NHL Overtime and Shootout Betting: How the Markets Work
Roughly one in every four or five NHL regular-season games doesn't get settled in regulation. That's a far higher share than in the NFL or NBA, and it means the way a sportsbook handles overtime and the shootout isn't a footnote — it's baked into the price of nearly every moneyline, puck line, and total you'll bet on a given night. Most of that structure is invisible until it matters, which is usually the exact moment a game you bet is tied with two minutes left in the third period.
In this guide
- The default NHL moneyline already includes OT and the shootout
- The separate "regulation time" market, and why it exists
- Why 3-on-3 hockey doesn't play like 5-on-5
- The shootout is a skills contest, and books price it that way
- What happens to the puck line and totals once a game reaches OT
- Mistakes bettors make with OT and shootout markets
The default NHL moneyline already includes OT and the shootout
Unless a sportsbook labels a bet otherwise, an NHL moneyline settles on the final result of the game, full stop — and in the NHL, "final result" can mean regulation, 3-on-3 overtime, or a shootout. If you bet the home team on the standard moneyline and they win 3-2 in a shootout after 65 minutes of 0-0 hockey, that ticket pays exactly the same as if they'd won 5-1 in regulation. This trips up bettors who come from other sports, where overtime is either rare (NFL) or doesn't exist in the same win/loss sense (MLB extra innings still just decide a winner the same way regulation would). In hockey, the mechanism for reaching a decision changes dramatically depending on whether it's settled in 60 minutes or extended — the bet's payout doesn't.
The separate "regulation time" market, and why it exists
Because the standard moneyline treats a shootout win the same as a regulation blowout, most books also post a second, distinct market — usually labeled "regulation time," "60 minutes," or "3-way moneyline" — with three outcomes instead of two: home win in regulation, away win in regulation, or the game is tied after 60 minutes. That third option exists specifically to separate "this team is genuinely better" bets from "this team survived to a coin-flip shootout" bets, and it prices very differently from the standard two-way line.
A team that's a -150 favorite on the standard moneyline might be priced closer to +100 or +110 to win specifically in regulation, with the draw itself often sitting around +230 to +270. That gap exists because a lot of the favorite's edge in the standard line comes from being more likely to win in whatever format the game reaches, including overtime and the shootout — strip those extra chances away, and a lot of moneyline favorites look far closer to a coin flip.
Why 3-on-3 hockey doesn't play like 5-on-5
The NHL's regular-season overtime format is five minutes of 3-on-3 hockey on the full ice sheet, and it produces a completely different style of game than the 5-on-5 hockey that decided the previous 60 minutes. With four fewer skaters on the ice but the same rink dimensions, odd-man rushes and open-ice breakaways happen constantly. Teams that are strong 5-on-5 possession clubs don't automatically translate that advantage to 3-on-3, where individual skating speed, one-on-one defending, and a hot goaltender matter disproportionately more than structured team systems.
This is part of why some teams develop reputations as strong or weak in overtime independent of their regular-season record — a roster built around size and defensive structure can be a below-average 3-on-3 team even if it's a strong 5-on-5 team, because the skills that translate are different. Books adjust for this at the margins in their overtime-inclusive pricing, but it's exactly the kind of thing that's easy for a bettor to overlook if they're only looking at a team's overall record.
The shootout is a skills contest, and books price it that way
If 3-on-3 overtime doesn't produce a winner, the game moves to a shootout: three alternating attempts per team, sudden death after that if still tied. A shootout is, functionally, closer to a penalty-kick contest than to hockey as played the rest of the game — team-level factors like possession, forecheck pressure, or special teams don't apply at all. What matters is a small pool of individual shootout specialists and the opposing goaltender's shootout save percentage, both of which are far noisier, smaller-sample statistics than full-season team numbers.
Because of that, sportsbooks generally treat a game that's expected to reach a shootout as close to a true coin flip on the standard moneyline, regardless of how lopsided the matchup looked on paper for the first 65 minutes. A significant favorite that's tied entering the shootout has essentially given back almost all of its pre-game edge — which is exactly why the regulation-time market described above exists as a separate product in the first place.
What happens to the puck line and totals once a game reaches OT
The puck line (hockey's version of a spread, typically set at 1.5 goals) settles on the final score including any overtime or shootout goal, the same way the standard moneyline does. A shootout winner is credited with exactly one additional goal for settlement purposes — so a game that finishes 3-2 in a shootout settles as a 3-2 final for puck-line and total purposes, not by however many actual shootout attempts were scored.
| Market | Includes OT/shootout? | How it settles |
|---|---|---|
| Standard moneyline | Yes | Winner of the game by any means, including a shootout |
| Regulation time / 3-way line | No | Three outcomes: home win, away win, or tie after 60 minutes |
| Puck line (1.5 goals) | Yes | Final score including OT; shootout winner counted as +1 goal |
| Game total (over/under) | Yes | Total goals including any OT goal; a shootout adds exactly one goal to the winning side's total, none to the total for regular totals purposes in most books' rules — check the specific book's settlement rules |
That last row is worth double-checking with your specific sportsbook, because settlement rules for shootout goals on totals bets aren't perfectly uniform across every operator — most follow the same convention, but it's a detail worth confirming in a book's house rules rather than assuming.
Mistakes bettors make with OT and shootout markets
- Treating the standard moneyline as a pure measure of team strength. A heavy favorite's moneyline price reflects their overall win probability across regulation, overtime, and the shootout combined — not necessarily how dominant they'll look over 60 minutes.
- Ignoring shootout history entirely, or overweighting it. Shootout records are a small sample and can regress hard year to year, but a team with a genuinely strong or weak shootout roster over a multi-season stretch is a real, if modest, factor.
- Confusing puck-line settlement with a shootout's actual score. The puck line uses the +1 convention for a shootout winner regardless of how many rounds the shootout actually took or what the "true" shootout score was.
- Assuming every book settles overtime totals identically. Most do, but house rules can vary on edge cases — it's a five-minute check worth doing before you need it.
Frequently asked questions
Does a shootout goal count toward player prop totals like shots or points?
No. Shootout attempts are not part of the official game statistics used for player props — a player who scores in the shootout does not get that credited as a goal for prop-bet purposes, since the shootout is scored separately from the game itself.
Is the "regulation time" market available for every NHL game?
It's offered by most major sportsbooks for most games, but availability and the exact labeling ("regulation time," "60 minutes," "3-way moneyline") can vary by operator, and it's sometimes pulled or limited for lower-profile matchups.
Do NHL playoff games use the same 3-on-3 overtime format?
No — playoff overtime is played 5-on-5 with full sudden-death periods until a goal is scored, and there is no shootout in the playoffs. That's a meaningfully different structure from the regular season's 3-on-3-then-shootout format, and it changes how OT-heavy games should be evaluated.
Why do some favorites get worse odds in the regulation-time market than the standard moneyline?
Because the regulation-time market strips out the extra winning paths (overtime and shootout) that pad a favorite's standard moneyline price. A team might be clearly better over 60 minutes but still have a meaningful chance of a competitive, tied game — which shows up as worse odds and a real tie price in the three-way market.