Guide Why Can't I Get Big Bets Matched?

[Betting Forum]

You find an edge on Betfair. The odds are right, the price is good, you want to bet £2,000. There's only £340 available to match at your price. You get £340 matched and sit there watching, hoping someone adds more liquidity that never comes.

This guide is for bettors trying to understand what liquidity means in betting markets, why it matters, when it's a problem, and how to work around it when you're trying to get larger stakes down.

Liquidity is the amount of money available to bet against in a market. High liquidity means you can bet large amounts instantly. Low liquidity means you're fighting to get stakes matched and often can't get your full bet down at the price you want. Understanding liquidity helps you choose which markets to bet, how to size your bets, and when to adjust your strategy.
Tip before you scroll down more- use Pinnacle

What Liquidity Actually Means​

In betting exchanges like Betfair, liquidity is the money sitting in the order book waiting to be matched. If you want to back Manchester United at 2.00 and there's £50,000 available at that price, there's high liquidity. If there's only £200 available, there's low liquidity.

Traditional bookmakers don't have visible liquidity in the same way because they're not matching peer-to-peer bets. They just accept or reject your bet based on their risk management. But they still have effective liquidity based on how much they're willing to take from you before moving their line or limiting your stake.

Liquidity varies enormously by market. Premier League football on a Saturday afternoon has millions of pounds available. A Tuesday night League Two match might have a few thousand. A niche market like correct score in the Romanian second division might have £50 total. The more popular and liquid a market, the easier it is to get large bets matched.

For serious bettors, liquidity is often the limiting factor on profit. You might find a fantastic edge but if you can only get £100 matched instead of £1,000, your actual profit is 10% of what it could be. Edge matters but so does ability to get money down.

Why Some Markets Have No Liquidity​

Liquidity exists when there are bettors on both sides of a market willing to take opposite positions. If nobody wants to take the other side of your bet, there's no liquidity.

Obscure markets have no liquidity because almost nobody is betting them. A fourth-tier Swedish football match might have one or two bettors in the entire world looking at it. If you want to bet £500, there might not be another £500 worth of people willing to take the opposite position.

One-sided markets have no liquidity because everyone agrees on the likely outcome. If a team is massive favorites - say City at home to a relegation team - almost everyone wants to back City, very few want to lay them. The liquidity on the back side is huge but the liquidity on the lay side is tiny. If you want to lay City for large amounts, you struggle.

Time-sensitive markets lose liquidity as kickoff approaches. Early in the week there might be decent liquidity on a Sunday match. As Sunday arrives, liquidity often increases but then sharply drops in the final 15-30 minutes before kickoff as people stop adding money to the order book. If you're trying to bet right before kickoff, liquidity can disappear.

Niche bet types have low liquidity because most bettors stick to simple markets. Match winner and over/under have tons of liquidity. Correct score has less. First goalscorer has even less. Player props and niche markets might have almost none. The more specific the market, the fewer people betting it, the less liquidity exists.

The Chicken and Egg Problem​

Markets need liquidity to attract bettors, but they need bettors to create liquidity. This creates a chicken and egg problem for smaller markets.

Nobody wants to bet on a market with no liquidity because you can't get stakes matched. But the market has no liquidity precisely because nobody is betting it. Once a market is established as liquid, it attracts more bettors which adds more liquidity. Markets that never establish liquidity stay dead.

Betfair and other exchanges try to solve this with market makers - bots or professional traders who add liquidity to markets specifically to facilitate matching. They'll offer both back and lay prices with the spread between them representing their profit margin. This creates baseline liquidity that helps the market function.

But market makers won't add much liquidity to markets that barely anyone bets. The spread they'd need to charge to make it worthwhile would be too wide and nobody would take it. So obscure markets stay illiquid and most serious bettors avoid them entirely.

For bettors, this means you're often better off sticking to liquid markets even if the edges are smaller. A 3% edge where you can get £5,000 matched is better than a 8% edge where you can only get £200 matched. Your actual expected profit is higher in the liquid market despite the smaller percentage edge.

Price Improvement vs Liquidity Tradeoff​

On exchanges you can request better prices than what's currently available. If Man United is available to back at 2.00 but you want 2.10, you can place an unmatched bet requesting 2.10 and wait for someone to take it.

This often means waiting. You're asking for a price better than market consensus, so you need to find someone willing to give you that price. In liquid markets, unmatched bets at reasonable prices get taken relatively quickly. In illiquid markets, they sit there forever.

