Both Teams to Score Betting — A Practical Guide for British Punters

Updated October 2026

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Data current as of 27 October 2026 and checked against the Gambling Commission’s public register.

The shortlist at a glance

Both teams to score sits in the same position on nearly every British football betting slip: two outcomes, no score draw, settled on ninety minutes plus stoppages. The market looks the same at a dozen operators because the rulebook for football settlement is widely shared. What separates one brand from the next is the licence status, the surrounding product (live prices, bet builder, partial cash out) and the price the bookmaker attaches to either outcome. A punter who only cares about BTTS as a standalone line will not feel much difference between Betway and Sky Bet on a single match; a punter who wants BTTS bundled into a same-game multi or who shops for Best Odds Guaranteed on adjacent racing markets will.

The licensed comparison that follows ranks ten operators that the Gambling Commission has on its register for remote general betting standard (real events). Each card covers who runs the brand, the licence account number on the public register, and what the operator’s own terms say about the subjects that matter for BTTS betting: settlement rules, in-play, cash out, acca insurance, and how qualifying bets and free bet tokens are treated. The point is to compare what the operator itself publishes, so that a reader can match a brand against the kind of bet they actually want to place.

Ten operators. One licence category — remote general betting standard (real events). The differences are in the supporting product: racing-side guarantees, bet builder depth, in-play latency, partial cash out availability, and how the qualifying bet for a welcome offer is gated.

What “both teams to score” actually means

A BTTS bet asks a single question: will each side put the ball in the net during the match? Two possible answers, “yes” and “no”, and the result is settled on the score at full time. The market does not ask who wins, by how many goals, or which side scores first. A 1-1 draw wins the yes. A 3-0 home win loses the yes and wins the no. A goalless draw wins no. The market is a binary, ninety-minute proposition, and the price reflects the bookmaker’s view of how likely both attacks are to break through.

Two related markets sit next to it. BTTS and win combines the BTTS outcome with the match result into three selections: BTTS yes and home win, BTTS yes and draw, BTTS yes and away win. BTTS in both halves goes further: each team must score in each half. That is the “to score in both halves” framing the search pool carries, and it is a tighter demand — a team that scores in the first half but not the second, or vice versa, fails it. A BTTS yes bet does not require either side to score in both halves, only across the match.

Settlement is on ninety minutes of play plus stoppage time added by the referee. Extra time and penalty shootouts do not count unless the market specifically says so. A first-goalscorer bet is settled on the result after ninety minutes including injury time, and extra time and penalties are ignored. The same ninety-minute rule applies to BTTS. A goal scored in the 93rd minute counts; a goal scored in extra time does not, because the market is on the regular match.

When a match is abandoned after kick-off, already-decided bets stand. Bets that depend on later action are voided. The decision key Sky Bet publishes — already-settled bets stand, unsettled bets void unless a restart happens within three hours of kick-off and within three days of abandonment — is a workable default that other operators in this set follow closely but not identically. The abandonment rule matters more for BTTS than for many markets: an early goal before the abandonment counts, and an abandoned 1-1 is treated differently from a no-score abandonment.

How the bookmaker builds its price

Every decimal price carries the bookmaker’s margin. Take a two-way market priced at 1.90 and 1.90. The implied probabilities are 1 ÷ 1.90 = 0.5263 for each side, summing to 1.0526. The bookmaker keeps 5.26 per cent on this market, returning 94.74 per cent of every pound bet to winners as a long-run share. The same exercise at 1.85 and 1.85 yields implied probabilities of 0.5405 each, summing to 1.0811 — a margin of 8.11 per cent. The bigger the sum above 1.00, the more the bookmaker keeps.

A worked example illustrates the point. A £10 stake on BTTS yes at 1.90 returns £19 if it wins. The decimal price times the stake is the gross return: 1.90 × 10 = 19. The net profit is the return minus the stake, so £9 of profit on top of the £10 risked. A losing bet costs the whole stake. BTTS at 1.90 is not a price of 1.90 because the bookmaker believes there is a 52.6 per cent chance of both teams scoring; it is a price of 1.90 because the bookmaker wants to keep roughly 5 per cent of every pound on this market across both outcomes.

Margins vary by market. Football 1X2 (home / draw / away) typically carries a margin in the 5 to 8 per cent range at sharp bookmakers, with BTTS a little tighter or a little looser depending on the match. Player prop markets and combination bets (BTTS and result, scorecast) carry wider margins because the bookmaker has more room to price. The margin is the one number a reader cannot see directly; the back prices show, and from the prices the margin can be worked out. The lower the margin, the more of every pound goes back to winners on average.

