How Do Bookies Lay Off Bets

Lay bets can only be placed at a Betting Exchange. For an exchange to place, there have to be people willing to back at the odds you want to lay at. If no one is backing the event you can't match a bet. In a nutshell, matched betting uses maths to guarantee that you will keep a large percentage of the free money and, by doing so, profit off of bookies. Matched betting works on the Back and Lay principle. A back bet is the one you place for a particular outcome to come true – for example, you bet.

1. Beat The Bookie Free
2. Why Do Bookmakers Lay Off Bets

The evolution of exchange betting has revolutionised market-making to such a degree that even the biggest bookmaker names no longer employ professional odds setters.

How did odds making start?

As touched on in our Brief History of Betting blog, the concept of calculating the likely chance of a winner in a horse race, and converting that into bookmaker odds, was devised by one Harry Ogden.

Operating on Newmarket Heath towards the end of the 18th century, Ogden was the first bookmaker to take betting beyond its strikingly crude roots. Most early bets were simply a way of settling an argument over whether a named event would come to pass or not.

Not only did Ogden begin the process of making a book, he also understood that he had to save a percentage of his takings for his own purse. In order to achieve this, he slightly adjusted prices in his favour. It worked: if somebody won a bet and got paid out at odds of 4/1 they were unlikely to complain, especially at this early stage, that they had not been paid at the true probability of 5/1.

Texas holdem ways to win. So already, within Ogden's lifetime we witnessed the evolution of a book featuring a range of prices as well as the concept of what is now known as an 'overround'.

What is an overround book?

A perfect book, without factoring in a margin for the bookie, would mean the implied probability of all outcomes would add up to 100%. However, bookies use the concept of overround to stretch this probability greater than 100% – which then becomes their profit.

Here's an overround example from a tennis match:

Now, have you ever considered why bookmakers like to encourage accumulators in sports like football where punters enjoy backing multiple selections in a single bet?

Well it's simple: if a bookmaker has an overround of 105% on each of five football matches, a punter placing a bet in all five of those matches is betting against an overround 125% because the extra 5% is factored in each time.

The growth of betting and odds compiling

By the 1950s the big firms that covered the length and breadth of the country betting on horses and greyhounds were already employing odds-makers to help them compile what was known as the 'tissue' for each race.

This was effectively the first show of prices. Bookmakers would certainly collude to some degree to check their assessments of the market were not wildly out of place but by and large they were happy to trust their instincts.

The prices were not static: they moved to respond to market forces after the first show was published on the boards.

What did a bookie do if he felt liabilities were in danger of getting too big on a particular horse? All he had to do was rub off the displayed price on his chalkboard and put up a less attractive price. He might then balance his book by pushing out the prices of less fancied runners.

The advent of legal betting shops

The golden age of betting was triggered by the 1960 Betting and Gaming Act – a watershed development that allowed betting on racing and greyhounds to take place in licensed shops around the country.

For the first time, punters did not need to be physically at a racecourse or dog track to legally place a bet. There was still an incentive for big-time punters to go racing because if they were betting in shops they had to pay tax.

But bookmakers small and large had to be on the lookout to protect themselves against betting coups in what was now 'open season' for big-stakes punters. If, for example, a group of individuals could target multiple betting shops at the same time soon before the start of a race it was hard in the pre-internet age to ensure the price was cut in time.

The Yellow Sam plot of 1975 was a perfect illustration of how a meticulously organised plot could evade the best attempts of the bookies to minimise their exposure.

The 1990s: Multiple sports, multiple platforms

When restrictions were lifted on football betting to unlock a wide range of markets on individual matches, horse racing's dominance as a sports betting medium was challenged for the first time.

At the same time, firms were opening more and more shops, allowing telephone and online accounts while accessing more and more global television feeds.

This was the decade in which odds-compilers really earned their corn for bookies like Coral, Ladbrokes and William Hill – traditional names with presence on the high-street, at the courses and, bit by bit, on rudimentary web browsers too.

Sports traders and palps

If, for example, you were a graduate with a good degree in maths or economics and you also followed rugby union religiously you could be hired specifically to draw up rugby union markets for one of the big operators.

With so much sport to bet on, and so many new avenues from which to glean useful information, this was also the time that 'palps' (bookie slang for palpable errors) were at their most prevalent.

