The Beginners Guide to Free Betfair Bets
Of all the online betting companies, one of them has stood out over the last ten years as being popular with millions of punters every week. This guide will give you information as on Betfair from a ‘beginners’ point of view.
Betfair – an Introduction
The free Betfair bet is one of the most popular free bets within the online community, and with good reason too. With an average of 20% better odds than other websites it is one of the must-have accounts to have if you are into your online gambling.
Betfair is the world’s largest internet betting exchange and was launched from their base in Hammersmith, West London, in June 2000. Since that point they have gained over 3 million customers and have a turnover of a reported £50m per week.
The current free Betfair bet for all new customers stands at £25 and covers markets across all sports, and there are also great opportunities for those like casino gambling with new offers popping up for new customers regularly.
The great selling point for Betfair is also the fact that they have so many different markets on the go for each sporting event. For example a top-flight football match will typically have 20-30 different markets you can bet on, from correct score to the number of corners there would be, and the ability to bet on the outcome is also available during the event too (in-play).
So How Does Betfair Work?
The difference in how Betfair works as opposed to other online bookmakers is that it gives you the chance to either bet on the outcome as per the normal procedure (known as to ‘back’) or actually bet against that outcome taking place (to ‘lay’).
As a further example, if you wanted to bet £20 on a horse called ‘bestfootballbettingtips’ to win a race at odds of 5/1 (or 6.0 in decimal odds) then you would click on ‘Back’ at the odds you choose and you’d then await the race outcome. Your liability would be the £20 you have bet on the horse and no more.
Your winnings (if it won) would be £120 (5 x £20 plus stake back) minus a small commission – 5% – from Betfair, which they take from each bet – that’s how they make their money, and with inflated odds being available this shouldn’t be a problem.
If you wanted to bet £20 on the horse not winning the race at 5/1, then your liability would be £100, and the most you would win would be your £20 back. How does this work?
Well, essentially Betfair is based on anyone being able to be the bookie, and anyone being the punter. While you are putting a money on a horse to win a race at certain odds, the only reason this is possible is because another person out there has ‘laid’ the bet at the same odds.
In this case you are suggesting that the horse won’t win at 5/1, and someone else is taking that bet from you at those odds. Therefore, if you win you get their £20. But if they win they get £100 off you.
This ‘liability’ will be shown when you lay the bet on the site so it doesn’t come as a shock to you after the outcome of the sporting event. And of course, you can only ‘lay’ a bet with a certain liability if you have that amount of money in your account just in case you were to lose the bet.
Two further things Betfair beginners should be aware of – firstly that the minimum bet on either the ‘back’ or ‘lay’ market is £2.00. And secondly, that the odds on a bet do fluctuate as you get closer to the start of the race/match, and even more so when betting ‘in-play’ or during the event.
If you put a bet on at odds which you like but they suddenly become unavailable (the betting slip will let you know) then adjust your bet odds and bet again – it will just mean that someone else has nabbed the bet at the odds you liked.
Of course the braver gamblers will simply leave the odds as they are and hope that the bet is honoured by someone else offering those odds at a later date!
Further Betfair Help/Assistance
Betfair have also started to put free Betfair bet online video tutorials onto their site to explain further how the ‘back’ and ‘lay’ process works, so if you don’t want to commit any bets without seeing it in action first that would be a great place to start.
Also, once you have opened your account there are a number of Help pages and tutorials that you can refer to at any point in time.
If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to ask me by mailing [email protected]
