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Is Winning the Luck of the Draw?
At Predictology, we remain amazed at how often punters shy away from backing the draw. There seems almost to be an inherent dislike at the mere idea that a game can end in a share of the spoils!
Conversely, it is also remarkable that bettors don’t try and lay the draw if they believe one team is destined to win. In this instance, it is primarily down to the available odds.
We have created winning strategies that cover both sides of the coin. Our main Back the Draw system, available to all members, has earned a profit of 220 units from over 1,700 bets.
Our main Lay the Draw system has provided a profit of 412 units from just over 4,700 bets. With a win rate of over 76%, it is one of the best steady bank builders you’ll ever find.
Today, we’re going to see if we can find any new angles from recent Predictology Power Sheets data. This information covers three months, from January to March 2021.
If draw betting is a topic that interests you, you can find further reading on this on our site.
Backing the Draw
The data sample we analysed covered just over 5,400 bets from dozens of leagues. We looked at the number of draws that occurred during this spell.
In the Excel sheet, it is easy to determine whether the game was a draw. Subtract one score from the other, and you’ll see the margin of victory. The ‘Margin’ column doesn’t appear when you download the sheet, but it is simple to create. All the ‘0’ figures in column K are draws. Then you can filter and discover the number of draws.
There were 1,459 draws in total, a strike rate of approximately 27%. You would need to back the draw at average odds of 3.70 to break even. Backing all the draws blindly would result in a loss of around 500 units.
What was noticeable was how few games with odds of 4.00+ to draw ended in a stalemate. Removing them immediately decreased the loss to 270 units. Focusing solely on games where our AI says there is at least a 25% chance of a draw further reduces the loss to about 120 units from close to 3,000 bets. An ROI of -4%.
This could provide you with a base that you can utilise to see any value bets. What our AI has found is that there aren’t many value draw bets. Only 4% of all games offered a ‘positive’ margin on a draw bet. This is why we’re so proud of our Back the Draw system.
It is also a very good reason to consider laying draws instead.
Laying the Draw
Laying every draw blindly would result in an ROI loss of 6.54%.
The next logical step was to check out what would happen if you laid all drawn games at odds of 5.00 or more. This is the equivalent of a back bet at odds of 1.25. There were surprisingly few games that met the criteria, just 277 in fact.
Only 33 of these games ended in a draw. Therefore, laying the draw in these games would give you a strike rate of 88.09%. However, is this enough to result in a profit? The answer is YES! You would earn a profit of 6.67 units, which equates to an ROI of 2.41%. Hardly ground-breaking, but it does speak to the possibility of turning it into a decent bank-builder with a minimal downturn.
We decided to see what would happen if we decreased the lay odds to 4.50. This increased the sample size to 468 bets. Just 67 of these games ended in a draw. Therefore, laying the draw would result in a win rate of 85.68%. An expected drop, but not as much as anticipated.
This method still resulted in a profit, but it fell to just 4.52 units or an ROI of 0.96%. This means placing every bet isn’t a good idea, but once again, you have a foundation of sorts to build on. Speaking of building.
It’s System Builder Time!
We always find it fun to see if the Predictology System Builder can help us turn the foundations of possible strategies found on the Power Sheets into something tangible. In this instance, we elected to see if any specific leagues excelled when laying draws at odds of 5.00+.
We looked at every single league covered by Predictology to see if any of them stood out in the last few years. In the end, we found some extremely profitable leagues, which you can see below.
With a 90%-win rate from over 1300 bets across the last three seasons, you don’t have to worry much about drawdowns. The maximum losing streak is just four, with a 62-match winning run! For the record, over 200 of the 411-unit profit came this season. The Serbian Super League and the Europa League were by far the best performers, however.
Final Thoughts on Backing & Laying the Draw
It isn’t easy to profit from backing the draw, although we have achieved it on Predictology. However, if you’re looking for a reliable bank-builder, laying the draw in certain leagues can give you exactly what you want. The profits aren’t huge, but they are steady and predictable.
