What Is Shared Liability?

Shared liability allows you to stretch your bankroll further due to needing less funds available in your betting exchange account.

There’s nothing more frustrating in Matched Betting than getting stopped from completing more offers because you’re out of liability (the balance required to cover your lay bets) in your exchange account.

If you’re starting with a relatively small bankroll, you’ll know this feeling well - having to wait patiently for your current bets to settle and free bet profits to roll in before you can move on to the next offer.

In this article, you learn why shared liability is so useful when Matched Betting and how you can use it to speed up the process and make more profits faster.

What Is Shared Liability In Matched Betting?

In the vast majority of cases, when you place 2 or more lay bets on DIFFERENT OUTCOMES (or selections) WITHIN THE SAME MARKET at the same betting exchange your liability gets split between them and causes an overall reduction in your total amount of liability needed to place those lay bets.

An exception to this is horse racing 'place' markets - see the tips section below for guidance on shared liability in 'To Place' markets). Shared liability on the horse 'place' markets won't occur until you've bet on more horses to place than there are available places.

Why Shared Liability Is Useful When Matched Betting?

Shared Liability allows you to place more lay bets at a betting exchange without needing to add any more balance.

This will help you make the most out of your bankroll leaving you with extra funds available to take on more offers. More offers mean more overall profit!

You’ll also help speed up the process by having a number of bets settle after one event has finished will free up your exchange funds ready to use again for your next offers.

How Does Shared Liability Work?

Shared liability comes into play when you have multiple lay bets on different selections in the same event on the same exchange website.

When it's impossible for all of these outcomes to occur the amount of liability is reduced.

To get a better understanding, let’s look at two different real examples for both Football and Horse Racing.

Shared Liability - A Football Example

In a Football match between Netherlands and France - if you have lay bets against Netherlands and also France, it's impossible for both Netherlands and France to win.

As a result, your liability will be much lower than you may have initially thought.

Let’s say you have placed some different lay bets for different offers covering the draw as well as each team to win.

In this example, you have placed three different lay bets:

Lay Bet 1 - £10.00 against DRAW at odds of 3.40. The liability is £24.00

Lay Bet 2 - £10.00 against FRANCE at odds of 2.42. The liability is £14.20

Lay Bet 3 - £10.00 against NETHERLANDS at odds of 3.55. The liability is £25.50

You may be expecting these bets to mean your liability and therefore total balance needed in your betting exchange to be £63.70

This would be logical as if you add up all the liability amounts you get: £24.00 + £14.20 + £25.50 = £63.70

However, due to shared liability you actually only have a maximum of £5.50 at risk in your betting exchange as you can see below:

If NETHERLANDS win you’ll be £5.50 down at the exchange.

If FRANCE win then you’ll be £5.80 up at the exchange.

If it’s a DRAW then you’ll be £4.00 down at the exchange.

This shows that your liability is just £5.50. This is the maximum amount you can lose on the exchange side of your matched bets and the amount needed in your exchange account balance to cover the three lay bets.

This is all down to the fact that it's impossible for all three lay bets to lose (a Netherlands win, a Draw and a France win can't all happen - only one of these can).

You can break down the numbers to see why you reach the profits/losses above:

If NETHERLANDS win - You win the lay stake of £10.00 against FRANCE. You win the lay stake of £10 against the DRAW. You lose the liability of £25.50 for the NETHERLANDS lay. £10.00 + £10.00 - £25.50 = -£5.50

If it's a DRAW - You win the lay stake of £10.00 against NETHERLAND. You win the lay stake of £10.00 against FRANCE. You lose the liability of £24.00 for the DRAW lay. £10.00 + £10.00 - £24.00 = -£4.00

If FRANCE win - You win the lay stake of £10.00 against the DRAW. You win the lay stake of £10.00 against NETHERLANDS. You lose the liability of £14.20 for the FRANCE lay. £10.00 + £10.00 - £14.20 = +£5.80

Note that this only applies to bets on the same market. A lay bet against France in the “ Match Odds” market and a lay bet against “Both Teams To Score” market will not share liability as they are separate markets.

Shared Liability - A Horse Racing Example

As with the Football example, when laying more than one horse in the same race it’s impossible for both of these different horses to win the race so the amount of liability is reduced.

For example, if in a specific horse race you have lay bets against Horse A and Horse B, it's impossible for both horses to win.

As a result of this, again, your liability will be much lower than you may have initially thought.

Let’s say you have placed some different lay bets on different horses in the same race using the “Win” market for some Matched Betting offers.

In this example, you have placed three different lay bets:

Lay Bet 1 - £10.00 against RAMATUELLE at odds of 3.10. The liability is £21.00

Lay Bet 2 - £10.00 against OPERA SINGER at odds of 4.80. The liability is £38.00

Lay Bet 3 - £10.00 against PORTA FORTUNA at odds of 5.70. The liability is £47.00

You may be expecting these bets to mean your liability and therefore total balance needed in the exchange is £106.00 (£21.00 + £38.00 + £47.00).

However, due to shared liability you actually only have a maximum of £27.00 at risk in your betting exchange as you can see below:

If RAMATUELLE wins then you’ll be £1.00 down at the exchange.

If OPERA SINGER wins you’ll be £18.00 down at the exchange.

If PORTA FORTUNA wins you’ll be £27.00 down at the exchange.

If any other horse that you didn’t lay wins you’ll be £30.00 up at the exchange.

This shows that your liability is in fact just £27.00 and is the maximum amount you can lose on the exchange side and the amount needed in your balance to cover the three lay bets.

This is all down to the fact that it's impossible for all three lay bets to lose - all three horses can’t win the race.

You can break down the numbers to see why you reach the profits/losses above.

If RAMATUELLE wins – We win the lay stake of £10.00 against OPERA SINGER. We win the lay stake of £10.00 against PORTA FORTUNA. You lose the liability of £21.00 for the RAMATUELLE lay. £10.00 + £10.00 - £21.00 = -£1.00

If OPERA SINGER wins – You win the lay stake of £10.00 against RAMATUELLE. We win the lay stake of £10.00 against PORTA FORTUNA. You lose the liability of £38.00 for the OPERA SINGER lay. £10.00 + £10.00 - £38.00 = -£18.00

If PORTA FORTUNA wins – We win the lay stake of £10.00 against RAMATUELLE. We win the lay stake of £10.00 against OPERA SINGER. You lose the liability of £47.00 for the PORTA FORTUNA lay. £10.00 + £10.00 - £47.00 = -£27.00

If any other horse that you didn’t lay wins - We win the lay stake of £10.00 against RAMATUELLE. We win the lay stake of £10.00 against OPERA SINGER. We win the lay stake of £10.00 against PORTA FORTUNA. £10.00 + £10.00 + £10.00 = +£30.00

Shared Liability When More Than One Outcome Can Win

It’s important to be aware that shared liability only works the same as in the examples above when there is only ONE possible winner in the market.

This is helpful to remember when doing extra place offers where you’ll be placing horse racing each way bets.

Shared liability on the “Place” markets won't occur until after you've bet on more horses to place than there are available places.

For example, if you are laying on the “3 Places” market, shared liability won't occur until you are laying off a 4th horse in that market.

Shared liability basically comes into effect when it's impossible for all the lay bets to lose - it's possible for 3 horses to finish in 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but impossible for 4 horses to do so.

Shared Liability Summary

You’ll now understand how using shared liability when Matched Betting will help you make the most out of your bankroll by reducing the total funds required in your betting exchange account.

You can learn more useful hints that will help you maximise your profits this year by reading our top Matched Betting tips.