Understanding Sports Betting Exchange Sites and Their Benefits

The internet age has made it quick and convenient to bet and has created a variety of extra ways for you to put your money down and, hopefully, receive that and a bit extra back.

You can visit a traditional bookmaker’s website and place your bet there or you can head online to a betting exchange and do your betting there instead.

These are slightly different to traditional bookmakers in the sense that you’re not betting against the bookmaker but against another person who is placing a bet on the exchange.

That’s exciting stuff if you’re a gambler, but it’s also beneficial. Betting exchanges are popular because they offer a little more flexibility to gamblers, who can back bets or lay bets, the latter, effectively, being a case of selling a bet.

Not only that, since people are betting against each other on the exchange, the exchange is less concerned about making a profit and only takes a commission from the winnings.

This allows them to give better odds and the chance for customers to win more money than by betting with a traditional bookmaker. 

How to use a betting exchange well

The first important thing to understand when you’re using a betting exchange is to understand exactly how the betting works. The second crucial thing to understand is that there is no bookmaker: it’s just punter versus punter.

To give you an example, this site explains in depth how sports betting exchanges in the UK work, so you know what to expect if you use a site in your own country or overseas. 

Basically, when you enter a site, you have a selection of odds on different sports events. When you back a selection on a horse, team, individual etc., you’re putting your money on the outcome that you think will happen.

Like in life, on the betting exchange there’s always someone out there who will disagree with you and they’ll betting that the outcome on that event won’t happen.

Essentially, this is the whole idea behind betting exchanges and what makes them work. If there’s no one out they’re taking the opposing view, you can’t place the bet.

The fact that customer is going up against customer makes the betting experience even more thrilling for each party.

Laying a bet on a selection is the opposite: you’re putting money behind an outcome that you think won’t happen. You’re accepting the stake and hoping the selection will lose.

Effectively, you’re acting as a bookmaker and going up against another customer, who is betting in favor of an outcome whereas you’re believing it will go the other way. 

A little tip to choose your odds would be to check the odds before the event. You can better odds closer to the off because clients have started backing and laying their bets and the money being matched will have increased.

If you’re still not happy with the odds, you can get better ones by placing an order for a bigger price.

You may be concerned about privacy and security, but you needn’t worry. Betting on an exchange is completely anonymous. None of the people who are placing any type of bet on the exchange, whether they’re laying or backing, know the person on the other side of the bet or have any contact with them.

In terms of financial security, often, betting exchanges will take your card details just once, which is when you register with the exchange, and store these on an encrypted server, rather than oblige you to send them over the internet every time you wish to make a bet. This keeps transactions on the exchange more secure.

Why use a betting exchange instead of a traditional betting site?

The main benefit of using a betting exchange is that you can get better odds. If you were to bet on an outside horse in horse racing, sometimes you could even get double the odds.

The betting exchange charges a commission on the winnings, but the odds are so good that punters tend not to mind too much and are happy to play on the exchange.

The second big benefit is the flexibility a betting exchange offers. Whereas when you bet on a traditional bookmaking site, you’re betting solely on who will win, on an exchange you can bet who will lose, too.

It can be an individual, a team or something else, and this betting option makes the use of an exchange more interesting for the punter overall. Not only that, you can turn this function of the exchange to your advantage, by laying a bet and backing a bet on the same event.

If you really know your stuff and make the most of the price movements, you can ensure you win and make the bet profitable regardless of the event outcome.

The flexibility of a betting exchange creates a third key benefit for punters. Whereas on a traditional bookmaker’s site, you must place your bet before the start of an event and see how it performs, on a betting exchange you can place your bet during it (although some betting sites are starting to offer this).

Perhaps you’re watching a horse race and you’ve betted on a horse, but it falls after the first or second fence.

It’s not over — you can place a new bet on one of the horses that’s still in the race. You can even bet during the final stages of the race if there’s another customer who is willing to take the bet.

Provision for betting has come a long way in this internet age. Punters no longer have to go down the traditional route of visiting a bookmaker’s, online or offline, to place their bets.

They can visit a betting exchange, where they can get better odds, make more money from their bets and bet on not just who they think will win, but who they think will lose.

All the while, they can enjoy the thrill of betting against punter, rather than trying to get one up on the bookmaker.

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