The tradeoff is between getting matched instantly at current market price versus waiting for better price that might never come. If you take the current price, you're guaranteed to get matched but you're not getting the best available value. If you request better price, you might get it eventually or you might miss the bet entirely as the market moves away.

Professional exchange bettors develop feel for this. They know which markets have enough liquidity that requesting slightly better prices makes sense, and which markets are so illiquid that you have to take what's offered or not bet at all.

In very liquid markets - Premier League match winner on Saturday afternoon - you can often request prices a tick or two better than current best and get matched within minutes. In illiquid markets, even requesting one tick better means your bet might never get matched.

Walking the Book​

Walking the book is exchange terminology for taking all available liquidity at a price, then taking the next price, then the next, until you've got your full stake matched across multiple price points.

Say you want to back a team for £1,000 at 2.00. There's £200 at 2.00, £400 at 1.98, and £500 at 1.96. You can walk the book by taking all the 2.00, then all the 1.98, then £400 of the 1.96, getting your full £1,000 matched but at an average price worse than 2.00.

Whether this makes sense depends on how much edge you have and how much the price matters. If your edge is large enough, accepting worse prices to get full stake matched might still be +EV. If your edge is small, walking the book eats into your value to the point where it's not worthwhile.

Walking the book also impacts the market. You're removing liquidity and potentially moving the price with your own action. If you walk through three price levels, other bettors see the price moving and might adjust their views. You've created market impact with your bet size.

In very liquid markets, walking the book doesn't move prices much because there's so much money available. In illiquid markets, one person walking the book can move the entire market several ticks. This creates a feedback loop where getting your bet matched makes the bet worse value.

Market Impact of Large Bets​

When you place a large bet on an exchange, you're not just taking liquidity, you're also signaling information to other market participants. They see the bet and might adjust their own views.

If someone bets £5,000 on a football match in a market that normally sees £500 bets, other traders notice. They might interpret it as someone knowing something - injury news, insider information, sharp analysis. This can move the price beyond just the mechanical impact of removing liquidity.

This is especially true in smaller markets where big bets are rare. A large bet stands out and gets attention. Professional traders watch for these bets and sometimes follow them or adjust their own positions accordingly. Your bet has created information that affects market pricing.

The less liquid the market, the more impact your bet has. In a massive Premier League market with millions matched, your £5,000 bet is noise. In a League Two market with £20,000 total matched, your £5,000 bet is a significant percentage of volume and will definitely move prices.

For bettors trying to get large stakes matched, this creates a problem. The act of betting large amounts changes the market in ways that make it harder to get the rest of your stake matched at good prices. You're fighting against your own market impact.

Timing Your Bets for Liquidity​

Liquidity isn't constant - it varies throughout the week and throughout the day. Understanding timing helps you get better prices and larger stakes matched.

Early week liquidity is generally lower because fewer people are betting on weekend games on Monday or Tuesday. Lines are softer and edges might be bigger, but getting large stakes matched is harder because there's less money in the markets.

Midweek liquidity increases as the weekend approaches. By Thursday and Friday for weekend games, liquidity is building. More bettors are active, more money is flowing through, and you can get larger stakes matched at better prices.

Day-of-game liquidity varies by time. In the morning there might be decent liquidity. As kickoff approaches, liquidity usually peaks 1-3 hours before the match as everyone places their bets. Then it drops sharply in the final 30 minutes as people stop adding money and the market settles.

In-play liquidity is different. Once a match starts, liquidity can be very high during key moments - right after goals, during dangerous attacks, at halftime. But it can also dry up completely during periods where nothing is happening. In-play betting requires different liquidity awareness than pre-match.

For bettors, the tradeoff is between getting early value when lines are soft versus waiting for better liquidity later when you can get more money matched. There's no universal answer - it depends on your edge size, your confidence, and how much the price is likely to move.

Bookmaker Liquidity and Price Movement​

Traditional bookmakers don't show liquidity explicitly but they have effective limits on how much they'll take before moving their line or restricting your bet.

Sharp bookmakers like Pinnacle have high liquidity - they'll take large bets without moving their lines much because they're confident in their pricing and they use sharp action to refine their numbers. You can often bet £5,000-10,000 before they adjust odds significantly.

Soft bookmakers have lower liquidity for sharp bettors. They'll take your first bet, but if you're betting into good numbers they'll either limit your stake immediately or move their line after your bet. Their effective liquidity for winning bettors is much lower than their stated limits.

