Is Laying The Draw Actually Profitable?

Laying the draw has become an incredibly popular approach to football betting.

But is this approach actually profitable over the long term?

There are a huge number of variations of the lay the draw system, so I can’t speak for them all — But the basic idea behind all of the lay the draw systems isn’t in itself profitable.

At least not over the long term…

Here’s why.

The idea behind laying the draw is pretty simple. Before a football match starts, you go onto a betting exchange such as the Betfair exchange and you place a lay bet on the draw. Then you wait for the match to kick off and keep watching until the first goal is scored. When the first goal is scored, the odds on the draw should increase allowing you to cash out your bet for a profit.

That all sounds fine and dandy.

But where the system falls apart is when the match ends in a 0-0 draw… or an underdog scores the first goal against a heavy favourite…

In these situations that odds for the draw aren’t likely to increase higher than they were at the start of the match meaning you will lose money when they happen.

Laying the draw can work well over the short term, but as a betting strategy it will never make a profit in the long run for one simple reason…

The lay the draw strategy is not based on value.

For a betting strategy to profitable over the long term it needs to be based around taking value. There is no way of getting around that.

And by “taking value” I mean that you need to be placing bets where the odds you are taking are higher than the true chance of that bet winning suggest they ought to be.

There’s no guarantee that your placing a value bet if you’re blindly laying the draw.

In fact, with lay the draw being so popular, it makes it even more likely that laying the draw is a very poor value bet due to the number of people also laying the draw — therefore driving the lay odds higher and higher.

No lay the draw strategy – (that I’ve come across at least) – takes value into account, and so it’s doomed to fail.

Until next time,
Kenny Turnbull

P.S. If you want to make a profit from your betting, take a look at the tipster portfolio.

These tipsters do take value into account when considering their bets and that’s why their tips turn a profit over the long term.

You can view their results here: http://WinnersOdds.com/Tipster-Portfolio

At Your Service,

Tipster Street.