Read Market Depth on a Betting Exchange Before You Stake
How much of your stake gets the price on screen? The amounts beside the prices tell you.
On a betting exchange, liquidity is the money other bettors have offered, and depth is how that money is spread over the prices on your screen. A stake can be placed at the best price, then at the next one down, and whatever the market cannot take waits as an offer. So the price you see is the price of the first slice, and the average you get depends on how far down the ladder your stake reaches. Matched volume is another number: it counts what has already traded, not what is left to take. Below, two ladders are read line by line, one deep and one thin.
A price comes with a size
The screen says 2.74. In one market that is a price for £185; in another, for £45. Same number, different bet.
A filled cell on Orbit Exchange pairs a price with an amount: back cells are blue, lay cells pink. Read the amount first (the price gets the glance, the amount does the work). Orbit’s tooltip on a back cell says you can “Bet up to” that amount at that price “to be matched instantly or choose your own odds and stake waiting for someone to accept your bet”.
Up to the amount shown, your stake can go down at that price. Past it, you want the next price down, or a price of your own. For an empty cell Orbit’s tooltip reads “Click here to add an offer and wait for someone with an opposing opinion to accept your bet.”
Back, lay and liability are in the exchange betting overview; this page takes them as read.
Walking the ladder
Say two match markets look like the ones below (made up, built for the sum rather than for realism). You want to back £340, and only the market limits the stake. In the deep one a backer can take £185 at 2.74, £175 at 2.72 and £420 at 2.70. To put £340 down you take the £185 at 2.74, then £155 of the £175 at 2.72, and stop. Two steps.
Hypothetical figures, on a scale of £420.
Show the data table
| Price | Amount on offer |
|---|---|
| 2.74 | £185 |
| 2.72 | £175 |
| 2.70 | £420 |
The thin market has the same best price and far less behind it. The same £340 now takes four steps, and the last is only part of a slice.
Hypothetical figures, same scale.
Show the data table
| Price | Amount on offer |
|---|---|
| 2.74 | £45 |
| 2.64 | £55 |
| 2.52 | £125 |
| 2.30 | £285 |
| Step | Price | Offered | Taken | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2.74 | £45 | £45 | £45 |
| 2 | 2.64 | £55 | £55 | £100 |
| 3 | 2.52 | £125 | £125 | £225 |
| 4 | 2.30 | £285 | £115 | £340 |
The sum behind the figures
Average price = the sum of price × amount taken ÷ stake. Profit if the bet wins = stake × (average price - 1). Commission comes off that profit at your route’s rate, and the commission calculator runs it.
Deep: (506.90 + 421.60) ÷ 340 = 2.731 (2.7309 before rounding), so £588.50 of profit. Thin: (123.30 + 145.20 + 315.00 + 264.50) ÷ 340 = 2.494 (2.4941 before rounding), so £508.00.
The yardstick is 2.74 on the whole £340, which would make £591.60 of profit. The thin market falls £83.60 short of it (14.1% of that profit), the deep one £3.10. Commission is in none of these figures.
Matched in part, and what waits
Not every stake fills. Orbit Exchange returns a bet offer as unmatched, partially matched or matched in full, and the section on a partly matched lay shows the lay side. Here the question is how much of the stake fills (and “matched” has nothing to do with matched betting, the promotion trick; it just means taken by someone).
Put the £340 down at 2.74 alone and only £45 is matched; Orbit confirms a partial fill with “Your bet has been partially matched”. The rest is not a bet yet. Orbit’s walkthrough says it stays in the market as an offer until you cancel it, and that an offer nobody matches before the market closes or turns in-play returns your money. Three ways to place the stake follow.
- Walk. Take the next prices down, as in the table: 2.494 on average. Best for: a view that is time-sensitive, or a market deep enough that the average barely moves. Not ideal if: the ladder falls away fast after the first price.
- Wait. Back at 2.74 and let the rest sit: £45 is matched at 2.74, worth £78.30 of profit if the bet wins, and £295 waits as an offer. Best for: a price you want and can hold, with a stake that can sit as an offer. Not ideal if: the event is close, since in a market that turns in-play unmatched bets are cancelled at the start unless you chose “At In-Play: Keep”.
