My Official £50-£46,000 betting challenge

Marvt74 said:
Yeah backing a result is like saying it will happen like you normally would. If you lay a bet you're basically saying it won't happen.

Eg United vs QPR

Back United would mean you'd get paid if United win
Lay United would mean you'd get paid if its a draw or QPR win
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Ok, so that makes sense now but this makes the 'back' bet matched, what's the difference between a matched bet and an unmatched bet?
 
Since with betfair you're betting against other individuals. A matched bet is where your bet has been matched against another user.

If its showing as unmatched its not been paired with anyone betting against you and you'll get no wins/losses until its matched.

Sometimes if odds change quickly it will result in unmatched bets, especially if you're betting in the last fews minutes.

Eg

Say you see the odds are currently 1.18 and think "ooh i'll have a bit of that". But whilst you're placing the bet at 1.18, the odds other people are offering drop down to 1.12. Theres then nothing available to match your bet against, so you'd need to cancel your unmatched bet and create a new one at the lower revised odds.

With matching, Betfair will automatically match bets upwards in your favour (eg a 1.18 bet up to 1.26) but never the other way :)


One word of warning, is if you put a bet on at 1.18 and see its unmatched so think i'll go and place a new bet at 1.12 and then cancel the 1.18 afterwards. Sometimes odds will jump back again and you'll end up with both bets matched and may end up betting much more than you intended. Happened to me a few times.

Hope that all makes sense :)
 
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Hmm, so betfair isn't all that good really. Not sure I feel comfortable profiting from normal people. Plus they just charged me 6.67% commission. Does Coral charge commission or does it just reflect commission in its odds?
 
Its no better or worse. Technically with a regular bookie you're better against other people as if other people weren't betting opposite to you then the bookies wouldn't make money when you won.

I imagine it just reflects commission in the odds which is why betfair may at face value give better odds.
 
desires said:
Hmm, so betfair isn't all that good really. Not sure I feel comfortable profiting from normal people. Plus they just charged me 6.67% commission. Does Coral charge commission or does it just reflect commission in its odds?
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'Normal' bookies like Coral will incorporate their commission (for a bookie it's usually called 'overround' or 'vigorish') into their odds. That's one of the reasons why you get better odds on Betfair - because punters set the odds and the commission is only deducted afterwards. And don't forget that you only pay commission on Betfair when you win.

I wouldn't worry about profiting from people - they were up for the deal, at the end of the day!
 
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Thought I'd give this a try and signed up to Betfair however I cant get my head around it.

Lets say for exam Man U are 5-0 against Newcastle. I stick 20 on Man U to win. I need someone to say they won't win in order for my bet to count?
 
Jon33 said:
Thought I'd give this a try and signed up to Betfair however I cant get my head around it.

Lets say for exam Man U are 5-0 against Newcastle. I stick 20 on Man U to win. I need someone to say they won't win in order for my bet to count?
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Yes, at the equivalent odds. when you look at the odds available you might get something like 1.01 which means for every pound you place on them to win you would get 1p. Ignoring Betfairs cut it means that someone has put a 1p bet on Man U to not win, they get your £1 if that happens.
 
Jon33 said:
Thought I'd give this a try and signed up to Betfair however I cant get my head around it.

Lets say for exam Man U are 5-0 against Newcastle. I stick 20 on Man U to win. I need someone to say they won't win in order for my bet to count?
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That's basically correct. However, when you see odds in the 'back' column on Betfair, that means that someone has already offered to bet against you (lay the bet). So if you're happy with those odds and you get your bet in fast enough, the bet will be matched straight away.

If not, Betfair will tell you that the bet hasn't been matched - then you can either wait, or cancel the bet and try something else.

Also, Betfair doesn't necessarily just match one punter's bet against another punter's bet. The match can be with multiple people all offering the same odds. So if you put £20 on United, that could be matched up with three people who want to lay £10, £7 and £3. All that is handled by Betfair, so you don't have to worry about it.
 
I wish there was some data available on how often bets of 1.03 or lower lose. You'd then be able to work out how much you'd have to split your money to guarantee profit. I don't suppose bookies give that sort of information out though :p
 
Started on this tonight. Placed six under/over bets so far at 1.02/1.03, and got my starting £10 up to a princely £11.27.

If I get to £50, I'm gonna bank £40 and start again with £10. If I bust out, the £10 was matched betting money anyway, so I don't really care...
 
Won 28p tonight :D It would have been about 10p more but it was on a tennis match and it took me about 1 minute to find out the score 6-2 5-2 with the winning team at 40-0! By the time I went to place my bet @ 1.01 the game was over lol. I was surprised how late the 1.01 stayed open though because that was as sure a bet as you could ever get!
 
Tennis can be tough. It does happen that a player fights back from match point down and wins. Personally I prefer football matches with a few minutes left, because the end is dictated by time rather than a player's determination!
 
Well I lost all but 52p of my 10. Started back up a few days ago (the 12th it seems), got my £10 up to £11 on the first day, back down to £8 yesterday, spent all day building it back up to £11.50, and then lost it all tonight. Well, that's me done for another few months :p
 
desires said:
Well I lost all but 52p of my 10. Started back up a few days ago (the 12th it seems), got my £10 up to £11 on the first day, back down to £8 yesterday, spent all day building it back up to £11.50, and then lost it all tonight. Well, that's me done for another few months :p
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What kind of odds were you doing? I assume you weren't sticking to the <1.03 or so?
 
Ok couple of Qs..

First off on betfair, are the matches always written as home vs away?

Secondly, if the away team are winning say 0-4, does that mean i'd lay at the given odds (they were 1.01) on the away team? I'm confused :D
 
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