Shrewd punters could sometimes find out if an obscure tennis match or an overseas domestic football game had been rescheduled to an earlier time slot. If the bookies were unaware they could find themselves accepting a bet on an event that had already happened.

How exchanges changed the landscape

The arrival of Betfair into an increasingly cluttered market in 2000 proved a positive intervention in a number of ways, even if some small on-course bookmakers to this day rue the dawn of exchange betting.

Betfair had a huge USP: it was allowing markets to be set by individuals trading on its platforms hours and sometimes days in advance. The prices were not set by individual odds-makers using personal assessment.

Over the intervening 20 years, the exchanges have had their ups and downs but for bookmakers they provide two major positives which serve as some sort of compensation for draining them of the business they once did.

Firstly, by using the wisdom of the crowd, exchanges establish robust markets relatively quickly meaning betting companies no longer need to invest so heavily in their own odds-makers.

Secondly, the exchanges provide an easy mechanism for bookmakers to lay off worrying liabilities and can even provide early warning of a potential betting coup attempt.

What is BetConnect's role in the market?

BetConnect is a hybrid solution that combines many of the strengths of the Betfair model – it is, after all, a peer-to-peer exchange – alongside the reassurance of big bets being matched without restrictions.

Available prices quoted are based on real-time markets provided by a wide range of online bookmakers. The platform gives bettors reassurance that they are getting the best bookie prices while layers know where to head for matched betting opportunities.

BetConnect's single biggest advantage is its ability to fuse three disparate groups of individuals:

1. Professional punters who have grown frustrated by restrictions imposed on them by the bookies
2. Recreational players who enjoy backing and laying selections
3. The growing community of matched betting enthusiasts

If you think you're ready to bet on horse racing or any other sport then sign up for a BetConnect account now. BetConnect is the only exchange that lets you back selections at bookie odds with no restrictions, and lay the selections of other account-holders commission-free. Not sure how it works? Read this simple guide.

related

Bookies are people that accept wagers on various sporting events. So when someone makes a wager on saying the New England Patriots against the New York Jets, then the bookie needs the opposite team to win or cover the spread in order for him to make money on that wager. So whenever any of the bookies' players make a wager he will always need the other team to win or cover the spread in order to make money.

The good news is that gamblers always loss over the long term, which means that whatever the players' losses will be money earned by the bookie. In addition, all sports wagers have a vig which is generally 10% which means if someone wants to win $100 then they need to pay the vig or the juice which means they need to risk $110 to win $100. That 10% juice on all wagers adds up quickly so even if a player wins half of his wagers, he will still end up losing money to the bookie, because of all the juice he lost on each of his losing wagers.

So if bookies make money from players that lose when they gamble, then the best way to make the most money is to either have players that give a ton of action or to just keep acquiring new players that want to bet with you. The more players you have, then the more money you are going to end up making in the long run.

The other thing that bookies do to make money is to use a pay per head website that allows you to piggyback off their lines and betting platform. Price per head websites, such as AcePerHead.com charge a small fee of $10 per active player a week, and then in return, they provide the bookie with a website with thousands of betting options each day. They manage the lines up to the second and grade everything as soon as each game is over, and then everything gets automatically updated to the players and bookies account so they can see exactly how much they are up or down on the day, the week, month or lifetime of the account.

The reason this small investment of $10 a player a week is well worth it is that between the time it would take a bookie to do everything on his own manually and the lack of betting options you would have because there is no way one person can manually keep track of thousands of betting options per day, would make this a full-time job with limited profit potential. Instead, you just pay a company like Ace Per Head a small fee each week and this will mean you do not need to invest any of your own time to manage the website and also your players are going to lose a lot more money when they have the ability to bet on a mobile website 24/7. So call Ace Per Head now at 1-800-909-5193 to get set up immediately so you can start making money today.

Juice & Commissions: How Much do Sportsbooks Keep as Profit?

The most important part of any business is how much money you can get from the business. As a bookie you are in charge of a lot of money, as you manage many bets. But when looking at the money you probably ask, what percentage do bookies take? The amount of money a bookie can make depends on many factors, such as; the number of players per week, how much per bet, and how often players place bets. Basically, the more money involved, players, and bets that are made per day equal more money for the sportsbook agent. As with any business, the more customers you have, the more money you will take home. But there is more to it than that when it comes to the salary of a sportsbook agent.

