How different sports count ties and draws

By StratPollen Studio · Updated 25 October 2026 · 4 min read

A draw sounds simple: nobody won. But every sport has to decide what a draw is worth in the standings, and those decisions shape how teams play. Some sports remove draws entirely with overtime, some reward them generously, and some give a little something even for losing.

Here is how the main systems work, and what each one means for winning percentage.

Football (soccer): 3 points for a win

Most football leagues award 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. England's Football League introduced three points for a win in 1981, and it spread worldwide after FIFA used it at the 1994 World Cup. Before that, a win was usually worth 2 points.

The change was meant to reward attacking play. Under 2-1-0, two draws were worth as much as a win and a loss. Under 3-1-0, a win is worth three draws, so there's more reason to chase a winner late in a game.

Because league tables run on points, the most useful percentage for football is points percentage: points won divided by the maximum possible (3 × games played). A team with 20 wins, 10 draws and 8 losses from 38 games has 70 points out of a possible 114, which is 61.4%.

American football: a tie is half a win

NFL games can still end tied after overtime in the regular season, though it's rare. Since 1972 the league has counted a tie as half a win and half a loss when working out winning percentage. A 10-6-1 record over 17 games is (10 + 0.5) ÷ 17 = .618.

Before 1972, ties were simply left out, so a 10-4-2 team was treated like 10-4 (.714). Counting the ties as halves would give (10 + 1) ÷ 16 = .688, a noticeably lower figure.

Ice hockey: the "loser point"

The NHL removed ties in 2005 by adding a shootout after overtime. Teams get 2 points for any win, 1 point for losing in overtime or a shootout, and 0 for a loss in regular time. Records are written W-L-OTL, for example 45-28-9.

Because a game that reaches overtime hands out 3 points in total while other games hand out 2, plain winning percentage doesn't tell the whole story. Standings use points percentage instead: points ÷ (2 × games played). The 45-28-9 team has 99 points from 82 games, which is 99 ÷ 164 = .604.

Basketball and baseball: no draws to count

Basketball keeps playing overtime periods until someone wins, so NBA records are just wins and losses. Winning percentage is wins ÷ games, usually shown as a decimal like .610.

Baseball goes to extra innings, and tied games are very rare at the top level. When one does happen, it is left out of the winning percentage, which is wins ÷ (wins + losses).

Chess: half a point

Chess has always been simple about it: 1 point for a win, ½ for a draw, 0 for a loss. Tournament standings are total points, and a player's score percentage is points ÷ games. It's exactly the "draw = half a win" method.

Draws are common at high levels of chess, so the half point matters. A player with 2 wins and 7 draws in a 9-round event scores 5.5/9 (61.1%), often enough for a good finish without losing a single game.

Rugby union: bonus points

Many rugby union competitions use 4 points for a win, 2 for a draw, plus bonus points: one for scoring four or more tries, and one for losing by seven points or fewer. A team can therefore take something from a defeat, and a winning team can take 5 points rather than 4.

With bonus points in play, winning percentage and the league table can tell quite different stories, which is why rugby fans usually look at points.

Cricket: draws, ties and no results

Cricket has several ways for a match to end without a winner. A draw happens in multi-day matches when time runs out before a result. A tie is when the scores finish exactly level, which is very rare. A no result is a limited-overs match abandoned, usually because of rain.

Competitions publish their own points tables. In many limited-overs tournaments, teams level on points are separated by net run rate, a measure of how quickly a team scores compared with how quickly it concedes.

What this means when you calculate your own record

• Use your league's own rule if you need an official figure. Points systems vary by competition and sometimes change between seasons.
• For a quick comparison, counting a draw as half a win is the most neutral choice and the easiest to explain.
• For a league table, use points percentage with that league's points values.
• Say which method you used. As the winning percentage guide shows, the same record can give very different numbers.