Introduction to Laying

In basic terms, laying bets is acting like a bookmaker. This was previously never possible for the average member of the public until the advent of betting exchanges. Betting exchanges allow us to participate as both a punter (by betting) and a bookmaker (by
laying).

To lay a bet you will specify odds on an event and the amount that you are willing to risk and will then accept other peoples bets on that chosen event. The aim of the game is to pick losers rather than winners.

Why use Laying?

It is much harder to find the winner of a race but it can be easy sometimes to find one that wont win. This is the way that bookmakers make their money…and as we all know, there aren’t many poor bookmakers around! Bookies make most of their money when short priced favourites lose, so they love to see any outsider come romping home. Anyway, to answer the question ‘why use laying?’ …if it is good enough for the bookmakers it is good enough for us.

Example of Lay Betting

Firstly, you need to have a betting bank and decide how much of that you are willing to lose per race. On this site we use a stake of £100 per race, which basically means that the most that we stand to lose per race is £100. Let me show you an example:

Horse to lay is ‘Lucky Boy’ and price is 2/1. Using an exposure limit of £100 per bet we would be willing to lay £50 at 2/1. If the horse wins we would lose £100, and if the horse loses we win £50. It might seem like a strange thing to do at first- risking £100 to win £50, but you will win far more often than lose as it doesn’t matter which other horse wins.

We have an Advantage over the Bookmakers

As punters we have a few great advantages over the bookmakers. We do not have a shop to run or staff to pay, we do not need to offer to lay horses in every race and we are able to cherry pick the best priced horses to lay when we feel there is a genuine chance of defeat.