It’s all happened to us at some point during our matched betting career. We are doing a simple back and lay bet to either qualify for an offer or maximise the profit out of a free bet until BAM! The odds change on you in an instant, or money has gone flying out at your desired price, leaving you with either a partially-matched, or even worse, a completely unmatched lay bet.
This guide will help you rectify the situation and will hopefully prevent you from getting into this pickle in the first place.
If you’re new here, it may be worth taking a quick peek at my explainer page on matched betting which should get you up to speed pretty quickly.
How to deal with a partially-matched or unmatched lay bet
It’s very tempting to freeze and just keep yelling “Shit, shit SHIT!” as odds start to drift, money keeps bleeding out of the exchange and there’s probably not long until the event you’ve bet on starts.
The first thing is DO NOT PANIC!
But please do not confuse “do not panic” with “do not act fast”. You will need to act immediately in most circumstances.
It’s kind of like what they tell you when there’s a fire drill, you know you must not panic, scream and then all stampede out of the building. Instead you are supposed to quickly and quietly exit the building in an orderly fashion (not sure how often that actually happens when it’s the real thing though).
You have a few options when this happens. Read them below and you will become prepared for when this inevitably happens.
But first, let’s dive into how you end up with a partially-matched or un-matched lay bet so you can avoid these situations arising as much as possible.
What causes matched bettors to end up with a partially matched or unmatched lay bet?
There could be a few reasons behind this so let’s start with the most common.
Lack of Liquidity
You’ve found yourself a close match on some odds for either your qualifying bet or your free bet.
Problem is – once you’ve placed the back side of the bet the money disappears from the exchange at the odds you were hoping to place it at.
This leaves you with not enough money (liquidity) at the desired price which will mean that only some of your bet will get matched or even none of it at all.
Why does this happen? It is usually because the market you are betting on is weak, which either means it is a small event with little interest or the match or race you are betting on is a long way off starting so the market hasn’t fully formed yet.
There’s also a very good chance that you are not the only one who has seen the great match and all it needs is three or four like-minded matched bettors to clear out the liability on that price to leave you stuck (as sometimes there are huge gaps between prices).
This is why it is important to use an exchange that has a lot of liquidity spread across a large amount of events. Betfair and Smarkets are probably your best bets, with Matchbook good to use as a back-up.
Odds Change
This will happen to you if you are placing a bet in a highly volatile market, where odds are constantly fluctuating. This will happen to you with Horse Racing more than any other sport because the odds in the 20 minutes or so before the race become increasingly unstable.
Often you will place a back bet and then within seconds the lay side of the bet at the exchange will drift in price (and keep drifting). But it works both ways, occasionally the price will contract after you’ve placed your back bet increasing your profits or reducing your qualifying loss.
This is also true of in-play markets, so when you are using your free bets make sure to place them immediately after kick-off or at half time when the odds are much more stable.
Odds for other sports such as football are much more stable, but again, the closer to the start of the event you are the more likely you are to potentially get caught out.
How to avoid creating a partially-matched or unmatched lay bet?
As stated above, it is easy to spot what will increase the chances of this happening:
– Avoid horse races close to the start of the race
– Check and double check the amounts available at the exchange before placing your bet
– Minimise time in between placing the back and lay parts of your bets (less than 5 seconds if possible)
– Enter the stakes of both sides of your bet and the respective websites so all you have to do is click “place bet” once on each site (should bring your time down to less than 2 seconds)
– Don’t bet on weak or small events
– Don’t bet on events days away or even anything over 12 hours away from starting and markets won’t be fully formed
– In-play bets should be placed immediately after kick off or at half time, when odds are at their most stable
So you’ve taken all of the precautions but you’ve still managed to get caught out by moving odds and/or moving money.
Don’t worry it happens to all of us.
Now it’s time to learn what you should do, and quickly.
How to recalculate a partially-matched or unmatched lay bet?
There are three main options when you are left with a partially-matched lay bet
Option 1 – Recalculate with Oddsmonkey
Oddmonkey’s matched betting calculator includes the option to calculate your lay stake with part-lays already in place.
First open up your calculator as normal, you then notice on the top right-hand side of the calculator that it has the option to switch from simple to advanced. Switch the calculator to advanced mode.
Then enter your back stake, your back odds, and the current lay odds (note: not the odds you previously tried to lay at). Make sure there is enough liquidity at the new odds.
Now you will see on the bottom right of the calculator there is a small button named “Part Lays” click the slider and it will change from “Hide” to “Show” and you’ll notice the calculator expand.
Now just enter the stake that was left unmatched (make sure to cancel your un-matched amount at the exchange first) and enter the odds at which it was matched.
It will then populate the lay stake box with the correct amount that you should place in order to fulfil the rest of your lay bet. Head back over to the exchange and place it.
Note: It is likely that the odds will have drifted so you will end up with either less profit if it was a free bet or a higher qualifying loss if it was a qualifying bet.
If you don’t fancy using Oddmonkey’s tools you can use the calculator over at Tricky Bet which does exactly the same thing.
Option 2 – Place the remainder at another exchange
A crucial weapon in the arsenal of a seasoned matched bettor, is having an array of betting exchange accounts ready to go in case of emergency.
Usually this is to protect against the event of an exchange crashing or malfunctioning (it happens a lot more than you’d expect).
But in this case, it might have the same event at the same odds at which you tried to place your original lay bet at your preferred exchange.
If it has the same rate of commission (such as 2%) then you simply need to subtract what has already been matched at the original exchange and then place the remainder at the other.
For example, you may have opted in to the deals for 0% at both Smarkets and Matchbook. Which means if the odds are the same you don’t need to mess around with the part lays element of the calculator.
If the new exchange odds are different, but are still preferable to the exchange you are currently using, then simply follow the steps in option one (remembering to put the current commission rate and current odds in the top part of the calculator) and then the new lay stake and the new exchange.
Option 3 – Do nothing and wait for the odds/money to come back in
By far the riskiest strategy you can go for. Odds do tend to move in and out but there is absolutely no guarantee that once your price increases that it will come back down again.
If you wait, you leave yourself liable to the odds becoming even worse, leaving you with either a steep qualifying loss or a much smaller profit from your free bet.
It’s up to you to judge how far away the start of the event is, what the likelihood of money or odds returning in your favour. It’s something you will pick up as you go along.
But whatever you decide NEVER leave a bet either un-layed or part-layed. No sport is so predictable that you can guess what will happen, don’t take that chance. You might as well be gambling if you do.
Conclusion
Hopefully you’ve found this guide useful, it will probably be helpful to read this before it happens to you so you have a plan of action.
If not, and you are reading this after-the-fact then at least you know for next time and you hopefully didn’t end up too badly affected.
If you enjoyed this guide you may find the following guides I’ve written on avoiding gubbings or taking advantage of price boosts worth a read.