Draw no bet
Draw no bet (DNB) is a football market where you back one team to win, and if the match ends level the bet is void and your stake comes back in full. A win pays at the DNB price, a defeat loses the stake, and a draw leaves you exactly where you started. Because the draw is refunded rather than lost, the price is always shorter than the plain match-result price on the same team, and the gap between the two is the cost of that refund.
How draw no bet odds are worked out
The cleanest way to see what a DNB price should be is to build the bet yourself from the ordinary 1X2 market. You split your stake between the team and the draw, sizing the draw part so that a level score pays back exactly your total stake.
Take a match priced at 11/10 home (2.10 decimal), 12/5 draw (3.40) and 13/5 away (3.60). Those prices imply 47.6%, 29.4% and 27.8%, which add up to 104.8%, so the bookmaker’s margin on the market is roughly 4.8% before you place anything.
Now stake €10 in total. Put €2.94 on the draw, because €2.94 × 3.40 returns €10, and the remaining €7.06 on the home side. If the home team wins, €7.06 × 2.10 returns €14.82, which is the same as a single €10 bet at about 1.48. If it ends level, you get your €10 back. If the away side wins, both parts lose.
The general formula is DNB odds = home odds × (1 – 1 ÷ draw odds).
That 1.48 already carries the bookmaker’s margin from both prices you used. When a bookmaker lists its own DNB market, the quoted price may sit a little above or below your home-made figure, since each operator sets the two-way line separately and the margin built into it varies from one book to the next. What I check first is whether the listed DNB price beats the one you could assemble from the 1X2 board; if it does not, the dedicated market is simply the more convenient way to pay the same or a higher cost.
Draw no bet versus double chance
Double chance is the market most often mixed up with DNB, since both soften the blow of a draw. The difference lies in what the draw does to your bet, and the rows below set the two side by side for the same team, here the home side (1X).
Draw no bet | Double chance (1X) |
|---|---|
| Draw: stake returned, no profit | Draw: bet wins at the quoted price |
| Price on the same team is longer | Price is shorter, as two results are covered |
| Loses only if the other team wins | Loses only if the other team wins |
| Home win pays more per euro staked | Home win pays less per euro staked |
| Settled on 90 minutes plus stoppage time | Settled on 90 minutes plus stoppage time |
| In an acca, a draw usually voids that leg | In an acca, a draw keeps that leg alive |
Where you meet DNB on a betting site
On most sportsbooks DNB sits under the main football match markets, sometimes labelled “Draw no bet” and sometimes “Refunded if draw”. It also turns up as Asian handicap 0, written AH 0 or 0.0, which settles in the same way: a win wins, a draw is a push and a defeat loses.
Settlement normally runs on 90 minutes plus stoppage time, so extra time and penalties in a cup tie do not count. A Sigerson Cup or FAI Cup game that goes to extra time is still a draw for DNB purposes if it was level at full time, though the exact wording sits in each operator’s rules and is worth reading.
In an accumulator, a drawn DNB leg is normally voided and the acca carries on at the reduced odds.
Is a DNB refund the same as a free bet?
No, and the difference matters. A drawn DNB bet returns your stake as cash, which you can withdraw or bet again with no strings. That is not the same as “money back as a free bet” promotions, where a losing or drawn bet is refunded as a token that returns winnings only, without the stake, and often carries its own expiry and minimum odds.
I notice that readers often treat the two as interchangeable because both get described as a “refund”. They are priced very differently. A €10 free bet at 2.00 is worth €10 in winnings at most, while a €10 cash refund is worth the full €10.
DNB is a market, not a promotion.
Promotional refunds also fall under the inducement rules in the Gambling Regulation Act 2024, and some of those provisions wait on commencement and on the new regulator’s codes, so the terms attached to them can change. The DNB market itself is a standard settlement rule and is not an offer at all.
