In a golf tournament you can have a huge field, by field we mean number of selections to bet on. The number of potential winners in a golf tournament could be significant thanks to the way these sports are played.

Each market has its own rules and differing field size depending on what sport you are looking at and how the market is settled. In a horse racing when you are looking at a place market there can be more than one ‘winner’ so the number of selections is the same but you are now betting on the chance of any one of the horses to finish in the top three or four places in the race.  Always pay close attention to the rules tab and at least check it when you switch into new sports and markets. A lot of damage has been done to peoples profits by not checking the rules! Click the rules tab on the exchange market to careful check which market you are in, whether it is in-play or not, what the rules are and the type of market you are in. Win only markets only pay out to backers who have backed the one selection that won but each market has its own settlement methods and rules and you are well advised to check these before you bet.

Image from rules section of the Betfair screen

The best prices being currently matched are always displayed underneath the back and lay columns in the middle of the screen.  On the top of each of the best prices to bay or lay at is the book percentage, more on this later. You will also get an ‘in-play’ indicator to show you if the event you are betting on has started, if there is no ‘in-play’ indicator it means there is still some time left before the start. You can bet on any sports event you wish but some events never go ‘in-play’ and therefore all the betting closes when the event starts. Other events will go ‘in-play’; this means that as well as betting on the outcome before an event has started you can also bet on the event when it is underway. When a market goes ‘in-play’ all existing unmatched bets are cancelled and you will need to re-enter your bet into the market.

It is important to note that any bet you place in the market will always match at the best available price. If the best available price to back is 3.80 and you place a back order at 3.75 then it will match at 3.80, in fact if you placed an order at to back at 1.01, the lowest available odds, it would still fill at 3.80. The opposing situation is true. If you lay at 3.95 and the best available price is 3.85 then the lay will be ‘filled’ at 3.85 if you lay at 1000, the highest odds available, it will fill at 3.85, the best available lay price. You should note, for reasons that will be explained later, that it is not sensible to enter orders at such extremes just in case you get a bad fill on your order. Typically you will be looking to take odds at prices that you can see.