What is a 3-way money-line in football?

Learn about the 3-way money-line in football betting, how it differs from spread betting, and why it’s so popular. Discover key factors to consider when placing bets, including team form, head-to-head records, and the significance of a potential draw.

James Pacheco

Sports Betting Editor

Last Updated: 2024-09-13

Fact checked by:

A. Tzamantanis

Sports Betting Editor

5 minutes read

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Table of Contents

If you were to look at the most popular sport to bet on across all of the best sports betting sites in the world, it would probably be football.

And within football, it would be the 3-way money-line.

But what is a 3-way money-line, why is it the most popular market and how exactly does it work?

What is a moneyline as opposed to a spread?

A spread is a way of ensuring that, whatever happens, there can only ever be one winner from the two betting outcomes.

The constant presence of a 0.5 in the spread is what ensures that there can never be a tie between the two, because there’s no such thing as half a point or goal in any sport, so no end result could still be a tie once the 0.5 is applied.

A moneyline, on the other hand, purely takes the actual end result into account, without the use of any artificial head-start or handicap.

Why does the moneyline have three possible outcomes in football?

In US sports such as basketball or baseball, a game that’s tied/drawn after regular time goes to overtime until the match is won.
In football, if the game is drawn after 90 minutes, that’s how it ends, so that’s why bookmakers offer three selections, rather than just two, on the football money line.

At the end of the 90 minutes, the match will have resulted in:
•    A win for Team A (the home team) – e.g. 2-0
•    A win for Team B (the away team) – e.g. 1-3
•    A draw – e.g. 2-2

In matches that go to overtime (and penalties if necessary) when drawn after 90 minutes, the match is settled as a draw by the bookies, irrespective of what happens after the 90 minutes.

Why is the 3-way moneyline popular and why are the odds more varied than a spread?

Given that the final outcome is the most important aspect of the match and more so than the margin of the victory, then it follows that this is what football punters most want to bet on.

The presence of the third possibility, the draw, also means that it’s not a straight 50/50 (minus the house edge) shootout between the two in terms of odds, like a spread is.

As a result, the odds on the three outcomes will generally be very different, meaning punters who like betting on favourites can do so by backing the favourite to win, those who like betting on outsiders can do so by backing the underdog to win, while the draw price is generally the middle price of the three.

Over the course of 25 seasons of the Premier League, 27.5% of matches were drawn, so it’s certainly not an outcome to ignore.

Factors to take into account when betting on the 3-way football moneyline

There are dozens of factors to consider when deciding which of the outcomes you want to back in the football 3-way moneyline, but these are the most important:

•    The league standings, or rankings, of the two teams.
•    Which team is at home or whether it’s played at a neutral ground.
•    The overall strength of the teams in terms of the players and the coach.
•    The head-to-head record between the two sides.
•    The recent form (e.g. last five matches) and long-term form (e.g. last 30 matches) of the two teams.
•    Any notable absences among the players through injury, suspension or other reasons.
•    The motivation levels in terms of how important the game is for the two teams.

After considering as many of these factors as possible, you should then come up with your own odds for what you think the three outcomes should be priced at. And you should back the one of the three where the odds on offer are bigger than what you feel they should be, where that’s the case. If it’s not, you shouldn’t bet at all.

James Pacheco Sports Betting Editor

James has been writing about cricket, football and tennis betting for the best part of 20 years for some of the biggest operators, websites and publications in the industry. Heroes and heroines include Paul Scholes, Chris DiMarco, Anastasia Myskina, Richard Gasquet, Nat-Sciver Brunt and Kumar Sangakarra.

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