Draw no bet meaning: how home and away DNB settle, what the refund costs, and how to price it

Draw no bet is the market for a reader who expects a team to win and wants the draw to cost nothing. You back the home side or the away side; if your team wins you are paid, if it loses the stake is gone, and if the match is drawn the stake comes back. The abbreviation in most apps is DNB, and the Asian handicap 0 line is the same bet in different clothes. This page settles both sides of the market on fixed example scores, explains the price, shows how to work out the fair odds from the 1X2 probabilities on this site, and sets DNB against the double chance and straight win it competes with. The examples are invented scores, not real matches.

How the market settles

There are two selections, home DNB and away DNB, and three possible results.

• Home DNB: a home win pays at the quoted odds; a draw returns the stake; an away win loses.
• Away DNB: an away win pays; a draw returns the stake; a home win loses.

The refund is the whole point. A straight win loses on the draw. Double chance wins on the draw but at a much shorter price. Draw no bet takes the middle road: the draw is neither a win nor a loss but a cancelled bet.

Take an example match that ends 2-1 to the home side. Home DNB pays; away DNB loses. If it ends 1-1, both selections return their stakes and nobody wins or loses. If it ends 0-1, away DNB pays and home DNB loses. The margin does not matter and the goals do not matter; only the result after 90 minutes plus stoppage time. In cup ties that go to extra time, the 90-minute draw settles the bet as a refund, regardless of who goes through.

Why the price sits between the win and the double chance

Because the draw is removed, the bookmaker is really pricing a two-outcome market: home win against away win, with the draws thrown out. The price for the home side is therefore better than the 1X double chance, which has to pay out on draws, and worse than the straight home win, which does not refund them. In an example where the app prices the home win at 2.00, the 1X at 1.30 and the draw at 3.40, the home DNB will sit somewhere near 1.45. The exact figure depends on how likely the draw is: the more draws the bookmaker expects, the more refunds it is giving away, and the further the DNB price falls below the straight win price.

Pricing draw no bet from the 1X2 table

The probability of a home DNB winning, given that the bet is not refunded, is the home win probability divided by one minus the draw probability. In words: of the matches that are not drawn, how many does the home side win? The fair odds are one divided by that figure.

Take the model's numbers for an example match: home 48%, draw 27%, away 25%. One minus the draw is 73%. The home DNB probability is 48 divided by 73, about 66%, and the fair price is about 1.52. The away DNB is 25 divided by 73, about 34%, fair price about 2.92. The fixtures tables on our league pages, such as the Premier League predictions, print the home, draw and away probabilities for every match they cover, so the calculation takes a few seconds, and the draw prediction page tells you which matches have a draw probability high enough to make the refund valuable. We do not print DNB tips as a separate list because they would say nothing the 1X2 probabilities do not already say.

DNB against double chance and the straight win

The three markets settle differently only on the draw, and the choice is a question of how likely the draw is and what you want to happen if it comes.

If the model has the draw at 20% in a match where the favourite is strong, the refund is worth little and the double chance is barely cheaper than the DNB; the straight win on the sure six straight win page is probably the better price for the risk. If the draw is at 30% or more, the refund matters: DNB keeps most of the straight-win price while turning the most likely losing result into a push. If the draw is what you most expect to go wrong and you want to be paid on it, not just refunded, the double chance is the market, at a price that reflects its generosity. The handicap page shows the same three choices written as Asian lines: -0.5, 0 and +0.5.

Where draw no bet is most useful

Away favourites are the classic case. An away side that is clearly better still draws more often than it loses, because the home advantage in most leagues pulls a comfortable away win back towards a draw. Away DNB keeps most of the win price and insures the result the model fears most. Two evenly matched sides are the second case: a straight win at 2.60 on either team is a coin flip with the draw as a third way to lose, while DNB at 1.90 removes the third way. The third case is any match the draw prediction page lists, where the model gives the draw 31% or more; there the refund is worth paying for.

The market is less useful on a heavy favourite at home, where the draw is rare and the DNB price collapses towards the straight win price, offering insurance for a result that is not coming.

The small print

In an accumulator, a DNB leg that is drawn is settled at 1.00 and the slip continues on its remaining legs, so a refunded leg shrinks the payout rather than killing the bet. Postponed and abandoned matches are void. Settlement is on 90 minutes; extra time and penalties are ignored. A refund on the draw does not make draw no bet safe: the team you backed can simply lose, and in the example above the home DNB fails one time in four even when the draw is removed. Any bet can lose. This site is for adults aged 18+; the how to bet page explains the rest of the coupon, and the responsible gambling page sets out the deposit limits worth having in place.