Explain lay bets to me...

RandomTom

RandomTom

RandomTom

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On Betfair you can back as well as lay bets.

On the French Open, there are many rank outsiders with odds of like 999/1. If I want to lay a bet of £2, my liability is £2,000, so if they do win I'd lose 2 grand, but if they don't win (even come 2nd) I'd get a profit of £2,000...

What am I missing? Surely something.

Would I only get back what is bet 'backing' them in the market depth section. There is currently £10 backing one person at 999/1, if I lay a bet of £10 at those odds, would I get back £9.9k return or just their £10 backing?

Never placed any bets before, sorry.
 
RandomTom said:
On Betfair you can back as well as lay bets.

On the French Open, there are many rank outsiders with odds of like 999/1. If I want to lay a bet of £2, my liability is £2,000, so if they do win I'd lose 2 grand, but if they don't win (even come 2nd) I'd get a profit of £2,000...
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No, you'd get £2.
 
No, you would not get a profit of £2000, you would get a profit of £2.

Thus, you have the (very high) chance of winning £2, but the (very low, but still existent) chance of losing £2000. Also to place such a bet you'd need to have £2000 in your betfair account anyway, which I suspect you dont :P
 
If you lay a bet, it means you're betting that this event will NOT happen.

You offer odds on an event, and an amount you're willing to risk. You could lay for example, West Brom against West Ham at 5/1 for a backer's stake of £10.

This means if West Brom do NOT win, you win £10. If West Brom do win, you lose the backer's stake of £10 multiplied by the odds you offered, so you'd lose £50.
 
Ah right, that definitely makes more sense then, but why does it say 'payout' as £5k, and 'liability' as 4.9k. :(.

Understand it, just confused me for a quick second. I thought payout meant for me, not total payout.

Cheers.
 
RandomTom said:
Ah right, that definitely makes more sense then, but why does it say 'payout' as like £5k, and 'liability' as 4.9k. :(.
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For that you'd probably lay a bet for £100 at 49/1. You'd pay out £5k, because you're losing £4.9k and returning the £100 stake which = £5k.

Haven't used betfair for ages so not 100%, they're robbing sods anyway.
 
When you lay a bet you're effectively becoming the bookmaker. You're saying that you'll take £2 of their money, if they lose you keep the £2, if they win you pay them their winnings at odds of 999/1+their initial stake = (((£2/1)*999)+£2 = £2000.
 
G-MAN2004 said:
So what's stopping you putting as much money as you have, on a goalkeeper not scoring in a football match? Surely you'd win every time?
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Because someone has to take that bet, and nobody would. Keepers are not options for first goalscorer, it goes to the next, and if there isn't, it's settled as "No Goalscorer".
 
With Betfair you have to have enough cash in your account to cover any liability from losing the bet though.

Let's say the odds of a goakeeper scoring were 2000/1 and you put in £500 that it wouldn't happen (so if they didn't score you'd get £5000 back). Great, however, in the event they DID score you'd owe them £1,000,500 - still worth the gamble? :p
 
Use decimal odds. Much easier to work with.

( Back ) 1000 * £2 = £2000 = +1998 or -2

( Lay ) 1000 * £2 = £2000 = -1998 or +2

The Betfair site has a "What if" feature where you can play around with stakes and odds without any exposure. Trading tools also do the boring calculations for you.
 
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