Scenarios For Using This Betting Calculator

Picture betting £50 on a horse at big ante post odds of 16/1 months before Cheltenham.
On the day of the race your selection is 4/1 favourite at the bookmakers.
On the betting exchange you can lay the horse at odds of 9/2 i.e. 5.5 decimal odds.

You can of course choose to just let your original bet stand.
There is nothing wrong with that from a value punting perspective.
However it keeps you at risk of a £50 cash loss.

If instead you decide to lay back your original stake
(plus a fraction more due to the impact of betting exchange commission),
you can instead create a zero risk scenario for yourself.

Watching a race knowing you can win cash but in a worst case scenario lose £0,
is not a terrible position to be in.

Of course the scenario need not be ante post.
It could also be day of race betting.
Say you were lucky enough to bet a horse at high early bookmaker prices
and said horse then steamed in thus creating for you trade back potential.

Note that the calculator permits you to add extra rows.
This covers the scenario of you backing the same horse
over time at different odds and stakes.

Quick Thought:

Aiming to achieve exactly net £0 should your horse not win, is somewhat of
an arbitrary target figure. Whilst a natural choice, an individual may instead adjust
their stake laid back in different ways. In the £50 original bookmaker stake example
laying say just £25 back would reduce your risk from £50 to £25 ish.
If the horse did in fact win your profit would be higher compared to when laying back the full £50

Or the more pessimistic might decide to lay back in excess of their original stake.
If so you could guarantee yourself a net profit irrespective of whether your horse wins or loses.
Assuming all else is fixed, how much stake you choose to lay back is somewhat
of a slider that lets you control the degrees at which you make cash
on either the horse wins or horse does not win outcomes.

Have a play with some imaginary bets in the calculator.

• Aim 1 – £0 loss if your horse does not win
• Aim 2 – £1 profit if your horse does not win
• Aim 3 – Equal profit whether your horse wins or does not win

LayBack Spreadsheet

For those of you who prefer excel spreadsheets note that there
is a simple spreadsheet that performs in similar fashion to
this online betting calculator at

https://www.mathematician-betting.co.uk/download/layback.xlsx