Why lay bets?

  • It could be a bit controversial but I’d like to have a bit of discussion about the above.

    I’m down £3900 on smarkets and £1500 on betfair exchange since I’ve started matched betting 3 months ago. From reading forums this is not coincidence, all (most?) matched betters have a significant negative balance on exchange. Which means a significant positive balance at bookies.
    So the question is: why even lay bets since we lose them considerably in the long run?

    Some may ask if you don’t lay how is it different to mug betting. For starters matched betters look for and take value bets. Any other reason comes to mind?

    One pitfall of such strategy is problems with cash flow. Anything else you can think of?

    If you don’t mind post your exchange balances and period of time.

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    Guppyboy 0

    There’s a very simple reason why I always lay off my bets: I have to keep my emotions out of the game if I want to make money. It’s that simple. In the past I have messed around with overlaying, underlaying, mugging etc.. and it’s all had the same result: I have eventually lost money because my emotions have got the better of me.

    Not laying off your bets might lead to some good ‘wins’ but what happens when you hit a losing streak? You get wiped out, unless you have nerves of steel and a massive bankroll.

    Whilst it’s always preferable to see money flowing into the exchange it’s no big deal to win at the bookies. I just withdraw my winnings like every other punter (and leave some in if it’s a ‘good’ account). It can be inconvenient, yes, but for me it is very important to stick to the core principle of matched betting which is to make my betting as risk-free as possible.

    As for ‘keeping the bookies happy’ by losing, I don’t fully subscribe to this view. A case in point: I had a perpetual losing streak at Ladbrokes. It was insane. I’m not kidding, 99% of the bets I made there were losers and I wasn’t even trying to lose; many of those bets were at short odds. But I still lost my account! In the month before I was gubbed I lost every single bet and thought I was the bookie’s best friend. I thought I was invincible lol.

    My philosophy is to stick to matched betting principles. It’s the only way to guarantee an outcome and keep emotions off the table. Otherwise it ends up being matched betting purely to subsidize a gambling habit.

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    Tony 11

    Interesting thread with some good insights.

    It got me thinking so I just took a look at my records and (as I expected) I more often that not lose at the bookies and win on the exchanges. Obviously, given the odds, I win more qualifying bets than free bets at the bookies:

    Total bets placed = 264 (137 qualifiers, 127 free bets)
    137 Qualifiers = 65 bookie wins, 72 bookie losses
    127 Free Bets = 25 bookie wins, 102 bookie losses

    So, it’s safe to say that I lay my bets because it is profitable to do so! 😉

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    Pickle 57

    I wish id kept those sort of records Tony. That said i dont think ive even had a qualifying bet win this week. Case in point yesterday i had a horse that was clear and fell at the last fence. Id be thinking the bookies would be loving me but maybe not. Oh apart from Mr Ladbrokes who gave me a free spin on their new spiderman game. I messed up put a normal spin in at a cost of £2.50 hit the bonus game and won £175!!!

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    Tony 11

    Haha – a profitable error! Nice one 🙂

    Yeah, good records are quite valuable, not just to know what you have where etc…, but also in terms of being able to go back and identify trends, patterns…

    When I looked today, I was a bit shocked to see that of the 264 bets I have placed, OVER half have been at Paddy Power! I knew I was taking up a lot of Paddy’s offers, but I hadn’t realised it was that many! Now that they have stopped their free £10 in play footy offer and tweaked their 2nd place MBS to the extent that I don’t bother with them (2nd to SP Fav only now) I have not placed a bet with Paddy for a week. This will look odd to them given that I was banging £20 and £25 bets on like there was no tomorrow for a good 6 week period. It has made me realise that I should probably put a few mug bets on just to keep things looking ‘normal’ (even though I don’t really subscribe to the mug bet philosophy)

    Here are my bookie stats for interest:
    Total bets placed = 264
    Paddy Power = 133
    Sky Bet = 40
    William Hill = 14
    Coral = 13
    888 Sport = 10
    Ladbrokes = 7
    Others (Victor, Betfred, Betway, Betbright…) = 47

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    chris 0

    I’ve lost many £1000s on each of Betfair and Smarkets but I will still always lay my bets to be safe.

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    dekoder 1

    Brilliant post and a great point about keeping emotions out and cash flow/available funds, exactly what I was after when I’ve started this thread.

    I have similar experiences re: loosing accounts. I’ve had terrible winning streaks at some bookies withdrawing thousands and accounts still standing but others when I’ve hardly won are gone.

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    dekoder 1

    Number of winning/losing bets is not giving us conclusive information here, it depends on the amounts won/lost.

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    Char 0

    Sometimes I am wondering why I lay bets. Down almost £10k on the exchanges in a couple of months.

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    Blank 0

    I had the same thought months ago, a bit of research and it’s clear you really should lay your bets.
    By not laying you would save yourself 2% commission, but the variance can be huge – as many of you are evidence for, being disproportionately £1000’s up or down with the exchanges.

