Beginners Guide To Betfair

[kompressaur]

Ok ive decided to move from the stoneage into all this Betfair malarky. I wont pretend i know nothing about it well i will actually just so as i get all the cracks filled in.

Ok so ive opened a Betfair account and i've £20 in it. What do i do next?

thanks in advance

[Oddsfellow]

Komp,

what sort of things would you like to know? Are you looking to get into the laying game?

www.p2pbetting.com

has some useful stuff on it for general exchange stuff.

A bit more about trading and laying etc can be found at

http://www.probabilitytheory.info/

[kompressaur]

I want to know everything Oddsfellow. Im just away to the bank the now to deposit funds. Firstly does anyne know how long that takes by bank transfer and does it cost me anything with the clydsdale bank?

[kompressaur]

Edit:bloody bank holiday in my town Ended up just going to the bookies and NOT having a bet. Place was dead.

[Oddsfellow]

Lets start at the very beginning Komp, you are going to have to provide means of identification to Betfair :loon . Thats right, imagine handing over your passport and bank details before entering a ladbrokes, i think the second word would be off, but its their bat and their ball. I think its either driving licence/passport, and both sides of credit/ debit card. You send them off and they send them back a few days later. If you are not totally hacked off with this procedure we can then start betting.

How basic do you want it? Do you understand the betting interface?

[runtcrab]

I have to say on first glance betfair does look complicated but to all those yet to use it, it is probably the best betting portal out there. Just give it a a few days to get the basics and you will be betting/laying like no tomorrow!

[traeth]

some one could refer you mate - see this deal:
EARN OVER £8000

Earn substantial rewards every time you introduce someone new to Betfair. Refer friends and colleagues or setup a recruitment plan and earn as they bet.
How does it work?

We will pay you £20 for each person you refer once they have placed bets totalling £100. We will continue to reward you if they are still betting after three months and additional bonuses will be paid quarterly for the remainder of the year. It's possible for you to earn over £8000 for each person referred, generating you a substantial, regular income. To qualify for the Refer and Earn Scheme you will need to be an existing Betfair user and have already placed bets totalling £100 yourself. All bonus payments are quoted in Sterling. These will be converted into local currency at the time of payment at the current exchange rate.


I've used it since March , but yet to lay a bet - I find this principle difficult ! - must be stupid

cheers

[ONEDUNME]

Laying should be just as simple as backing traeth. You just click on the pink square instead of the blue and type in the amount that you want to win (for example, if you wanted to make £10 you would type in 10.50 and the 50p would be deducted for commission) and if you look to the right of the box that you've typed in, it will tell you your liability which is how much you will lose if you're wrong.

[kompressaur]

Cheers folks. Actually Odds the more i think about it the more i realise that they never asked for bank details. I have a bank account but it dont allow me to do any kind of bank transfer over the net but i presume i can transfer funds manually. I printred off their bank transfer details.

I will return to this but feelfree to add any info. I'll need to leave it to Sat now though as alli have left is some money for my Aussie Coupon. Ah! Betfair will have aussie coupon too though wont it? I can lay teams etc too

[traeth]

Originally Posted by ONEDUNME

Laying should be just as simple as backing traeth. You just click on the pink square instead of the blue and type in the amount that you want to win (for example, if you wanted to make £10 you would type in 10.50 and the 50p would be deducted for commission) and if you look to the right of the box that you've typed in, it will tell you your liability which is how much you will lose if you're wrong.

thanks one but my single attempt had me with a liability of something like £90 to win £10 - but it was in-running correct score bet which gave me the jitters and put me off.

Will have to study closer next time.

cheers

[kompressaur]

found this. I'll read it later andmake up a newthread eventually or article on all the info contain here in thanbks

What is P2P Betting?

Person-To-Person (P2P) betting or sometimes called "exchange betting" allows bettors to bet against each other on the outcome of a sporting event. It gives punters the possibility to create their own betting events, set their own odds and become bookmakers themselves!

Bettors bet for or against any selection and have the option to accept an offer that has already been made, or make their own offer at their own requested odds. By allowing individuals to set their own odds and bet against other bettors, it brings about much better value as there is no bookmaker's margin.

