A Guide to Betting Exchanges
Completing your first sign up offer can seem a little daunting but you’ll be guided from start to finish and each offer should take approximately 15 minutes to complete on average. One way to make money from betting exchanges is to use them for Matched Betting purposes. As you might expect with Betfair having the lion’s share of the exchange market, the liquidity in the BETDAQ markets very rarely hits the heights of Betfair. However, they didn’t launch their betting exchange until September 2001 and were the second company to launch an exchange offering to the public. However, it’s there to help customers and a lot of exchange traders make good use of the data. Smarkets are very data driven and provide customers with a host of live odds data, graphs and statistics.
The main advantage of using a betting exchange is low fees. New Jersey approved a couple of sports betting exchanges in the fall of 2022 and other states might follow suit as the sports betting market expands. Each state has its own laws concerning sports betting exchanges. If Team A wins the match, then the back will win their bet and the lay bet loses. On a betting exchange, the back is essentially betting against the layer.
However, liquidity can sometimes be an issue for less popular events. Betfair offers a wide range of markets, but keep in mind their commission fees. The success of Betfair has since inspired the creation of other betting exchanges and significantly influenced the online sports betting industry. The concept of the betting exchange was pioneered by Andrew Black and Edward Wray, who co-founded Betfair in 2000. Geographical restrictions also play a role in the downsides of betting exchanges.
There is no fully crypto-based sports betting exchange open to US users, but some regulated US exchanges accept crypto deposits. Sporttrade, once a state-licensed exchange, closed its sports new bookmakers not on gamstop betting exchange in May and June 2026. The best betting exchange sites in the US in 2026 are BettorEdge, Novig, ProphetX, Kalshi and Polymarket US. Availability still varies by state, and some states, including Nevada, restrict prediction market sports contracts. A betting exchange is a marketplace where bettors wager against each other instead of against a sportsbook, with the exchange matching the two sides and holding both stakes until the event settles. If you want a deeper walkthrough of the model itself, the guide to peer-to-peer betting covers it.
We also found that they were fast to approve KYC checks, and that they processed withdrawals quickly, so those are two fewer things to worry about. That means that you’re not guaranteed to get odds as good as you might get on other exchanges, and that there won’t be as much money waiting to be matched. So, for example, you might be able to place a bet here at EasyBet exchange for £15 at the great price of 4.5 on a greyhound when it’s just 3.8 at a sportsbook. So even when you factor in commission, it’s often worth placing your bets here as opposed to at a fixed odds bookmaker.
Larger, more established companies typically present lower risks. Not all licensed exchange bookmakers meet our reliability criteria. For your peace of mind, always check if a betting site holds a valid license through the Gambling Commission website.
Below are a few key terms commonly used when discussing betting exchanges. This added flexibility to oppose something that a bettor does not think will happen has seen the popularity of exchange betting take off. Whereas with a traditional bookmaker, they do the laying, so with them you can only back a selection to win when using your prop betting strategy for example. When we’re comparing betting exchanges with traditional bookmakers or sportsbooks, the main difference is that with a betting exchange, you can lay a selection to lose and back them to win. Now that we’ve explained what betting exchanges are, let’s dive a little bit deeper to look at how they actually work. On the other hand, laying that same bet would involve accepting someone else’s $10 bet and carrying a liability of $15 if Manchester United wins.
The liquidity at a betting exchange represents the maximum stakes a user can place on a specific outcome. The following table compares the commission rates of each relevant and trustworthy betting exchange. Compare offers, promos, and top racing features including 2nd To Fav, Faller Insurance, Extra Places and more. Explore the best horse racing promos and offers from UK bookies in 2026.