Do Draw-Heavy Teams Keep Drawing? Team Draw Rates Season to Season
Draw-heavy seasons rarely repeat. Season-to-season draw rates barely correlate, extreme teams drift back towards the average, and the market prices most of what remains.
- 28.1%next-season draw rate of 35%+ draw teams
- 26.2%average team draw rate
- −3.6%return backing the draw in their next-season games
Every season a handful of clubs turn into draw machines, and the temptation is to keep backing the stalemate the following year. I wanted to know whether that habit survives the summer. Across 3,265 consecutive team-season pairs in 22 European divisions, the correlation between a team's draw rate one season and the next was just 0.17. That is a weak link, and it tells me most of a draw-heavy season is not a trait the club carries forward.
The headline answer is that teams drawing 35% or more of their games averaged 39.0%, then drew 28.1% the next season. That is not far above the 26.2% average. They keep a slight lean towards the draw, but the market appears to know it, and backing the draw in their next-season games returned −3.6% at average odds. I build my football match predictions page on the same idea: estimate the probability first, then ask whether the price disagrees.
01Extreme draw rates collapse towards the middle next season
Each dumbbell joins a group's draw rate in one season to the same clubs' rate the next. The ends pull hard towards the centre. The 706 team-seasons under 20% averaged 15.7% and then drew 24.2%. The 454 team-seasons at 35% or more fell from 39.0% to 28.1%.
The middle group, 25–30%, barely moves at all, going from 27.3% to 26.5%. Clubs that already drew at a normal rate simply stayed normal.
View the data: draw rate this season vs next
| This season | Next season | |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20% (706 team-seasons) | 15.7% | 24.2% |
| 20–25% (757 team-seasons) | 22.5% | 25.7% |
| 25–30% (828 team-seasons) | 27.3% | 26.5% |
| 30–35% (520 team-seasons) | 32.4% | 26.8% |
| 35% or more (454 team-seasons) | 39.0% | 28.1% |
What survives is the ordering, and only faintly. Next-season rates climb from 24.2% to 25.7%, 26.5%, 26.8% and 28.1% as you move up the groups. So a draw-prone club stays slightly draw-prone, but the gap is a fraction of what last season's table suggested.
02The snapback grows with how extreme the season was
This chart isolates the movement. The lowest group gained +8.5 points, the 20–25% group gained +3.2, the middle shifted −0.8, the 30–35% group dropped −5.7 and the top group shed −10.9 points. The further a team sat from the average, the further it travelled back.
That pattern is what noise looks like. A season's draw rate rests on roughly 30-46 games, so a few late equalisers can push a club into the extreme groups without anything structural changing. That is my main caveat for the whole study: much of the spread in one season's draw rates is luck, and modest returns at these sample sizes can come from chance as well.
View the data: how far draw rates move next season
| Change next season | |
|---|---|
| Under 20% | +8.5 pts |
| 20–25% | +3.2 pts |
| 25–30% | −0.8 pts |
| 30–35% | −5.7 pts |
| 35% or more | −10.9 pts |
03Record draw seasons that did not repeat themselves
The most drawn campaigns make the point vividly. Rio Ave drew 55.9% of 34 league games in 2023/24 and fell to 32.4% the next season. Catanzaro drew 52.6% in 2024/25, then 36.8%. Lamia went from 51.5% in 2019/20 to 33.3%.
Vallecano is the sharpest case: 50.0% of 42 games in 2019/20, then 23.8%, below the league-wide average. None of these clubs became ordinary overnight. Each still drew more than most, but anyone pricing them off the record season would have been badly wrong.
View the data: the most drawn seasons
| Highest team draw rates, 30+ league games, 2016/17–2025/26 | |
|---|---|
| Rio Ave 2023/24 | 55.9% |
| Catanzaro 2024/25 | 52.6% |
| Lamia 2019/20 | 51.5% |
| Vallecano 2019/20 | 50.0% |
| Boavista 2021/22 | 50.0% |
| Rodez 2020/21 | 50.0% |
| Udinese 2023/24 | 50.0% |
| Cremonese 2017/18 | 50.0% |
| Pisa 2016/17 | 50.0% |
| Latina 2016/17 | 50.0% |
04What the draw price says about last season's draw specialists
Here I check the next-season matches involving each group. For last season's 35%+ teams, across 15,597 matches the draw landed 28.0% against 27.2% priced, at average odds of 3.57. That is a return of −3.6% at average odds and +1.4% at the best price.
The low-draw group shows the mirror image. Across 23,404 matches the draw landed 24.5% against 24.8% priced, at average odds of 4.05, returning −7.6%. The full sample of 75,485 matches landed 26.2% against 26.2% priced, returning −6.2% at average odds of 3.75.
| Team group | Matches | Draw landed | Draw priced | Avg draw odds | Return | Return at best price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last season 35%+ draws | 15,597 | 28.0% | 27.2% | 3.57 | −3.6% | +1.4% |
| Last season under 20% draws | 23,404 | 24.5% | 24.8% | 4.05 | −7.6% | −2.5% |
| All matches | 75,485 | 26.2% | 26.2% | 3.75 | −6.2% | −1.3% |
My reading is that the market has already shaded the draw for these clubs. A gap of 28.0% landed against 27.2% priced is thin. The difference between −3.6% and +1.4% comes almost entirely from where you place the bet, not from the selection itself.
1X2 checklist
- Shrink last season's draw rate. A 39.0% draw season became 28.1% the next, so I assume most of the excess disappears. Start near the 26.2% average and add only a small lean.
- Compare against the priced probability. Draws for last season's 35%+ teams landed 28.0% against 27.2% priced. Unless your own estimate clears the margin-free price clearly, there is no bet.
- Take the best price. The same draws returned −3.6% at average odds and +1.4% at the best price. At typical odds the margin swallows a small edge.
Quick answers
Do teams that draw a lot keep drawing the next season?
Only slightly. The season-to-season correlation is 0.17, and teams that drew 35% or more fell to 28.1% the next season, against a 26.2% average.
Is backing the draw for draw-heavy teams profitable?
Across 15,597 next-season matches it returned −3.6% at average odds and +1.4% at the best price. That margin is small enough to arise by chance, so I treat it as a pricing check rather than a system.
How often do teams draw in European league football?
The average team drew 26.2% of its league matches across 22 European divisions. The margin-free price on the draw also averaged 26.2%, at average odds of 3.75.
I'm Anneke Brandt, based in Aspen, and I write the win-draw-win tips at soccerbet.tips — treating the match-result market as price against probability, never as a reason to back the bigger badge.
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