What is a Horse Lay Bet?

When lay betting, or betting against a horse, you are effectively acting in the same way as a bookmaker. Lay betting, in the scheme of things, is a relatively new form of betting for the common punter. With the invention of the betting exchanges in 2000 normal punters are now able to act as the bookmakers do and lay off action. The betting exchanges make their profit by taking a small percentage of the winner's return, normally somewhere between 0.5% and 5% depending on how much you generally bet. Because of this the betting exchanges never lose because every bet will have a winner and they will take their cut from this winner so their only incentive is to get people to keep betting! In a horse race if you think a horse will not win the race you can choose to lay that horse instead. You may have heard a rumor that the horse is just there for a run out and will therefore not contend for victory. With this information in hand you can go on betfair and lay that horse. Now if the horse that you have chose to lay loses the race you will win the amount you have staked. However if the horse does in fact win then you will find yourself looking at the downside of lay betting, because when a horse that you have decided to lay in fact wins the race then you will lose whatever the stake is multiplied by the odds (exactly the opposite to how much you would have won if you backed the horse at the same odds!). Let's see an example; the horse you think will not win is running out at 2/1 or 3 in decimal odds. You decide to lay it off for £100. If the horse loses you will have won £100, however if the horse wins you will be out of pocket by £200. If this is still confusing to you just think about the guy who is backing the horse at 2/1 (the guy who's action you are taking). He will have backed the horse for £100, if the horse wins he will receive his stake back (the £100) plus a profit of £200 because of the odds. So that is the basics of Laying Horses you may wonder why you would want to lay horses and we will cover that in the next post. Remember also that we give away free horse tips to our subscribers. So if you would like to receive free horse racing tips straight in your inbox just pop your email into the box below:

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