1X2 betting: understanding the 1, X and 2 odds

What do the 1, X and 2 odds mean?

On a 1X2 market, the 1 odd corresponds to a home win, the X odd to a draw, and the 2 odd to an away win.

1 = home win
X = draw
2 = away win

It's the most common result market in sports where a draw is possible, football being the clearest example.

1X2: one market, occasionally two labels

1X2 is the standard label for this market. In French-language contexts you'll sometimes see it written 1N2, with N standing for "nul" (draw). Nothing about how the market works changes: three outcomes, a draw explicitly built in, and identical settlement rules.

You may run into either label depending on the platform. Both describe the exact same market.

1X2 covers regulation time

In football, the 1X2 market usually covers regulation time, stoppage time included. Extra time and penalty shoot-outs are generally excluded from this market, unless the operator states otherwise.

This rule isn't universal: some operators offer explicit variants ("including extra time"), clearly labelled as such. Always check the exact market rules with the operator before betting.

1X2 doesn't mean qualification

Winning the 1X2 of one leg of a two-legged tie is not the same as qualifying.

Across a two-legged tie, a team can lose the first leg on the 1X2 while still being positioned to qualify once both legs are combined. The 1X2 market only covers the result of the match in question — on its own, it says nothing about overall qualification.

What a 1X2 odd tells you — and what it doesn't

A 1X2 odd reflects the price an operator sets for a given outcome, at a given moment. An odd of 2.10 on the 1 outcome doesn't predict that the home team will win: it shows the price at which the operator accepts that selection, given its estimate, its margin and the market.

Converting an odd into a probability, and the role the margin plays in that conversion, is explained on the page dedicated to implied probability.

How OddScore uses the 1X2 market

OddScore tracks the prices offered on the 1X2 market by dozens of bookmakers, removes their margin and compares how they evolve over time. It's one of two markets the platform tracks in football.

The goal isn't to predict the outcome of the match, but to make it easier to read how the market prices each of the three outcomes, and how that pricing evolves up to kickoff.

A fully worked, settled example

Odds of 2.10 / 3.40 / 3.60 on the 1 / X / 2 outcomes of a match, €20 staked on the 1 odd.

A home win returns €42.00 (€20 × 2.10), a net profit of €22.00. A draw or an away win loses the full €20 stake — unlike Double Chance or Draw No Bet, a straight 1X2 selection covers only one of the three outcomes, never two.

Edge case: the abandoned match

If a match is abandoned or stopped before full time and isn't replayed the same day, 1X2 bets are generally voided and refunded, regardless of the score at the time of the stoppage. Some operators can still settle certain markets on the score reached, past a contractually defined playing-time threshold — a variable practice that should always be checked before betting rather than assumed to be the same across operators.

Margin on the 1X2

The three odds of a 1X2 market carry a bookmaker margin, whose general calculation — conversion to implied probability, overround — is covered in detail on the bookmaker margin page. In the example above, the implied probabilities of 47.6%, 29.4% and 27.8% add up to roughly 104.8%: that 4.8-point excess forms the margin built into this market.

Understand how OddScore analyzes odds movements →

Dig into the market

Odds movements are only part of the story. Here are the next topics to read.

Frequently asked questions

Sources & methodology