Betting Exchange Sites

When exchange betting was first introduced, at around the
turn of the century, many believed it would revolutionize sports
betting and lead to the demise of the bookmaker. It has
certainly had a major impact on the sports betting industry, and
it’s proved to be very popular with bettors, but it hasn’t yet
replaced betting with bookmakers.

1. Matched betting requires two things. A bookmaker account and a betting exchange account. If you've bet online before you will be used to placing bets on bookmaker websites such as William Hill, Bet365 or Paddy Power but you may never have used a betting exchange before.
2. The full list of tracks which have made agreements to offer Exchange betting include Monmouth Park, Woodbine, and the tracks running live in Louisiana and West Virginia. In Canada, Woodbine racegoers can also use the service.
3. Top Betting Exchange Sites Bangladesh, India & South East Asia. A betting exchange is practically an online tool that is designed for gamblers to bet directly against each other and not involve any of the traditional bookmakers. Cricket Betting indicates two ways of betting.

Exchange betting is also known as peer to peer betting, which
is actually a more accurate description of what it is. It’s
basically about betting against other individuals, rather than a
bookmaker, which is why so many thought it would kill off
traditional bookmaking. While it hasn’t done that, and probably
never will, it’s a form of betting you should definitely be
familiar with, because it offers several benefits.

The Smarkets betting exchange allows you to back and lay with the best betting odds and lowest commission on all major sports and politics. The full list of tracks which have made agreements to offer Exchange betting include Monmouth Park, Woodbine, and the tracks running live in Louisiana and West Virginia. In Canada, Woodbine racegoers.

On this page we have explained the basics of exchange betting
and how to use a betting exchange. We’ve also looked at the
advantages and disadvantages of exchange betting when compared
to traditional sports betting.

The Basics of Exchange Betting

The basic principle of exchange betting is relatively
straightforward. A betting exchange essentially matches up
people who wish to take opposite sides of a wager. For every
wager agreed they are acting as the middleman between someone
betting on a selection to win (the backer) and someone betting
on that selection to lose (the layer). The layer is effectively
acting as a bookmaker, taking the backer’s stake and agreeing to
pay out at the relevant odds if the selection wins.

The exchange handles all the money involved. At the point of
a wager being agreed, they take the stake from the backer and
the potential payout from the layer. If the selection wins, they
return the stake to the backer along with the payout that has
been taken from the layer. If the selection loses, the layer is
refunded the potential payout, and it receives the backer’s stake.
The exchange makes their money by taking a small commission from
whichever party wins a wager.

Using a Betting Exchange

Betting exchanges are run on websites which work in a similar
way to most sports betting sites. Before you can start betting,
you have to open an account and deposit funds. You’ll then be
able to login to your account and see all the various sports
that are covered, and the available betting markets. You have to
navigate to the market you wish to bet on, and then locate the
selection you wish to back or lay.

Backing a selection works in pretty much the same way as it
does with a bookmaker, in that you simply choose your selection
and place your stake at the agreed odds. The main difference is
that it’s another bettor that will be taking your wager and not
a bookmaker. There’s also a difference in the way the odds are
agreed.

When betting with a bookmaker you have to take the odds
currently being offered, but with an exchange you have the
opportunity to choose the odds. You can submit a proposed wager
with the stake and odds that you want, and if a layer chooses to
accept your terms, then the wager is agreed and your stake will
be deducted from your account. You can also choose to
accept an existing wager which has already been proposed by a
layer if you like the terms.

You have the same options when laying a selection. If someone
has proposed a wager and you like the terms, then you can
accept. The exchange will then deduct your potential liability,
which is the amount you will have to pay the backer if the
selection wins, and the wager is agreed. You can also choose to
set your own odds for a selection and the stake you are
prepared to lay. If a backer accepts that proposal, the wager
will be agreed.