The Math Behind the Salary of a Bookie

First, it is important to establish when a bookie makes money. A bookie makes money when a player makes a bet on an event with an agent. The bookie sets the point spread or the Moneyline to keep the action balanced on both sides of the outcome, whether that means favoring the Miami Dolphins to beat the New England Patriots by 3 ½ points, or making the Moneyline Miami -120 / New England +160.

Fees

What percentage do bookies take? That question refers to the book fee that is collected from a wager. Bookies usually take around 10 percent, this is what they call the 'juice' or the vig. This is the most definitive source of income for a sportsbook agent. The money that is not collected is returned to the book. For example, let's say that a player bets on a game between the Washington Football Team and the Dallas Cowboys. Let's say the Cowboys are favored by 10 points, so you take the Cowboys, at a -10 spread with -110 odds. The player puts down $110 for the bet. If the player wins then they would get $210 back total (the original bet plus $100) back, if they were to lose, the book would keep the $110. Over time, that $10 edge on the favorites contributes to the bookie's profits.

Maximize Earnings

In order for a sportsbook agent to make a decent living, they have to maximize profits. To understand the question 'What percentage do bookies take?' the bookie gets their money from a vig, also known as the book fee on a wager. So the only way to maximize profit is to increase the opportunities to collect wager fees such as vig. In order to do that an agent must bring more business to their service, offer and manage more bets, and offer a wide variety of bets. If an agent can be versatile and offer high dollar bets as well as low dollar bets, then the money they collect will be on a spectrum. Some players start low and go high, and vice versa. It is important to encourage these trends by having these options available in bulk. The faster an agent can process and complete wagers, the more money they will make. If an agent can use a bookie software to operate an 'assembly line' of gambling, then they will make good money — which is where having a spot on a platform like AcePerHead.com comes in.

Where PPH software comes into play

There is a common saying, 'spend money, to make money', and in this context it is applicable. The best way for a sportsbook agent to make money in the modern gambling market is to invest in high-quality price per head software service. Price per head service packages are an excellent way to increase profit margins, especially AcePerHead.com. Service packages like then include a website based software that includes all of the tools necessary to run a smooth operation. Price per head service processes all of the bets automatically, and constantly updates the data, so your cash flow will increase because you will be able to handle numerous players and bets at the same time. And price per head software, especially AcePerHead.com, scales the growth as you go, so you will always meet demand. And meeting demand will increase your cash flow exponentially.

Why AcePerHead.com?

As you can see, to maximize the answer to 'what percentage do bookies take?' for your own business, if you do decide to increase profit via price per head services, AcePerHead.com is a premier option. With features such as live betting, automatic processing, expanded market, etc., it is the perfect software for making money. If you want to collect vig more often and 'make bank', then they are the way to go. The live casino in itself offers many opportunities to collect and process a wide variety of wagers.

As mentioned earlier, AcePerHead.com is able to automatically process your bets and update player data. This constant flow of cash and data will make your business uber efficient. The expanded market has a huge impact on profit. The numerous leagues and teams offer a multitude of spreads and lines to cover daily, the international scale AcePerHead.com operates on provides options constantly for players. Earlier we discussed examples of individual spreads and what happened in each scenario. Even if the agent won, they got a small percentage of the pot, which is how the market works. So by using price per head software, such as AcePerHead.com, to increase your chances of collecting a vig is the foundation to your business. Agents have to depend on their player base, if it does not grow, then the business will falter. As in every business at this scale, consumers decide which service lives and dies. So as an agent, your business has to be geared towards the customer, using price per head services to create a fast-paced and exciting environment for players will go a long way in building your sportsbook business.

How Much Money do You Need to Start a Bookmaker Business?

Have you thought about leaving your 9-5 job behind and using your sportsbook as your primary source of revenue? You're not alone – after all, many people who scramble to take calls and texts for their neighborhood sportsbook while negotiating the demands of another full-time job have been where you are in terms of stress. Maybe your book brings in a little money on the side, enough to make you think that you can expand. Before you make the jump, though, consider whether you are financially ready.

