What is the 1X2 market?
For anyone who has seen three prices on a match card and wondered what the 1, the X and the 2 stand for. A plain guide, using this week's Nations League prices and Saturday's game at Leeds as examples.
The 1X2 market is the plainest bet in football: which of the three results will the match have? The 1 is the home team winning, the X is a draw, and the 2 is the away team winning. There are three prices, one for each, and you pick one. Every match card on this site shows those three prices first, because every other football market grows out of this one.
The sections below explain where the names come from, how to read the three numbers, why they never quite add up, and what a 1X2 bet paid at Leeds on Saturday, using prices from BettingBeast’s feed as captured on Tuesday morning and one closing price from the weekend.
Where do the 1, the X and the 2 come from?
The numbers are the order the teams are written in. A fixture is always written home team first, so the home team is 1 and the away team is 2. The draw is X because that is how a draw was marked on the football pools coupons that British newspapers carried for most of the last century: a cross against the match meant you expected a draw. The trade has kept the letter, and so has most of the world. On this site’s cards it is simply the three prices under the team names.
A home win, a draw and an away win are the only three things that can happen in 90 minutes, so the three prices cover everything. That is why this market is also called the match result market, the full-time result market, or the three-way market. They are all the same thing.
How do I read the three prices?
Take England v Croatia at Wembley on Thursday 12 November, kick-off 20:45 CET. At 06:23 CET on Tuesday BettingBeast’s feed priced England at 1.27, the draw at 7.02 and Croatia at 12.66. These are decimal odds, which means each number is what a stake of 1 returns in total if the bet wins, your stake included. Put 10 on England at 1.27 and an England win returns 12.70, of which 2.70 is profit. Put 10 on the draw at 7.02 and a draw returns 70.20. Put 10 on Croatia at 12.66 and a Croatian win returns 126.60.
The lower the price, the more likely the bookmaker thinks the result is. So the side with the lowest price is the favourite, the one given the better chance, and the side with the highest price is the outsider. At 1.27 England are a heavy favourite; at 12.66 Croatia are a long outsider; and the draw sits in between, as it usually does when one side is much stronger.
A price can be turned into a chance, called the implied probability. Divide 100 by the price. England at 1.27 is about a 79% chance by the price. The draw at 7.02 is about 14%. Croatia at 12.66 is about 8%. Our guide to implied probability goes through the arithmetic; the short version is that the price is the chance written the other way round.
Why do the three chances add up to more than 100?
Add those three chances together and you get about 101, not 100. In a match where the prices are closer the gap is usually bigger. Georgia v Hungary on Saturday 14 November, kick-off 18:00 CET, was priced at 3.32, 3.18 and 2.52 in the same capture. That is about 30%, 31% and 40%, which adds up to roughly 101% as well. The sum is always above 100, and how far above depends on the bookmaker and the match.
The extra is the bookmaker’s margin, the amount built into the prices so that, over many bets, the bookmaker keeps a share whatever the result. If the three prices were set at exactly the true chances, the sum would be exactly 100 and the bookmaker would make nothing on average. Shortening each price a little pushes the sum above 100, and the amount above 100 is the margin. A sum of 105% means a margin of about 5%. Our guide to the margin explains how to compare two sets of prices once you know this; for reading a single card, it is enough to know that the chances are a little flattered and that the margin is the reason they never add up neatly.
What does a 1X2 bet pay when the game is close?
Leeds United v Tottenham on Saturday 7 November is a useful example because the sides were priced close together. The closing line, the last price this site captured before kick-off at 13:23 CET, had Leeds at 2.93, the draw at 3.45 and Tottenham at 2.69. By the price that is about 34%, 29% and 37%: Tottenham a slight favourite, Leeds a slight outsider, and the draw not far behind either.
Leeds won 1-0 with a late goal from Noah Okafor, according to the club’s own report. A stake of 10 on Leeds in the 1X2 market returned 29.30. The same 10 on the draw or on Tottenham was lost. There is no half-way house in this market: the bet is on one result, and the other two results lose. That is the difference between 1X2 and the two markets that sit next to it on the card. Draw no bet, also shown as a handicap of 0, returns the stake on a draw and pays a lower price for a win; our guide to draw no bet uses the same Leeds game as its example. The handicap market gives one side a goal start and settles on the adjusted score. Both are built from the 1X2 market by taking the draw out of the reckoning in different ways.
Is it settled on 90 minutes?
Yes. The 1X2 market is settled on the score at the end of normal time: 90 minutes plus whatever stoppage time the referee adds. Extra time and penalties do not count. In a cup tie that finishes 1-1 after 90 minutes and is won on penalties, the 1X2 result is a draw, and a bet on the draw wins even though one team went through. Bookmakers say this in their rules. If you want a bet on who goes through, that is a different market, usually called “to qualify”, and it is not the one on the card.
A postponed or abandoned match is usually treated as no bet, with stakes returned, if it is not played within a set period, which varies between bookmakers. The rules page of whoever you are betting with has the exact period.
Why does the price change before kick-off?
The three prices move as news arrives and as money is bet. On this site the card carries the latest price with the time it was captured, and the chart under the card draws every capture since the match first appeared in the feed. England v Croatia is a case of a price that has hardly moved: 1.27 on England when the feed first carried the match at 21:22 CET on Thursday 5 November, and 1.27 at 06:23 CET on Tuesday. Italy v France on the same night is a case of one that has: France went from 1.88 to 1.78 overnight on Monday, and the Markets desk has written on it. Our guide to why odds change before a match goes through the usual reasons. For reading the card, the thing to hold on to is that a 1X2 price is a snapshot at a stated time, and that the time matters as much as the number.
In short
The 1X2 market is the match result after 90 minutes: 1 for a home win, X for a draw, 2 for an away win. Each price is what a stake of 1 returns if that result comes in, and 100 divided by the price is roughly the chance the bookmaker gives it. The lowest price is the favourite. The three chances add up to a little more than 100 because the bookmaker’s margin is in every price. A bet on one result loses if either of the other two happens, which is what sets 1X2 apart from draw no bet and the handicap. Extra time does not count. And the price on the card is only ever the price at the time shown next to it.
Questions readers ask
What does 1X2 mean?
It is the three-way match result market: 1 is a home win, X is a draw and 2 is an away win, and you bet on one of the three.
Why is the draw called X?
The letter comes from the old football pools coupons, where a cross marked a draw, and the trade has kept it.
Does the 1X2 market include extra time?
No; it is settled on the score after 90 minutes plus stoppage time, so a cup tie decided in extra time or on penalties counts as a draw.
Why do the three chances add up to more than 100 per cent?
Because the bookmaker's margin is built into each price; the extra above 100 is what the bookmaker keeps on average.
Which side is the favourite in a 1X2 market?
The one with the lowest price, because a low price means the bookmaker thinks that result is the most likely.
What happens to a 1X2 bet if the match is postponed?
Usually the bet is cancelled and the stake returned if the match is not played within a set time, though each bookmaker's rules say exactly when.
- BettingBeast football prices, captured by this site's odds job (data/odds-latest.json, capture 2026-11-10T05:23Z), BettingBeast via Match News. Read 07:30 WAT, 10 Nov 2026.
- Closing prices of matches that have kicked off (data/closing-lines/2026-11.json, written by this site's odds job), BettingBeast via Match News. Read 07:30 WAT, 10 Nov 2026.
- Full-time report as Leeds United second-half dominance pays off in win over Tottenham Hotspur, Leeds United. Read 06:50 WAT, 8 Nov 2026.
Plain-text version: what-the-1x2-market-is.md