There is often a fair amount of confusion in the betting industry between your betting limits and your payouts limits. they are in fact two separate things.
In short a betting limit is the maximum that you can stake on certain bet. Payout limits however are the maximum that the bookmaker will pay out on a certain market or bet.
There are a number factors to take into account for both of these areas so throughout this article we will be explaining what each one means and how they can even affect the same bet.
Betting limits
The betting limit is the amount that you are able to wager on one single bet. This will range massive from bookmaker to bookmaker and from market to market, so if you feel like you need to know this information, check that sites terms and conditions.
Your betting limits may be restricted on some accounts where the bookmaker feels like you aren’t betting responsibly or feels like you are following betting patterns that are highly unprofitable for them and are uncomfortable in taking your bets. The latter is more common on smaller bookmakers where the liability for each bet will reach a threshold sooner than say, some of the more established bookmakers.
You will generally find that the main markets of major sporting events such as the win-draw-win market of a Premier League match will allow much larger wagers than markets that are more volatile such as low grade greyhound races.
Other areas with relatively low betting limits will be specials markets such as next manager betting or reality television markets. These bets have low limits as individuals connected to these event could have information not widely known to the general public and as such, these present a potentially large liability for the bookmaker. The best way for them to limit this liability is to restrict the maximum amount that they take on these markets by any one person.
These limit may well be advertised on a market before bet placement, with the maximum allowed stated. In other cases, acceptance of a bet may be refused or altered during placement of a limited bet.
Payout limits
A pay out limit is the maximum that will be paid out on an individual bet. What you will find from this is that whilst it will vary for each bookmaker, it will also vary massively for each sport. For example, at Ladbrokes the maximum pay out for a top level football match is £1,000,000, where the maximum payout for a non streamed greyhound race is just £10,000.
These limits will change within each sport and generally the more popular and well-known the market, the larger the maximum payout. This is again a reflection of the volatility of a certain betting market.
A bookmaker may also manually limit the maximum that you can win if again, they feel like you increase their liability with the bet sizes and in return, pay outs for certain bets.
Payout Limits and Accas
Accumulator bets are the most common form of bets where payout limits and their terms start to really come into play. These bets allow punters to place bets and walk away with wins fan in excess of their original stake. However, limits mean that, even though players think they might win big, they could be in for a big surprise.
As a simple rule, bookmakers will have max limits that they payout on all sports. We’ve mentioned this above, but this relates to acca bets probably more than most.
The bookmaker will allow you to enter and place a stake that pays out more than their max amount. For example, if the max payout was £1,000 on a bet, and you place a stake of £500 at odds of 10.00 (potential payout of £5,000), then the max you can return from this bet would be £1,000.
A key thing to note with accumulator bets is that you only get paid for the max limit applied to each selection for that bet. Let’s look at a quick example of how this might work.
We use a bookmaker that has a payout limit of £100,000 on Premier League football bets. You could place a £100 bet at odds of 1000.00 and if all your picks included Premier League matches, then you would be eligible for the max payout.
However, the same bookmaker has a limit of just £1,000 for any Scottish football bets. If you placed an acca that included both English Premier League and Scottish football matches, then regardless of the odds on offer from that acca, the maximum you could ever win is £1,000.
Payout limits for accumulator bets always take the lowest amount from the selections in your bet. These overwrite any maximum limits that may be in place for general bets.
Finally, as with all bets that exceed payout limits, the bookmaker will take your stake regardless of what you think you might be eligible to receive. It’s up to you to check the limits that in place for that specific bookmaker.
Examples of Exceeding Limits
There will be times when the two will mix in the betting industry and its important to know what to do when you exceed each.
Let’s say that the bookmaker you have signed up with have a maximum bet amount on a market of £10,000 with a maximum pay out amount of £50,000.
You place a £10,000 (within the bet limit) bet on that market at odds of 10.00 and your bet wins. You expect to be paid out £100,000 for your win, (£10,000 x 10.00) but instead you are only paid out £50,000. Why? Well this is because whilst your bet has been accepted by the bookmaker as it was in the maximum bet limit, the winnings have exceeded the maximum pay out, which in this case is capped at £50,000.
Two things could happen here:
- The bookmaker will recognise that you are going to be paid out more the max pay out should the bet win and not accept the bet
- The bookmaker will still accept the bet but should it win, will only pay out the max pay out for that bet.
Alternatively, if you tried to place £20,000 on the same bet, then £10,000 of that bet wont be accepted by the bookmaker. One of 2 things usually happens here:
- The £10,000 bet is accepted and the bet limit has been reached so the remaining £10,000 get credited back to your account
- The bet fails to be placed at all and you will need to adjust your stake amount.
In both circumstances it ‘s important for you to know what the limits are for both betting and payout, then also find out what stance the bookmaker will take should either instance occur. At the end of the day, the buck stops with you, the punter, so don’t get caught short!
How Can You Place Bigger Bets?
There are ways that you can overcome betting limits and get the payout that you want from your bet, but you’re going to have to work for it.
The most used protocol here would be to spread your stake across multiple bookmakers. You would need to find out the max payout limit for each and then work out how much you want to stake so you stay inside of it with each bookmaker.
This is common practice for a lot of professional gamblers as they look to take maximum advantage of lines that they feel are in their favour. They also tend to target sports or markets that aren’t necessarily “mainstream” ones you tend to initially think of with sports betting. The downside here is that limits are often much lower, so the need to move and spread bets is increased.
A query that we see is when people are spreading across sites that are linked to the same group. This might be with Coral and Ladbrokes or Paddy Power and Betfair for example. There is no issue with doing this at all and the brands, whilst within the same main group, work independently of each other in this regard.
It’s not uncommon to see brands within the same group have different limits for the same betting markets or sports. Again, make a note of this as it’s another hole that plenty of punters fall down.
Utilising Betting Exchanges
Betting exchanges are a great alternative to overcome betting limits. With the exchanges you’re betting with other punters, not the bookmaker, so the only limit is the amount of money that is currently in play (liquidity).
You can see the limits straight away and the money that is tied to that price. There will be no nasty surprises on payout down the line and the number you see, is the number you can get.
Finally, regarding betting exchanges, don’t get mixed up with a betting exchange and a sportsbook. Betfair, amongst others, run both and the rules for each differ massively. If you are checking T’s and C’s for limits, make sure you know which section of the bookmaker that they are linked to.