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12th December 2016

Hi ,

When you start to look into how you can make serious profits from your betting, you need to begin answering some questions. The chances are that you've heard of questions like:

What sport am I going to bet on?
How much money am I going to use in my betting bank?
What size stake should I use?

They are all good questions, and ones that definitely need answering. But, a question that isn’t always asked is... should place back or lay bets?

It's surprising how many people place a few back bets, lose them and then change to laying. I understand why, it makes perfect sense. Some of the reasons for this change are:

It seems easier to make a profit from laying
The strike rate is high
There are no long losing runs

But what is the truth? Is it better to start with backing or laying?

Well I'm here to tell you that whatever you think, I can assure you it's easier to make a profit from backing. And, if you want to take your betting seriously, this is where you should start.

And I'm going to explain exactly why.

Backing is easily understood. You place a bet on something to win at the odds you've been offered by the bookies. For example the bookmaker may offer you 2/1 on a horse winning a race and you bet £1 that it will win. If it wins you get back £2 profit and your £1 stake. If it loses then you lose your £1.

This type of betting is almost inherently understood by human nature. We've been betting like this for centuries (and probably longer). But, understanding how lay betting works is much more complicated!

When placing back bets it's easy to understand how much risk you have. After all you are only ever risking what you bet. But with lay bets understanding your risk requires more knowledge. This leads to confusion for a lot of people in how much they should be betting and how much they need in their bankroll.

As a lay bettor you are becoming the bookmaker. Instead of being offered 2/1 on a horse winning, you are offering 2/1 on the horse winning. This means that you are no longer betting £1, instead you are taking the £1 bet. So if the horse wins you have to pay out the other person £2 profit and their £1 stake. If the horse loses you keep the £1 stake that was bet with you.

When you do this on Betfair you can see your liability rapidly increase. If you place a £10 lay bet on a horse at odds of 5/1 then if the horse wins you are going to be losing £50, not the £10 that you staked.

Understanding how lay betting works can take a bit of getting used to and longer to truly understand how to stake for it.

The next problem new punters have with lay betting is the strike rate. You can have strike rates as high as 80%, as opposed to the more normal 20% for backing.

Well that sounds great doesn't it?

It does on the surface, but it's not when you dig in a bit further. One of the hardest aspects of successful betting is discipline. Betting back bets means that you are forced to learn this. If you're only finding a winner 20% of the time then you're going to have long losing runs. Over a period of time you get used to this and understand what to expect.

But, as a lay bettor with an 80% strike rate you don't get these long losing runs and so you never learn this same discipline if you are new to betting. However when you get a losing bet, because you are risking more as a lay bettor it can wipe out a significant amount of your profit. And this is psychologically much harder to get your head around if you're not already disciplined in your betting as a backer.

However, even this is not the biggest reason that makes it harder for layers to make profit.

The biggest reason is that betting exchanges are geared towards back bettors.

Even Betfair claims that their odds are 20% higher than the odds in bookmakers.

So, if the odds are 20% higher than bookmakers and as a layer we are effectively becoming the bookmaker. Then that is going to make the value much harder to find!

There's a reason that the bookmakers odds are lower and don't forget we also have to pay commission on Betfair as well!

My suggestion is if you're new to betting, or looking to take it seriously for the first time, then begin by finding a backing method that works and build up your bank, confidence and understanding before venturing into laying. It's going to be very tempting to switch to laying, but be strong and stay as a back bettor until your making regular profits.

Best Wishes,

Michael Wilding