Last updated: 4 October 2026
Can you learn to trade on Betfair with no experience and a £50 bankroll? You can learn, and £50 is a sensible amount to learn with. But you should expect to lose some or all of it while you learn, and most people who try trading never become consistently profitable.
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An earlier version of this page promoted a paid trading course and suggested you could make money every day. That course is no longer offered here, and we have rewritten the page as a realistic starting guide.
What Betfair trading is
On the Betfair Exchange you can back an outcome (bet on it to happen) or lay it (bet on it not to happen). Trading means backing and laying the same selection at different prices, so you profit from the price moving rather than from the result.
For example, if you back a horse at 6.0 and its price shortens to 5.0 before the off, you can lay it at 5.0 and lock in a profit whatever happens in the race. If the price drifts to 7.0, you take a loss instead.
Why start with £50
- It is enough to place lots of small trades at Betfair’s minimum stakes.
- It is small enough that losing it while you learn won’t hurt.
- It forces you to learn staking discipline, because you can’t recover losses by betting bigger.
Treat the £50 as the cost of learning, not as a bank you expect to grow.
How to start
- Learn the exchange first. Understand back and lay odds, liability, matched and unmatched bets, and how commission works.
- Watch markets without betting. Pick one type of market, such as UK horse racing before the off, and watch how prices move in the last 10 minutes.
- Use small stakes. Place your first trades at the minimum stake, so mistakes are cheap.
- Always know your exit. Decide before each trade where you will take a profit and where you will take a loss, and stick to it.
- Keep records. Log every trade, including commission. After a few hundred trades you will know whether you are improving.
The risks
- Most traders lose. You are trading against professionals with faster tools and better information.
- Commission eats into small profits, so you need to win more often than you think.
- In-play markets move in seconds, and the pictures you watch can be behind the market.
- Chasing losses is the quickest way to empty a bank. If you find yourself doing it, stop.
Set a deposit limit in your Betfair account before you start, and never trade with money you need for anything else.
Further reading
- How to make money on the Betfair Exchange
- Back to lay horse racing system explained
- How to make money laying horses
- Why punters always lose
18+. Please gamble responsibly. For free support, visit BeGambleAware.org.
