What is Lay Betting?

Most of the time when you bet on sports, you are betting on a team, player, or horse to win.  Sometimes, though, you may actually bet that a team, player, or horse won’t win.  This is known as a “lay bet.”  Lay betting is an excellent option when you know enough about an event to have an idea who will not win, but you are unable to make a solid call as to who will win.  Maybe you know that a particular participant is unlikely to win a tournament, or that a particular horse is never going to make it to the finish line first.  Lay betting allows you to make money on this knowledge, even if you have no idea who will actually win.

Some people see lay betting as controversial, since you are making money on someone’s loss.  This is really the truth with every type of bet, though.  After all, when you are betting on someone to win, you are betting on someone else to lose.

When you lay a bet online with a UK betting site that accepts lay bets, you are laying a bet against another bettor’s stake.  If you win, you can only win as much as that other person has staked on their wager.  If there is no one wagering a stake you are interested in yet, you can ask for a price.  If another bettor thinks your offer is of value, they may choose to back the selection, allowing you to participate in the lay.

What happens if you lose?  When you are the backer (as is the case with standard bets), you lose your stake if you lose your bet.  When you are the one laying the bet, you lose the same amount you would otherwise have won.  So this is either the amount that you offered which was accepted, or it is the amount of the backer’s stake that you chose to take the other side of. 

Lay betting is particularly popular with horse racing, as you might imagine.  It is quite challenging to pick the winner out of a horse race with so many contenders.  But it can be a lot easier to simply pick a loser, since there will be so many of them!  In a sense, the odds really are on your side.  If you look for an online betting site which will accept lay bets, you will discover there are many UK betting sites which allow you to participate in them.  This is a great way to bet on horse races as well as tournament events.  Try it out and see how you do!