Getting Your Sportsbook Up and Running

There are other questions you'll need to answer, particularly if you are just now launching your book, in addition to how much money you need to start a bookie business. These questions include:

• What is the law with respect to sportsbooks where you live? (After all, it's one thing to run an under-the-table book with cash, but once you go online, law enforcement can find you much, much more easily.)

• How will you go about setting your lines?

• How much vig do you ask for?

• What happens when your book starts to grow?

• How do you track all of the action?

• What will you do when sharp bettors find your book?

If you use a sportsbook platform such as AcePerHead.com, some of these questions won't matter as much. The platform will offer lines that you can choose (or you can still set your own). The big question is still up to you, so you'll need to figure out what you can charge as opposed to what your betting clients will pay.

How exchanges changed the landscape

The arrival of Betfair into an increasingly cluttered market in 2000 proved a positive intervention in a number of ways, even if some small on-course bookmakers to this day rue the dawn of exchange betting.

Betfair had a huge USP: it was allowing markets to be set by individuals trading on its platforms hours and sometimes days in advance. The prices were not set by individual odds-makers using personal assessment.

Over the intervening 20 years, the exchanges have had their ups and downs but for bookmakers they provide two major positives which serve as some sort of compensation for draining them of the business they once did.

Firstly, by using the wisdom of the crowd, exchanges establish robust markets relatively quickly meaning betting companies no longer need to invest so heavily in their own odds-makers.

Secondly, the exchanges provide an easy mechanism for bookmakers to lay off worrying liabilities and can even provide early warning of a potential betting coup attempt.

What is BetConnect's role in the market?

BetConnect is a hybrid solution that combines many of the strengths of the Betfair model – it is, after all, a peer-to-peer exchange – alongside the reassurance of big bets being matched without restrictions.

Available prices quoted are based on real-time markets provided by a wide range of online bookmakers. The platform gives bettors reassurance that they are getting the best bookie prices while layers know where to head for matched betting opportunities.

BetConnect's single biggest advantage is its ability to fuse three disparate groups of individuals:

1. Professional punters who have grown frustrated by restrictions imposed on them by the bookies
2. Recreational players who enjoy backing and laying selections
3. The growing community of matched betting enthusiasts

If you think you're ready to bet on horse racing or any other sport then sign up for a BetConnect account now. BetConnect is the only exchange that lets you back selections at bookie odds with no restrictions, and lay the selections of other account-holders commission-free. Not sure how it works? Read this simple guide.

related

Bookies are people that accept wagers on various sporting events. So when someone makes a wager on saying the New England Patriots against the New York Jets, then the bookie needs the opposite team to win or cover the spread in order for him to make money on that wager. So whenever any of the bookies' players make a wager he will always need the other team to win or cover the spread in order to make money.

The good news is that gamblers always loss over the long term, which means that whatever the players' losses will be money earned by the bookie. In addition, all sports wagers have a vig which is generally 10% which means if someone wants to win $100 then they need to pay the vig or the juice which means they need to risk $110 to win $100. That 10% juice on all wagers adds up quickly so even if a player wins half of his wagers, he will still end up losing money to the bookie, because of all the juice he lost on each of his losing wagers.

So if bookies make money from players that lose when they gamble, then the best way to make the most money is to either have players that give a ton of action or to just keep acquiring new players that want to bet with you. The more players you have, then the more money you are going to end up making in the long run.

The other thing that bookies do to make money is to use a pay per head website that allows you to piggyback off their lines and betting platform. Price per head websites, such as AcePerHead.com charge a small fee of $10 per active player a week, and then in return, they provide the bookie with a website with thousands of betting options each day. They manage the lines up to the second and grade everything as soon as each game is over, and then everything gets automatically updated to the players and bookies account so they can see exactly how much they are up or down on the day, the week, month or lifetime of the account.

The reason this small investment of $10 a player a week is well worth it is that between the time it would take a bookie to do everything on his own manually and the lack of betting options you would have because there is no way one person can manually keep track of thousands of betting options per day, would make this a full-time job with limited profit potential. Instead, you just pay a company like Ace Per Head a small fee each week and this will mean you do not need to invest any of your own time to manage the website and also your players are going to lose a lot more money when they have the ability to bet on a mobile website 24/7. So call Ace Per Head now at 1-800-909-5193 to get set up immediately so you can start making money today.

