How to lay a bet, from choosing the price to settlement

To lay a bet, open the market on a betting exchange, pick a price in the lay column, type the backer's stake you will accept, and check the liability before you confirm. The liability is the amount you hand over if the selection wins: laying a horse for $20 at $5.00 puts $80 at risk to win $20, less the exchange's commission (illustrative prices).

Knowing how to lay a bet well comes down to two numbers that work differently from an ordinary bet. The stake you type is not the amount at risk, and on the lay side a lower price is the better one. Everything below is placed before the jump.

Placing a lay bet in seven steps

1. Use an exchange that appears on the register of licensed interactive wagering providers kept by ACMA. Each row names the provider's licensing authority. An offshore exchange is illegal to offer betting to people in Australia, and ACMA warns that its customers lose Australian protections.
2. Know what the account can cover before you lay. Your identity is verified before your first bet, and since 11 June 2024 the credit card ban has stopped online wagering providers taking payment by credit card, credit-linked digital wallets or digital currency.
3. Open the right market. A straight lay of a horse goes in the race's win market; the place market is a separate market with its own prices.
4. Find the runner and look at its lay column. The best lay price is the lowest price shown there.
5. Choose your price and type the stake. Check whether the slip wants the backer's stake or the liability, because typing one into the other's box changes the bet.
6. Read the liability the slip shows and check it against your bank, as set out below.
7. Confirm, then check how much was matched and what will happen to any unmatched part at the jump.

Laying on Betfair follows the same steps. Bookmaker names are trade marks of their owners. B337 is not affiliated with them. For how laying sits beside backing, commission and trading, start at the lay betting hub.

Lay stake vs liability, worked at $5.00

When you lay, you take the other side of someone's back bet, and two amounts define the bet. The lay stake is the money the backer puts up, and you collect it when the selection loses. Your liability is what the backer would win, and it comes out of your account when the selection wins:

liability = lay stake x (lay odds - 1)

lay stake = liability / (lay odds - 1)

Commission comes out of your net winnings in the market, at a rate the exchange sets, so a losing lay pays none. The rate and any other charges are in the exchange's terms, and the exchange commission guide shows how they are worked out.

Risking $80 to keep $19 is the same position as backing the other nine runners together at about $1.24 (1 + 19 / 80 = 1.2375). That is why a lay wins often and wins small.

To work back from a liability you can carry, divide it by (lay odds - 1): $60 of liability at $5.00 allows a lay stake of 60 / 4 = $15. The lay bet calculator works out both directions with commission.

Choosing your price on the lay side of the ladder

An exchange shows each runner's prices as a ladder. The back column holds money from layers, which a backer can take, and the lay column holds money from backers, which a layer can take. A lower lay price means less liability for each dollar of stake, which makes it the better price on this side of the market.

With illustrative amounts for Runner 2:

Three ways to lay from that ladder:

• Take the best price. A $20 lay at $5.00 is matched at once, because $34 is waiting there.
• Allow a higher price for a bigger stake. A $60 lay with a limit of $5.10 is matched $34 at $5.00 and $26 at $5.10, for a liability of 34 x 4 + 26 x 4.10 = 136 + 106.60 = $242.60. You are never matched above your limit, and any part the ladder cannot fill at or below it waits.
• Ask for a lower price and wait. A $20 offer at $4.80 is not matched yet: it joins the back column at $4.80 behind the $85 already queued there, and the $140 at $4.90 goes first. If a backer takes it, the liability is 20 x 3.80 = $76, which is $4 less than at $5.00.

The distance from the top back price to the top lay price is the back lay spread: one tick in a busy market, much wider in a thin one.

Check the liability against your bank

An exchange reserves a lay's liability from your balance until the result is settled, and it generally refuses a lay your balance cannot cover. That is a floor, not a plan. The check that matters is whether you could afford to lose the liability on this race.

With illustrative amounts, you have $250 available. A $20 lay at $5.00 needs $80. The same $20 stake at $15.00 needs 20 x 14 = $280, more than the account holds, though the stake box still reads $20.

