Elsewhere on the site you’ll be able to read about the minimum amount that you can bet with bookmakers, so we won’t go over the same old ground here. Instead, we’re going to take a closer look at the maximum amount that you can bet and explore why it is that bookies would have that as a thing. In most cases, though, you’ll find that betting sites don’t bother with a maximum stake amount.
Instead, bookies apply a maximum amount that they’re willing to pay out on bets. Often they will tell you if you try to stake a bet with a higher payout than they will allow, but this isn’t always the case. Obviously there’s no point in staking a larger sum of money than you need to in order to hit the maximum payout amount as it will just be wasted cash if the bet wins and you hit the big bucks.
Why There Are Maximum Payouts
Let’s be honest, the vast majority of punters are never going to hit the dizzy heights of needing to know what the maximum stake amount you can place with a bookmaker is. In reality, it would also be very difficult to find out a specific figure, given that most bookies opt instead to apply a maximum payout amount. There are numerous reasons for this, with the main one being that it protects the bookmaker.
Whether we like it or not, bookies will always look after themselves. As with casinos, there are margins built in to every bet that you place and systems used to ensure that a bookmaker will always be in profit in the long run, regardless of the outcome of an event. One of the main things that a bookmaker will do is ensure that they will never be at risk of financial ruin because they’ve paid out such a large amount of money.
Instead, limiting the maximum payout ensures that a bookmaker is protected from that at the same time as having other benefits. The likes of match-fixing is less likely if there’s a maximum payout, for example, and high stake bettors will be less able to manipulate odds by placing big bets if they know that they they will essentially lose money if their wager would see them win more than they can be paid out.
Just because there’s a limit to the maximum payout does not mean that a bookie will be limiting the types of bets that they can receive. If a punter places a £100 bet at 1,000/1 it will payout the same amount as a £50,000 bet at Evens, so both types of bettor will be satisfied with what they’re being offered. The bookie can keep both their high stakes players and their regular bettors happy but limit their liability.
The Maximum Will Always Vary
The different bookmakers in existence have their own worries and concerns. The result of this is that a mega betting company with offices all around the world will have a larger maximum payout when compared to a small local bookie. Even within certain sports you’ll often find that there are different rules. Bookmakers depend on confidence in markets in define risk, so less popular sports and lower ranked events will have lower maximum payouts than popular ones.
Specialist markets will also have lower payout amounts than common areas that punters love to bet on. You will be paid at higher limits on something like the Home-Draw-Away market than on a market like the next manager to be sacked, for example. Looking at Ladbrokes, you could be paid out as much as £1 million on a Premier League match, but only £10,000 on a greyhound race that isn’t being live streamed, for example.
Generally bigger sports and events have more data available for them and betting companies know these are professional, trustworthy events where they know match or spot fixing is much harder. This allows them to run higher payout limits. Lower ranked events within sports obviously have less robustness in this sense and this increases the risk for the operator and one way they cope with this is to set lower limits to discourage large bets.
There are numerous examples of match fixing at a low level sports, such as tennis players with low rankings. Even TV talent shows have been fixed in the past due to phone voting issues. This is something betting brands are very aware of and they reflect this in their lower limits for these events and sports.
If this is something that really matters to you then you should make sure that you do your research for each market that you plan to bet on. It would be an error to rely on a bookmaker to tell you that you’re staking more money than you need to to hit the maximum payout amount. Plenty will indeed let you know, but some won’t and that would be a decidedly expensive mistake to make when it would also be needless.
Why It Matters
The reason you’ll want to make sure that you know both whether a bookmaker has a maximum stake amount and if they have a maximum payout is that if you get them confused then you could be in a situation where you might end up losing money. Either way, the amounts are likely to be high so most casual punters won’t need to worry too much, but it’s still worth knowing about.
Let’s say, for example, that a bookmaker has a maximum stake amount of £20,000. They also have a maximum payout figure of £250,000. If you’re betting on a market with odds of 2/1 then the two figures won’t be relevant to each other as a £20,000 stake will see a payout of £40,000; well within the bookies’ maximum payout figure. If, on the other hand, the odds are 20/1 then you need to consider your stake amount.
If you were to bet £20,000 on an event with odds of 20/1, the payout if it won would be £400,000. That’s £150,000 more than the maximum payout figure put in place by the bookmaker, so you’ll end up losing the excess money if the bookie allows you to place the bet. If you reduce your stake to £12,500 then you’ll still be able to get the maximum payout and you’ll have saved yourself £7,500.
Accumulators
It doesn’t just have to be in high-rolling scenarios where it matters, either. Looking at a 15-fold Acca with Ladbrokes on football matches, picking the outcome with the highest odds every time, the odds were 16,689,098,249.56/1. It’s fair to say that that is over the company’s maximum payout, even if you only wagered £1 on the outcome. You just don’t need to spend that, with even a penny offering a £166,890,982.50 payout, which would be over the limit by a long way.
Betting on big accas is one of the most common reasons an average punter would hit a payout limit. It is worth being aware that different sports and events carry different limits and if you combine multiple different sports in an accumulator they will usually set the payout limit based on the sport/event with the lowest maximum.
Let’s say, for example, you put 6 football matches in an acca where the payout limit is high at £1 million. If you now add a lower level event, such as the winner of a TV talent show contest, which has a limit of £5,000. This means the entire accumulator maximum is now £5k. This is something most punters are not aware of.
VIP Schemes Offer Higher Payouts
If you’re a high roller and you particular wanted to be able to place bets that exceed a company’s maximum payout amount then you might want to consider signing up to a VIP scheme. In addition to numerous different benefits offered to loyal customers that bet big, VIP schemes also promise larger payout amounts than those that are available to the traditional, low-level punter.
The one thing to be aware of is that it looks like such schemes are being phased out by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission, with a release dated 19th of July 2020 pointing to a consultation that the organisation has opened on that very topic. It is hoped that removing such schemes will make gambling ‘fairer, safer and crime free’, though high value customers will obviously suffer as a result.