How to read football match probabilities

What a 60% on a match means, why favourites lose and how to use win, draw, double chance and correct score.

What 60% means

60% means that out of 10 matches played under those conditions, about 6 would end with that outcome and 4 would not. It does not tell you what will happen in that match: it tells you how often it happens in similar matches.

Why favourites lose

A 70% outcome fails 3 times out of 10. If you follow many matches, you will often see the favourite fail to win: that is normal and does not mean the probability was wrong. A model is judged over hundreds of matches, not one.

Win, draw, loss

The three percentages always add up to 100%. Draws are common in football, usually between 22% and 30%: even when one team is the favourite, the draw remains a real possibility.

Double chance

1X means home win or draw: its probability is the sum of the two. It has a high probability but low odds.

Correct score

Even the most likely score rarely goes above 12-14%: there are dozens of possible scores in a match. That is why we show several, in order of probability.

How to check

In the public record we compare the percentages with what actually happened: when we say 60%, does it happen about 60% of the time?

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