Market liquidity at bookmakers shows up in line movement. If you bet into a soft line and it immediately moves 3-4%, that bookmaker had low liquidity for that bet. They weren't willing to take much at that price. If you bet and the line barely moves, there's more liquidity.

For bettors, this means the first bet at a soft bookmaker is often the only chance you get. They'll take your £500 or £1,000 once, then they'll limit you. Trying to get multiple bets down at the same soft line doesn't work - the line moves or your account gets restricted.

Cross-Market Liquidity Arbitrage​

Sometimes you can't get enough liquidity at one book or exchange, but you can get partial fills across multiple platforms and effectively create liquidity by combining them.

If you want to bet £3,000 on a team and Betfair has £800 available, Smarkets has £500, Matchbook has £300, and a bookmaker will take £1,500, you can get your full £3,000 down by splitting across platforms. You're creating liquidity by accessing multiple pools.

This requires having accounts everywhere, monitoring prices across platforms, and acting quickly before prices change. It's operationally complex but it's how professional bettors get large stakes matched when individual markets don't have enough liquidity.

The tradeoff is you're paying transaction costs across multiple platforms - different commission structures, different withdrawal fees, different currency conversions if betting internationally. These costs eat into your edge but if the edge is big enough, it's worth it to get full stakes matched.

Also, prices aren't always identical across platforms. The best price might be at the platform with the least liquidity. You have to decide whether to take slightly worse prices at liquid platforms or try to get the best price at illiquid platforms and risk not getting matched.

When Low Liquidity Is Fine​

Not every betting situation requires high liquidity. Sometimes low liquidity markets are perfectly fine for your needs or even preferable.

If you're betting small stakes - £20-50 per bet - most markets have enough liquidity for you even if they're generally illiquid. You don't need millions available, you need £50 available. Low liquidity markets work fine for small bettors.

If you're learning or testing strategies, low liquidity markets let you get experience without risking large amounts. You can bet real money, get real feedback on your edge, but you're naturally limited in how much you can lose by the low liquidity.

If you're finding edges in obscure markets, low liquidity might be acceptable because the edges are bigger. The soft pricing in illiquid markets sometimes compensates for the inability to get huge stakes matched. A 10% edge where you can bet £200 is better than a 2% edge where you can bet £2,000 if your bankroll is small enough.

Low liquidity also means less competition. Professional bettors mostly avoid illiquid markets because they can't get enough money down to make it worthwhile. If you're competing in illiquid markets, you're facing fewer sharp bettors and the prices stay soft longer.

The key is matching your stake size to market liquidity. Don't try to bet £5,000 in markets that only have £500 available. Find markets where the liquidity matches what you're trying to bet, or adjust your bet sizes to fit the liquidity available.

Building Liquidity with Limit Orders​

On exchanges, you don't have to take existing liquidity - you can add liquidity by placing unmatched bets at prices you want and waiting for others to take them.

If you want to back a team at 2.10 but only 2.00 is available, you can place a limit order offering 2.10 and hope someone lays it. You're adding liquidity to the market by offering a price that wasn't previously available. If someone takes it, you've created the liquidity you needed.

This works in markets with reasonable activity. Your limit order sits there, other bettors see it, and some might take it if they think your price is fair. In very liquid markets, limit orders at reasonable prices get taken quickly. In illiquid markets, they sit there forever.

Professional market makers do this constantly. They place both back and lay orders with a spread between them, creating liquidity on both sides. They profit from the spread when orders get matched. They're providing a service to the market - making it easier for others to get bets matched - in exchange for the spread.

For regular bettors, limit orders make sense when you have time to wait and you're not desperate to get matched immediately. Place your order at the price you want, let it sit, check back later. Maybe it matches, maybe it doesn't. If you need guaranteed matching, take existing liquidity. If you can wait for better price, add liquidity.

Liquidity and Closing Line Value​

In liquid markets, closing line value is a good measure of whether you found value because the closing line represents market consensus after all information is incorporated. In illiquid markets, CLV is less meaningful because there isn't enough activity to efficiently price the market.

A liquid market like Premier League has thousands of participants, sharp bettors, algorithms, and professional traders all contributing to price discovery. The closing line is probably pretty accurate. If you beat it consistently, you're finding genuine edge.

An illiquid market like Romanian second division might have 10 people betting on it, none of them particularly sharp. The closing line is just wherever the last few bets happened to land the price. Beating it doesn't necessarily mean you found value, it might just mean the market is random and inefficient.

For tracking your performance, CLV matters more in liquid markets and less in illiquid markets. In liquid markets, trust CLV as a signal. In illiquid markets, focus on actual results over longer periods because CLV isn't measuring anything meaningful.