    Also I will add, people saying they try to lose at the bookies to get money into the exchanges are insane. If you know which way a result is going, become a pro gambler and make your millions, it’s not realistic!

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    supert 3

    I was just telling a mate the same Dekoder…. £4k down with smarkets in 31 days however Glorious goodwood had some crazy winning bets £50 double ulecess and gurker 6.0 and 3.5 with betfred £1050… same double for £20 with 365 only made £120 from those bets 🙁
    Also tried to lose the £100 b365 25% bonus … the £400 i put in to get the bonus ended up yesterday with £1800 in my b365 account that i can finally withdraw so would have been £1400 up instead of around £180 up from the offer… hit feature race and ew arb…!! Im guessing though i would not have the balls to punt £50 – £100 bets on 5/1-16/1 shots if wasnt laying

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    Pickle 57

    I think thats a very good point Supert. Some of the donkeys ive backed matched betting that have surprisingly won no way would i have put £50 or more on them to win if i was still a mug bettor. A couple of weeks ago i emptied over 2k from numerous accounts into the exchange on a saturday evening. If i wasnt laying them then that would have been the end of my matched betting career.

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    MarkCorrigan 7

    Finally an interesting thread on MBB again!

    The trade-off is clear: when you lay on the exchange you are surrendering value in exchange for certainty – a form of insurance. In general, you take value from the bookmaker and lay off at the offered odds. It is important to realise that you are losing value (in gross terms); this is not just net of commission. Every time you lay at the requested odds, you are losing value to the spread (if we assume that the exchange market is efficient, which it generally is).

    There’s another factor which some may overlook… Why would someone request odds below those offered by the bookmaker? I frequently see large volumes available to lay which are below the industry price. Do they know that the horse is good value and are letting arbers and matched bettors fill their orders? Like many others, I was down ridiculous sums on both exchanges during my matched betting career.

    Also, lol at people “trying” to lose at the bookmaker.

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    FoG_BLoG 47

    Nowadays I don’t always lay.

    I don’t lay:

    1. On qualifiers at short odds. For example 1.5. Because firstly bookies offer pretty fair prices on strong favourites, so not getting bad value there. Secondly, you really wont go on an unlucky streak where you lose a lot of odds on bets in a row.

    2. Free bets. I only lay free bets if I have paid a big enough qualifying loss and I will lay a portion to reclaim my QL. If I feel like it.

    3. Skybet boosts. Mark pointed this out last week. Everyone looking at laying off the sky bet boost artificially pushes the lay price UP. So the lay price is higher than is fair. So when you pay out on that lay you are paying out significantly more than is fair. This is the same for many popular boosts. I don’t often lay boosts, but take a value bet on them proportional to what I can afford. Usually small enough stakes like £5 to £25-ish.

    4. 2nd to SP favourite races. I only do these when there is an odds on fav, one other decent horse and the rest are pretty long odds. So I reckon I am safe enough that I will either win, or come 2nd. Of course its not guaranteed but that’s what I do.

    I do always check the exchange for value though.

    I always lay when

    1. On qualifiers where the stake is over £50. For me £50 is just too much to risk.

    2. On qualifiers where the odds are over 3/1. For me waiting 4 or 5 races for a win on a good day is too long to wait for pay day. With bad luck (and doing this long enough you will get bad luck) you could easily be waiting 10 races for a win at those odds, so you’re down £250 which is a big proportion of my bank roll.

    3. Obviously always lay if there is an arb.

    On Smarkets, my 30 Day Profit/Loss right now is showing −€277.78
    On 8th July, my 30 Day Profit/Loss was +167.81
    On 11th June, my 30 Day Profit/Loss was +85.96
    On 9th May, my 30 Day Profit/Loss was -289.00

    So looks like I’m leaking about €80 to smarkets every month.

    It’s interesting because as I move into shop betting I think I will be laying less. You can’t be in ten shops at the same time and usually just before the race is the best or only time that you will find odds close enough to lay for manageable QL – so how do you cover 1 race in ten different shops? It’s inconvenient, awkward and draws attention to you laying in the shop in any case.

    Also noticed that in Ireland Paddy Power are doing money back 2nd (not to SP) up to €50 on their virtual racing – one or two meetings every day. It is not possible to lay virtual racing. Haven’t tried it, and wouldn’t recommend it. Need to do some research on virtual results to see if the favs finish in the top 2 often enough to make it profitable.

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    LHurlz 0

    My P/L on smarkets over 30 days is -2200. Mainly because I backed about 5 Bet365 4/1 offer winners in a row, and in typical fashion overlayed them all to guarantee the profit. Could have made an absolute mint had I not done that but oh well

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    peck1996 0

    I go into every saturday knowing im losing 1-2k in the exchange from backing and laying half the horses in every c4+ offer races but I just dont have the bottle/ mental capacity to deal with the “what if” factor! lol

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