Where the BTTS line sits in the British market

There is no statutory list of permitted bets in Great Britain. The Gambling Act 2005 does not name specific markets; it grants licences by category. A remote general betting standard (real events) licence permits the licensee to offer sports betting under its own rules and the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice. BTTS, like the match result, the correct score, and the first goalscorer, is offered because the operator decides to offer it, and the offer can be withdrawn at any time. A market that disappears from a single bookmaker’s slip is not banned; it is just not offered.

In-play BTTS is widely available. The selection opens at kick-off and is suspended briefly when a goal is scored, then repriced. Cash out on BTTS, where the bookmaker offers to settle the bet early at a stated price, is more uneven. DAZN Bet publishes that cash out availability is not guaranteed and that bets stand if it is unavailable, which is the practical posture across the licensed set. Partial cash out — settling part of the stake — is offered by some operators and not others. The reader’s decision is whether to wait for full-time settlement or take whatever price the bookmaker offers when an early goal changes the picture.

Bet builder markets take BTTS and bolt on other selections from the same match: BTTS yes and over 2.5 goals, BTTS no and under 2.5 goals, BTTS yes and a specific player to score. Each leg multiplies into the combined price. A two-leg bet builder at 1.90 and 1.80 returns 3.42 if both legs win. Each leg is priced as a standalone market, and the combined price carries the margin of each leg layered on top. Bet builders look generous because the prices multiply; in practice, the combined margin is wider than the margin on either single market.

What BTTS costs the punter in real terms

The price is the headline; the conditions are the price. Three conditions matter most for a BTTS bet at a licensed British operator.

First, settlement. A 1-1 in regular time is a BTTS yes win. A 1-1 after extra time is still a BTTS yes win at 1-1 in regular time, because the market is on the regular match, not the cup tie in aggregate. The punter who places BTTS yes on a League Cup tie that finishes 1-1 in regular time and 2-1 after extra time wins at 1-1. The punter who placed BTTS yes on a Champions League knockout game that ended 0-0 in regular time but 1-0 in extra time loses. The ninety-minute rule is the single most important rule to internalise.

Second, abandonment. The Sky Bet rule already cited — settled bets stand, unsettled bets void unless the restart happens within three hours of kick-off and within three days of abandonment — is a published standard that other operators tend to follow in spirit. The practical consequence for BTTS: if both teams have scored before abandonment, the bet is settled as a yes. If one team has scored and the other has not, the bet is unsettled and void unless the restart happens on time. If no one has scored, the bet is also unsettled and void.

Third, free bet treatment. A welcome offer at a licensed operator delivers free bet tokens with a stated expiry and a stated use rule. Betway’s welcome offer delivers £40 in free bet tokens in four £10 instalments after settlement of a first bet of at least £10 at minimum odds of 2.0, with a seven-day expiry and debit card deposits only on the qualifying deposit. Midnite’s welcome offer credits £25 in free bets and 50 free spins after a first bet of £5 or more at minimum odds of 2.0 within 14 days of sign-up, valid for seven days. Sky Bet’s welcome offer credits £30 in free bets as three £10 tokens after a deposit of at least £5 and a first single or each-way bet of at least 5p at odds of 1/1 or greater.

A free bet is not a refund of cash. The stake is not returned on a free bet win. A £10 free bet at 2.0 returns £10 of profit, not £20 of return. The math is the same as the basic calculation: stake × (odds − 1) ÷ odds, scaled by the market’s payout share. A free bet at 2.0 on a market with a 95 per cent payout share has a long-run value of £10 × 1.0 ÷ 2.0 × 0.95 = £4.75. That is the offer’s expected value before any minimum odds condition and any expiry cut the figure. The free bet is a coupon with a stated face value and a market-priced real value, and the gap is what the welcome offer actually gives.

The reader’s decision on a welcome offer is not whether to claim it but whether the conditions are worth the bookmaker’s terms. A seven-day expiry on free bet tokens means the punter has to find a market they want to bet on within a week. A minimum odds condition of 2.0 rules out short-priced favourites and shifts the free bet onto longer-priced selections. A debit card deposit rule rules out funding the account through other rails. None of these is hidden; all of them are written into the operator’s own terms.

