Proline NHL Tie Odds Not Quite As Fair As They Appear

Overtime games are a common occurrence in the NHL, but Proline wont grade them a tie until they go to a shootout. (Photo credit: neat1325 / Foter / CC BY-ND)


With more than a quarter of NHL games in the first half of the 2013-14 season going to overtime (145 of 556, or 25.6 per cent), the Proline NHL tie odds of 6.00 or higher may seem pretty appealing.

If Proline graded all overtime games as ties, 6.00 odds would be more than fair. A 5:1 return (6.00 is 5:1 odds, since the payout includes your original bet) on something that happens once every four games would be a smart bet every day of the week.

Unfortunately, Proline only grades games as ties when they go to a shootout. If a game is decided in the five-minute overtime session, it is not graded as a tie.

In the first half of the 2013-14 NHL season, only 89 of the 145 games that went to OT were eventually decided in a shootout. That dropped the overall percentage of NHL games graded by Proline as ‘ties’ to 16 per cent.

A 5:1 return implies a 20 per cent likelihood of something happening. So by offering 6.00 odds on a tie, Proline is still not quite offering you what you should be getting for the likelihood of a game going to a shootout.

More fair odds for a Proline NHL tie would be 7.50 (6.5:1).