Underlaying and Overlaying

What Is Underlaying and Overlaying?

Underlaying and overlaying are alternative ways to calculate your lay bet stakes.

Underlaying is where you lay a bit less than you would for a normal matched bet. The result is that if the bet wins at the bookmakers, you will make more profit. But if it were to lose, you will end up with less profit than if you were to lay the bet per the normal calculator.

Overlaying is the opposite. You lay more money than the normal calculator would tell you to. This results in less profit if the bookmaker bet wins, but more profit if the bookmaker bet loses.

Underlaying
When Would You Underlay?

Underlaying can be useful when placing a trigger bet on a refund offer. For these offers, we want our bet to lose to trigger the free bet.

If we place a normal bet, there is a risk of not triggering the free bet, whilst still incurring a qualifying loss.

So, by underlaying, we can remove the risk of incurring a loss and not getting a free bet reward.

How To Underlay

Underlaying means that we will lose less money if our exchange bet loses (the bookmaker bet wins). But, it means we win less if our lay bet wins (back bet loses).

You can calculate your underlay stakes using the matched betting calculator. First, switch the calculator to 'advanced display' in the top right corner.

You have two options when underlaying:

  • Underlay the amount that means you will make £0 profit/loss if your bookmaker bet wins.
  • Use the refund mode on the calculator to guarantee a profit regardless of the outcome

Example

Offer: Money back as a free bet (up to £10) if your horse loses.

The issue is that if we back the winning horse we don't get the £10 free bet, however we still incur a qualifying loss. Meaning we risk losing money.

The solution? We can underlay.  If we lay slightly less than needed, we will lose a bit less money on the exchange if the bookmaker bet wins.

If we choose to pick a horse with back odds of 3.0 and lay odds of 3.15 (as in the above screenshot), then we see we lose 80p if the horse wins using the normal lay method.

However, looking at the underlay box, we can underlay such that if the horse wins we don't lose anything. But if the horse loses we lose 36p more (£1.16)

However losing on the bookmaker means we trigger the £10 free bet - happy days!

Overlaying
When Would You Overlay?

You can overlay if you're placing a trigger bet and you want a team/horse to win in order to trigger the free bet.

These offers come with the risk of not triggering the free bet and still incurring a qualifying loss.

How To Overlay

Overlaying means that we will lose more if our exchange bet loses (bookmaker bet wins), but we win less if our back bet wins (lay bet loses). This is fine as we'll be using it for offers that reward us with free bets if our back bet wins!

To calculate overlay stakes, first switch to 'advanced mode' on the the matched betting calculator.

You then have two options:

  • Underlay the amount that means a £0 profit/loss if the bookmaker bet loses
  • Use the slider in the 'custom' section of the calculator to tweak the lay amounts to your content. Depending on how much profit you want to lock in.
Example

Offer: Your stake as a free bet (up to £10) if your horse wins.

If our horse doesn't win then we don't get the £10 free bet, but we still incur a qualifying loss. Meaning we risk losing money.

The solution? Overlay. Lay slightly more than needed, meaning you win more on the exchange if the bookmaker bet loses.

As before, if we choose to pick a horse with back odds of 3.0 and lay odds of 3.15 (as in the above screenshot), then we see we lose 80p if the horse loses using the normal lay method.

However, looking at the overlay box, we can overlay so that if the horse loses, we don't lose anything. But if the horse wins we lose £1.84 more (£2.64)

However winning on the bookmaker means we trigger the £10 free bet - happy days!

To Summarise

So to summarise:

  • Underlaying - useful for refund offers where we only get a free bet if our bookmaker bet loses
  • Overlaying - useful for refund offers where we only get a free bet if our bookmaker bet wins
  • We can use the Matched Betting Calculator in Advanced Mode to calculate underlay and overlay bet stakes

Got Questions?

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