Exchange betting (aka person-to-person, or, peer-to-peer betting) affords punters more options, with features such as in-play markets and better odds, but the real highlight is the ability to back or lay - in other words, place a bet in the usual manner, or, take other punters' stakes by offering out odds. This is the key difference between exchange and traditional fixed odds betting.

Firstly, you should know that you have absolute control over the odds, whether backing or laying. You can request higher odds if you are looking to place a bet, or offer lower odds, according to how much you are prepared to expose yourself to if laying bets.

For the novice, the easiest way to grasp how effective laying bets can be is to take any football match and think about what kind of wagers you can take in the high street bookmakers. If we think of the result only, then you can back a team to win, draw or lose. straightforward enough, but to back a team to lose you need to place two bets, one on the draw, and one on the opposing team to win.

Exchange betting allows you to lay a team to win, thereby taking a fixed stake off your peers in return for offering odds to them. Its quite simple, and you only need to place one bet to take a position against a team to win, rather than the two bets needed at a high street bookmakers.

These traditional bookies all make their money from laying favourites, and now you can employ a similar tactic. The key is to try and ascertain where the value lies, in order to minimise your risk. Manchester United was expected to thrash Bolton in the recent match at Old Trafford, and was available to lay at 1.28.

Yet Bolton kept a clean sheet and Nolan capitalised on a late error by Beckham - so for a maximum loss of £28, you could have reaped £100, if you had laid a bet against a Manchester United victory. Even if the score had remained at 0-0, the bet would have come in: by laying against a Manchester United win, you simply needed Bolton to draw or win for the bet to come in.

Often, it is easier to determine whether a team will not win, rather than picking a winner, so laying bets is the best option to capitalise on this. The time to chance your arm on laying favourites is now, as historically, the first six weeks of the new season always throw up strange results.

The other key point about laying favourites is that you have the chance to rapidly increase your bank. If you had £28 in an account, then based on the above example, it would have turned into £128 (less a little commission) had you predicted an upset at Old Trafford. While the media would have you believe that results like this are unlikely, Bolton triumphed last year at Manchester United's ground and there's no saying where or when the next favourite will fall, but laying is certainly the best way to take advantage of against-the-odds results.

To become a successful punter, it is worth considering a strategy based on a combination of backing and laying as a way of guaranteeing profits.

Next - Exchanges - The case for value