Betfair SP explained: how BSP is worked out, and when to use it

Last checked 13 October 2026

Betfair SP, or BSP, is a starting price that Betfair works out at the moment a race starts. You ask for SP before the off, you get whatever price the market settles on, and the bet is always matched. That last part is why it matters so much for automation.

How the price is worked out

At the off, Betfair takes every SP back bet and every SP lay bet on a runner and matches them against each other, and against the unmatched money still sitting in the exchange market at that moment. The price that clears all of that is the BSP. It's one number, and everyone who asked for SP on that runner gets it, backers and layers alike.

Your own money is part of the pool. On a big Saturday handicap a £50 SP bet disappears into the crowd. On a Tuesday evening dogs race, or a six-runner race at a small track, a large SP stake can nudge the price against you, because there's less money on the other side to absorb it.

Before the off, Betfair shows a projected SP, the "near" and "far" prices. The near price is a guess from what's in so far plus the exchange money; the far price only uses the SP bets and can be a long way from where things end up. They're useful for a glance and useless as something to build a system on. The real price doesn't exist until the race starts.

What you can and can't do with an SP bet

• Place it any time before the off. Eleven in the morning or eleven seconds before the start, it makes no difference to the price you get.
• Cancel it before the off. Once the race starts it's matched and that's that.
• It never sits in the queue. A normal bet at a fixed price waits for someone to take the other side. An SP bet waits for the off and then matches in full.
• You can set a limit. Back at SP with a minimum price and the bet is only struck if BSP comes out at that price or bigger. Lay at SP with a maximum price and it's only struck if BSP is at that price or shorter. A limit is an on-off switch, not a way to get a better price.

Laying at SP is different

When you back at SP you give Betfair a stake. When you lay at SP you give Betfair a liability, the amount you're prepared to lose, and the stake is worked out at the off from whatever the SP turns out to be.

So a £20 liability lay at an SP of 5.0 is a £5 stake, and the same £20 liability at an SP of 11.0 is a £2 stake. You always know what you can lose. You don't know what you'll win until the race goes off.

That has a practical consequence. If a system says "lay every selection to a £10 stake", that can't be done at SP, because Betfair won't let you fix the stake. The bot has to take a price in the market shortly before the off instead. It's why you'll see us describe our own systems as win bets placed at BSP, and the lay systems as placed close to the off, rather than everything at SP. There's more on the maths of all this in lay betting liability explained.

BSP against the industry SP

The industry SP is the price the on-course bookmakers return. BSP is the price the exchange money returns, and you pay commission on what you win. People argue about which is better, usually with a spreadsheet, and the honest answer is that it depends on the price band. On outsiders and mid-priced horses BSP is generally the bigger price, often by a distance. At the short end the two are closer, and once commission comes off there isn't much in it either way.

The only comparison that matters is the one for the bets you actually place. Log both prices for a few hundred bets and look at the total. Everything else is somebody else's horses.

Why automated systems use it

There are four reasons, and they're the same four whether it's our system or yours.

1. Every bet goes on. No unmatched bets, nothing left in the queue when the market suspends, no "sorry, it drifted". If you've ever wondered why a bot's bets go unmatched, SP is the setting that makes most of that go away.
2. Nobody chases the price. Fifty people following the same selection at a fixed price in the same minute push the price against each other. At SP everybody gets the same number, and the number already includes everybody's money.
3. It can be checked. Betfair publishes the BSP for every runner after every race. A record kept at BSP can be checked by anyone against the official number, which is why Gap 7, Gap 10 and Gap 12 run at it and publish at it. A record kept at "the price we advised at 10am" can't be checked by anyone.
4. Timing stops mattering. The selections can load at 11am and the bets can go on whenever. There's no last-two-minutes dash for liquidity.

When not to use it

SP isn't right for everything, and a bot that forces it on a system that wasn't built for it will underperform the record.

• The edge is in the early price. Some systems only work because they get on before the market moves. Their whole profit is the gap between the morning price and SP. Put those at SP and you've thrown the edge away.
• Fixed-stake lays. As above: you can lay at SP to a liability, not to a stake.
• Thin markets with a big stake. If you're a large part of the SP pool, you are moving your own price.
• In-play. SP is a pre-off price. Anything after the off is a normal exchange bet.

How xCloudBot handles it

Each system in xCloudBot can place its win bets at Betfair SP. Your minimum and maximum odds still apply, your staking plan runs as normal, and you can run one system at SP and another at a market price side by side. The three Gap systems included on Premium are set up this way because that's how their records are kept, and the results you see on PuntHub come straight from the bot. If you want to see how a system behaves at SP before any money goes on, run it in simulation mode first.

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