If you are interested in lay betting on the exchanges or want to learn the basics about this method of making money, then sit down somewhere quiet and continue reading, because this is the information you have been looking for.
Lay betting is now available to the ordinary punter thanks to the emergence of betting exchanges. In this article we are going to take a look at three aspects this method of betting. First of all, we will define lay betting. Next we will have a look at the main betting exchanges. Finally we will check out how easy it is to make a profit using lay bets.
So what is lay betting? When you place a bet with a traditional bookmaker, you are predicting that a certain event will happen, and you are backing up that prediction with hard cash. For instance, if you think that Manchester United will win an up-coming football match against Wigan Athletic, you would back Manchester United. This is a traditional bet. However, if you do not think Manchester United will win the game, you can lay them – i.e. bet against them. This way, if Wigan win, or the game is a draw, your bet wins. You have two outcomes in your favour. Transpose the theory to a horse race of 12 runners. If you lay one particular horse, you are effectively having the other eleven horses running for you.
Now we need to know where we can place lay bets. There are two main betting exchanges, namely Betfair and Betdaq. They are both run by reputable companies, and there is no danger of them disappearing with your cash. Both websites have a wide range of events, sporting and otherwise, available to bet on at all times. Betfair is the biggest of the exchanges, and processes a higher volume of bets than its rival.
So, we know what a lay bet is, and we know where we can place these bets. Can we actually make money by betting this way? The short answer is: yes, if you know your sports. By laying a selection, you do not have to get the result of the sporting fixture (or other event) exactly correct – you can cover a number of scenarios. Using the first example from above, we can see that if we lay Wigan in the football match, we have two chances to win the bet. Say the match ends in a draw, or United win, the bet is won. However, if we back United, we have two results against us: the draw and a Wigan win.
In summary, we now understand the basics of lay betting, we know that the betting exchanges are the place to go to place these bets and finally we can see that by placing a lay bet to cover more than one outcome we have a better chance of success than with a simple ‘back’ bet.
Eleanor Fitzhugh is a professional gambler and tipster, who also writes gambling related articles. Visit http://bettingincome.co.uk for more betting news, hints and tips.
