Module I: Basics
5. Market types I, main markets
1X2, double chance, DNB
1X2 is the base market of football: home win (1), draw (X), away win (2), for regular time, that is the 90 minutes plus the added stoppage time; cup extra time and the penalty shootout do not count. Three outcomes, and in the big leagues the margin is typically smallest here, that is the bookmaker profit built into the price (we measured it in chapter 4), because competition and turnover are greatest here. The price of every other main market comes from these same three numbers: for double chance and DNB it is only addition and division.
Double chance covers two outcomes at once: 1X (home or draw), 12 (anyone wins, just not a draw), X2 (away or draw). Odds, price and multiplier all mean the same thing: the number your stake is multiplied by if you win, and fair means that the bookmaker profit is not in it. Its fair price is simple addition: if the home chance is 50% and the draw 25%, then 1X covers 75%. A chance turns into odds when you divide 1 by the chance: 1 / 0.75 = 1.33, and from the home 50% you get 1 / 0.50 = 2.00. Safer, but in return a low-multiplier market.
DNB (draw no bet) is the middle solution: you bet on the winner, and on a draw you get your stake back. Since the draw takes no money from you, you count as if it did not exist: you only compare the two win chances. Home is 50%, away 25%, together 75%, so the home DNB chance is 50 / 75 = 66.7%, the fair odds 1 / 0.667 = 1.50. This is the "distribution" of the draw, as a formula p1 / (p1 + p2), where p1 is the home and p2 the away win chance; careful, this 75 is not the 75% of 1X. The same market also runs under the name Asian handicap 0, which is discussed in chapter 6. The table holds fair prices, that is prices without the bookmaker profit, so at a bookmaker you will see a little less in every row. In summary, for the same match (home 50%, draw 25%, away 25%, that is with chances that hold no bookmaker profit and add up to exactly 100%):
| Market | What you cover | Chance this bet wins | Fair odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1X2: home | Home win only | 50% | 2.00 |
| Double chance 1X | Home or draw | 75% | 1.33 |
| Double chance 12 | Either team wins | 75% | 1.33 |
| DNB home | Home wins, stake back on a draw | 66.7% | 1.50 |
All three prices come from the same three numbers, so none of them can be a "better deal" relative to the others: you choose which risk you are willing to bear. On a €100 stake the plain home win would return €200, but less often, 1X only €133, but more often. Whichever is more comfortable pays proportionally less.
Over/Under goal markets
On the goal market you do not bet on the winner but on the goals of the two teams added together: Over or Under relative to a given line. The line is the goal number the bookmaker sets as the boundary. The most common one is 2.5: since half a goal does not exist, there can never be an argument about how the bet closes (this is called settlement), with 3 or more goals the Over wins, with 2 or fewer the Under, no stake back. Here too the goals of regular time count.
On whole lines (2.0, 3.0) there is already a third outcome: if the goal count falls exactly on the line, the bet is void, stake back (push). So Over 3.0 wins on 4+ goals, returns the stake on 3 goals, loses on 2 or fewer. The quarter lines (2.25, 2.75) are inventions of the Asian markets: half your stake goes on one neighbouring line and the other half on the other, so half a win plus half the stake back can also happen. Chapter 6 deals with those.
The line and the price together tell you how many goals the market expects: odds of 2.00 mean roughly a 50% chance (1 / 2.00 = 0.5), and the lower the price, the bigger the chance the market is counting on. If the 2.5 Over stands at 1.65, the market puts the chance of 3 or more goals at about 60%, so it expects a goal-rich match. Models work the other way round: they compute a price from the expected goal count (this is what the Poisson model does: it works out the chance of 0, 1, 2 or 3 goals, chapter 29), and BTTS (both teams to score) and its relatives are built on the same goal estimate, they just ask a different question (chapter 7).
The big advantage of the goal market is that you don’t have to pick a winner: you bet on the question of how the match will unfold. In return the margin, the bookmaker profit built into the price, is typically higher here than on 1X2. Check it with the method of chapter 4: if both the Over and the Under are 1.90, then 1 / 1.90 = 52.6% for each, 105.2% together, and the 5.2% above 100% is the bookmaker profit.
European handicap
The handicap evens out the difference in form on paper: the favourite starts with an imaginary deficit. The European handicap stays three-outcome: you can bet a win, draw or loss on the modified result. On the "Bayern -1" market a handicap draw means Bayern wins by exactly one goal.
Settlement on the Bayern -1 example: on a 3-1 win "Bayern -1" wins (2-1 with the handicap). At 2-1 the handicap draw comes in (1-1). On a 1-1 or losing match the handicapped opponent wins. There is no stake back: all three outcomes are live, paying markets.
What is it good for? For the big favourite’s plain win you get 1.20, while for its -1 handicap typically a price around 1.70: on a €100 stake a win pays back €170 instead of €120. In return winning is no longer enough, you have to win by a margin, since at 1-0 the handicap draw comes in. The main difference between the European and Asian handicap is precisely the structure: the European is three-outcome and never gives a stake back, the Asian is two-outcome and on a whole line can return the stake; this we work through in chapter 6.
On a handicap market the most common mistake is misreading the settlement: always look at the result modified by the handicap, and know whether you are betting a European or Asian line. The two look the same on the slip but pay differently.