When placing a bet on a game without a clear favorite, the Draw No Bet (DNB) is a popular bet. This means, if your team wins you make a profit, if the other team wins you lose your stake and when the game ends in a draw, you will be refunded. What if I tell you, you can achieve the same thing but with better odds in case your team wins?

Example

Switzerland is facing Island tomorrow in the Nations League. For this example I will take the current odds from bet365. 

Now, let's make some calculations to see how much profit you can make with each bet. As I have a betting plan, my stake is given and I would bet 6 Units. My first thought was to go for a DNB Island. 

As you can see, if Island wins I will make a good profit of 16.5. However, the odds on Island winning are far higher (5.75). So this made me think (actually, not me but a friend of mine) there could be a better option than DNB. If I put a bet on Island together with a bet on X to back up for the case of a draw and I chose the stakes for this bet in order to give me my stakes back, can I end up with better odds? Again, let's make some calculations. 

As you can see, the profit in case of a win are higher, and in case of a draw there is even some profit left. There is a last step to make to really being able to compare it to a DNB bet: Both bets have to be combined. You need to place both of them to have the same effect as a DNB. I will explain later how to find out how I calculated the stakes. 

The last row is where It gets really interesting: The profit here is 1.83 Units higher than it was for the DNB, while the profit / loss for the other cases stays the same! That means that playing this DNB would minimize my potential profit by around 0.30 Units per Unit at stake. And that is a lot!

I don't know if I just found one game that is an exception or if this applies to any DNB. Therefore, I explain how you can find out for yourself and please let me know about your bets.

Calculation

First thing is to calculate the potential profit for the DNB.

  • [Stake] x [odds DNB] = [Potential Profit DNB]

Then you need to know the stake you need to bet so that in the case of a draw you get your stake back.

  • [Total stake] / [odds for Draw] = [Stake on Draw]

Then of course the rest goes for the team you think will win.

  • [Total stake] – [Stake on Draw] = [Stake on win]

The potential profit for this winning bet is as follows.

  • [Stake on win] x [odds for win] – [total stake] = [potential profit]

Now you compare the potential profit and you can see which bet you should place.

Comparison

We need to know how it looks, if we want to bet on Switzerland instead of Island. 

In this case we can see, that the odds offered for the DNB are better than going for the single bets.

Conclusion

Before placing a DNB bet, you should better compare the potential profit of the single bets. You could be placing a bet with far lower potential profit and thus lose money.

Alternative

As a final idea I thought of the possibility to change the stakes a little bit so that in case of a draw there is still a profit, while in case of winning you make the same profit as you could with the DNB. I will try this probably next month and hope to be able to present some numbers if it's worth it or not.

All calculation at one sight