Best Lay Betting Systems

With the advent of Betfair and the betting exchanges in the early 2000s, punters were given the chance to do something they hadn’t been able to up to that point – bet on selections to lose.

Otherwise known as lay betting, this new tool in bettors’ armoury forever changed the game and created whole new dynamics in terms of betting, trading and how punters saw markets.

Where as previously you had only been able to bet on a horse, player or team to win, now you could potentially make money from betting on them to lose, just as the bookies had been doing for centuries.

Ordinary bettors could even become market-makers themselves, pricing up selections and becoming defacto bookies.

Now that the betting exchanges have become an ingrained part of the gambling world and are largely taken for granted, it has almost been forgotten what a revolutionary development the introduction of lay betting has been. But we should not forget how significantly it has changed the landscape nor the opportunities it opens up for us as bettors.

Below we are going to take a look at some of the best of these opportunities – the top five most effective laying strategies we have uncovered through all our years of reviews and testing here at Honest Betting Reviews.

Before we get on to that though, a quick word on lay betting.

Introduction – Lay Betting

Although as we have said the advent of lay betting was a tremendously significant development in betting and is an additional tool in the bettor’s arsenal, it should not be thought of as a road to instant riches.

When the bookies lay selections (or take bets on them in other words), they do so with an over-round in their favour. This “house edge” means they offer slightly worse odds than the true chances of the selections winning – that is how they make their money.

So if for example a horse has a 5/2 chance of winning a race, the bookies will offer 9/4, or even 2/1 if we are talking about the more stingy bookmakers…we won’t name names here but you know who they are! The bookies can do this and know that bets will get taken as there are millions of customers out there.

Whereas if you are laying a horse on Betfair, such is the liquidity of the markets and competition for prices that you would not have that luxury of offering poor prices and expecting bets to get taken. Occasionally you may get matched at lower odds due to the general fluctuations in the market but this would not be consistent.

On top of that, you would need to overcome the 2% commission you are charged by Betfair, so in effect you would need to beat the market by at least 3% to make a profit in the long run, just as you need to with back betting.

So making money laying is actually quite hard, despite how easy it might seem at first to “pick losers.” In fact, at Honest Betting Reviews we’ve found only a handful of really good laying systems and the majority of the winning strategies we’ve found are actually backing ones.

There are some good ones out there though who have found a knack of profiting from laying, which we will take a look at now.

Top 5 Lay Betting Systems

So now we take a look at our top five lay betting systems we have found through our extensive testing and research, starting from number five down to the best. They cover quite a wide range of sports and approaches but have all shown an ability to produce a consistent profit.

5. Donkey Lays

In theory the idea of backing horses to lose seems very appealing – it seems easy to pick those wretched types who look like they could never win in a month of Sundays. Well it is actually tougher than it first seems and we have in fact only found two decent horse laying services in our time here at Honest Betting Reviews.

One of those is Donkey Lays, which is a service that looks for horses to lay in the win and place markets on Betfair. They only lay at prices of 4.0 and below on the place market, although that can still mean the prices on the win part of the bet are as high as 18, which is a little higher than we would normally like to see so a large bank is recommended to cover any such losses.

However, the results so far have been very good, with over 160 points profit made in total. The strike rate on the place market is excellent at just under 90% whilst it is also strong on the win market at over 67%.

It is still relatively early days with this service but the results look promising and Donkey Lays seems to have found a propsensity for identifying out-of-form types.

4. Lay Overs – Trade on Sports

When it comes to football, most punters don’t like the idea of laying goals. They like the feeling of backing the overs market and cheering for there to be goals, when they can celebrate with lots of “Booms!” and positive emojis.

This service takes an alternative approach however and has been remarkably successful at doing so. It comes from the excellent Trade on Sports platform and is known as their “HT 2 ahead lay overs” strategy. In simple terms that means they are betting that there will be less than two goals in the second half of selected matches. For example that means if a game is 1-1 at half-time, you are laying over 3.5 goals.

The strategy is based on a huge database of stats of past matches, known as the “Gamestate App” which looks at leagues and teams in question and works out the chances of more goals, taking into account the timing of goals in the game so far. We ran a review of Trade on Sports and gave it a resounding thumbs up after they made a superb profit across their systems.

