LadBet Bet Slip Guide

The bet slip is the only part of a sportsbook where money actually moves, and it carries more controls than most people ever touch. Two of those controls change what a bet costs and what it pays, so they are worth understanding rather than discovering.

The basic fields

What is on the slip the moment you tap a price.

Selection and price

The market you tapped and the price attached to it. The price shown is the price you will get unless it moves before you confirm, in which case the behaviour depends on the accept-changes setting below. Nothing has been staked at this point and removing the selection costs nothing.

Stake and return

Type a figure and the return updates live. On a cash bet the return includes your stake; on a free bet it does not, and the slip labels it differently so the difference is visible before you confirm rather than after it settles.

The accept-changes switch

The most consequential control on the slip and the one fewest people have looked at.

What it does

Off, which is the default, means any price movement between tapping and confirming stops the bet and asks you again. On means movements in your favour are accepted automatically. It never accepts a movement against you silently — that would not be a defensible default whatever the setting said.

When to switch it on

In-play, where prices move constantly and a bet stopped for a favourable movement is simply an annoyance. Pre-match on a stable market it makes almost no difference, because prices there move in minutes rather than seconds.

The free bet toggle

It sits directly under the stake box when a free bet is available, and missing it is the second most common support conversation after the Lucky 15 stake.

How it behaves

Tapping it replaces the cash stake with the free bet rather than adding to it. The return figure changes at the same moment, because a free bet returns winnings without the stake. If you have typed a cash figure and then tapped the toggle, the cash figure disappears — that is correct, not a bug.

If you place a cash bet by accident

It cannot be unwound. A placed bet is a contract and we have no facility to convert it retrospectively into a free bet. The free bet stays in the account for its remaining life, which is covered on the free bets page.

Multiples on the slip

Add a second selection and the slip grows a multiples section automatically.

Singles and multiples together

Two selections give you the option of two singles, a double, or both at once. The slip lists each with its own stake box, and the total stake line at the bottom is the number that actually leaves your account. That line is the one to read.

Full-cover bets

Trixies, Yankees and Lucky 15s appear once enough selections are added, each showing the number of bets it contains. A £2 unit stake on a fifteen-bet Lucky 15 is a £30 bet, and the total line says so. What each named bet contains is set out separately.

The settings behind the slip

Two account settings change how the slip behaves and both sit outside it, which is why they get missed.

Odds format

Fractional or decimal, chosen in account settings and applied across the site and the app immediately. Decimal makes multiples far easier to check in your head, because the legs simply multiply. Fractional is what British coupons have always used and is what most people find easier to read at a glance. Neither is more accurate; they describe identical prices.

Default stake

A pre-filled figure in the stake box, which saves typing and is worth thinking about twice. A default set at a comfortable figure is a mild convenience. A default set at the top of your range turns every bet into that size by inertia, which is the opposite of the habit worth building.

After you confirm

Two places to look, depending on whether the event has finished.

Open bets

Everything live sits here, with the current cash out figure against it where cash out is available. A bet disappears from open bets the moment it settles rather than the moment the event ends, and those can be a few minutes apart.

Bet history

Settled bets, filterable by sport and date. It shows the price the bet was accepted at and the price it was paid at, which on racing can differ where best odds guaranteed applied. Settlement timings by sport explains the gaps.

Betting is at its best when it stays a bit of fun, so set the pace that suits you. Free confidential advice is available day and night from the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133. An account requires you to be at least 18.