A draw no bet in hockey means that you cannot bet on a game to end tied after 60 minutes of regulation play. Since all NHL games starting in 2005 also have overtime and shootouts (if needed) to determine a winner, a draw can only apply to bets in which it does not matter what happens after the teams are tied following three periods of play.
A draw no bet in hockey can also refer to what happens in hockey if a bet is based strictly on regulation time and the game ends in a tie after three periods. In this instance, there is no winning or losing bet for picking a winning team because it has ended in a tie. This is what's also known as a push, or in this case a no bet. When a wager ends in a push bettors get their money back.
Draw no bets stand in contrast to what's known as 3-way betting. In these types of wagers you can bet on either team to win or the game ending in a tie. Once again, since hockey games - or at least those in the NHL - do not have ties, the only way to bet on a draw is with a wager that specifically states the result after 60 minutes is all that counts.
Bookmakers list draw no bets in hockey because they want to reduce the number of possible outcomes in a game. While many hockey games do go to overtime, more often than not they do not. As a result, if you are able to bet on a draw you will receive high odds in your favor and you will be able to receive a nice payout for a winning bet. Over one five-year stretch in the NHL nearly 25 percent of the games were tied after regulation time. The result is when you pick a team to strictly win in regulation, you are decreasing the odds of a winning bet.
The three most common types of NHL bets are two-way moneylines, three-way moneylines and puck lines. On a two-way moneyline bet you are simply picking which team you think will win. In a three-way moneyline wager you are picking a winning team, or the game to end tied after regulation. A puck line is when the favored team is assigned a handicap and is similar to a spread bet. In a puck line bet in which the favorite is listed as -0.5, if the game is tied after regulation and you wagered on the underdog you will win the bet because +0.5 will be added to its score.
