How to Place Lay Bets
This tutorial is to help you to fully understand how to place a lay bet on betfair.com
Betfair is the most popular betting exchange and has the most usage of all the available exchanges. Other are available and work in the same way. For alternatives, click on Betting exchanges.
First you will require a betting account. To register, go to Betfair.com and open an account. Opening an account isn’t complicated but you will need to deposit money into your betting account called your betting bank.
A Minimum Lay on Betfair.com is £2.00 so you must consider the size of your initial deposit which will be needed to cover your first bet. If you wish to lay a tip at 10/1 to win £2.00 you will need £18.00 in your account to cover the lay.
When you account is active, go to the main home page and you will see links on the left hand side for all the sporting events that betfair.com covers.
The menu you require is "Horse Racing - Today's Cards". Clicking this link and you will be taken to a menu with all of the races available to bet on.
Please remember this list covers USA, RSA, Australia and the UK and Ireland, if you are actually a UK resident then UK races are shown without any country short code beside them.
09:15 Penr (AUS) - Australia
15:40 Ling - UK
Beware of one thing when selecting a race as most have a (Place) alternative.
15:40 Ling
15:40 Ling (Place)
Place means you payout on a horse that not only if it wins but also if it comes in 2nd or 3rd (dependant on the number of runners). So unless you really want to look at these races makes sure you avoid them, this is a standard beginners mistake!
Clicking on a race then brings up a race card like this:
Do not be concerned about the information on this screen , it probably looks a little complex when you first see it but it isn't long before it becomes easier to understand.
As you can see the screen is broken up into two sides Blue and Pink, the blue side is the current price available if you want to "back" a horse to win and the pink side is the price available if you want to "lay" a horse to lose.
In the picture above you can see that you can back "Lamps Return" at 3.55 and the value underneath tells you there is £69 available at that price, so if you wanted to place a bet on him for £10 there is sufficient cover at this price to match your bet.
On the "Lay" side there is £37 available at 3.6 so again if you wanted to lay him for £10 there is enough money available to cover your lay.
There are 3 columns for the Backs and Lays, these are prices available and the volumes of money available at each of the prices
If you wanted to put a "Lay" on Lamps Return for £100 then you can see that there isn't enough cover available at odds of 3.6 so you could place so if you selected odds of 3.6 only £37 would match, The balance of your bet would be placed as unmatched waiting for backs to be placed at the odds of 3.6 to match the balance of your stake. Alternativly you could select higher odds of 3.7 which would cover the bet at odds of 3.6,3.65 and 3.7 there would still be a £15 unmatched waiting for more backs to be placed.
The above screen shot shows later in time closer to the start time. You can see the prices have changed and the picks prices have shortened "Lamps Return" is becoming more popular.
We have decided to "Lay" Lamps Return so our next step is to click the pink box.
Ok a we are going to lay "Lamps Return" for £2.00 at 3.4 (see the price has changed again) so when we Click the pink box a new screen on the right appears showing that we are about to place a lay.
At this stage you haven't placed a "Lay" you are just getting everything set up ready, so as long as you don't click the "Submit" button you can play about with this section as much as you like.
In this bigger shot you can see that we have 3 important pieces of information.
The Odds
Our Stake
Our Liability.
Liability is something that you really need to be aware of take when laying, because if the horse you chose does win the race, this is amount of money you will be liable to pay out.
Your liability is calculated by the "Lay" odds minus 1 multiplied by your stake:
(3.4 - 1) X £2.00 = £4.80
This box is useful because you can play around with the "Backers Odds" or "Stake" to see how your Liability is effected by different amounts.
See how I have changed the settings to get a different liability.
Do not be worried about playing around with this figures, you can just click the "Clear All" button above the box. The information will default back to the original seetings.
This will clear anything to have done up to now.
Ok it's time to commit so we decide to lay "Lamps Return" for £2.00 so we click the submit button and if your bet is matched here is what you will see.
The "Matched" part confirms that betfair.com has managed to match your bet at 3.35 for £2.00 and your liability is £4.70 if the horse wins. If the horses loses, you will win £2.00
betfair.com automatically takes the £4.70 from your account as soon as the bet is matched. Depending upon the outcome of the bet, you account will be deposited or debited with the money from the bet.
On the main screen you can see your bet has been registered and it shows that if "Lamps Return" wins you lose £4.70 but if any other horse wins you win £2.00
Your lay is placed, all you have to do cheer on the other horses to win. Already the odds are in your favour, there are 10 horses in the race and you only want 1 to lose. How hard can it be.
When your horse loses, your accounted will be credited with the £4.70 along with your winnings of £2.00, minus commission for betfair.com. Now your ready to place the next tip from layracingtips.co.uk
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