How to read the coupon

Every number on this site carries a probability and a price. This page explains where both come from, what they can tell you, and — just as important — what they cannot.

The two kinds of draw

A pools coupon does not treat all draws alike. A score draw is any drawn match where both sides scored: 1–1, 2–2, 3–3. A no-score draw is 0–0. Traditional pools scoring pays far more for a score draw, which is why this site never shows a single combined "draw" figure. Two matches can both be 26% to draw while one is twice as likely as the other to finish 0–0, and that difference matters more than the headline number.

Where the probability comes from

Bookmakers publish prices, not probabilities. A draw quoted at 4.00 implies a one-in-four chance — 1 divided by 4.00 is 0.25. Do that for home, draw and away on the same match and the three figures add up to more than 100%. The excess is the bookmaker's margin, and it is how they make money.

We remove it. Each bookmaker's three prices are rescaled so they sum to exactly 100%, which strips that bookmaker's margin from their own numbers. Then we average across every bookmaker quoting the match. The result is closer to what the market collectively believes than any single price on any single site.

Splitting the draw

To separate a score draw from a no-score draw we use the correct-score market, where bookmakers price individual scorelines. Add up every level scoreline — 0–0, 1–1, 2–2 and so on — remove the margin the same way, and 0–0 is read straight off the board. Whatever is left of the draw is a score draw.

Not every match has a correct-score market. Lower divisions and smaller leagues are often priced for the result only. Where that happens we label the figure estimated and fall back to how draws in that division have historically split between scoring and goalless, measured from our own settled archive. It is a weaker number and the page says so.

Reading a row

The large figure is the coupon number, because that is how the coupon is actually played. Next to it sits the chance of a score draw, then the best draw price we can find and the bookmaker offering it. The bar shows how that number compares with the strongest on the same coupon — it is relative to the week, not an absolute scale.

Numbers shaded green are the ones the market rates most highly this week. Numbers shown plain were quoted by too few bookmakers to form a consensus, or not quoted at all. Those still appear. Hiding them would make the coupon look more certain than it is.

What these numbers cannot do

A 22% score draw is the strongest number on a typical coupon. It is still wrong roughly four times in five. That is not a flaw in the figure — it is what 22% means. Football draws are genuinely hard to predict, which is exactly why pools pay what they do.

Some weeks the market barely separates the coupon at all: thirty numbers within two percentage points of each other. When that happens the page says so rather than presenting a confident shortlist, because ranking 20% above 19% implies a precision nobody has.

We publish our accuracy in full on the record, including the weeks the market got it wrong. Any site that shows you only its winners is showing you a selection.

Where the data comes from

Prices are collected from participating bookmakers throughout the week and the last price before kick-off is kept permanently. That means an archived week shows what was genuinely known beforehand, not a number adjusted afterwards. Fixtures, results and the coupon itself come from the pools coupon as published.

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