The choice between operators, and what each is for

A shortlist of ten operators will not produce a single best. Different readers need different things. BetUK, Midnite and Sky Bet sit in the same bracket of mainstream British sportsbooks with broad football coverage and a published welcome offer for new customers. Betway sits one rung toward the larger international operators, with a longer operating history and a heavier casino product beside the sportsbook. DAZN Bet and DragonBet lean into named content verticals: DAZN into its streaming crossover, DragonBet into Welsh football and rugby. Betboro, Bet600, Geoff Banks and Copybet are smaller brands whose differentiators sit on one or two features rather than across the board.

For a punter who only places BTTS singles on Premier League matches, the differentiator between brands is the margin on the BTTS line and the in-play latency when a goal changes the price. Margin differences of half a per cent are hard to see and not worth chasing across five bookmakers. In-play latency matters more: a brand whose in-play price updates inside ten seconds of a goal is more useful than a brand whose price takes twenty seconds to reprice.

For a punter who wants BTTS bundled into a bet builder, the differentiator is which legs the operator allows in the same builder and how the combined price is set. Bet builders do not let you combine every selection from the same match. A BTTS yes and over 2.5 goals builder is allowed at most operators; a BTTS yes and a specific player to score and a specific half to score first builder is allowed at fewer.

For a punter who shops between bookmakers for the best price on a single match, the differentiator is whether the brand shows up on a price-comparison site and how often its prices change. Sharper brands move their prices more often and earlier; flatter brands leave the same price up for longer. Both can be exploited, in different ways.

For a punter who values Best Odds Guaranteed on horse racing alongside football, the differentiator is which brand commits to the BOG promise and how broadly it applies. Bet600 pays BOG on horse racing when the starting price exceeds the price taken. Copybet offers BOG on UK and Irish racing all day, every day, and pays first past the post on horse racing even if the winner is later disqualified.

The settlement rules every BTTS punter should know

Three rules cover most of what a BTTS bet encounters in ninety minutes.

Rule one: ninety minutes plus stoppages. The match runs from the referee’s first whistle to the final whistle after stoppage time. A goal in the third minute of stoppage time counts. A goal in extra time, on the other hand, does not count for BTTS or for first-goalscorer unless the market specifies extra-time betting.

Rule two: own goals count. An own goal credited to the defending side still counts as a goal scored by the attacking side in the match, and it counts for both teams scoring if both teams have one. The market is on goals scored, not on the player credited.

Rule three: abandoned matches. A match abandoned after kick-off leaves settled bets standing. A 1-1 abandonment settles BTTS yes as a win. An abandonment with a 1-0 scoreline voids unsettled BTTS bets unless the restart happens within the operator’s stated window. The Sky Bet window is three hours for the announcement and three days for the restart. Other operators publish similar or shorter windows, and a punter who places a BTTS bet close to kick-off should read the operator’s rule rather than assume a default.

These rules are published in the operator’s football or soccer section. The language varies — “rules”, “betting rules”, “sports rules”, “football rules” — but every licensed operator in this set publishes them. A bettor who has not read the operator’s football rules is betting on the operator’s interpretation of football, not on the match.

What the law actually requires of a licensed British bookmaker

The Gambling Commission licenses the remote general betting standard (real events) category that covers football, racing, tennis and every other real sporting event. A brand that takes bets from customers in Great Britain on a Premier League match needs this licence, whichever country the operator is incorporated in and whichever country hosts the servers. The Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 closed the previous loophole that allowed an operator based overseas to serve British customers on a home-country licence.

The minimum age to bet is 18. Identity, address and date of birth are verified before a customer can deposit or place a bet. The verification happens before the first deposit, including for a free bet or bonus. There is no anonymous play at a licensed site.

A credit card cannot be used to fund a gambling account in Great Britain. The ban covers credit cards directly and credit-card-funded payments through an e-wallet. A debit card or a bank transfer is not covered by the ban.

The Gambling Commission publishes a public register that lists every licensed operator, the licence category and the licence holder. A reader can search the register by business name, trading name, domain or account number. The register is the whole test of whether a brand is licensed; a brand’s own claim of being licensed is not the test. The register also lists inactive and revoked licences, and it can be searched at no cost.

GAMSTOP is the national multi-operator online self-exclusion scheme. A customer who registers with GAMSTOP is barred from opening new accounts or depositing at any participating online operator for the period they select. The minimum exclusion is six months; the options run to five years with auto-renewal and a further seven-year protection after the minimum period. The scheme is mandatory for online operators and has been a licence condition since 31 March 2020. It does not cover betting shops; land-based self-exclusion is a separate scheme.

