04 Making use of the settings / Betfair Education / 23 January 2008 / 2 Comments

There are plenty of options to change the market layout to suit your preferences, now take a look at the shortcuts to improve your betting.

Back All/Lay All

If you like to back or lay more than just one selection this might be of use to you, rather than clicking on every runner.

Payout and Liability

These options are particularly important if you are laying bets. They set how your risk is displayed.

Clicking on the linked word, rather than the circle, you can have all the calculations done for you too, particularly useful when trading out of a position.

Liability, this sets your stakes by liability useful when laying one selection to a set amount. In the following example you are willing to lose £100 which at odds of 3.4 means a stake of £41.66.

Payout, clicking on this option will automatically set your stakes according to how much you wish to payout. In the example below, you choose to lay several horses in the Grand National antepost market. When laying more than one selection, staking by the payout figure enables you to balance the risk evenly. If you lay at 8.4 and 21 for the same stakes, you face paying out far more on the outsider than the favourite - your risk would be uneven.

The theory behind bookmaking is laying a book to a percentage above 100%. For a football match odds market, the over-round or book percentage would be about 110% - meaning for every £110 a bookmaker takes as bets, he only wants to payout £100 whatever the result. Horse racing can have many more options, thus more percentage is factored in. The key is getting the payouts level - much easier for you on Betfair because you control how much you want to risk.

Payout is also very useful when looking to level out your profit for a 'green book', a market where all outcomes will make you a profit. The Payout figure required is how much you will receive from your back bet (profit and stake).

Verify Bets and % Book

This is located at the bottom left and right hand corners of the 'Place Bets' screen respectively.

Verify Bets - when ticked this requires a further stage of submitting a bet - important for new starters on the site.

Once you know what you are doing, you may consider getting rid of this step, as it slows your betting down.

% Book makes it much easier than adding up all the percentages in your head of the prices you are offering.

It also prevents giving away money to other customers by offering markets that guarantee you a loss e.g. where someone else could back all selections and win such as a market under 100%.

My Bets

Bet Info - Gives you the transaction number, date and time of the bet. It can take up quite a lot of space so it's something you can hide to save space; you can always tick the box when you need it or check that via My Account later.

Matched Bets - If you've been backing and laying in an ante-post market for several months and have dozens of bets, un-checking this box will speed things up. You will be able to see your position via the P&L figures.

Consolidated - Sometimes your bet offer is matched by several different people, and possibly in a range of currencies (£2, £23.44, £24.56 etc), clicking this consolidates it down to one.

Average Odds - If backing or laying at a range of prices, this will show you exactly what the end position is of your trades, simplified to one bet.

Order by Matched Date - Got a stack of bet offers up? Use this option to see what you've done in time order. Or you might wish to use this if trading over a period of time, either in-running or as entry stages pass in a long-term market.

Some of these will be of use to you, others won't be, but knowing exactly what can be done and the shortcuts they offer should save you time and money.

Tags: backing, betfair, laying, liability, payout