Betting Glossary - Essential Betting Terms beginning with L
- Lad
- Stable employee
- Lame
- When a horse is having difficulty walking or is limping.
- Lay
- A bookie lays a selection when he opens a market in it and thus allows a bet on it.
- Lay up
- Position a horse behind leading runners during a race
- Layer
- An alternative term for a bookmaker, someone who lays or accepts a bet.
- Layers
- Another name for bookmakers.
- Laying Off Bets
- See Hedging.
- Laying Points
- A wager on a favorite in a pointspread contest
- Laying the price
- Betting the favorite by laying money odds.
- Layoff
- Money bet by a house with another bookmaker to reduce its liability.
- Lead strips
- Weights inserted in weight cloth on horses back to make racing weight
- Left handed track
- Raceourse where horses run anti-clockwise
- Lengthen
- Odds lengthen when they go up - for example, from 3-1 to 4-1. This is also known as "drifting".
- Lesters
- Famous Horse Racing "trade" dinner held in London
- Levy Board
- Horserace Betting Levy Board, an organisation whose primary aim is to redistribute monies from betting tax back into the industry
- Limit
- the maximum amount a bookmaker will allow you to bet before he changes the odds and/or the points.
- Line
- Moneyline, odds, or pointspread
- Linemaker
- In the sports betting industry this is the person who establishes the original and subsequent betting lines.
- Live Betting
- Betting on the outcomes of a sporting or other event where the probabilities or different outcomes can only be guessed at.
- Lock
- Easy winner, can not lose.
- Long odds
- The longer the odds, the more money you will get for your bet if the horse wins - thus, 100-1 are longer odds than 5-1. The longer the odds, the lower the chances of the horse winning!
- Longshot
- A team or horse perceived to be unlikely to win.
- Lucky 15
- Four selections in four different races comprising, four singles, six doubles, four trebles and one fourfold. It is 15 bets win and 30 bets each way. If there are four winners a ten per cent bonus is paid, usually at starting price. If there is only one winner, double the starting price odds are paid. these bonuses and consolations apply only to the win part of the bet. So, if an each way lucky 5 has just one placed horse, double the odds is not paid on the placed selection. Similarly if one selection wins and one is a non-runner the consolation is not paid.
- Lucky 31
- A Lucky 31 is basically a Canadian with five singles as well, which adds up to 31 separate bets (the number of bets being how many combinations of the individual bets you can have).
- Lucky 63
- The Lucky 63 is a Heinz plus six singles in all possible permutations.