A financial vulnerability check applies when a customer’s deposits minus withdrawals exceed £150 in a rolling thirty days. The check is a public-record check, not an income check and not a credit reference check, and looks at court judgments, bankruptcies and similar records. It is in force; the affordability checks that the press has discussed are a separate, later stage that the Commission has announced in a staged plan with no start date.

Deposit limits are a customer-set tool, not a state-set ceiling. A punter who wants to cap their weekly deposits sets the cap themselves through the operator’s safer-gambling menu. The Remote Technical Standards require operators to offer the tool and to enforce the cap the customer sets.

Where to get help if the betting stops being fun

GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline. The service is confidential, free, and open every day. GambleAware funds treatment and education and is the place to find a counsellor or a self-help tool. The NHS runs gambling clinics in several regions for severe problem gambling. Gamblers Anonymous runs peer-support meetings across the country. None of these is a betting operator; all of them take self-referrals.

GAMSTOP is the multi-operator online self-exclusion scheme and the most direct route for a punter who wants to stop. The minimum exclusion is six months. Once registered, a punter cannot open a new account or deposit at a participating online operator for the chosen period.

A punter who wants to set a deposit limit can do so through any licensed operator’s safer-gambling menu. The cap applies to deposits only and resets on the time frame the punter selects. The tool is one click away in the account settings, and operators must offer it.

A punter who is concerned about a friend’s or family member’s betting can refer them to GamCare for advice. The helpline takes calls from family members and from people who are worried about someone else’s gambling.

Tips and strategy: what a BTTS selection actually turns on

There is no such thing as a guaranteed BTTS tip. The market is priced by a professional who has access to the same team news, the same injury list and the same expected goals models as the bettor. The price the bookmaker offers already reflects the underlying probability. The punter who picks BTTS yes on a match priced at 1.50 is saying that the bookmaker is wrong, and the punter who picks BTTS no on a match priced at 2.50 is saying the same thing in the other direction.

What the punter can do is shop for price. A BTTS yes line at 1.80 at one bookmaker and 1.85 at another is a 2.8 per cent difference in implied probability. On a £50 stake, the difference is £2.50 in expected return over the long run. Shopping is not glamorous work, but it is the only work the punter can do that the bookmaker has not already done.

The punter can also look at conditions. A match between two teams in poor defensive form, both missing first-choice goalkeepers, with attacking players in form, is a higher BTTS yes probability than the bookmaker’s price may reflect. A match between two defensive teams in a cup final with a red card early is a lower BTTS yes probability. The conditions are not hidden; they are the kind of thing the punter can read about in a match preview without paying for a tipster service.

The punter should avoid chasing. A losing BTTS bet is not made good by doubling the stake on the next match. The next match is priced independently, and the stake doubling is a separate decision. A bankroll — a fixed weekly budget for BTTS bets — keeps the betting as entertainment rather than a route to recover a loss.

The punter should not trust tipsters who promise a “sure” BTTS bet. Nobody knows an outcome in advance. A tipster who claims otherwise is selling certainty the market does not have, and the punter who buys it is paying for a story.

The different ways to bet on BTTS

The standalone BTTS line is the simplest form. One match, two outcomes, settled on ninety minutes plus stoppages. The price is what it is.

BTTS and result combines BTTS with the match result. Three outcomes: BTTS yes and home win, BTTS yes and draw, BTTS yes and away win. A punter who wants both teams to score and a specific winner takes this line. The combined price is wider than the BTTS standalone because the market demands two things at once.

BTTS in both halves demands each team to score in each half. A 1-0 half-time lead fails it if the trailing team does not score in the second half. A 2-1 at half-time and 2-2 at full time passes it. A 1-1 at half-time and 2-1 at full time fails it because the trailing team did not score in both halves.

Scorecast combines BTTS — or first goalscorer — with the correct score. A punter who wants BTTS yes and a 2-1 correct score takes this line. The price is wide because the market demands both outcomes.

Bet builder markets combine BTTS with other selections from the same match: BTTS yes and over 2.5 goals, BTTS yes and a player to score, BTTS yes and a half-time result. Each leg is priced standalone; the combined price multiplies. The punter who likes a specific combination of outcomes can take the bet builder rather than chasing each leg through separate singles, accepting a wider combined margin in exchange for the convenience.

