When you have great knowledge of a game and its players, betting on football can be highly lucrative. There are several different ways to bet on football matches, but two of the most common are back and lay betting. Both of these types of bets allow you to predict the final result of a match and earn a profit from your insight into how it will go.
Which is better for you depends on your risk tolerance and willingness to invest money in backing or laying different outcomes. Let’s take a look at what each kind of bet involves so you can decide which one is right for you.
What is back betting in football?
Back betting is a type of bet where you select the winning outcome of a match. You are “backing” the team you think will win. When you win a football back bet, you win the difference between what you bet and what the outcome actually was.
For example, let’s say you bet $100 on a team to win. If they end up losing or drawing the match, you will lose your bet. If you bet $100 on the team you think will win, and they win, you will win your stake times the odds offered by the online gambling site. So, if the odds for a team winning were 2/1 you would win $300 in total (includes your stake of $100).
Back betting is popular on football matches. If a team is a strong favorite to win the match, then their “back” odds are going to be small. For example, a top team in the English Premier League like Manchester City, is going to be heavily “odds-on” to beat a newly promoted team.
The reverse is also true. In a match between Manchester City and a newly promoted team, the “back” odds for the newly promoted team are probably going to be generous. Big teams do sometimes lose to smaller teams, so you can make a great return on your bet if the smaller team were to win.
What is lay betting on a football match?
Lay betting is the opposite of back betting. You decide how much you want to risk and put that amount as a stake on a team to win. If your bet is successful, you will win the amount you bet. However, if the team you bet on loses the match, you will have to pay out the amount you staked. It’s a risky type of bet because if you choose the wrong team, you are out of luck.
You will have to pay the amount you staked with lay betting. Back and lay betting are two ways to bet on soccer matches. Both types of bets allow you to predict the final result of a match and earn a profit from your insight into how it will go. Which is better for you depends on your risk tolerance and willingness to invest money in backing or laying different outcomes. Of course there is always an option to bet without losing, if you find reliable free bet without deposit.
Football lay betting is usually only available to the average punter through the use of betting exchanges such as Betfair. It is unusual for an online bookmaker to offer lay betting for any sport including football. Lay betting can be applied to most sports including the American Super Bowl and The NBA Summer League.
The best way to explain a “lay” bet is that you are placing a wager on something that you believe will not happen in a match. For example, if Manchester City is playing a newly promoted team in the Premier League, the most likely result is that Manchester City will win and the back odds will be very short for this to happen.
If you believe that the newly promoted team has a chance of getting something out of the match (usually if they are playing at home), then you can place a lay bet on Manchester City. This means that if Manchester City fail to win as expected, your lay bet will be a winner. A win for the newly promoted team or a draw will mean that you win your lay bet.
Understanding your liability with lay betting
Your liability with a lay bet is how much you would lose if your bet doesn’t win. The smartest way to win with lay betting and to reduce your liability is to lay teams that have short odds to win a match. This is best explained by using an example.
Let’s say that the team that is favorite to win a match has odds of 1.5. If you placed a lay bet on this team and they won the match, your liability would be your stake, for example $10, times the odds of the winning team. In this example you would have to pay $5 if your lay bet was a loser because the odds were short at 1.5.
It becomes a lot riskier for you if you lay a team that has more generous odds. Let’s say that a team in the match has back odds of 3.5 to win. You don’t think that this team has any chance of winning so you lay them. If they do manage to win then your liability for a $10 bet is now $25.
So, you will be taking less of a risk with a lay bet if you lay the team with short odds. If you win your lay bet, then you will get your stake returned plus its value again so a successful $10 lay bet will return $20.
A good betting exchange like Betfair will only allow you to lay a team if you have sufficient funds in your account to cover your liability. This is a good thing as you can really lose a lot of money if you make a lay bet where the odds are high.
