Guide
Lay Betting Explained: Betting Against an Outcome
Quick Summary
- Laying means betting that something will not happen, taking the bookmaker's role.
- Your liability is the backer's stake times the odds minus one.
- Laying a long shot risks a lot to win a little; laying a favourite is the reverse.
- Lay betting needs an exchange market; check whether Mostplay offers one.
- 18+ only
- Official partner site
- Checked 7 Nov 2026
- Know your limit
Every cricket fan has watched a side collapse and thought, I knew they would not chase that. Lay betting lets you turn that kind of thought into a bet: instead of backing a team to win, you bet that it will not. It sounds simple, and in principle it is. The catch lies in a single word, liability, which can turn a small-looking bet into a large potential loss. This article walks through lay betting slowly, with worked examples in Taka, so the numbers are never a surprise.
Laying in one sentence
The short answer: when you lay, you take the other side of someone's back bet. If the outcome does not happen, you win their stake. If it does happen, you pay them their winnings.
Laying a team to win a match means you win if they lose or, in Tests, if the match is drawn. That gives you two or more outcomes on your side. In return, you carry the risk of paying out at the odds if your team does win.
Working out liability
Liability is the amount you could lose. The formula is the backer's stake multiplied by the odds minus one. It is worth doing a few by hand before you ever lay a real bet.
| Lay odds | Backer's stake | You win if it fails | Your liability if it wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.50 | ৳100 | ৳100 | ৳50 |
| 2.00 | ৳100 | ৳100 | ৳100 |
| 3.00 | ৳100 | ৳100 | ৳200 |
| 6.00 | ৳100 | ৳100 | ৳500 |
| 11.00 | ৳100 | ৳100 | ৳1,000 |
Why high odds are dangerous to lay
Look at the bottom row of that table. Laying a long shot at 11.00 risks ৳1,000 to win ৳100. Most of the time a long shot will lose and you collect, which feels like easy money. Then one day the underdog wins, as underdogs in cricket regularly do, and a single result wipes out many small wins.
This is why experienced exchange users treat high-odds lays with great caution. A Bangladesh upset over a bigger nation, a tail-ender's unlikely fifty, a last-ball six: cricket is full of moments that make long-shot lays painful.
When laying can make sense
Laying a favourite at short odds means a small liability relative to the stake you collect. If you genuinely think a short-priced favourite is overrated, laying them is one way to express that. It is still a bet with a real chance of losing, of course.
Some people also use lays to trade: back early at a longer price, then lay later at a shorter one to lock in a result. That needs discipline and fast decisions, and a sudden wicket can wreck the plan. Our exchange versus bookmaker article explains how the two kinds of market differ.
Lay betting and Mostplay
Lay bets need an exchange-style market, where you see both back and lay prices for each outcome. We could not confirm whether Mostplay offers this. Check a cricket match page on the brand's site or app; if you only see one price per outcome, it is a bookmaker market and laying is not available there.
Our cricket betting exchange guide shows what exchange prices look like and what to check before using them. Whatever you do, look at the liability figure on the bet slip before you confirm, every single time.
In three steps
How to work out a lay bet in 3 steps
- 1Note the lay odds
Find the lay price for the outcome you think will not happen.
- 2Calculate the liability
Multiply the backer's stake by the odds minus one to see what you could lose.
- 3Check it against your budget
Only proceed if the full liability fits comfortably within money you can afford to lose.