Betting exchange is special kind of betting where you bet against other punters and not against bookmaker like you do in normal fixed odds betting. Betting exchange works like a stock market with the prices changing based on supply and demand.

How to start?

First of all, you have to open an account at websites that are offering this kind of betting. Those websites are more services which help punters to bet against each other. They are not regular bookmakers which offer odds for you to choose. They just create possibility to other punters to create odds by themselves.At these websitesyou can create your own odds and invite others to bet on your events with your odds. As you would expect, the bet exchange website will charge a certain percentage in return for their service. Still, this percantage is much lower then regular bookmakers profit margin. At best betting exchange website Betfair winners must pay 5% of their winnings as service fee. Regular bookmakers work with not less then 10% profit margin, so betting exchanges are giving great value to punters. After opening account at betting exchange website you should place a bet nad that mean to choose if you would like to act as bookmaker or as regular punter. It is important to understand the rules of betting exchanges before you start to bet. Do not place a bet before you read rules and couple tutorials like this one, especially if you want to try to be the bookmaker at betting exchanges. If you act as regular punter then you will get much better odds then at regular bookmakers. If you choose to act as bookmaker you can loose a lot if you don't understand the rules. Be carefull!

Terminology

Bookmaker - person who create odds Punter - person who bet as regular punter, place a bet on given odds Lay - Offering odds. When you act as bookmaker, you will lay odds on some event that you choose, hoping that team or event you lay odds on will fail Back or Buy - you bet on an event for which others have presented the odds. If the team/event you've backed wins, you will win your stake multiplied with the odds that was offered (minus a 5% for the bet exchange company) Order - enter your wishes into the bet exchange's database, and when a matching offer has been found, your bet will be made.

How to act as bookmaker?

Ok, let us learn on examples. I want to be a bookmaker. What should I do? First of all find the event that you belive that will fail. For example: I don't belive that Liverpool will win against Southampton at home ground during next week. You should look at available odds on the market for this game and create your odds. Let's say that you are ready to offer odds at 1.50 for this match and that you are prepared to accept bets up to 100� on this event. You lay your offer and wait for answers. Since you are offering much better odds then regular bookmakers, you should see that someone accepts your offer and cover it with 100� (or couple of punters will cover it with smaller stakes, but in summary they can not pass the limit of 100� that you setup). What now? It is simple. When game ends, if Liverpool won, you will lose 1.50*100� - 100� from your account. If Liverpool fail to win, then you will be richer for 100�. Always remember that one who wins the bet have to pay 5% fee to betting exchange website. We hope that you understand this basic stuff about acting as bookmaker. Lat's go little deeper. You can change you odds. If for example, your offer of 1.50 on Liverpool in this match did not attract anyone, then you can think of offering little more. You should consider to for example increase your offer to 1.60, but to accept bets up to 80�. Important is to think that you can afford that an that is not expensive for you. Also, you can see after a while that someone backed Liverpool at 1.65 with 20�. Now you can consider what you will do. You can increase your offer to 1.65 and your offer wil immediately match his order, but that could be too expensive for you. It is up to you to decide. It can bring lot of excitement, but also it can make you earn and loose a lot of money.

How to buy (back) a bet?

You can have a hunch on soem event, but you are not satisfied with available odds on the market. Let's say that on regular market best offer for draw at Italy vs France is 2.80. You checked betting exchange and you can find odds of 2.90 and you think that this is fair enough. Then you should back a bet or buy a bet. Procedure is the same as one at regular bookmakers. You click on your event, place a bet, enter your stake and wait for the final result. The other possibility is that you are still not satisfied woth offers. Then you can make "back" order. What this means? Let's say that available odds are not good anough for you, and that you want to place a bet at odds 3.10. Then you can make "back" order for 3.10 for your potential stake (100� for example). Now you wait, till someone shows up who is ready to lay 100� on draw in this match at 3.10. When someone shows up, your orders will match and your bet is placed. If someone shows up with laying 30� on 3.10 on this event, then this 30� will match with yours and rest of your order (70�) will wait for another bookmaker to lay on 3.10. Finally/You should think if this form of betting is something for you. If you are used to normal betting, then you must spend a little time to learn the rules before you place your bets or lay your offers. If you want to try betting exchanges, then we can recommend you to open one small account at Betfair and check if betting exchange is good for you. Also, you have possibility to check excellent betting exchnagesystem at Gamebookers where you can still bet in normal way, so this can be great solution for begginers.

�25 FREE BET from Betfair!