Before every lay:

1. Read the liability, not the stake, and ask whether you could lose it today without topping up the account.
2. Count the other bets you hold in the same race, because your worst case covers the whole market, as the exposure entry works through.
3. Keep the account's deposit limit where you want it. Under the National Consumer Protection Framework (measure 6), every Australian online wagering provider has to offer a deposit limit. Cutting it takes effect straight away, while raising it waits 7 days.

Unmatched lays and the jump

A lay can be matched in full, in part or not at all, and a bet exists only for the part that is matched. Ask to lay $40 at $5.00 on the ladder above and $34 is matched straight away, carrying a liability of 34 x 4 = $136. The other $6 waits as an offer.

Each unmatched bet carries a setting for what happens to it at the jump. Set it to cancel or to take SP (turn it into a lay at the starting price). Your exchange's terms say what each does and which one is your default, and unmatched bets covers both in full.

Plan for the two outcomes that catch people out:

• If the $6 is cancelled at the jump, you hold a $34 lay, not the $40 you planned. A lay meant to cover another bet is now short.
• If it becomes a starting price lay, it is matched at the price set at the jump rather than at $5.00. Check how your exchange sizes a converted lay before you rely on it.

Cancel any offer you no longer want before the race starts, then check what is still open.

How a lay settles, and the edge cases

Once the result is official, the exchange settles every bet in the market together. If the runner you laid lost, you are credited the backers' stakes you accepted, commission is taken from your net winnings in that market, and the liability hold is released. If it won, the liability goes to the backers.

Thoroughbred placings are final for betting once correct weight is declared. Under AR 214(6) in the Australian Rules of Racing, an alteration to the Judge's places after that point does not affect the Stewards' earlier betting orders. Harness and greyhound codes run under separate rules, and your exchange's own market rules set how and when it settles.

Scratchings and dead heats

If the runner you laid is scratched, expect the bets on it to be cancelled. If another runner is scratched after your lay was matched, the exchange may reduce the price of your matched bet under its own scratching rule. That lowers your liability and the backer's winnings together. A dead heat is settled under the exchange's own dead heat rule, because the Rules of Racing deal with dead heats only for prize money (AR 213).

Laying a horse in the place market

A place lay is a bet that the horse misses the paid places, so it loses if the horse runs into any of them. The market's rules set how many places are paid, often by field size. Exchange place markets covers how they work.

Lay mistakes that cost money

With illustrative prices, here is what each one can cost:

1. Leaving a low offer in a moving market. You offer to lay $20 at $4.60 while the best lay is $5.00. Late money firms the runner to $4.40 and takes your offer on the way, with a liability of 20 x 3.60 = $72. If $4.40 is the right price, the lay is worth 20 x (1 - 1 / 4.40) - 72 / 4.40 = 15.45 - 16.36 = -$0.91 before commission.
2. Laying into a wide spread. A thin market shows $8.00 to back and $10.00 to lay, so the midpoint of the two chances is (1 / 8.00 + 1 / 10.00) / 2 = 11.25%, about $8.89. If that is right, a $10 lay at $10.00 is worth 10 x 0.8875 - 90 x 0.1125 = 8.88 - 10.13 = -$1.25 before commission. That is a 12.5% loss on the stake you hoped to win.
3. Forgetting the jump setting. A lay you thought would lapse can become a starting price lay, and one you thought would convert can lapse and leave a hedge short. On the $40 lay above, a lapse leaves $34 matched: $136 of liability rather than the $160 planned (40 x 4), so any hedge it was part of is $6 of lay stake short.
4. Using the wrong market. A $20 lay meant for the win market at $5.00 but placed in the place market at, say, $1.90 carries 20 x 0.90 = $18 of liability, and it pays out if the runner finishes in any paid place, not only first.

Where B337 fits

B337 never backs or lays on the exchange; any lay on this page goes on by your own hand, through your own exchange account. On the Terminal, Betfair's back and lay prices sit in one view with prices from 40+ bookmakers across racing and sports, plus flucs. That lets you compare the lay price with what bookmakers offer before you open the exchange.

The Terminal refreshes its prices on a repeating cycle, so confirm the price on the exchange before you lay. A free account opens a limited view of the Terminal with live odds; the Betfair columns are not part of it.