Back and Lay Betting Guide

Find some of the best Back and Lay betting markets and odds, with unrivalled liquidity.

Back and Lay are two of the fundamental components of betting and it is important to have a good understanding of them.

Here, we take you through all you need to know about Back and Lay betting, helping you gain a full understanding of both terms, how you can use them to form a profitable betting strategy and where to place your Back and Lay bets.

Back and Lay Betting: Meaning, Calculation, Example

What does Back and Lay mean?

Back and Lay betting is gambling in its purest form and is used around the world by bettors on a wide range of sports and events.

Before we delve into it, it is important to get your head around the key terminology.

Back Bet - Betting on an outcome to occur. This is the most common form of bet and is the type of bet you are placing when you bet with a traditional bookmaker

Lay Bet - Betting on an outcome not to occur. In this bet you take the role of the bookmaker in that your bet will be successful if the outcome does not occur.

If you don’t feel confident in implementing this formula into your calculations yourself, then you can find a suitable Back and Lay calculator online to do it for you.

Calculating your potential winnings from a back bet is simple. If you place a €1 back bet on a selection at odds of 5.00, then you will end up with €5 if your selection is successful, meaning a total profit of €4. The most you can lose if your selection is unsuccessful is the amount that you initially staked.

Working out your potential winnings from a lay bet is slightly different, as it is possible to lose more than your initial stake. If you lay a selection with €10 and that selection is not successful in the event, then you will make a €10 profit, leaving you with €20 in total. However, if your selection is successful in the event, then you will lose further money depending on what odds you laid the selection at.

For example, if you lay a selection with €10 at odds of 1.64, and the selection wins the chosen event, then you will lose your initial stake of €10, as well as a further €6.40. The extra loss is known as your liability and is calculated using the following formula:

(Stake x decimal odds) – stake = liability.

What is a Back and Lay Bet?

What is Back and Lay in betting?

A back bet involves placing money on an outcome of an event that you believe will happen, such as betting on a team to win a soccer match, or a horse to win a race.

A lay bet is the opposite. It involves placing money on an outcome of an event that you believe won’t happen, such as betting on a team not to win a league title, or a horse not to win a race.

You can Back and Lay the same selection, which is known as hedging. It is a technique used to minimize losses or ensure profit. If you back a selection at high odds and then over time those odds shorten, you may then choose to lay the selection at shorter odds, thereby covering both outcomes.

This is a particularly common strategy in long-term betting, where the price of a selection can shorten significantly over the period of the event.

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Types of Back and Lay Bets – Examples

A famous example of the ideal Back and Lay bet opportunity was Leicester winning the Premier League in the 2015/16 season. They were outsiders for the title at the beginning of the season and were available to back at odds of 5000.00.

In the latter stages of the season, when it became clear that they had a good chance of winning the title, those who backed them at the start of the season could now lay them at a much shorter price, to ensure profit if they were to slip up and not win the title, while also maintaining profit, albeit slightly less, when they went on to win the league.

Back and Lay betting is also common in horse racing. For example, many people back horses to win certain races at the Cheltenham Festival months in advance of the meeting, then Lay them closer to the meeting if their price has shortened.

How to Place a Back and Lay Bet at Edge

Edge is the perfect tool for finding the best site with which to place your Back and Lay bets. Edge gives you access to a range of the world’s best, most popular bookmakers and exchange sites all on one platform.

You can use Edge to compare sites and find the best markets for you. Simply decide what market you want to place your Back and Lay bets on, select the site that offers the best odds on your desired selection, and place your Back and Lay bets.

Pros & Cons

One of the main pros of Back and Lay betting with a betting exchange, rather than a fixed-odds bookmaker, is that it removes the overround.

This is the mechanism through which bookmakers make a profit, by making odds slightly shorter so to ensure that they have the best chance of being profitable in any scenario.

Betting against other players with no overround on an exchange means you will be getting better odds.

If you’re at all unsure about the overround, you can always use an overround calculator online.

Probet42 is a great site to use for Back and Lay betting as they offer a wide range of events and markets.

With exceptional value on offer, Probet42 won’t limit successful bettors, unlike other sites.

One of the key cons to keep in mind with Back and Lay betting is that there is always the chance your bet won’t get matched.

In this scenario you may try to place a bet, the selection may win, and then you go back to find that no one matched your bet.

While this will be annoying, it is a far better drawback than losing money.

Conclusion

It is clear why it is so important to understand the concepts of Back and Lay betting, as they are the main components of every other form of betting. If you feel you have fully understood Back and Lay betting, then you can check out the Mystic Mac tipster on our Telegram channel for tips on the best events and selections on which to place your Back and Lay bets.