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The commission you pay on an exchange winning bet reduces your effective odds. There is a subtlety that experienced exchange users understand and newcomers often miss. The back price might be 6.0 but only fifty pounds is available at that price, and the lay price might be 7.0 — a gap that represents poor value for anyone trying to trade. That difference — roughly 10 per cent on the individual price — is the cost of the bookmaker margin. The exchange takes a commission on the net winnings of the winning side, typically between 2 and 5 per cent depending on the user’s activity level. Instead of setting odds and accepting bets against them, the exchange matches punters on opposite sides of a bet.
If the exchange back price is 8.0 and the best bookmaker is offering 6/1, the bookmaker is taking a significantly wider margin on that horse. Open Betfair or Smarkets and look at the back price on your selection. For any given horse, you can see the best available price highlighted, and the difference between the best and worst price is often two or three points of odds — the difference between 7/1 and 5/1 on the same horse in the same race.
If the exchange offers 6.0 and the bookmaker offers 5/1, the bookmaker is competitive after commission. The practical approach for most punters is to use both. When should you use the exchange, and horse racing sites not on gamstop when should you use a bookmaker?
Bookmakers open with a cautious book and adjust as money comes in. The first show of prices in the morning — often called the early prices — tends to carry a wider margin than the Starting Price. On the raceday market itself, there are consistent patterns. Ante-post markets on the Cheltenham Gold Cup or Champion Hurdle typically run between 140 and 160 per cent, which is lower than the National but still significantly wider than raceday. The aggregate effect across 20 runners adds up to a much wider margin than in a six-runner race. At the lower end, you find small-field Flat races — Group 1 contests with five or six runners where the form is well established and bookmakers compete aggressively on the headline price of the favourite.
There are practical considerations that limit BOG value. Using the exchange as a benchmark — even if you ultimately bet with a bookmaker — is one of the most effective habits a punter can develop. If the exchange offers 7.0 and the bookmaker offers 5/1, the bookmaker is taking a significantly larger margin on that runner, and you should either back on the exchange or find a bookmaker whose price is closer to the exchange level.
The punter who understands odds mechanics and monitors these differences consistently captures value; the one who does not subsidises bookmaker profits. On short-priced selections — odds-on or evens — the exchange commission can actually make the bookmaker price competitive or even better, because the commission is a fixed percentage of the profit regardless of the odds. The difference between 3/1 and 7/2 is not dramatic on a single bet, but across 200 bets over a season it represents dozens of units of profit or loss. Setting a betting bankroll—a defined sum separate from everyday finances—and staking consistently relative to that bankroll prevents the escalation that accompanies chasing losses.
On horses that are supported in the market — money coming in, price shortening — BOG adds nothing, because the SP is lower than the price you took. Check the exchange price on your selection before placing with a bookmaker. Flutter Entertainment, which owns Betfair, reported global revenue of $14 billion in 2024 across 13.9 million average monthly users, but the exchange is only one part of that portfolio, and liquidity varies enormously by market.
The difference between 5/1 and 6/1 on the same horse in the same race is a 20 per cent increase in profit — free money, essentially, for the 30 seconds it takes to check a second bookmaker. Each-way is unprofitable on short-priced horses where place returns are minimal, in small fields with weak terms, and when your assessment favours win-or-nothing outcomes. BOG value emerges when horses attract late support and steam into shorter prices, while your early-morning selection drifts in consequence. Always check the specific terms at your chosen bookmaker before calculating whether each-way represents value. For punters betting on the morning’s early races or taking ante-post positions that settle on the day, checking the activation window is essential.
