Originally <a href='/showthread.php?p=19932162'>posted</a> on 10/16/2013:

Quote Originally Posted by Vaughany View Post
Ok, I thought I probably was making it more elaborate than needed to be!


In terms of me playing the draw-no-bet rather than the team to win straight up, my feeling is that I have more of an edge betting this way. I think that I can find it easier to find value in draw-no-bet lines because I can judge if a team is not going to lose better than being able to predict if they are going to win. So ultimately I am suggesting that the books are undervaluing a team's ability to not lose... I may not think there is enough value to play Man Utd to win @ Evens, but do think that there is value in the draw-no-bet at -210 for example. Now is this fundamentally wrong as ultimately I still need Man Utd to win, but with the latter I am insuring myself in case it is a draw?

And in terms of me estimating the fair price, with a draw-no-bet line, should I still just be basing it on the fair price of a win? The way I've been doing it is looking at the percentage chance that the draw-no-bet indicates, so Man Utd DNB @ -210 = 67.74% then saying to myself "do I think that there is a 32.26% chance (100%-67.74%) that Man Utd lose this game?". Now is it flawed to think like this? For instance, this weekend they are at home to Southampton, a team that has lost 11, drawn 1, won 0 in last 12 fixtures at Man Utd's home ground. My conservative estimation is that Man Utd only lose this game 20% of the time, so my instinct would be to bet the Man Utd DNB accordingly due to my perceived edge. So is it possible that there can be value in a draw-no-bet line @ -210, but not value in the team to win @ Evens?!
Are soccer ML and 1x2 bets the same thing on UK bets, though? On US books, for hockey, the 1x2 lines are stricltly for regulation time and the MLs include overtime and shootouts.

My initial thought, with doing no analysis whatsoever would be that in 1x2 lines draws would tend towards being undervalued.

In regards to your last question, I would suggest you come up with a fair line for 1x2, and then convert it to a draw-no-bet ML and determine which is better from there.

Say, Team A wins outright 30% of the time, Team B wins outright 20% of the time and the draw comes in 50% of the time. To convert to a ML, take pA / (pA + pB) = .3 / (.3 + .2) = .6 = -150 And the inverse is obviously pB / (pB + pA) = .2 / (.3 + .2) = .4 = +150