The Lay Overs strategy itself has produced excellent results, making over 45 points profit since going live at a return on investment of 17%, which is exceptional for football betting. The strike rate is impressive at 53%, meaning over half the bets have been winners.

Trade on Sports consider this to be their number one strategy and we can see why. Sometimes it pays to go “against the crowd” as it were and this is one of those instances where doing just that and laying further goals in a game has really paid off.

3. Tennis Goldmine

Tennis is one of the most gambled-on sports in the world and the liquidity on matches on the main ATP and WTA tours is usually very high. This means there are good opportunities for trading and for laying.

One strategy that has capitalised on this opportunity is Tennis Goldmine from respected tennis betting expert Patrick Ross. It is a simple lay betting system with a few rules and it only takes a few minutes per day to find the bets.

We ran a live trial of the system and it performed very well, making 28 points profit at a return on investment of 10% and with a strike rate of 52%, which is good going.

There are two staking systems to choose from, one is a loss-recovery system known as the Fibonacci staking system which can be quite volatile and requires a substantial bank to weather the potential drawdowns, whilst the other is simple flat staking. Whilst the Fibonacci staking is more risky it also offers potentially higher rewards.

Tennis Goldmine now comes with Patrick’s tennis betting tips for free, making it excellent value for what you get as part of the package. As a simple laying strategy that has produced solid results it is well worth checking out.

2. Football Advisor Lays

Next up is a long running football laying service from the respected Football Advisor team. This is a service we have reviewed twice, firstly back in 2017 and more recently in 2018. Both times it made a profit, notching up a combined 44 points profit.

They provide both lay the win and lay the draw selections in leagues from around the world and use their extensive stats database to find value bets. It was the lay the win selections that performed best during our trial so it may be best to concentrate on those. The strike rate for the selections was very high at nearly 80% whilst the return on investment was a decent 7%.

The service has been running since way back in 2013 and we often say here that longevity is the ultimate sign of a successful system. In that time they have made over £11,420 profit to £35 stakes and have averaged a strike rate of 84%, which means a very high number of successful lays.

All in all then with return on capital, or bank growth, at over 320% Football Advisor Lays has stood the test of time and proved itself as one of the best lay betting systems out there.

1. Little Acorns

Taking the number one slot in terms of the best lay betting systems is none other than the multi-award winning Little Acorns.

As we mentioned with Football Advisor Lays, longevity is a key test of a truly successful system and there are few betting services with greater longevity than Little Acorns. Having been originally released way back in 2009, it has made a profit every year since and is one of the most tried and tested strategies out there.

Little Acorns is essentially a simple betting system for laying horses at odds-on according to a set of just four rules which are laid out in the PDF guide. Much like Tennis Goldmine, it recommends using a form of loss-recovery staking, although you can of course use flat staking if you are of a lower-risk appetite – but the profits will be lower at the same time.

As the old saying goes and the name of the services alludes to, “Great oaks from little acorns grow.” The idea is that you can start with a small amount and just build it gradually and steadily into something quite substantial, using the magic of compounding. We have heard that some members have done exactly that and now bet at quite hefty stakes, producing very decent profits.

We ran our own review of the system and it performed admirably, racking up 189 points profit with a 51% strike rate. What’s nice about the system is that it only takes around 10-15 minutes per day to find the selections and there is an average of just one bet per day, so it’s easy to use.

It is no surprise that Little Acorns has won numerous awards in its time, including our very own Best Horse Racing Service 2020 voted for by our members, after having been runner-up twice in the same category in previous years. It has a loyal fan base who have seen what it can do.

Given its long track record of success over such a long period, Little Acorns is deserving of a place right at the top of this list.

Conclusion – Lay Betting Systems

So there you have it, our top five lay betting systems.

They cover a variety of different sports and a range of different approaches, but all have one thing in common: the ability to generate a decent, long-term profit.

This is our own choice, so please let us know if there is a good one you use that isn’t mentioned in this list.

Lay betting presents punters with a valuable tool in their arsenal but there have been surprisingly few successful laying strategies developed over the years. It is not as easy as it seems, which makes the achievement of those that have managed to make a profit from laying all the more commendable.

Whether you follow one of the systems above or develop your own laying strategy, good luck with your betting and please always gamble responsibly.