Why Back and Lay if you don't win any money?
Because by doing this you qualify for the free bet on offer without having risked your own cash. The bookies are giving away free bets but you don't want to have to gamble in order to get them, do you?
When you bet £50 (your money) with the bookie who is advertising the free offer you automatically earn the £50 free bet (their money). These are also known as the Qualifying bet and the Free bet for obvious reasons.
Forget the Free bet for the moment and lets concentrate on that first Qualifying bet of yours: By placing a BACK bet on an even at the bookmakers you will be betting on something to win. At the same time you will be placing a LAY bet on the same event at the betting exchange which means that you are hoping something WONT win.
You will see that by Backing and Laying the same choice, both bets cancel each other out. When the outcome has been decided it means no profit or loss to you up to this point - but remember that you will have gained a Free Bet?
The next step is to repeat the process but this time you will be using the free bet you now have. When using the Free bet, you must Back and Lay again in the same manner as above, but remember this time the Back bet is using the bookies own money. You lay bet again with your own money and again the bets cancel each other out, but since only the lay bet was your money, you get to keep the profits, which will be around 80% - 90% of the free bet amount. Genius!
Before reading on make sure you understand the following:
All the free bets are offered by online bookies to new customers. If you have an account already it wont apply to you - but it could apply to your friends or family.
By placing a Qualifying bet you earn the Free bet.
When you place any type of back bet at the bookie (Qualifying or Free) you must also place a lay bet at Betfair because only by backing and laying the same thing does it guarantee you have covered every possibllty.
When you place your free bet (which is the bookies money) and the lay bet (with your money), the maths involved means you will get to keep around 80% - 90% of the free bet amount.
Now on to step 3.