Soccer: Taking the Double Chance Bet

Double Chance

If you’ve taken a close look at soccer betting, you’ve likely noticed that it’s much different from betting on most other sports. And that’s by design because soccer itself is much different than other sports. One of the biggest differences is the fact that unlike football, basketball, hockey or baseball, soccer matches commonly end in a draw.

How often draws happen depends on the competition. In the Premier League, for example, draws occur just under 25% of the time, meaning one in four matches will finish level. And that possibility gives rise to a popular bet among fans of the beautiful game: the double chance bet.

❓What Does Double Chance Mean?
⚽Soccer Moneyline Bets
🕒Double Chance & Extra Time
📈Double Chance Odds
🏆Improve Win Rate

What Does Double Chance Mean?

In short, it means you have two possible winning outcomes out of three. In most sports, you have two ways to win on the moneyline. You can either bet on Team A or Team B to win the game, because a tie is either banned by the rules or so unlikely that it’s not worth offering. In baseball, basketball and hockey, the contest always ends with a winner, so there’s no point to betting a draw. In football, most games can’t end in a tie, with the NFL being an exception. However, only 29 NFL games have ended in a tie in the past 50 years, so the odds are minuscule

But in soccer, the frequency of draws makes them a viable third option. So the double chance means that you have two ways to win on the moneyline. If you’re watching a match between Chelsea and Manchester United and you bet Chelsea double chance, that means you’ll win if Chelsea wins the match or ends in a draw. The only way you can lose when you take a team on a double chance bet is if the team you bet loses the match.

You also don’t have to make a double chance bet on one team. If you’re positively convinced the match won’t be a draw, you can bet a double chance on the two teams in question. If you do, you win as long as the match finishes with a winner, regardless of who it is. In that scenario, the draw becomes the one bad outcome out of three.

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How Else Can You Bet the Moneyline in Soccer?

Here’s the other reason why double chance bets exist in soccer: ties are not graded as pushes on the moneyline.

In most sports, when you bet on the moneyline, if the game does somehow end in a tie, your bet is refunded to you. Not in soccer: a draw is graded as a loss. So the double chance protects you in case the match does end in a tie by giving you more ways to win. As you might expect, you’ll end up getting a much higher payout betting a team to win instead of a double chance. But in that scenario, if the match finishes all square, your bet loses.

There is a third option, called a draw no bet. In this case, you’re making your soccer match behave like other sports. When you play a draw no bet, a win earns you money and a draw gets scored as a push. Because of that, you’ll get better odds than if you play double chance. However, if the match finishes in a draw, a double chance bettor will get paid. Conversely, a draw no bet only returns the original stake to the bettor if the match ends as a draw. Over time, that can really add up in your account.

How Does Double Chance Work With Extra Time?

In big tournaments, such as the World Cup or Euros, a match cannot end in a tie in the knockout stage. So is there any point in betting the double chance for these matches?

Surprisingly, yes. And that’s because for soccer betting, double chance and any other results are graded at the end of 90 minutes and extra time is ignored. A great example of this happened in the 2018 World Cup, when Croatia faced off with England. Croatia scored the winner in extra time to knock out the Three Lions and move on to the final. But if you had taken Croatia to win, your bet lost, while Croatia double chance cashed their tickets.

That’s because at the end of 90 minutes, the score was Croatia 1, England 1, meaning the draw was graded as the winning bet. And that makes double chance betting very valuable in these tournaments, because teams tend to get more cautious when they know they can win the match in extra time. If two evenly-matched teams are in stoppage time in the knockout stages and they’re tied, they’ll often let the time expire and wait for the 30 minutes of extra time to get aggressive.

What Kind of Odds Does a Double Chance Offer?

Because you have two ways to win with a double chance, you’re usually not going to get great odds on this bet. The exception comes when you’re betting a heavy underdog on the double chance. For example, if Bayern Munich is facing Werder Bremen at home, you’re going to get solid value on the River Islanders on the double chance, because nobody expects them to even get a draw against Bayern.

Go the other way, and you’ll be lucky to get any value at all on Bayern. If you’re taking a favorite on the double chance, you can expect to see odds of around -500 or even worse. In most cases, it’s not worth the risk.

How Can I Use Double Chance to Improve My Win Rate?

Knowing when to use a double chance bet is a key part of your soccer betting strategy. You don’t want to be too cautious and bet on favorites because you won’t make much money. You also don’t want to get crazy and bet teams that have little chance of getting a result.

The best thing you can do is look for spots where favorites are vulnerable. If Manchester City has a Champions League match on Wednesday and a match with Manchester United the following Saturday, the Sky Blues might not be as concerned with taking maximum points from Sheffield United. In that case, they might rest a few players and give the Blades a chance to split the points. Fixture congestion is a real thing that forces teams to place more value on more important matches, and if a big team can save its legs with a draw, they might do exactly that.
Another good strategy is to bet on defense-heavy teams. These squads tend to play out draws more than wins because they’re waiting for an opponent to make a mistake. Sometimes, the mistake doesn’t come and the match ends in a scoreless draw. You can use these teams’ cautious styles to your advantage.
Finally, you’ll want to pay close attention to the teams’ recent form overall and recent form against each other. Don’t overlook how familiarity with an opponent can lead to a good matchup for a so-called lesser side. A great example exists with FC Koln, which has struggled for most of 2023-24. For whatever reason, the Billy Goats seem to save their best soccer for Eintracht Frankfurt. Even with Frankfurt in top form and Koln near the bottom of the Bundesliga, the Billy Goats earned their seventh result in eight tries against Frankfurt in the teams’ most recent matchup. If you’d taken the double chance, you’d have cashed the ticket.

Double chance bets are a great way to add a conservative betting option to any soccer match, and it’s one that can pay off nicely when used intelligently. If you spot some value on a double chance play, don’t hesitate to jump on it.