Each way on BTTS does not apply in the same way as on horse racing. Each way is a horse-racing construction that pays a place if the selection does not win, and BTTS is a binary market without a “place” outcome. An each-way BTTS bet is unusual and the punter should check the operator’s rule.

How a punter checks a licence in three steps

Step one: open the Gambling Commission’s public register at no cost. The register is searchable by business name, trading name, domain and account number.

Step two: search by the operator’s brand name. The register returns the licence holder, the account number, the licence type, the licence status (active, suspended, revoked) and the address of record. A suspended or revoked licence means the operator cannot lawfully take bets in Great Britain.

Step three: check the licence category. For a sports-betting brand, the relevant category is remote general betting standard (real events). The category tells the punter what the operator is licensed to offer; a remote casino licence is not a sports-betting licence, and a virtual events licence is not a real-events licence.

The register is the whole test. A brand’s own claim of being licensed is not the test; the register is. The punter who bets at a brand not on the register has no British consumer protection: no GAMSTOP coverage, no Commission complaints route, no approved dispute-resolution body, no British consumer redress if funds are withheld, no protection under the £150 vulnerability check or the 10x bonus cap. The licence is the British layer, and the register is where it lives.

Free bets and the BTTS bettor’s arithmetic

A free bet token is not a cash refund. The stake is usually not returned on a free bet win. A £10 free bet at 2.0 returns £10 of profit and £0 of stake. A £10 cash bet at 2.0 returns £20 of return and £10 of profit. The free bet has half the headline face value of the cash bet when the stake is not returned.

The free bet’s real value depends on the price and the market’s payout share. Stake × (odds − 1) ÷ odds gives the gross profit if the bet wins. That profit, multiplied by the market’s payout share, gives the expected value over many bets. A £10 free bet at 2.0 on a market with a 95 per cent payout share is worth £10 × 1.0 ÷ 2.0 × 0.95 = £4.75 on average. The same free bet at 3.0 is worth £10 × 2.0 ÷ 3.0 × 0.95 = £6.33. The longer the price, the more the free bet is worth, but the more likely the bet is to lose in any single instance.

A minimum odds condition of 2.0 on the qualifying bet rules out short-priced favourites and shifts the qualifying bet onto longer-priced selections. A punter who wants to claim a welcome offer and place a BTTS bet at 1.80 will not have the bet count toward the qualifying requirement. The punter either takes a longer-priced selection (over 2.5 goals, BTTS yes and a specific player to score) or does not claim the offer.

A expiry of seven days on free bet tokens is short. The punter has to find a market they want to bet on within a week. A weekend-only punter may not have a qualifying selection in the window, and the tokens expire unused. The expiry is one of the conditions that turns a £30 welcome offer into a smaller real value than the headline.

The role of bookmaker margin in everyday BTTS betting

A bookmaker’s margin is the per cent of every pound bet that the bookmaker keeps on average across both outcomes. A BTTS market at 1.90 / 1.90 has a margin of 5.26 per cent. A BTTS market at 1.85 / 1.85 has a margin of 8.11 per cent. The lower the margin, the more of every pound goes back to winners.

Margin is set by the operator and can vary by market and by event. A Premier League match between two evenly matched sides might carry a 5 per cent margin at the sharp end of the market and 7 per cent at the flatter end. A lower-league match or a match between two lopsided sides might carry a wider margin because the bookmaker has less confidence in the line.

A punter who places many BTTS bets over a season will see the margin in their long-run return. A 5 per cent margin across a season’s betting means a £1,000 turnover returns £950 of prize money on average, before any free bet or bonus adjustment. A 7 per cent margin returns £930. The difference between two bookmakers on the same set of bets is the difference between two margins.

The margin is also the reason prices move. A bookmaker lowers the price on a popular outcome to reduce liability. A bookmaker raises the price on an unpopular outcome to attract bets on the side it wants covered. The punter who sees a price fall on BTTS yes is seeing the bookmaker try to limit what it has to pay if both teams score.

What “Best Odds Guaranteed” means for the BTTS punter

BOG is a horse-racing concession, not a football concession. A bookmaker pays the starting price if the SP is bigger than the price taken at the time of betting. Bet600 publishes this rule explicitly. Copybet offers it on UK and Irish racing all day, every day.

A BTTS punter who also bets on horse racing can take the BOG promise alongside football. The promise is on the racing side. The BTTS side is priced independently, and the price at the time of betting is the price that settles, with no later adjustment for goals scored or the line moving.