Juice & Commissions: How Much do Sportsbooks Keep as Profit?

The most important part of any business is how much money you can get from the business. As a bookie you are in charge of a lot of money, as you manage many bets. But when looking at the money you probably ask, what percentage do bookies take? The amount of money a bookie can make depends on many factors, such as; the number of players per week, how much per bet, and how often players place bets. Basically, the more money involved, players, and bets that are made per day equal more money for the sportsbook agent. As with any business, the more customers you have, the more money you will take home. But there is more to it than that when it comes to the salary of a sportsbook agent.

The Math Behind the Salary of a Bookie

First, it is important to establish when a bookie makes money. A bookie makes money when a player makes a bet on an event with an agent. The bookie sets the point spread or the Moneyline to keep the action balanced on both sides of the outcome, whether that means favoring the Miami Dolphins to beat the New England Patriots by 3 ½ points, or making the Moneyline Miami -120 / New England +160.

Fees

What percentage do bookies take? That question refers to the book fee that is collected from a wager. Bookies usually take around 10 percent, this is what they call the 'juice' or the vig. This is the most definitive source of income for a sportsbook agent. The money that is not collected is returned to the book. For example, let's say that a player bets on a game between the Washington Football Team and the Dallas Cowboys. Let's say the Cowboys are favored by 10 points, so you take the Cowboys, at a -10 spread with -110 odds. The player puts down $110 for the bet. If the player wins then they would get $210 back total (the original bet plus $100) back, if they were to lose, the book would keep the $110. Over time, that $10 edge on the favorites contributes to the bookie's profits.

Maximize Earnings

In order for a sportsbook agent to make a decent living, they have to maximize profits. To understand the question 'What percentage do bookies take?' the bookie gets their money from a vig, also known as the book fee on a wager. So the only way to maximize profit is to increase the opportunities to collect wager fees such as vig. In order to do that an agent must bring more business to their service, offer and manage more bets, and offer a wide variety of bets. If an agent can be versatile and offer high dollar bets as well as low dollar bets, then the money they collect will be on a spectrum. Some players start low and go high, and vice versa. It is important to encourage these trends by having these options available in bulk. The faster an agent can process and complete wagers, the more money they will make. If an agent can use a bookie software to operate an 'assembly line' of gambling, then they will make good money — which is where having a spot on a platform like AcePerHead.com comes in.

Where PPH software comes into play

There is a common saying, 'spend money, to make money', and in this context it is applicable. The best way for a sportsbook agent to make money in the modern gambling market is to invest in high-quality price per head software service. Price per head service packages are an excellent way to increase profit margins, especially AcePerHead.com. Service packages like then include a website based software that includes all of the tools necessary to run a smooth operation. Price per head service processes all of the bets automatically, and constantly updates the data, so your cash flow will increase because you will be able to handle numerous players and bets at the same time. And price per head software, especially AcePerHead.com, scales the growth as you go, so you will always meet demand. And meeting demand will increase your cash flow exponentially.

Why AcePerHead.com?

As you can see, to maximize the answer to 'what percentage do bookies take?' for your own business, if you do decide to increase profit via price per head services, AcePerHead.com is a premier option. With features such as live betting, automatic processing, expanded market, etc., it is the perfect software for making money. If you want to collect vig more often and 'make bank', then they are the way to go. The live casino in itself offers many opportunities to collect and process a wide variety of wagers.

As mentioned earlier, AcePerHead.com is able to automatically process your bets and update player data. This constant flow of cash and data will make your business uber efficient. The expanded market has a huge impact on profit. The numerous leagues and teams offer a multitude of spreads and lines to cover daily, the international scale AcePerHead.com operates on provides options constantly for players. Earlier we discussed examples of individual spreads and what happened in each scenario. Even if the agent won, they got a small percentage of the pot, which is how the market works. So by using price per head software, such as AcePerHead.com, to increase your chances of collecting a vig is the foundation to your business. Agents have to depend on their player base, if it does not grow, then the business will falter. As in every business at this scale, consumers decide which service lives and dies. So as an agent, your business has to be geared towards the customer, using price per head services to create a fast-paced and exciting environment for players will go a long way in building your sportsbook business.

How Much Money do You Need to Start a Bookmaker Business?

