Can You Bet on Something Not to Win?

If you were to ask a bettor who they’re intending to back in a sports event, then they will always tell you about the team or player that they think is going to win. It’s not very common that punters are asked who they’re betting on to lose though, is it? After all, this seems a little bit detrimental to the idea of placing a winning bet. Yet, it is still something that you can do, and there are a few different ways to go about it, too.

While the idea of betting on something not to win doesn’t seem as entertaining as backing a winner it is actually one of the ways professional bettors operate.  Using a system of betting on something to win and something not to win at favourable odds for both can guarantee a profit, known as arbitrage.  But even if you are not doing this to guarantee a profit there are occasions when you look at a betting market and you can’t decide who will win but you may think a selection will definitely lose.  The best way to do this would be to ‘lay’ the selection you think will not win using an exchange.

In effect, betting on something not to win is what bookmakers do traditionally.  By laying a bet or backing the alternate outcomes you are becoming your own mini-bookie.

Betting on the Alternate Outcomes

For simple markets if you are expecting a selection not to win, let’s say a football match, but you are not sure if it will be a draw or the opposing team will win then you can bet on the alternative option(s).  Let’s say that Manchester United are preparing to face off against Everton in a league match. Sportsbooks will offer odds on this match, with figures provided for a Manchester United win, an Everton win or a draw outcome.

Let’s say that you have it in mind that Everton will not win in this particular match. By choosing the option for a Manchester United win or a draw, you automatically bet on Everton to be the losing team. You can do this with two bets, betting on Man United to win and a draw, although this requires twice the stake and there is no guarantee you will make a profit, depending on the odds.

Another option is to use a different market.  Most matches like this will have a ‘double chance’ line, this is a bet that encompasses two outcomes.  Here, you could bet on Man United to win or draw – although the odds will likely not be that good but it does only require a single stake.  Another alternative is to back a ‘draw no bet’ market, here you can bet on Man United to win and if they win you get paid out but if it is a draw you get your stake back.

These bets are not really very efficient, though, and they are not available for all sports and markets.  If you wanted to bet on a horse to lose in a race with 10 other horses, for example, there is no specific market with a fixed odds bookmaker to do this.

Requesting the Bet from Your Bookmaker

Many online betting sites, and even high street retail betting shops, have the possibility of allowing you to choose your own odds – essentially creating your own bets. In this respect, you can easily contact the sportsbook and ask to have a bet created that allows you to place a bet on a specific team or player losing. You can find such options at William Hill under the #YourOdds section or BetVictor, which offers the #PriceItUp function, just as a couple of examples.

Let’s say that Rory McIlroy is favourite to win The Open Championship golf tournament, for example. You are pretty much certain that McIlroy will not win, but of course, sportsbooks only tend to provide betting odds on a player winning. You would be able to utilise the bet request features to request a wager to be made for you on McIlroy not winning. This sees you Tweet the market, or use a form on the website, to request odds on that happening. At which point the bookie looks into whether they want to accept that bet and if so what odds they will give you. Traders then price it up and inform you if it has been successful, at which point the market will appear in the relevant section on the site for you to back.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of price requests of this nature provide punters with quite poor value. This makes them quite inefficient as well. That being said, poorer odds overall is much better than no odds at all for some bettors, and they will take whatever price the bookmaker provides to them for that market. Bookies will set their prices based on various different factors, and it is always on the bookmaker’s mind to balance the book as much as possible. It is much easier to do this for large events that draw a lot of interest, so for example a big football tournament game. However, the more obscure a market actually is, the harder it is, and in some circumstances, the bookmaker may flat out refuse to include that request as a possible betting option for you.

Laying Bets On An Exchange

The third, and best value, option to take when it comes to betting on something not to win is to engage in lay betting. This is pretty much the description of what a lay bet is. When you back something, you want it to win. When you lay something, you’re looking for it to lose.  Here you are being your own micro-bookie, you offer odds to other people to back, if the selection loses you get to keep those stakes and if the selection wins you in effect pay out the other bettor.

Usually, lay betting is done through an online betting exchange, such as the one offered by Betfair. Mainly because standard sportsbooks don’t frequently offer bets on something not to happen. Laying a bet on the exchange is the simplest way to go about participating in such a wager.

Exchange betting can sometimes look quite confusing to anyone who is familiar with standard sports betting. It takes a bit of time to understand how it looks, how it operates and so on. The odds look quite strange, and they’re pretty much thrown all over the place, making it a little bit mind-boggling. However, despite this initial confusion, lay betting has actually completely altered the way that betting works, and has even forced several bookmakers to divert away from the norms.