- Split. Take two or more steps down the ladder, then offer what is left at a price of your own instead of going further down. Best for: getting part of the stake down now without giving up the price you came for. Not ideal if: you need the whole stake matched before a set moment.
Depth is not matched volume
Depth is how much sits at each price down the ladder at this moment: what is left on the shelf. Matched volume is what has already left it.
The tooltip for the Matched column describes the total accepted by customers with opposing opinions on this market. That is a record of trades, and a large total can sit beside a thin ladder at your price: it shows the market has traded, not that £340 is waiting at 2.74.
The overround, which Orbit explains in a tooltip of its own, is “the competitiveness of the prices on offer”: it adds up the chance of every selection at the price offered.
When the ladder disappears
A ladder is a snapshot. Orbit’s walkthrough says prices and the money available change constantly, particularly just before a race and once a market is in-play. Orbit’s exchange rules pull offers too.
- The start of the event. In a market that turns in-play, unmatched bets are cancelled; the option “At In-Play: Keep” makes a bet persist when the others go.
- A material event. In football, a goal, a penalty or a red card counts as one; the market should suspend and unmatched bets should cancel.
- A non-runner. When a horse is removed from a race, unmatched offers to lay all the other horses are cancelled once its reduction factor reaches 2.5% in a win market or 4.0% in a place market (late withdrawals follow a separate rule, and offers carrying “At In-Play: Keep” are not cancelled). The reduction factor is the rules’ own percentage for how likely the removed horse was to win, or to be placed in a place market.
- Any time. The rules reserve the right to cancel unmatched bets at any time to protect customers.
The first three can hit the part of a stake that is still waiting unless it carries “At In-Play: Keep”, and the fourth is a standing right to cancel it. A deep ladder now is no guide to the ladder after the first goal.
Cash Out can go when the room does
Orbit’s Cash Out page says Cash Out may not be available at times when a market has low liquidity, and that an amount is not guaranteed while live prices keep moving.
Depth is not a stake cap
Two ceilings, set by two different parties. Depth is what the market offers at a price. A cap is what a bookmaker or a broker lets through. It is a separate check, and a stake has to clear it as well as the ladder. Three pages take it from three sides: what Orbit’s limit message says, room at the price and the page on sites that take winners.
Picture a bettor with £3,600 and a read on a match market. Say nothing caps the stake except the market itself. The question moves to the ladder: how far down will the average price stay worth taking? Some bettors would walk it, some would post one price and wait. Neither is right for everyone, and both start with reading the amounts.
A deep ladder makes a stake easy to place. It does not make the bet a good one, and most bettors lose over time, here as anywhere.
Seven words for reading a ladder
- Ladder: the column of prices on one side of a selection, each with the amount offered.
- Best price: the top of a ladder, meaning the highest price on offer for a back and the lowest for a lay.
- Gap: the distance between the best back price and the best lay price.
- Depth: how much is offered at each price down the ladder, and how fast it falls away.
- Thin market: little at the best price, and the next prices a long way down.
- Average price: what a stake that crosses several steps really gets, worked out as in the sum above.
- Matched volume: what has already traded in a market, not an offer you can take now.
Before you stake
Read the price and the amount beside it
The cell gives you both.
Add the amounts down the ladder
Stop when the total reaches your stake.
Work out the average price
Price × amount for each step, added up, divided by your stake.
Decide: walk, wait or split
Take the next prices, post your own, or do both.
By hand it takes a minute. The page on the odds you actually keep carries on to what commission leaves.
Short answers
What is liquidity in betting?
On a betting exchange, the money other bettors have offered to take your bet at a price. Depth is how it is spread down the ladder.
Which exchange has the most liquidity?
Read the ladder of the market you want and add the amounts down to your stake. The exchange comparison sets out what can be compared.
Why is one market deeper than another?
More bettors offering, at more prices. A market that few people want to price has little to show.
Does a broker’s stake limit change what the market offers?
No. A limit decides what gets accepted, depth what the market offers; both have to be big enough. How a broker account works follows a stake to the place that sets its limit.
Every filled cell shows the same two numbers, a price and an amount. The way in is a broker, and the four brokers side by side sets out the tool, the first deposit and the ID check of each. For how one exchange bet differs from a multi-pick position, a short comparison is the place.