In short, exchange betting is the best value betting available anywhere in the world today because you are betting against another person instead of the bookmaker. Exchange websites such as BetDAQ , MANSION or Gamebookers are already matching around GBP50m worth of bets each week

Back or Lay

When you "back" a selection (be it an individual, a team, horse, dog or other), you are betting that it will win. This is just like betting with conventional bookies.

When you "lay" it, you are betting against it winning. For example, if you're betting in a market on which team is going to win the Premiership and you lay Man Utd, you offer odds to other punters who wish to back Man Utd. If Man Utd don't win, then you pick up the backer's stake. If Man Utd win, then you pay out. This is what bookmakers traditionally do.

Take a look at the odds before a game and you will see them change as visitors back and lay their bets. The odds often improve nearer to the off, as there are more people in the market.

Number of Markets

A traditional bookie has to accept the risk himself when he puts up a price on a football game, so he just isn't able to offer odds on everything because he needs to make sure the price he's setting is the right one. The beauty of P2P sites is that because it.s punters who set the prices, there's no restriction on the number of markets they can host, so you should be able to find the league and the type of bet you're after.

Payout The way that P2P sites work is they wont let any punter have a bet with you unless he can cover it with the money in his P2P account. In that way you are guaranteed payout.

How do P2P Betting companies make money?

P2P Betting companies make money by taking a small margin or 'commission' from the profit which a bettor makes in any particular market (typically 2%-5%)

So, why bet with a betting exchange rather than with a fixed odds bookmaker?

When you bet with a bookmaker, you are betting with a business, a business which is in business to make money.

Every time you bet with a bookmaker, you are accepting odds with a built-in profit margin in them and, over time unless you are very, very good, that profit margin will grind you down, leaving you a loser overall.

And, even if you are very, very good, you will soon find that the bookmaker will restrict the size of your stake or even close your account altogether.

At a betting exchange, you are betting not with a business but with other punters, private individuals like yourself.

As private individuals, there is no reason why the layer should have a built-in advantage over the backer and competition between users in the exchange marketplace ensures that there is no built-in profit margin.

Ask a bookmaker to quote you odds on a spin of a coin coming down .head. or .tails. and the bookmaker will quote you 4/5 each of two.

On an exchange, you will be able to get matched at evens, the true price.

There is a charge . exchanges charge commission rates varying from 5% to 1%, depending on where you bet or how heavily you bet, but this charge still leaves you better off than betting with a bookmaker.

Indeed, it is estimated that odds at exchanges are on average 20% better than those offered by bookmakers . i.e. you.ll get 12/1 about a 10/1 chance, or 4.8/1 (5.8 ) about a 4/1 (5.0) chance.

It doesn't sound dramatic, but it makes a major impact on your long-term betting balance sheet.

So, a punters. paradise for backers, but what else?

Well, they are also places where you can bet on outcomes to lose . by laying . and where, if the odds offered do not appeal, you can ask for odds by leaving an .order..

For example, if you want 9/2 about a horse and it is only on offer at 4/1, you can leave a request to back at 9/2 and some, or all, of you bet might be matched up until the start of the race, at which time your bet, if not yet matched or cancelled by yourself, will be cancelled.

Betting Exchanges . places where you can back at on average 20% better odds than with a bookmaker, where you can .lay. and where you can ask for odds.

[Winrew]

Cheers Komp.

Gonna start using Betfair when the new season kicks off.
ODM has promised to guide me also.

[traeth]

a section of betfair that i've found wery useful for my analysis of my bets is the P & L section of my account which puts your bets profit/loss into catagories such as
golf , horse racing , rugby , soccer
it is possible to select these catagories for certain periods of time.

From this it is possible to analyse areas of betting strengths and weaknesses.

cheers

[ONEDUNME]

Originally Posted by traeth

thanks one but my single attempt had me with a liability of something like £90 to win £10 - but it was in-running correct score bet which gave me the jitters and put me off.

Will have to study closer next time.

cheers

Yes - it would be a very good idea to keep away from in running betting until you're comfortable with the whole thing, for two reasons...

1. The prices change so rapidly

2. People will chance their arm by putting in stupid prices in the hope that some sucker will take them. For example, they will even put up prices to enable you to back a 1-0 correct score when the score is alreaedy 2-2.

[ONEDUNME]

I'll be on line tonight at about 6 oclock if anyone wants to jump onto this thread and we can talk through some live examples using actual prices on Betfair.

Whadayareckon?