How to Bet In-Play – a Lay Tutorial

Cyril's Betting Advice
Cyril's Betting Advice

Trawling the internet I noticed an article on IN-PLAY betting. Not something I’m in tune with really. In-Play is all the rage when football is shown on TV though. What we are looking for is a bookie who offers an incentive to bet in-play. Almost all of them do offer such service but how about a free £50.00 bet? Would certainly catch most peoples eye.

There is one bookmaker who regularly makes such an offer, usually on games which they think will be outstanding, one way or another. In other words, you need to put your thinking cap on. The conditions attached to the offer are simple. You must place a PRE-MATCH bet and they will give you a bet for the same amount (up to £50) to bet on an IN-PLAY market. You pay for the bet but if it LOSES you get your stake returned. To take full advantage of this offer the thing to do is ensure you have at least twice your intended initial stake in you account. (If you intend to trade with these bets you’ll need a reasonable balance in your Exchange account, too). Secondly, choose a market for your PRE-MATCH bet. A straight win bet on either of the teams is favourite. Your next step is to LAY the same bet on a betting exchange, e.g. Betfair. So whatever happens, if your first bet your loses, the lose if any, will be very small. If it wins, of course, your Exchange bet will be a loser. However between the two bets there will be little if any loss.

 

You want to start on a betting exchange? You want the best conditions?
Online Betting recommends Betfair

 

Now comes the hardest part. Getting the IN-PLAY bet on. As the game progresses the odds on the in-play markets are changing, literally, by the second. This can prove a problem except for the most experienced of backers. So my advice would be to wait until half-time, and then use the 15 minutes or so to decide upon your course of action. Here you have two courses to choose from. You can simply make a choice and bet your STAKE on one of the outcomes on offer or you can trade it as you did with the initial bet. The beauty of the second choice is that you just CAN’T LOSE. You bet and lay as you would a normal bet but the fall back of getting your stake returned if your chosen selection loses with the bookie is a great guarantee.

Let’s look at it in action. First find an outcome where the odds offered are quite tight.

Team A versus Team B.
Team A is offered at 1.61 by the bookie and the lay odds on the exchange are 1.65.
Back Team A £50.00 @ 1.61. Potential return £80.50.
Lay Team A on the exchange, £50.00 @ 1.65. You will need £32.50 in your exchange account.

It can easily be seen that if Team A wins there will be a lose of £2.00. If Team A doesn’t win the outcome is we break even. Now the hard part. Finding the in-play bet. If you just intend to have a straight punt, then your only problem is to find a winning bet. Good luck.

If you want to trade with your bet there is one important thing to remember. It must be treated as a STAKE NOT RETURNED bet. Let’s assume you decide on a bet (doesn’t matter what it is just so long as it has only has two possible outcomes. Win or not win) with odds at the bookies of 2.5 and LAY odds at the exchange of 2.6. Calculations to include exchange commission of 5%.

Back stake £50.00.
Lay stake £29.41. You will need £47.06 in your exchange account to cover.
Should your bet with the bookie win you will receive £75.00 from him but lose £47.06 on the exchange. Nett profit £27.94. If it’s the exchange bet that wins your profit is £27.94. A nice profit over the two bets.

There are websites which offer a purpose built calculator for this kind of bet.
One I’ve mentioned previously is Bet72.com A good site for many other betting genres.

At present it appears that just one bookmaking firm makes this particular offer. However they do it regularly so it’s worth having an account with them.

This kind of betting is frowned on by some people in the betting fraternity. However the bookmakers are well aware of this kind of betting and are happy to offer it just so long as it brings new customers.

Bet sensibly and only with cash you can afford to lose.