How Betfair Works – And How To Profit from Backing and Laying!
An example we’ve backed before is the English Premier League.
Early on in the season you might be able to pick up Arsenal at odds of $12 to win the Premiership, so you put $100 on them to win. Your potential profit then becomes $1,100.
Bet on Arsenal - and win without them winning
If they win a few on the trot during the season and beat a big team or two like Man U or Chelsea, their odds might come in much shorter to closer to $5. This now means for $400 of your potential profit, you can claim back your $100 outlay and be able to have a ‘free’ bet which is worth $700 if Arsenal win overall:
Lay off your bet as the odds get tastier - and have a free bet riding
So you can take your $700 free bet and let it ride – OR – lay it off further and take a win no matter what happens! This is usually a good option, especially when you’ve taken advantage of odds but aren’t really sure that the tip can get up.
Let’s take a look:
Or lay off the bet and win even if Arsenal don't win!
As you can see, we’ve layed off $800 of our potential profit of $300 to collect $200 should Arsenal not win. If they do win – we still collect a tidy $300.
Essentially, each time the odds on a prospect halve, you can double your money without risk. Therefore, your bet comes in from $600 to $20, you’ve been able to take advantage of a 30x plunge in the odds, giving you the chance to collect really big even if you original bet doesn’t actually win.
Some of the best bets are on outsiders to win a championship – such as a golfer, tennis player, F1 Driver or even a team going into the finals that has had a bad trot. We’ve had some classic examples here on TopPunter of big collects:-
Thor Hushovd – Green Jersey Winner – Tour de France 2009:
During the early parts of Le Tour we noticed that despite Cavendish smashing the flat sprints, Thor Hushovd was a much better chance overall due to his real prowess in the mountains. Even Husovd he was a strong second favourite, we managed to get odds of $8.40 to which we put $100 on. As the Tour went on and it became clear Cavendish just couldn’t do it, Hushovd came right in to $1.30! As in cycling anything can happen (a single puncture might’ve cost him), we took the smart money and layed our bet off on Hushovd for $300 at $1.30 (Liability $90). This meant if Hushovd won the green jersey we now would win $630 or if he loses $200. Big Thor did the job for us and we cleaned up – but had enough in reserve in case it all went down.
Tomas Berdych to win Wimbledon 2009:
We backed Berdych at the start of the tournament for $50 at $320 (Profit $15950). He did well in the early rounds and came right in $90 before playing a big game against Andy Roddick. In the relatively likely event Roddick would beat him, we decided to lay off some of the bet: We claimed back $150 at $90 at a liability cost of $13350. That means we had $2600 still running on Berdych if he got through, but we collect $100 if he gets knocked out. He went on to be knocked out against Roddick who lost to Federer in the finals – in hindsight we might’ve been better to lay off even more – but it’s best to at least claim you stake back and give yourself a shot at collecting big time in these situations.