This also affects your betting strategy. In liquid markets, timing matters because the line will move toward efficient pricing as kickoff approaches. Getting your bet in early at a soft price is valuable. In illiquid markets, timing matters less because the line stays inefficient regardless. You can bet whenever and it doesn't really matter.

Exchange Commission and Effective Liquidity​

Betfair charges 2-5% commission on winning bets depending on your account status. This effectively reduces available liquidity because you need to account for commission in your value calculation.

If a bet is available at 2.00 on Betfair, you're not actually getting 2.00 returns - you're getting 2.00 minus commission. At 5% commission, you're effectively getting 1.95 true odds. This means liquidity that appears available at 2.00 isn't really available at that price after commission.

For professional bettors, commission is a major cost that eats into edges. A 3% edge becomes a 1% edge after 2% commission. You need bigger edges or higher volume to overcome commission costs. This affects how you think about liquidity - you need more liquidity at given prices to maintain the same expected value after commission.

Some exchanges have lower commission - Smarkets is typically 2%, Matchbook can be under 2% for active bettors. These exchanges effectively have better liquidity for sharp bettors because you keep more of your winnings. A price at Smarkets is worth more than the same price at Betfair because of lower commission.

When comparing liquidity across exchanges, account for commission differences. £10,000 available at 2.00 with 2% commission is effectively better liquidity than £15,000 available at 2.00 with 5% commission, depending on your expected win rate.

Liquidity in Live Betting​

In-play betting liquidity is completely different from pre-match. It swings wildly based on game situations and it can disappear instantly when important events happen.

Before kickoff, liquidity builds steadily. Once the match starts, liquidity fluctuates based on what's happening. During open play with no danger, liquidity might be high as people assess and place bets. The moment a team has a dangerous chance, liquidity can disappear as everyone waits to see if a goal happens.

Right after a goal, liquidity explodes. Suddenly thousands of people want to bet on the new situation. Prices swing wildly and there's tons of money waiting to be matched. This is peak liquidity but it's also peak volatility - prices are moving so fast that getting matched at the price you want is difficult.

At halftime, liquidity rebuilds as people reassess. Between 1-5 minutes after halftime whistle, there's usually good liquidity as the second half market establishes. Then it settles into the same pattern as first half - fluctuating based on game flow.

For in-play bettors, understanding liquidity cycles matters. Don't try to bet during dangerous attacks - there's no liquidity and you can't get matched. Bet during breaks in play or right after big events when liquidity is high. Time your bets to game flow to maximize chances of getting matched at good prices.

When to Give Up on Illiquid Markets​

Sometimes a market is so illiquid that it's not worth trying to bet regardless of your edge. Knowing when to walk away saves time and frustration.

If total matched money in a market is under £1,000 and you want to bet £500, there probably isn't enough liquidity for you. Even if you can get matched, you're a huge percentage of the market and your bet will move prices dramatically.

If your bet has been sitting unmatched for hours with no takers, the market is dead. Nobody is betting it and you're not going to get matched. Better to move to more liquid markets than wait indefinitely for action that won't come.

If the spread between back and lay prices is massive - say 1.80 back and 2.20 lay with nothing in between - the market has no liquidity and no price discovery happening. Don't try to bet into these situations because you're either taking terrible prices or placing unmatched bets that will never get taken.

Professional bettors have thresholds for minimum liquidity. They won't look at markets with less than £10,000-50,000 matched because they can't get enough money down to make it worthwhile. If you're betting smaller amounts your threshold can be lower, but everyone needs some minimum liquidity threshold below which it's not worth the effort.

FAQ​

How much liquidity do I need?
Depends on your stake size. If you're betting £50, you need at least £50 available at your price. If you're betting £5,000, you need at least £5,000 available and preferably much more so you're not moving the market with your own bet. Aim for liquidity at least 3-5x your intended stake.

Should I bet in illiquid markets if the edges are bigger?
Only if you can actually get meaningful stakes matched. A 10% edge where you can only bet £50 makes you £5 expected profit. A 3% edge where you can bet £2,000 makes you £60 expected profit. Total expected profit matters more than edge percentage if liquidity is constraining your stakes.

Why does liquidity disappear right before kickoff?
People stop adding money to the market in the final 30 minutes as they've already placed their bets and are waiting for the game to start. Market makers might also reduce liquidity as prices become more uncertain with late team news or last-minute information. Liquidity usually returns once the match goes in-play.