Such an outcome, sometimes referred to as deadlock, can also occur in other areas of life such as politics, business, and wherever there are different factions regarding an issue.
For example, the Speaker of the British House of Commons (a position whose functions and conventions of operation inspire similar roles in several other nations using the Westminster system) is expected by convention to follow Speaker Denison's rule (i.e. to vote to allow further discussion, if this is possible, and otherwise to vote in favour of the status quo).
Draws are relatively rare in boxing: certain scoring systems make it impossible for a judge to award equal points for a match.
Since 2022, all Grand Slam tournaments, including the Olympics in 2024, now use 10-point final set tiebreaker games, with a 2-point lead minimum.
In versus-fighting games, a draw occurs when both players end the match through a double KO; or via time over, with the same percentage of life bar.
In SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium, a draw awards the round to both sides but favours the CPU if it's a decider i.e. the player is still the loser and must restart the stage even though they technically tied.
Tied games, which were commonplace in the National Football League (NFL) through the 1960s, had become exceedingly rare with the introduction of sudden death overtime, which first applied to the regular season in 1974.
If both sides have scored an equal number of goals within regulation time (90 minutes), the game is usually counted as a draw.
In elimination games, where a winner must be determined to progress to the next stage of the tournament, two periods of extra time are played.
If the score continues tied even after this time, the match technically remains a draw; however, a penalty shootout is used to determine which team is to progress to the next stage of the tournament.
Some competitions, such as the FA Cup, employ a system of replays where the drawn match is repeated at the ground of the away team in the first game.
In most North American professional leagues, the regular-season tie-breaker is five minutes long, with each side playing at least one man short.
In the National Hockey League, in the playoffs, in general unlimited 20-minute sudden death periods are played, making a tie impossible.
An exception occurred during the 1988 Finals, when a power failure forced the early abandonment of Game 4 between the Boston Bruins and the Edmonton Oilers with the score tied 3–3.
Nearly all modern racing cars and motorcycles carry electronic transponders which relay precise timing information down to the thousandths of a second.
The F1 Sporting Regulations provide that in the event of a dead heat in a race, points and prizes will be added together and shared equally among the tying drivers.
[20] In Grand Prix motorcycle racing, dead heats are avoided by fastest lap times being a tiebreaking measure.
[21] This rule resulted in Héctor Faubel winning the 125cc classification of the 2011 German motorcycle Grand Prix after a photo finish could not separate him and Johann Zarco.
Should the result still be tied a place-kicking competition is held where 5 players from each side take one kick each from anywhere on the 22-metre line (usually straight in front of the posts).
The semi-final of the Heineken Cup between Cardiff Blues and Leicester Tigers at the Millennium Stadium was decided by a "kick-off".