Have you thought about leaving your 9-5 job behind and using your sportsbook as your primary source of revenue? You're not alone – after all, many people who scramble to take calls and texts for their neighborhood sportsbook while negotiating the demands of another full-time job have been where you are in terms of stress. Maybe your book brings in a little money on the side, enough to make you think that you can expand. Before you make the jump, though, consider whether you are financially ready.

Getting Your Sportsbook Up and Running

There are other questions you'll need to answer, particularly if you are just now launching your book, in addition to how much money you need to start a bookie business. These questions include:

• What is the law with respect to sportsbooks where you live? (After all, it's one thing to run an under-the-table book with cash, but once you go online, law enforcement can find you much, much more easily.)

• How will you go about setting your lines?

• How much vig do you ask for?

• What happens when your book starts to grow?

• How do you track all of the action?

• What will you do when sharp bettors find your book?

If you use a sportsbook platform such as AcePerHead.com, some of these questions won't matter as much. The platform will offer lines that you can choose (or you can still set your own). The big question is still up to you, so you'll need to figure out what you can charge as opposed to what your betting clients will pay.

The questions about growth, tracking, and dealing with sharp bettors will remain. If you are online with AcePerHead.com, you don't have to worry about the growth, because the administration is their problem – you just have to make sure you have enough money on hand to deal with the extra action. If you notice that there are some people who keep winning, week after week, you can place limits on their actions.

So how much money do you need?

The answer to the question, how much money do you need to start a bookie site, is complicated. Obviously, you need to be able to afford licenses and fees to get your bookie site up and running. You will also need enough cash to cover every bet from the start. You should always have enough cash in reserves to cover every bet your clients have placed. Of course, if you set your lines correctly and then adjust them to keep action in balance, you should not need to send all your cash out at once, but that is still an industry standard.

After all, you never know when a sports event will turn out poorly for you and leave you unbalanced. In the wild card round of the 2020 NFL playoffs, the New Orleans Saints were 11-point favorites over the Chicago Bears. They led the Bears, 21-3, in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, and a lot of the big sportsbooks were nervous because the action on the Saints to cover had been so heavy.

Then the Bears scored a touchdown as time expired, to draw within 21-9. An extra point would make the final score 21-10 – resulting in a push. However, in NFL games, you do not try an extra point after time has expired, when that point does not make a difference competitively. In the wild card game, there are no tiebreakers to worry about, so the teams went into the locker room, the Saints won by 12, and a lot of big books were out a ton of money. All this is to say, of course, that you need to have money on hand to cover each bet.

Here's an example of how it might work out for you. Let's say you offer action on five games for a particular day and take in this action, all at 110 to 100 as the vig:

Game 1: $1200 on Team A and $1000 on Team B

Game 2: $750 on Team C and $900 on Team D

Game 3: $800 on Team E and $600 on Team F

Game 4: $750 on Team G and $650 on Team H

Game 5: $1000 on Team I and $900 on Team J

Because opposite bets cancel one another out, here's your net exposure by game:

Game 1: $200

Game 2: $150

Game 3: $200

Game 4: $100

Beat The Bookie Free

Game 5: $100

So even though your total handle is $8,550 (all of the bets totaled up), your total exposure is capped at $750 – and that's if all six games go against you. Realistically, you can expect that about half the action will go one way and half will go the other, so the key is to make sure that all your wagers stay as balanced as possible. You also keep the $10 extra on the $110 on the games where you win.

Do I really need to sign up with a sportsbook platform?

There are people who run successful bookies sites on their own, either the old school way, using cash, or through websites that they have designed. However, that takes a significant investment, in terms of developing the website. Also, it adds the hassle of having to manage things should the server go down. Over time, the investment in a pay per head bookie platform such as AcePerHead.com really pays off. Wouldn't you rather just focus on the fun parts of running a sportsbook? That means picking games, setting lines, choosing creative props, and telling more and more of your friends about your sportsbook. It doesn't mean having to take frantic calls from your betting clients when the website crashes and dealing with collections from betting clients who don't want to pay up. Consider using a platform like AcePerHead.com; the small weekly fee you pay for each betting client will pay off in time that you have back as you continue that transition into a full-time sportsbook agent.

Why Do Bookmakers Lay Off Bets