Top Betting Exchange Sites

There’s technically no limit to the stakes or odds that can
be proposed. There’s never any guarantee that your terms will be
accepted though, because it depends on if anyone else finds them
attractive. In the event that you propose a wager and no one
accepts it, it will simply be cancelled. Any funds that have
been deducted from your account will be refunded, with no
commission payable.

Advantages of Exchange Betting

There are two major advantages which exchange betting has
over traditional sports betting. The biggest of these is the
simple fact that you can lay selections i.e. bet on them to
lose. This isn’t something that you can do with a bookmaker,
and it opens up lots of new opportunities for making money.

Let’s say you want to bet on an upcoming tennis tournament,
for example, and have picked three players likely to win it but
can’t decide which one is the most likely. You could back all
three players, but the best case scenario is that you win one
wager and lose two. With exchange betting, you could lay a few
other players instead. This way if one of your three picks does
win, you’ll win all of your wagers.

Betting Exchange Sites In Pakistan

There’s obviously some risk involved, as one of the players
you lay could go on to win the tournament, but you should be
happy enough with this risk if you are confident enough in your
picks. You also have the added benefit of potentially making
money even if one of your picks doesn’t win. You’ll still win
all of your wagers providing the tournament is won by any player
that you haven’t laid.

This is just one example of many scenarios where laying can
be useful. It’s often the case that picking a selection which
is unlikely to win is a lot easier than picking one that’s likely
to win. You can be exposed to high losses relative to your
potential wins, particularly if laying big outsiders, but you
should be able to win a good percentage of the time.

Laying also gives you the opportunity to use certain
strategies that help you to manage your risk. Let’s say you
backed the Seattle Seahawks, at odds of 15.00, to win the Super
Bowl at the start of the season, and they make it to the
playoffs. The odds on them winning the Super Bowl will be much
lower by that point, so you could then lay them.

As you can see from this example, you’ve managed to guarantee
a profit regardless of the outcome. This comes at the expense of
some potential profit, but the point is you’ve completely
eliminated the risk of your original wager. You could always lay
a smaller amount if you were still reasonably confident the
Seahawks were going to win and didn’t want to sacrifice so much
potential profit.

The other main advantage that exchange betting has to offer
is the odds for backing selections. You’ll frequently find
better odds on exchanges than you’ll find at the bookmakers.
They may only be a little higher in some cases, but even a small
improvement in the odds you get can make a big difference to
your overall returns in the long run.

Disadvantages of Exchange Betting

There are a couple of disadvantages of exchange betting too.
They are fairly minor, but you should be aware of them before
deciding whether or not this form of betting is for you.

The main drawback is that you may not always be able to get
your bets matched. Although this is unlikely to be a major
problem if you are betting on the most popular markets, it’s
something you could run into fairly often if you bet on less
mainstream sports or smaller events. The other
disadvantage is the bonuses and rewards available. Although some
exchanges do still offer these, they aren’t as generous or
valuable as what most sports betting sites have to offer.

At a Betting Exchange, the bets you place are against other punters rather than the bookmaker. This results in two key benefits – the ability to bet against something (eg: a specific horse not winning a race – known as a ‘lay bet’) and odds which are often better than those offered by a traditional bookie. The following table lists the leading betting exchanges for UK bettors.

List of Betting Exchanges

* Betdaq do not need to offer a commission based rewards program as they have it set at 2% for everybody.

Betting Exchanges Explained

The principle of how a betting exchange works is relatively simple. Each exchanged bet requires two or more customers who wish to place opposite bets. For example, one punter wants to bet that Arsenal will win the Champions League and one wants to bet that they wont.

When placing a bet with a traditional bookmaker the odds are set by the bookie, and you have no other choice but to accept the odds on offer or go elsewhere. At a betting exchange you are able to set your own odds – if the opposing bet is already available at the odds you have selected the bet is instantly ‘matched’ and good to go. However, if you decide to hold out for better odds your bet will remain ‘unmatched’ until somebody accepts those odds.

