Let’s do a brief summary of everything so far.
When you BET you choose how much money to place on an outcome.
If you win, you will take home the amount you have bet multiplied by the odds.
E.g. Match Juventus – Lazio
If I bet $10 on a Juventus win at 1.90, I’ll take home $10 x 1.90 = $19.
So far, so simple.
Things get a little more complicated when you have to BANK a result on the Exchange Bet.
When you bank, you come into play: liability.
The name “responsibility” is already a bit scary, isn’t it?
…no fear, now I’ll explain exactly what it is!
Let’s start with a practical example, so everything will be clearer.
Match Juventus-Lazio, we decide to BANK Juventus because after our careful analysis we believe that Juve will not be able to win the match.
What do we do to BANK Juventus?
- We go to Betfair Exchange,
- select the match Juventus – Lazio and click on the pink column called “bank”,
- select the box relating to Juventus.
As you can see from the image, the exchange bet itself reminds us that Bank, means you are betting AGAINST Juventus. In simple terms you believe Juve will lose or draw the match.
At this point we have to decide how much we want to win.
Yes, that’s right!
We don’t have to choose how much to bet, but how much profit we want to take home.
If, for example, as in the picture, we want to win $30, we enter “30” in the “Bet Bet” box and the risk, in this case $27.30, will appear on the right hand side.
But what is risk?
It is simply another way of defining liability.
It tells us, that is, how much money will be “committed” to our account for that bet.
When we give the OK for the bet, the platform will not deduct $30 from our balance, only the $27.30 liability, in case we lose.
Are you beginning to understand? Well, let’s delve a little deeper.
When the game ends, if Juventus have lost or drawn we’ve won our previously agreed $30.
If Juventus win (and therefore lose the bet) we won’t lose the $30, but we will lose the money we pledged as a “liability”, i.e. the famous $27.30.
To sum up…
WHEN WE PLACE A BET WE DECIDE A PRIORI HOW MUCH WE WANT TO WIN. BASED ON THE ODDS AND THE AMOUNT WE HAVE DECIDED TO WIN, THE LIABILITY WILL BE DETERMINED, I.E. WHAT WILL BE DEDUCTED FROM OUR BALANCE IN THE EVENT OF A LOSS.
From this it is easy to deduce that:
- the lower the odds, the lower the liability;
- the higher the odds, the higher the amount of liability.
What if we decide to bank Lazio?
THE ITALIAN BETTING EXCHANGE PLATFORMS: BETFAIR AND BETFLAG
BETFAIR
Betfair is one of the most famous bookmakers in the world and its website is one of the most comprehensive you can find.
It was the pioneer of Betting Exchange in Italy and is duly authorised to operate with an AAMS licence.
Thanks to Betfair’s platform you can also use cashouts.
With the cashout you have the possibility to cash out your winnings or reduce your losses by closing your bet before the end of the sporting event you bet on.
This function introduces the concept of Sports Trading in Italy, which allows the buying and selling of bets in real time, just as it happens on the stock exchange when you buy or sell the shares of certain companies.
If you want to learn more about this topic, I recommend you read our list of the best books on sports betting and the Exchange which you can find here.
BETFLAG
This is a very reliable bookmaker and is the only legal alternative to Betfair for those who decide to try Exchange Betting.
Betflag has a very intuitive and easy to use website and applies very good commissions on winnings (about 2%).