A punter who places an each-way BTTS bet and a win BTTS bet in the same accumulator does not get a BOG-style adjustment on the football leg. The football leg settles at the price taken. The racing leg, if any, settles at the SP if the SP is bigger.

What in-play BTTS does to the price

In-play BTTS opens at kick-off and reprices on every goal. A goal for either side moves the price on BTTS yes down if the trailing team has now scored, and up if the leading team’s goal makes it harder for the trailing team to come back.

The in-play price moves faster than the pre-match price because the in-play market has more information. A 0-0 BTTS yes price of 2.10 at kick-off might move to 1.70 inside a minute of the first goal. The punter who wants to back BTTS yes at 1.70 has to be ready to place the bet inside the same minute, or the price may have moved further.

Cash out on BTTS is the bookmaker’s offer to settle the bet early at a stated price. A BTTS yes bet at 1.80 placed pre-match is offered cash out at 0.50 after the trailing team scores, and at 1.80 if no one scores by half-time. The cash out price is the bookmaker’s view of the bet’s value now, and it is usually worse than the live price the punter could get by laying the bet on an exchange.

Partial cash out — settling part of the stake at the cash out price and leaving the rest running — is offered by some operators and not others. The punter who wants to lock in some profit and leave some upside can use partial cash out at a brand that offers it and a single stake at a brand that does not.

The punters a BTTS page is for, and the ones it is not

A BTTS page is for the punter who wants to understand the market and shop for the best price. The market is binary, the settlement rules are short, and the price differences between licensed operators are small but real. The page gives the punter the rules and the comparison.

The page is not for the punter who wants a guaranteed tip. Nobody can guarantee a BTTS outcome, and any service that claims it is selling certainty the market does not have.

The page is not for the punter who wants to bypass the verification step. Identity verification is a condition of betting at a licensed site. The punter who wants to bet anonymously is looking at an unlicensed site, and an unlicensed site has no British consumer protection.

The page is not for the punter who wants to chase a losing bet. The next BTTS match is priced independently, and the previous loss is not recovered by a bigger stake.

The page is for the punter who wants to bet with a budget, on markets they have read about, at a licensed operator, with a bankroll that they can afford to lose. The market is entertainment that pays out sometimes. The arithmetic is the arithmetic of entertainment, not of investment.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I bet on both teams to score?

Every licensed remote bookmaker with a real-events betting licence offers BTTS on major football matches. The ten operators in the comparison above are all licensed by the Gambling Commission under the remote general betting standard (real events) category. The Commission’s public register is the whole test of who is licensed, and it lists the licence account number, the licence holder and the licence status.

What does “to score in both halves” mean?

BTTS in both halves is a tighter version of the BTTS market. Each team must score in each half of the match. A 1-0 half-time lead fails the bet because the trailing team has not scored in the first half; a 1-1 half-time and 2-1 full-time score fails it because the trailing team scored in the second half but not the first. The bet is settled on regular time plus stoppages, not on extra time.

What is a both teams to score bet?

A BTTS bet is a binary proposition on whether each side scores at least once during a football match, settled on ninety minutes plus stoppage time. The bet wins if both teams score at least once each, regardless of the final score; it loses if either team fails to score, or if the match is abandoned with one team having scored and the other not, unless the restart happens within the operator’s stated window. Own goals count as goals scored.

How can I check that a bookmaker holds a Gambling Commission licence?

The Commission’s public register can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number at no cost. The register lists the licence holder, the account number, the licence category and the licence status. A brand whose name does not appear, or whose licence status is not active, is not lawfully licensed to take bets from customers in Great Britain.

How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?

For decimal odds, multiply the stake by the odds. A £10 stake at 1.90 returns £19 gross, of which £9 is profit and £10 is the original stake. For fractional odds, the conversion is stake × (a ÷ b) + stake. A £10 stake at 9/10 returns £10 × (9 ÷ 10) + £10 = £19. A combination bet multiplies the legs into one price: two legs at 1.90 and 1.80 produce a combined price of 3.42.

What is the bookmaker’s margin and how can it be seen in the odds?

The margin is the per cent of every pound bet that the bookmaker keeps on average across all outcomes. For a two-way market, sum the implied probabilities (1 ÷ odds for each outcome) and subtract 1.00. A market at 1.90 / 1.90 sums to 1.0526, a margin of 5.26 per cent. The lower the sum, the lower the margin, and the more of every pound returns to winners. Margins vary by market, by event and by operator.

Content created by the «Free bets» team