ahead Eagles.
3.2
2.38
3.75

I've been doing it for a few months using 5% of bank. The past week or so has more or less wiped me out completely, having previously doubled the bank.

I think if you were going to do this properly you'd need to do it with half a percent of bank, and being very selective about which draws you back - in other words, you could easily go a month or two without a win, so probably not worth it!!

i pick 3 draws and do doubles dont do to bad, dont put to much effort in as it doesnt seem to make much difference, i win as offen as when i studied 40 hours a week