How to Lay the Loser

Horse racing has always been one of the top betting selections around the globe, but when it comes to the UK this sport bears a special, somewhat folkloric meaning.

Horse races have become a cultural phenomenon and hand in hand with the popularity of the sport itself grew a desire to bet on the action-packed races. With the expansion of modern technologies in betting and the advances of innovative approaches such as In-Play betting, new bookmakers and betting operators have come up with different ways to engage punters.

One of such definitely is Lay Betting, which is slowly becoming the first choice with betting on horse racing.

How Does Lay Betting Work?

Contrary to the common perception of betting which implies backing a winner in a match – and in this particular case a race – Lay Betting refers to picking a horse to lose a race.

Lay Betting will put you in an upside position since by ‘laying a horse’ you will effectively become a bookmaker, meaning that if your selection wins the race you will be forced to pay.

Finding a horse to lose a race is not as easy as some would think. In order to find a losing selection, you need to consider the same factors you would analyse for picking a winner. The difference is, though, that you will be looking for negatives instead of positives.

A particularly important factor is to compare your horse to other participants in a race, whereas the odds are arguably the single most important aspect of Lay Betting.

You must remember at all times that with Lay Betting you are the liability and that you are offering the odds. Your liability, on the other hand, is your stake multiplied by the odds offered which can put you in a tight spot on the winning bet.

How to Lay the Loser

Needless to mention that in any race only one horse can win.

A winning favourite will often be offered at scandalously short-priced offers which represent near certainty that it will win the race. All other horses in the market, however, could be priced to odds around 50/1 or averagely at 7/1 during In-Play betting which can be a case with outside favourites who will then have roughly 17% chance of winning in a ten runner race in an example.

A horse priced at 50/1 to lay may sound like a certain losing bet and easy money for you but laying this horse with a £10 bet on a losing bet will be forcing you to fork out 50 x £10 = £500 which can come as a huge blow. Don’t be fooled into thinking that horses with 50/1 betting odds will not win, because they will when you least expect them to.

But laying a horse on 7/1 betting odds, in the context of trading especially, can guarantee a profit at least 83% of the time it has been determined.  For In-Play bettors, trading this selection out before the end of the race will push the win rate even higher.

The key to laying horses is to find adequate value on a particular selection. A horse you feel is given lower odds than its chances of winning actually are will be a great choice to lay. Knowledge is the key in this regard and the more you know the racers, the easier will be for you to pick a losing selection.

Laying the loser offers more flexibility than traditional horse race betting and it can get more profitable since it puts you in an operator’s position and we all know that bookmakers make their living on losers and especially losing favourites.