For a long, long time sports bettors were limited to only being able to bet on a particular horse, team, player, etc winning with a betting company. The only way you could bet on a selection not winning was by backing all the other outcomes of an event 101 Game.
In the instance of a horse race, this would mean having to back every other horse other than the one that you thought was going to lose, which as I am sure you can appreciate, is an extremely monotonous affair. Imagine covering forty odds horses in the Grand National just so you could bet that one wouldn’t win!
With the advent of the internet, and the sports betting exchange, all of this has changed – for the better. These days, if you want to bet on a selection not winning you can! Simply pay a visit to a betting exchange like Betfair or Betdaq, and you will find a huge number of punters willing to bet against you that the horse, or team ,or whatever will win.
So this is lay betting and is basically the opposite of backing. Essentially what you are doing by laying a bet is taking the place of the bookmaker, whose position this usually is.
How laying odds work
When you place a lay bet the odds you are basically the opposite of what the backer is being offered. If you put out odds of 1-3 that a horse will not win, you are offering 3-1 to anyone that is happy to match the bet.
Beware when laying outsiders! When you bet that an outsider (say with odds of 40.0) is going to lose you are basically saying that for every £1 that the backer bets against you, you will pay £40 out if the horse wins. If the backer were to bet £100 on a horse with 40.0 and that horse wins, you are going to be liable for £4000. On the betting exchange you can say how much you want your maximum liability to be but even with the minimum stake of £2 you will be liable for £80 and your win would be next to nothing!
How to ‘Lay’ a football bet
Lay betting is perfect for football bettors. It is very exciting because there are so many betting options with football, such as the correct score line, first goal scorer, correct result, and so on. Lay betting on a football match is not as restricted as horse race lay betting is.
To lay a football bet, all you need to do is:
- Open an account with an exchange if you do not have one.
- Choose the football betting section and click on the particular event in question.
- The number of betting markets will now be highlighted. The importance of the football match will dictate how many markets will be available. Click on the particular lay bet you want i.e. lay the home win.
- Decide how much you want to bet and the exchange will calculate how much the maximum liability you could incur is.
- Confirm the bet.
Lay betting on exchanges applies to pretty much every sport out there. Check out Betfair or Betdaq and have a play around with their websites to find out more about the sorts of opportunities that are available!