Underlaying And Overlaying In Matched Betting

If you’re a relative newcomer to Matched Betting, you may be finding the wealth of new terminology a little overwhelming. There’s a lot to learn when you first start out, and there’s no denying the learning curve is on the steeper side, particularly for those who are totally new to sports betting.

As a new matched bettor, you’ll have been introduced to the concept of lay bets - but if you’ve come across the terms ‘overlay’ and ‘underlay’ you might have wondered what on earth they mean.

In this article, we’ll take you through exactly how underlaying and overlaying works, and the situations in which you can use each tactic to maximise your profits when placing a matched bet.

‘Laying Bets’ In Matched Betting

Just in case you’re not already confident with the concept of laying a bet, we’ll give you a quick run through here. If you’re already happy with how laying a bet works, feel free to skip ahead to the next section.

A lay bet is a bet that something will not happen, in contrast to a back bet, which is a bet that something will happen. You could think of it as the opposite of a regular back bet with a bookie.

For example, before an upcoming match between Manchester United and Chelsea, your friend might say, ‘I bet you £10 that Chelsea win.’ If you take their bet, you have basically placed a lay bet.

Any outcome other than a win for Chelsea - i.e. a win for Manchester United or a draw - would result in you winning your lay bet. Laying a bet therefore allows you to cover all outcomes other than a win (in contrast to placing a back bet on a team’s opponents, which wouldn’t allow for a draw).

Lay betting when Matched Betting works the same way, just on a bigger scale. You’re acting as a bookie yourself when you place a lay bet, in that you are selling a bet to other punters.

If their bet doesn’t win, you keep the stake as profit; if it does, you have to pay out their winnings (also known as your liability - but don’t worry, if you’re Matched Betting, your winnings from your back bet will balance this out).

Lay bets can’t be placed on regular bookie sites; instead, you must use a betting exchange, such as Matchbook. Betting exchanges allow you to bet against other members of the public.

You can choose either to back or lay a bet, as you can see below in their event page for a Wycombe Wanderers vs Portsmouth football match.

As standard when placing a matched bet, our Oddsmatching calculator will provide you with an amount to stake on your lay bet that will result in the same profit (or qualifying loss) regardless of the outcome.

So for example, if we were placing a qualifying bet of £10 on Portsmouth for the match shown above, and the back odds were 3.2, the calculator would show us the following:

As you can see, there’s only a penny difference between our qualifying losses depending on whether the bookie bet or the exchange lay wins.

For standard Bet & Get offers, this is usually the best option. No matter what happens, you’ll know in advance how much profit you stand to make - at least to within the nearest couple of pence.

However, for some more complex offers it can be advantageous to deviate from the standard lay amount to maximise our profits.

Overlaying And Underlaying Bets

Overlay

When you overlay a bet, you stake a higher amount on your lay bet at the exchange. This means that you reduce your profit (or increase your loss) if the bookmaker bet wins, but increase your profit (or reduce your loss) if the exchange bet wins.

Underlay

As you might expect, underlaying a bet is the exact opposite of overlaying one. You increase your profit at the bookie side, and decrease it at the exchange side.

The calculator’s ‘advanced’ mode allows you to see overlay and underlay options as well as the standard, and to enter custom figures to work out the optimal lay stake for your particular matched bet.

If we imagine we were placing a £10 free bet on Portsmouth in their match against Wycombe, we have the following options:

In general, for standard free bets we recommend going with the standard option to guarantee the greatest possible profit regardless of the outcome.

However, if you felt fairly confident that Portsmouth would lose to Wycombe, you might choose to overlay, boosting your profits if you’re right.

On the other hand, if you thought Portsmouth had a better chance of winning than the odds suggested, you might decide to underlay, resulting in a higher profit if you’re right - and still a reasonable amount even if you’re wrong.

When To Underlay Bets

When taking advantage of some advanced offers, it’s in your best interest to underlay a bet to maximise your profits.

Bonus if your back bet loses

For any offer where you receive a bonus (for example in cash or a free bet) if your back bet loses, it’s most profitable to underlay your bet. You won’t win as much at the exchange end if your lay bet wins, but you will receive a bonus, which balances that out.

Meanwhile, your profits are higher at the bookie end if your back bet wins, despite not receiving a bonus.

Offers with wagering

Some bookies’ require you to wager a certain amount on sports betting in order to release a bonus. In these cases, especially if the amount you have to wager is quite high, it can be very beneficial to underlay your bet.

By underlaying, you can ensure that you don’t lose anything if the bet wins at the bookie’s end, meaning that, despite having to continue wagering, your bonus hasn’t been reduced.

If the bet wins at the exchange end, you will have won a somewhat smaller amount - but that means the offer is complete, and no further wagering is required, locking in your profit.

When To Overlay Bets

Offers where you benefit from overlaying your bet are much less common, but they do exist.

Bonus if your back bet wins

For obvious reasons, bookies don’t tend to feature very many of these offers, but they do crop up from time to time - for example, Betfair Exchange’s regular ‘free bet streak’ offer, which gives you multiple free bets if they continue to win.

In this situation, it makes sense to overlay your bet. You’ll reduce your profits at the bookie’s end - but you’ll also get an additional bonus. And if your back bet loses, your profit at the exchange end is higher, making up for not receiving that bonus.

Outplayed Calculators To Take Advantage Of

Outplayed members have access to a number of advanced calculators that allow them to take full advantage of any offers that require either underlaying or overlaying to lock in the highest possible profit.

Bonus Lock-In Calculator

As it sounds, this calculator works out the most profitable lay stakes for offers that include a bonus, with separate modes for whether your bonus is awarded if your back bet wins or loses.

Refund IF Calculator

This calculator allows you to lock in a profit for bookie offers that require your bet to lose and for a certain trigger to occur for you to receive a bonus. For example, a bookie might offer a free bet if your bet loses and both teams score in a football match.

This calculator allows you to work out the best lay stakes to profit from that offer.

Racing Refund Calculator

Racing refund offers are available with a lot of bookies, and many matched bettors find them to be a fantastic boost to their profits.

These offers allow you to receive a refund (either in the form of cash or a free bet) if your horse comes in either second or in the first few places (usually up to a maximum of fourth), giving you the opportunity to lock in a guaranteed profit.

Summary

You won’t need to worry about making adjustments to your lay stakes when you first start Matched Betting, as it’s best to stick to the standard recommendations for run of the mill Bet & Get offers.

You can of course consider underlaying or overlaying your matched bets even with standard Bet & Get offers, in order to take advantage of higher or lower chances of your back bet winning.

We’d advise most bettors to gain a good level of experience of sports betting before trying this, though, as you could easily end up sacrificing profit unnecessarily.

When it comes to more advanced offers, underlaying or overlaying can be the best tactic to maximise your profits. Outplayed members should take advantage of our advanced calculators when completing these offers to put themselves in the very best and most profitable position.

And if you’ve read this article but you’re unsure about the principles of Matched Betting, check out our complete guide for beginners! Alternatively, try out our free trial to get to grips with the basics of Matched Betting, with the potential to make up to £850 in profit.