By Michael ·
At a bookmaker, the company sets the price and takes your bet. If you win, it pays you out of its own money, and its margin is built into the odds. At an exchange, the other side of your bet is another customer. If you back the home side at 3.00, someone has agreed to lay it at 3.00. If you win, their money pays you. The exchange holds both stakes and settles the market.
Why matched bettors need an exchange
A lay bet is a bet that something won't happen. When you lay, you take the bookmaker's role for one bet. If the selection loses, you keep the backer's stake. If it wins, you pay out the backer's winnings, and that amount is your liability. Our lay betting guide covers the lay side in more detail.
That's why exchanges sit at the centre of matched betting. You back a selection at a bookmaker to use an offer, then lay the same selection at an exchange. Whatever the result, one bet wins and the other loses, so you end up close to level. Most of the time an offer ends in a small qualifying loss, which is the small amount you give up to use it.
Reading the prices
Each selection on an exchange shows two sets of prices. On one side are the prices you can back at, and on the other the prices you can lay at. Under each price is the money waiting to be matched there.
The lay price is a little higher than the back price. In a busy market the gap might be one step, say 2.12 to back and 2.14 to lay. In a quiet market it can be much wider.
Exchanges show decimal odds. A price of 3.00 returns £3 for every £1 staked, and that includes your stake. If your bookmaker shows fractions, our guide to betting odds explained has the conversions.
Commission: how exchanges make money
An exchange doesn't win when you lose. It charges commission on your net winnings in each market. If you lose overall in a market, you pay no commission there.
Smarkets charges 2% of net winnings per market on its standard tier, and Matchbook charges UK customers 2% of net winnings per market. Betfair's rate depends on which My Betfair Rewards package you're on, a choice you make in your Betfair account, and the Basic package is 2%. Some customers pay a different rate, so check the one on your own account rather than assuming.
Net per market matters. Say you have two bets in the same match odds market. One wins £15 and one loses £5. Your net winnings are £10, so 2% commission is 20p, not 30p.
Why commission changes the lay stake
Commission comes off your lay winnings, so the lay stake has to be a little bigger to make up for it. Example: you back £20 at 4.00 and lay at 4.20. Here's the same bet at three commission rates.
Commission | Lay stake | Liability | Qualifying loss |
|---|---|---|---|
0% | £19.05 | £60.95 | £0.95 |
2% | £19.14 | £61.24 | £1.24 |
5% | £19.28 | £61.69 | £1.69 |
These are examples, not anyone's current rate, and results vary with the prices you get. The point is that commission goes into every sum. Leave it out and your numbers look better than they are. Our 2UP Calculator is free, needs no account and has a Lay commission box, so it works out the lay stake and liability with your rate in.
Liquidity: can your bet be matched?
Say you want to lay £19.14 at 4.20, but only £8 is waiting at that price. £8 matches. The rest waits unmatched, or matches at a worse price if you take one. Either way, your numbers have changed.
In our experience, liquidity follows the crowd. Top-flight football matches are busy, while lower leagues and smaller competitions can be thin, more so well before kick-off. Horse racing markets fill up close to the off, and early in the day the money can be small. The place market on a race usually holds much less than the win market. That matters for extra place matched betting, where you need both.
Check the money waiting before you place the back bet. If you use our alerts, open Tools, then Configuration, in the menu and pick 2UP, B90 or Extra Places. That page has an Exchanges card with a Minimum liquidity box for each exchange, so you aren't sent a match whose lay market can't hold your stake. There's a Commission box for each exchange too, and every rating uses it.
Unmatched bets and kick-off
An unmatched lay is a request nobody has filled yet, and exchanges cancel these at set moments.
On Betfair, unmatched bets are cancelled when the market goes in-play unless you set them to Keep, or to Take SP, which turns them into a bet at the starting price. In a football match they're cancelled again after a goal, a penalty or a red card unless they're set to Keep. Smarkets has a Keep in-play setting that leaves unmatched bets live once the market goes in-play.
So if your back bet is on and your lay is only half matched at kick-off, you can end up half covered. Make sure every lay shows as fully matched before the start.
Win and place markets in racing
For horse racing, exchanges run a separate win market and place market for each race. The place market pays the normal number of places for the race, not the extra place a bookmaker might be offering. That gap is what Extra Places offers are built on. You lay the win and the place separately, and if your horse finishes in the bookmaker's extra place, your each-way place bet wins and so does your place lay.
Choosing an exchange
There's no single right choice. For matched betting, four things count.
Check the commission on your own account, not a headline figure.
Look at the liquidity on the markets you use. A low rate is no help if your lay can't be matched.
Make sure it has place markets if you do Extra Places.
Finish your ID checks early, before you need to withdraw.
Betfair also runs a sportsbook, which is separate from its exchange. That matters for the Betfair 90 Minute Guarantee. The sportsbook pays a pre-match bet on its Match Odds 90 market as a winner if your selection is winning at 90:00, but an exchange lay settles on the final whistle.
What happened to Betdaq
Betdaq closed for betting on 21 October 2026, so it's no longer an exchange you can use. Matchbook agreed to buy the Betdaq brand name but not its customer accounts, so no Betdaq account moved across to Matchbook on its own. Customers had until 4 November 2026 to sign in and withdraw. Signing in no longer works, so if you still had money there, Betdaq's closure notice says to contact its customer services team at helpdesk@betdaq.com.
Matchbook says it has a welcome offer kept for Betdaq customers, but its transfer page gives no terms, so read them on Matchbook's own site before you rely on it. If you still have Betdaq in a spreadsheet or calculator, swap in the commission for the exchange you use now.
What goes wrong at the exchange
The most common mistake is not having enough in the account. Your back bet is on, and the exchange won't take the lay because your balance doesn't cover the liability. Fund the exchange before you back.
Next is the wrong commission. If you entered 0% from an old offer, every lay stake is a little off and every rating looks better than it is.
Then there's the part-matched lay that you forgot. Half of it sat unmatched and was cancelled at kick-off, so half your back bet had no cover.
The last one is a lay in the wrong market, such as match odds against a separate offer market, or win against place. Check the market name on both bets.
Blocking exchanges if you need to
Every gambling business has to offer its own self-exclusion, so you can block one exchange through your account there. GAMSTOP lets you self-exclude from online gambling companies with one request. You pick a period from 6 months up to 5 years, and you can't cancel it once it has started.
Checked against Betfair's, Smarkets', Matchbook's and Betdaq's terms on 14 November 2026.
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