I hate 0-0 draws! I find it much easier to trade football on Betfair when there are plenty of goals flying in.
However, the Betfair exchange relies on differing opinions so that both sides of the book are matched. Therefore, when I'm looking to back goals, I need other football traders to disagree with me and go the other way. We both get our positions matched and the best trader comes out on top.
Personally, I find it very uncomfortable to sit here and hope for goals not to be scored, after all that's the whole point of the game! So if you're one of the traders who backs under 2.5 goals - thank you! I need you, you need me and Betfair needs us both.
0-0 draws impact all traders and a common question I'm asked is, what percentage of football matches end 0-0?
This is very easy for me to answer. 'Team Stats Trends' is one of the tools we have within our football stats database at Goal Profits, which tracks all sorts of stats for every league over the past decade - including 0-0 results.
Average Number of 0-0 Draws
Our 'Team Stats' software covers 45 winter leagues; everything from the English Premier League to the Australian A League.
Of course, we're only interested in leagues which go in-play on Betfair and have enough liquidity for trading in and out of the markets. Some of our 45 leagues have to be ignored on a Saturday afternoon when the likes of the English Premier League and German Bundesliga are sucking up all the market liquidity, but that's to be expected.
Taking all of these leagues into account the average number of matches ending 0-0 during the 2017/18 season was 8.0%.
Here are the seasonal averages over the past decade:
2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
8.3% | 8.2% | 8.0% | 8.3% | 7.4% | 7.8% | 8.1% | 7.8% | 8.0% | 8.0% |
And here are the biggest European leagues by season over the past decade:
2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
English Premier | 11.1% | 8.4% | 6.6% | 7.1% | 9.2% | 7.1% | 8.2% | 8.4% | 7.1% | 8.4% |
French Ligue 1 | 10.5% | 8.9% | 11.6% | 7.1% | 8.7% | 8.4% | 8.9% | 8.9% | 7.7% | 5.5% |
German Bundesliga | 4.9% | 9.2% | 4.6% | 7.2% | 6.5% | 4.2% | 9.2% | 7.8% | 6.2% | 6.9% |
Italian Serie A | 4.5% | 8.2% | 8.9% | 11.6% | 8.9% | 6.1% | 7.9% | 8.2% | 5.0% | 7.4% |
Dutch Eredivisie | 5.9% | 6.2% | 5.9% | 3.3% | 4.6% | 3.9% | 5.2% | 3.9% | 4.2% | 4.2% |
Spanish Primera | 4.7% | 8.2% | 7.1% | 8.7% | 6.6% | 8.4% | 7.9% | 6.6% | 7.1% | 7.4% |
By the way... Team Stats also covers more than 20 summer leagues, so there's plenty of football trading action all year round!
Is it Worth Laying 0-0?
Betting exchange markets are extremely efficient and all of these stats are taken into account when prices are set.
Unless you are able to identify a clear edge - and take Betfair commission into account - I don't believe that it's possible to make a long-term profit by laying 0-0 as a straight bet.
As you can see above, the same leagues perform differently from season to season and even Barcelona have 0-0 draws now and again. Hit a 0-0 and you will need to find 10, 20 or even 30 winners just to get back to where you started!
Managing your betting bank is vital, so avoid those huge risks.
What Percentage of Football Matches are Draws?
Perhaps you are interested in all draws, rather than just 0-0. It may be that you have a back the draw strategy, or you like to lay the draw and you need to avoid them at all costs.
Team Stats Trends can easily tell you how many matches end level, on average:
2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
25.6% | 25.5% | 26.6% | 26.6% | 25.8% | 25.7% | 26.5% | 26.1% | 26.1% | 25.8% |
And even the football leagues with the most (or least) number of draws over the past decade.
Here's the top and bottom ten leagues for the 2017/18 season:
Most Draws
1. | Italian Serie B | 34.8% |
2. | Belgian First Division B | 33.3% |
3. | Egyptian Division 1 | 31.3% |
4. | Ukrainian Premier League | 30.4% |
5. | Greek Super League | 30.3% |
6. | English National League | 29.4% |
7. | German 2. Bundesliga | 29.1% |
8. | Mexican Liga MX | 29.0% |
9. | Spanish Segunda | 28.6% |
10. | Polish Ekstraklasa | 28.5% |
Least Draws
1. | Australian A League | 19.4% |
2. | Qatari Stars League | 19.7% |
3. | Portuguese Primeira League | 19.9% |
4. | Austrian Bundesliga | 20.6% |
5. | English National League North | 21.2% |
6. | Swiss Super League | 21.7% |
7. | Italian Serie A | 21.8% |
8. | Dutch Eerste Divisie | 22.4% |
9. | Turkish Super League | 22.5% |
10. | Spanish Primera | 22.6% |
Highest and Lowest Scoring Football Leagues
We can also look at the highest and lowest scoring leagues. If you're like me, then it's very useful to know the football leagues with most goals so that you can trade with more confidence. Or if you prefer to be on the other side of the book, then you will be interested in leagues which have fewer goals on average.
For these stats, I like to look at the average number of games which went over 2.5 goals and under 2.5 goals.
Here's the top and bottom ten leagues for the 2017/18 season:
Highest Scoring Leagues
1. | Qatari Stars League | 67.4% |
2. | Dutch Eerste Divisie | 66.1% |
3. | Dutch Eredivisie | 63.5% |
4. | Australian A League | 63.3% |
5. | UAE Pro League | 59.8% |
6. | English National League North | 57.7% |
7. | Turkish Super League | 57.5% |
8. | Swiss Super League | 57.2% |
9. | Danish Superligaen | 56.5% |
10. | English National League South | 56.3% |
Lowest Scoring Leagues
1. | Greek Super League | 37.8% |
2. | Argentinian Primera Division | 38.9% |
3. | Russian Premier League | 40.4% |
4. | Ukrainian Premier League | 40.8% |
5. | Egyptian Division 1 | 41.3% |
6. | Romanian Liga 1 | 42.5% |
7. | Spanish Segunda | 42.5% |
8. | Czech Republic Division 1 | 43.8% |
9. | Russian National League | 44.7% |
10. | Bulgarian First League | 46.3% |
Is there anyway to find out what % of games finish 0-0 that get to 60 minutes 0-0?
Hi John
Sorry for the delayed reply, we had to dig into the database to find the answer for you.
Out of almost 200,000 games in our database, 41,610 were 0-0 at 60′ and 15,884 of those went on to finish 0-0.
Is there any way i can get 10mins draw in a match
I don’t know of any websites which provide that info. Our Team Stats software looks at first goal times and goal scoring/conceding windows, but not in too much detail as goals are fairly random events with regard to timing. You can predict it to some extent, but it’s quite hit and miss.
You could lay over 0.5 goals which would make profit if you left out the higher scoring leagues
I was just wondering based on the previous question.
What percentage of the 200,000 matches on your database were 0-0 at 75 mins?
How many of them went on to end goaless?
Thanks.
Hi Stephen
That would take some Excel detective work! I have calculated all sorts of figures before based on first and second halves, but I don’t narrow time down any more than that.
Do you have any statistics on a team having two consecutive 0-0 draws? I’d estimate the chances of that happening to be around 1% at most, assuming matches to be independent events (in statistical terminology)
Hi Vitaliy
That’s not something I’ve looked into. I imagine it’s a slim chance though, even in low scoring leagues.