One of the most appealing features of a betting exchange is the ability to guarantee yourself a profit by hedging your original bet when the odds move in your favour. For example, lets say you place a bet on Manchester United to win the Premier League at the start of the season at 10/1. If they win their first 3 games and shoot to the top of the table, these odds will drop as the likelihood of them winning the league increase. You can now lay (bet against) Manchester United winning the premier league at the lower odds to lock-in a profit.

How Do Betting Exchanges Make Money?

A traditional sports betting site generates its revenue by working a margin into the odds they offer. So if you were to place proportional bets on every outcome of an event (eg: bet on every horse in a race), the money won would be less than your total stake.

Betting Exchanges, on the other hand, make money by charging winning bets a commission – the actual rate varies by exchange but is usually around 5%.

Betfair vs Betdaq

Betfair was the first betting exchange, and to this day remains the largest. However its biggest competitor, Betdaq, has been gaining ground recently thanks to its lower commission rate. In this next section, we’ll compare these betting exchanges on liquidity, odds, features & promotions.

Liquidity & Odds

As the larger of the two exchanges, Betfair definitely has the highest liquidity – although Betdaq continues to narrow the gap between the exchanges. In terms of odds, for the most part both Betfair and Betdaq are comparable although Betfair definitely has the edge on less popular markets.

This is, of course, before you take the betting exchange’s commission into account. Betdaq have recently introduced a 2% flat rate commission for all sports and markets, compared to Betfairs 5%. Therefore a winning bet at Betdaq would yield a slightly higher return than the same bet at the same odds at Betfair.

In the image below you can see a direct comparison between Betdaq (above) and Betfair (below) just before the start of a race.

Features

• Mobile Betting: As you would probably expect, both exchanges offer mobile apps for various smartphones and tablets – including iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry devices.
• Live Streaming: Betfair and Betdaq both offer live horse racing streams provided by ATR and RUK which you can watch for free provided you have placed a bet on the market. Betfair also offers live streams of various non-racing events such as soccer, tennis and basketball.
• Multiples: One type of bet which cannot be placed via an exchange platform is a multiple or accumulator bet. However, Betdaq and Betfair also offer customers traditional bookmaker style beting – where the bets are placed against the site rather than another customer.

History

A betting exchange allows punters to bet peer-to-peer. This means that instead of betting against a bookmaker, you actually bet against a fellow punter. The exchange allows you to lay a result, basically meaning you’re backing against a result.

The first exchange was set up by a site called Flutter.com in May 2000. A couple of months later the more familiar brand of Betfair was launched and the two eventually merged. Betfair were the first company to offer a full betting exchange experience by actually offering laying options on all their markets. The company has since gone from strength to strength and now reportedly controls over 90% of the betting exchange marketplace.

Betfair was founded by Andrew Black and Edward Wray who were amongst the first people in the world to apply a betting exchange to the online betting market. For their efforts both Black and Wray went on to win many prestigious awards for innovation, most notably the Ernst and Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award. The company went on to win the Queen’s award for Enterprise making them just one of 50 companies to have done so at the time.

Over the years the company continued to expand, not only in terms of the number of markets offered, but also the number of countries in which they operated. As it stands, Betfair currently accept major credit cards from over 40 countries in 10 different currencies.

The major pull a betting exchange such as Betfair has is that you often find yourself receiving inflated odds compared to what you would find at a bookmakers. This is mainly down to the fact that you bet with other punters rather than taking a price with a margin worked in to make it profitable for the bookmaker. Betfair make their money by taking a 5% commission on all matched bets. This is taken directly from the punter rather than the lines or odds set on their site.

As the company has continued to grow it’s of little surprise to see the market coverage and development of markets grow also. Every major sport from football to futsal, golf to Gaelic games and even mixed martial arts to motor sports can be found on Betfair, and the array of markets for each is vast. It’s much easier for a company such as Betfair to offer more markets than most bookmakers because they don’t need to research lines, set bets or anything like that as the punters do it themselves. The bookie simply open the market and lets the punter do the work.