New to Matchbook? Baffled by terms like trading, value, and liquidity? Find out all you need to know in our betting jargon buster
The exchange is a betting platform with constantly updated prices that enables you to back and lay selections. You’re not betting against Matchbook on the exchange like you would with a traditional bookie, but with other people like you.
The Matchbook Exchange uses decimal odds as its default setting. Decimal odds make it easy to show incremental price changes and for you to work out your returns from a bet. Stake x odds = your return. So, if you back a selection for £10 at odds of 10.0, your total return is £100.
Laying a selection is to bet on something not happening. If you lay Man City to win the Premier League, you’re betting on them to lose (and for anyone else to win).
This is a bet you can only make on a betting exchange and effectively allows you to take on the role of a traditional bookmaker.
The money that you win from your bet. If you back a selection for £10 at odds of 10.0, your total return is £100. Subtract your initial £10 stake to get your profit of £90.
Backing a selection is to bet on something happening. If you back Man City to win the Premier League, you’re betting on them to win it outright.
Laying a selection is to bet on something not happening. If you lay Man City to win the Premier League, you’re betting on them to lose (and for anyone else to win). This is a bet you can only make on a betting exchange and effectively allows you to take on the role of a traditional bookmaker.
This is how betting exchanges make money. The commission is a small charge, usually 2% on winning bets on Matchbook. It’s how the site makes money, as it doesn’t win when you lose.
The amount of money available to be bet on a particular market. It also refers to the amount of money that can be bet at specific odds, which will be shown underneath the odds displayed for each selection.
If there is enough liquidity on the exchange to cover your bet, it will be accepted and marked as a matched bet. Your request to back or lay a selection has been matched with an opposing bet from another exchange customer.
If the odds you’ve asked for are unavailable or there is insufficient liquidity in that market, your bet will be unmatched until someone matches it. You can monitor your unmatched bets and alter the odds or cancel them if you don’t want to wait.
If there isn’t enough liquidity to fully match your bet, a portion will remain unmatched until you cancel it or someone matches it.
This is a term for the money you would need to pay out on a losing lay bet. If you lay a selection for £10 at odds of 3.5, your liability is £25 if the selection goes on to win. Matchbook automatically works out the liability on any lay bet once you’ve input your stake amount.
Trading is something you can only do on a betting exchange because of the ability to back and lay selections. Trading is when you make some bets before and/or during a match reacting to changes in the odds to try and guarantee a profit. For example, you may back a selection at 3.0 before the game and lay them at 1.5 once they take an early lead to secure a profit no matter what the result.
A market is the term for the betting action on a specific event. It has two sides, backers and layers, and will have odds that change dynamically as money comes in. Each event could have a number of different markets to bet on, and on Matchbook, if you click on the event name, it will open up all available markets.
This is betting that takes place once a match or event is underway. This is also known as in-play betting and is one of the most popular forms of gambling you will find online. Matchbook offers a huge range of live betting markets on a number of sports.
This is another term for odds, which is commonly used by more experienced bettors. “I’ve got a good price on my bet” translates to: “I’ve got good odds”. And “what price would you give me?” means “what odds do you think it should be?”.
A widely used term for a good bet where the odds are in your favour. Essentially, value is where you are getting a better price for your bet than the true odds. For example a 50% chance that has odds of 3.0 is value. Value is not just big odds or a bet that wins at big odds.
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