A 3-way bet (often referred to as a 1×2 bet) is a type of sports bet for games with 3 potential outcomes. These outcomes are generally win, lose or draw. Or put another way: team 1, draw, or team 2 (hence the bet often being referred to as “1×2”).
It’s a popular bet in soccer because of the frequency of games ending in draws, but the 3-way bet is also often seen in hockey as a regulation time bet. Many betting sites actually use the name “regulation time bet” for their 3-way hockey bets, so that’s just another name to keep an eye out for.
Quick tip: Bet the regulation line in the NHL to get better odds when you’re confident the team will win within 60 minutes.
The sportsbook indicates that the bet does not include overtime or penalty shootouts. This means that if the game heads to overtime the correct outcome would be a draw.
As you can see this 3-way bet is the exact same as a typical moneyline bet, except that there are 3 possible outcomes rather than the typical two you see with NHL games.
1×2 Betting Example
Here a soccer example using odds from Betway.com. I wanted to show you that the bet can be labelled a lot of different ways. In this example it’s called a ‘Win/Draw/Win’ bet, and it’s the first bet featured for soccer games. It’s also often labelled as 1×2 or 3-way betting. If there are 3 outcomes with one being a draw then it is a typical 3-way bet.
In this example there are once again three outcomes:
(1) Aston Villa 6.50 (x) Draw 4.75 (2) Liverpool 1.45
As you can see Liverpool was a big favourite to win this game.
3-Way Betting Sports
As I mentioned at the top, 3-way bets can be found for any sport that has three possible outcomes (home win, draw, road win). 3-way bets are the most common form of soccer bet, while for other sports such as hockey or rugby you may have to dig deeper into the sportsbook to find their 3-way betting lines.
