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The language of the ladder

Guides

Short reads on the matching room — the ticket, the cut, the empty book, the map, and why a closed desk stays labelled. The cards below are the longer versions. No account offers. No live board.

  • 6 min read

    Back and Lay: Two Sides of the Same Ticket

    On a sportsbook you buy their number. On an exchange you sit on a ladder. Someone has to sit on the other side, or you are still waiting.

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  • 7 min read

    Commission Is Not a Sportsbook Margin

    A bookie shortens the price before you see it. An exchange usually leaves the price alone and takes a cut if you win. Mix the two up and every comparison starts lying.

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  • 8 min read

    Event Contracts Versus Back and Lay

    Call a US sports prediction venue “Betfair in America” and you have already picked the wrong licence. One ticket is a back-and-lay ladder. The other is a contract that pays a dollar or pays nothing.

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  • 8 min read

    Liquidity and the Empty Book

    The 2% on the leaflet does not matter while the stake is still sitting. Cheap commission is a story you tell after someone takes the other side — or after you walk to a worse number to make them.

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  • 8 min read

    How to Read a Fee Table

    People ask for the percent. Fine — except some desks do not have one. A cut of net winnings, a maker–taker coefficient, and a Pro tier that bills you when you lose are three machines. Rank them in one column and the “cheap” desk wins a race that never started.

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  • 8 min read

    What a Lay Can Cost You — and What a Dollar Contract Can

    Type £10 into a lay and the desk may lock £16. Buy a dollar contract at 62 cents and the hole is the other 38. Same Sunday, two ways to be wrong — and the number in the stake box is not always the one that hurts.

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  • 7 min read

    Two Maps: Where You Live Versus Where You Stand

    UK rooms usually care where you live. US event-contract desks often care which state you are standing in when you tap. Treat a VPN as the fix and you have mistaken a magazine for a product.

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  • 8 min read

    In-Play and Trading Out

    Pre-game, unmatched stake is a wait you chose. After kick-off the same wait can expire in a minute. Trading out means finding someone to take the other side. A sportsbook cash-out is the house buying you out at a number they like.

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  • 7 min read

    Closed Desks and Stale Rankings

    Sporttrade was a real US order-book sports venue. We keep the page and stamp it closed. Rankings that still badge it green are doing a different job.

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