Underlaying and overlaying are a couple of great tools any advanced Matched Bettor should have in their toolbox.
Underlaying and overlaying are techniques designed to vary profit depending on the outcome of your bet.
Both can be used to turn offers that are not risk-free into risk-free opportunities and minimise losses on qualifying bets.
This guide will show you how to use the overlaying technique and show you how to include the technique in your quest for Matched Betting profit.
What is Overlaying?
Overlaying a Matched Bet means that you are placing a larger lay bet than you normally would.
As shown in the screen shot below from the DoppelWetten MB-Calculator, overlaying a particular bet would result in shifting the qualifying loss from the lay bet (with the betting exchange) to the back bet (with the bookmaker).
From the example shown below, a standard Matched Bet would result in a loss of €0,33. However, when overlaying you will have no loss if the lay bet wins but you will have a larger loss if the back bet wins.
Ultimately, you will increase your profit if your lay bet wins and end up with less profit if your back bet wins.
How to Overlay?
You use the DoppelWetten Matched Betting tools to calculate how much to lay if you want to overlay a bet.
If you use the DoppelWetten MB-Calculator you need to switch from Simple Mode to Advanced Mode.
If you are using the DoppelWetten Oddsmatcher, you also need to switch from Simple Mode (‘Einfacher Modus’) to Advanced Mode (‘Erweiterter Modus’) as shown below.
Regardless which DoppelWetten Matched Betting tool you use, you will always be able to customise the calculation.
This means you can choose how much you would like to overlay for a specific Matched Bet.
You change the stake by dragging the slider either to the left or to the right. It is always a good idea to play around with the numbers to learn how the calculation changes when the odds change, or when you underlay or overlay.
When to use Overlaying?
The most common use for overlaying is for trigger bets where you get a free bet if your selection wins, i.e. we want our back bet to win.
The trigger bet offers are not risk free as there is always a risk that the trigger will not happen. But by using the overlaying technique we can make them risk free.
Example – Overlaying trigger bet offers
Overlaying is a great technique for trigger bet offers where we would get a free bet if our back bet wins. By overlaying we can make the offer risk free.
As shown in the Calculator below, if we place a regular qualifying bet we will have a qualifying loss of €-1,06 or €-1,07 regardless of which bet wins.
But if the lay bet wins we would have a qualifying loss but no free bet.
If we instead overlay the bet, we will have no loss if our lay bet wins. If the back bet wins we will have a loss of €-4,54 but we will then receive a free bet.
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