If you’re looking for slightly different bets, then exchange betting is the route to take, despite how complex it may initially seem, it’s actually not as difficult as it would seem. When you engage in lay betting, you are basically acting as the bookmaker, providing bets to your gambling peers.

Let’s utilise horse racing as an example of describing lay betting. Picture in your head two people studying an upcoming race. Let’s say that there’s a 15:00 race occurring at Lingfield, and 12 horses are scheduled to race in it. Person A believes that the favourite named Shining Aitch will definitely win, while person B has a lot more faith that it won’t win, but also has no clear idea of which horse will be the victor in the end. They therefore both place bets on Shining Aitch, but of a differing nature. Person A backs the horse while person B opts for a lay bet on it.

As this stands, the back bet states “I have faith that Shining Aitch will win”, while the lay bet states, “I have faith that any of the horses in the race apart from Shining Aitch will win”. If Shining Aitch does indeed go on to win, then person A wins. On the other hand, if any of the other competing horses win the race, then he lay bettor wins.  The exchange wins either way by charging a commission (usually 2-5%) on the winning bet.

To put it simply, lay betting gives people a way of betting against something without really needing to have any knowledge of what will win as long as it is not that selection. It is the simplest and easiest form of betting on something not to win.

Arbing Like the Professional Bettors

Those people who consider themselves as professional gamblers don’t like to leave anything to chance. Therefore, it is not uncommon to see these bettors engage in something known as arbitrage betting (or arbing, for short). If this is successfully implemented into a betting strategy, it gives you the opportunity to guarantee profit every time you place a wager. Why? Because you’re able to bet on all possible outcomes in a given event at the same time, using the best available prices as you go.

Also known as surebets, miraclebets or surewins, arbitrage betting sees you both back and lay on an event. This is possible when discrepancies between odds are noticed between bookmakers. Therefore, professionals cover all possible outcomes this way, and most of the time, this is a standard binary bet, where just two outcomes are possible.

Arbing most commonly occurs when two bookmakers disagree on the odds of a specific event. Alternatively, it could be the case that a bookie makes a mistake when pricing the market, which punters then hastily take advantage of for themselves.

Arbing is actually much more of a mathematical process though, and it is this that ensures the profit in the end. And in fact, most arbers will pretty much confess that they have very little interest in the sport(s) that they bet on in this way. The element of luck is basically removed from your betting experience with this.  It also removes a lot of the fun from betting and makes it more transactional, but at the same time it means you can do it without risking losing overall.

How Does Arbitrage Betting Work?

Well, let’s utilise an example to explain it clearer. Let’s say that a tennis match is taking place between Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic. You find two bookmakers that are offering odds on the game. With Betfair, Murray has odds of 1.300 and Djokovic has 3.930. Meanwhile, through the William Hill site, the pair are given odds of 1.420 and 2.900, respectively. Through this, you can see that it is better to bet on Murray through William Hill, and Djokovic via Betfair. And this is how the professionals proceed.

In this example, if you were to bet £100 on Murray at 1.42, you would receive £142 back if he wins. By placing a wager of £36.13 on Djokovic via the Betfair platform, you would just about match the expected payout of the Murray bet. Altogether, this bet would see you staking £136.13 in order to receive a guaranteed return of £5.86. And it is this method that professional bettors utilise as a way of guaranteeing themselves profit.

As you can see the profit percentage is not huge and this means you need to either have big stakes or place lots of bets like this to make money.  Those that do this as a semi-job though effectively scan markets every day to find these discrepancies, some even use computer algorithms to find these mis-matched prices to exploit.

Leaving the Exchange Behind

Now, if you have ever visited a betting exchange, you may have found it to be too confusing and closed the website down straight away. Obviously, like anything, this is not something that appeals to everyone. That’s totally fine, as betting on an exchange when you don’t understand what you’re doing can be dangerous. The route to take in this circumstance is to utilise the second option mentioned earlier – by asking the standard bookie if they will offer you odds.

It’s just that you need to be aware that the pricing may not be the best for you as the punter. Prices most definitely won’t be as good as those found on a betting exchange. However, if you feel more comfortable with this form of sports wagering, it does serve as an alternative for you to utilise.

Deciding to bet on something not happening may feel like you’re going against what a sportsbook is there for, but it’s not really an activity that is uncommon. If you consider that placing a bet on a football team winning is by implication betting on the other team not winning, it doesn’t seem so odd, right? And you may just be surprised by how many bookies are actually willing to cater to you wanting to place a bet against something happening.