In this guide, I’ll help you get set up with a Betfair Exchange account and introduce you to their site.
Betfair are currently the biggest betting exchange out there. With over 4,000,000 registered users, they’re one of the biggest online gambling organisations in the world. They’ve built their reputation on being incredibly reliable and offering markets for just about every sport you can think of.
Betfair New Customer Offer
Betting exchanges ordinarily charge us commission by taking a small percentage of our winnings.
Betfair are currently offering new customers 0% commission for 30 days. Basically, any commission paid within the first 30 days will be refunded in cash, up to a maximum of £500.00.
You just need to click this link to get the offer, after which you should see a page that looks like this…
Just click either of the ‘JOIN NOW‘ buttons and you’ll see the following registration form…
The ‘EXCCHE‘ promotional code should already be entered as shown. Once you’ve completed the form, just click ‘Join Now‘ and you’re all set!
Depositing funds
You don’t need to worry about depositing funds until you’re ready to place your first bet.
Once the time comes, it’s just a case of clicking the ‘Deposit‘ button in the top right hand corner.
You’ll see a number of payment methods available, including Credit/Debit Card and PayPal.
Betfair Exchange homepage
The Betfair Exchange is easy to use and finding our way around is pretty straightforward.
It’s important to point out that Betfair also run a Sportsbook, so we need to be sure to click the Exchange tab on the main menu.
All available sports are listed down the left-hand side, and if we’re looking for a particular event, we can also use the search box at the top of the page.
The most popular events are listed in the centre of the homepage for ease of access. So if we want to take a look at the Real Madrid v Liverpool markets, we can select it here.
Betfair Exchange markets
Once you’ve selected an event, you’ll see a page that looks like this…
The available markets are listed down the left-hand side.
More often than not though, we’re interested in the Match Odds market, which we’ll now take a closer look at.
Betfair Exchange explained
All markets are split into two halves; a blue half and a pink half.
The blue column represents the best available back odds for each selection.
For matched betting purposes, we just need to focus on the pink column, which shows us the best available lay odds for each selection.
The monetary values underneath the odds show us how much is available to back or lay at those particular odds. This is known as the liquidity.
How to lay a bet on Betfair
Laying a bet on the Betfair Exchange is really straightforward.
We simply find the selection we want to lay and click the corresponding pink button. So if we wanted to lay Real Madrid, we would click the 2.34 button…
Once that has been applied to our betslip, we just need to enter the amount we wish to lay in the ‘Backer’s stake‘ box and click ‘Place bets‘…
Once the lay bet has been placed, our potential profit or loss for the possible outcomes are shown on the left-hand side…
As you can see, our liability for this lay bet is £13.40.
So, just to clarify here… we are betting against Real Madrid.
If Real Madrid win, we’ll lose £13.40 to the backer.
If Real Madrid don’t win (if they draw or lose), we’ll win the backer’s stake of £10.00 (minus 5% commission).
Don’t worry if you’re still a little unsure of things. Everything should click into place once you get started with your first couple of offers.
