Best Betting Exchange Sites in India (April 2024)

What Are Betting Exchanges?

Instead of a bookmaker, which offers a price on a range of markets, users bet against each other on a betting exchange.

Sites such as Fun88 and Dafabet allow people to both bet on an event happening - and against it happening. This means there is a lot more flexibility in using betting exchanges compared to bookmakers. A good comparison is to think of betting exchanges in a similar way to internet auction sites. 

On websites such as eBay, buyers and sellers are matched up for a range of types of products. 

At a betting exchange, bettors are matched up in a similar way. Due to the lack of overheads associated with bookmakers, betting exchanges tend to offer better value to their customers.

How Do Betting Exchanges Work?

As we have touched on, betting exchanges allow sports fans to bet against each other. This is through a process called backing and laying, which we will come on to a bit later.

At a standard bookmaker, they set the odds of a certain event happening. It is then up to the player to decide whether or not they want to take that price.

But at a betting exchange, the process does not involve a bookmaker. Instead, players set the price, and other users can make up their minds whether or not it represents good value.

Betting exchanges then take a cut - known as a commission - of each winning wager. This is how they make their money. The commission is still usually less than a bookmaker's margin.

After placing a bet on the betting exchange, it is also possible to effectively cash out by using the laying mechanism on such sites. So what does backing and laying actually mean?

Backing and Laying at Betting Exchanges

Using betting exchanges involves understanding two key terms: backing and laying.

A back bet is to gamble on an event happening. For example, betting on Rajasthan Royals to win a game in the IPL would be a back bet.

But if you did not think RR were going to win, you could opt to place a lay bet. This means the wager is a winner if the result is either a draw or an RR loss.

To place a back bet on a betting exchange, another user must have agreed to lay the bet. This is how the betting exchange works in practice.

Some markets will have a lot more money in them than others. This makes it easier to place a back bet. On markets without a lot of interest, the matching process might take more time.

Users may opt to use a betting exchange to lock in profit from a back bet at a bookmaker. By laying the same outcome, it would be possible to guarantee winning cash whatever happens. Backing and laying bets on a betting exchange is also sometimes referred to as trading.

Commission at Betting Exchanges

Betting exchanges cannot profit in the same way as bookmakers, so commission is what they use in order to make sure they can bank some cash.

Commission levels differ by a significant margin across the various betting exchanges that are available to use on the Internet.

The commission is a cut of each winning wager and is usually set somewhere between zero and five per cent. Sometimes, power users of betting exchanges may need to pay a slightly higher commission level as a result of the number of bets they are placing on the platform.

There is no way to get out of paying the commission, with players simply needing to treat this figure as if it is the equivalent of the betting margin that traditional bookmakers retain.