LAS VEGAS — The devil descended below his basement into the dark recesses of a dank cellar, grabbed a hammer, chisel and scythe, and went to work.
Aiming for madness, probably in the Bolton area of Lancashire, England, around 1887, he concocted the diabolical draw in soccer betting.
The three-way would soon feature in football pools and the Bolton-published Cricket and Football Field Sports Telegram. Punters could opt for Team A or Team B to win a match or draw — that it will end in a tie.
“The draw is certainly a wager buster,” expert British handicapper Nigel Seeley texted me as he watched Manchester United defeat Brighton on penalty kicks Sunday at Wembley Stadium in an FA Cup semifinal.
Fire supporters are familiar with the dastardly option since four of their five MLS home matches have ended in a tie.
Toronto (six), Colorado and Red Bulls (each with five) and the Fire and Vancouver (four apiece) have the most ties in the league. So draw might be the three-way play Saturday against Red Bulls at Soldier Field.
The bold and the brave wager into three-way betting.
Carmine Bianco, WagerTalk’s Toronto-based soccer-betting ace, highlighted the vast sports-betting options available to so many people now that two-thirds of this country has legalized it.
And he tagged soccer’s three-way as the most frustrating choice since it isn’t a zero-sum wager. A typical bet has a distinct winner and loser. Zero sum. Flip a coin.
Soccer is the three-sided coin.
“A bettor has only one option of being correct, with two incorrect options,” Bianco said. “An exercise in futility for even the best handicappers, but the risk/reward outweighs the punishment we are sometimes dealt.”
EYES ON ROTHERHAM
Cardiff’s match Thursday at Rotherham in the Championship, England’s second division, presented one of the week’s intriguing tilts to Jeff Sherman, the Westgate SuperBook’s vice president of risk.
Both entered with 49 points, just out of the relegation zone. A victory is worth three points, a draw one. The bottom three of the 24-team league get dropped to Tier 3.
Unique motivation because a draw, and a point apiece, would keep both Rotherham and Cardiff out of the danger zone.
Typically, the draw payback is +225, according to Sherman. Circumstances, though, warranted +170 at the SuperBook on that Thursday game, with +185 on Cardiff and +205 on Rotherham.
“This is the time of year when you’ll see draw prices dip below +200,” he said. “Obviously, it fluctuates with the pricing of the favorite.
“But this is when the public looks to bet draw in certain matches because that will be the best result for the two clubs. People factor that into their handicapping due to the importance of the match.”
Sherman said his shop aims for a hold, or net revenue, of about 4% on two-way games and just under 5% on the three-way.
Scout the competition.
Comparing SuperBook odds on that match to those at Station Casinos — draw at +150, Cardiff +165, Rotherham +185 — shows the distinct advantage of doing business with Sherman’s crew.
Over the course of a long season, such differences are felt in the wallet. Savvy punters know where to shop for optimal futebol prices in Vegas.
Still, SuperBook executive director John Murray said he and his staff must constantly explain three-way parameters, which deal with the 90 regular minutes plus injury time.
Knockout rounds of competitions, like what Seeley witnessed Sunday at Wembley, involve an extra pair of 15-minute halves, then penalty kicks, should a game be knotted after regulation. Man U won on a seventh PK.
“The way I describe it to people is, ‘If the draw is offered and you didn’t bet the draw and it ends in a draw, you lose,’ ” Murray said. “If they offered you a draw option, the draw is a loss if you didn’t bet the draw.”
OPT FOR TWO-WAY
Two weekends ago, German aficionados of the draw went bananas, er, bananen — when six of nine Bundesliga matches ended in a tie, netting an exceptional 14.6 units of profit.
An anomaly, though, because in the 18 combined games of the previous weekend and subsequent round, there were only two draws.
Moreover, three-way parlays truly define dancing with the devil since they multiply the moving parts — diminishing an already-difficult success rate — geometrically.
As with most sports, bettors parlay favorites hoping to score big.
“From our perspective, a few matches that end in a draw are very good results, especially if it involves a two- to four-dollar [-200 to -400] favorite and that match ends in a draw,” Sherman said.
“We’ll do pretty well, most of the time, on a match like that.”
Murray seeks two-way angles — to nab, say, an underdog plus a half-goal, securing two of the three possible outcomes — when he bets soccer.
“At some point, people learn that their chances of winning a bet on soccer are greater on the two-way,” he said. “Mathematically, they just simply are. As players get more experienced, that’s what they’ll go to.”
Meanwhile, in Rotherham, the Millers and Cardiff each scored in the first half. In the 87th minute, Cardiff’s French defender Cédric Kipré struck an 18-yard set-piece into the top right corner for the 2-1 triumph.
Even when the draw is most expected, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, it evaporates late for punters who bet it. That giggle? The devil himself.
