At a normal sportsbook, you accept the odds the sportsbook decides to offer you. On ProphetX, the odds are created by users.

Every price you see on the screen comes from another user's offer. Someone is willing to bet a certain amount at those odds, and their money sits in the market until somebody takes it.

Naturally, every user wants the best possible price. Higher odds mean a bigger potential win, so betting on an outcome at +320 is better than betting on the same outcome at +300.

But the user on the other side of your bet wants the opposite. The better the price is for you, the worse it is for them. The market is a constant negotiation between the two sides.

For example you can see odds available at +205 for you to bet on Usman winning and -245 to bet on Du Plessis winning. But these odds are offerings from other users wanting to bet on Usman at +245 (bigger payout than the available +205) and users wanting to bet on Du Plessis at odds of -205 (bigger payout than -245).

You can accept +205 or -245 and be matched instantly, or post your own offer at a better price and wait. The gap between those two levels is called the spread, and we will look at it more closely later in this guide.

Under the odds, ProphetX shows an amount of money. This amount is called liquidity.

Liquidity is the money other users have offered at each price. For example, if $154 is available at odds of +205 and you try to place a $200 wager at that price, only $154 is matched immediately, while the remaining $46 stays pending.

Liquidity changes a lot from market to market. Major leagues and main markets usually fill fast, while smaller markets fill slowly. In a low-liquidity market, you should expect partial matches or some waiting before your wager is fully matched.

For Matched Betting, liquidity is extremely important because the Calculator may tell you to bet a certain amount, but ProphetX can only match your wager if enough money is available at the required odds.

Filled is ProphetX's term for a bet that another user has accepted (you'll also hear this called "matched"). Once a bet is filled, it's locked — it's an active bet and can't be changed or cancelled.

Resting is ProphetX's term for a wager that hasn't been accepted yet. It's only a pending offer sitting in the market, not an active bet. It stays open until it's filled or you cancel it — and you can cancel a resting offer at any time, with the funds returning instantly to your balance.

Partially filled is when only part of your stake has been accepted. For example, if you place a $20 wager and only $15 is filled, that $15 is locked while the remaining $5 stays resting in the market.

This is one of the most important things to understand before using ProphetX for Matched Betting. Always check whether your covering bet has been fully filled before assuming your sportsbook bet is covered.

A wager remains resting when nobody is willing to take the other side at the odds you asked for.

This usually happens for one of two reasons: you used the +/– controls to ask for better odds than anyone is currently offering, or the market is simply quiet and there is not much money moving in it.

For example if you try betting $10 on Ramirez at odds of +300 (instead of the +260 available), your bet will be Resting creating liquidity at odds of -300 on Hooper side.

In simple terms, you are asking for a price that the other side of the market does not want to accept yet. Your offer may still be taken later if the market moves toward it, but there is no guarantee. The odds can just as easily move away from your offer as kickoff approaches.

This is the trade-off:

Taking the available odds gives you certainty of being matched.
Asking for better odds gives you a better potential result, but you may have to wait, and you may never be matched at all.

The goal is not always to get the perfect odds. The goal is to get a good enough result while making sure your bet is actually matched.

Like most exchanges, ProphetX fills the most attractive offers first. An offer is attractive to the other side of the market when the price is good for them, which means when you are asking for less for yourself.

When several users are offering at the same price, the offers that arrived earlier are generally matched first. Your new offer joins the money already waiting at that price, so the wagers ahead of yours have to be taken before yours starts to fill.

If you want to be matched faster, you can ask for slightly lower odds. That makes your offer more attractive to the users on the other side, and it will be taken before the money still waiting at less attractive prices.

Remember the trade-off, though: filling faster means accepting a slightly worse price, and a slightly worse price usually means a slightly smaller Matched Betting profit.

If your wager is resting, do not panic and do not immediately place a second, separate bet on the same outcome.

First, check your open wagers on ProphetX. If your original offer is still resting, placing another bet on top of it is dangerous because both could later be matched. That would leave you with double the cover you wanted.

Usually, the safer options are:

• Keep waiting. Your offer stays in the market and can still be matched if the odds move toward it.
• Cancel the resting offer and place a new bet at the currently available odds. The funds from a cancelled offer return to your balance instantly.
• If the odds have changed since your original calculation, run the numbers through the NinjaBet Calculator again before placing the new bet.

Resting offers are a normal part of using an exchange, but they need attention. An offer you have forgotten about can be matched much later, at odds that no longer make sense for your Matched Betting position.

Before the event starts, always review your resting offers: cancel anything you no longer want, and confirm that the covering bet you actually need is fully matched.

A partially filled bet means part of your cover is active and part is not.

Example: the Calculator tells you to bet $50 at odds of +400 on the opposite outcome. You place the wager, but only $30 is filled. The filled $30 is locked and cannot be changed, while the remaining $20 sits in the market as a resting offer.

In this situation, do not simply start again from zero. You already have $30 filled, so you only need to manage the remaining amount.

The best approach is:

• Check exactly how much of your wager has been filled.
• Cancel the resting offer.
• Use the “Bet Not Matched” section of the NinjaBet tools, to recompute the correct stake for the remaining amount.
• Place the correction bet using the updated calculation.

This prevents you from accidentally covering too much and creating an unnecessary loss.

On ProphetX, your covering bet is a normal bet on the opposite outcome. That makes the rule simple: the higher the odds of your covering bet, the better your final result. Higher odds mean you need a smaller stake to cover the same sportsbook bet, and a smaller stake means less money at risk.

Here is a small example. To keep the numbers simple, we ignore commission here; in real use, the Calculator accounts for it automatically. Suppose you have placed a $100 bet on Team A at odds of +100 at the sportsbook, and you now need to cover it on ProphetX by betting on Team B in a market with two outcomes.

If the best odds available on Team B right now are +105, the Calculator tells you to bet about $97.56 on Team B:

• If Team A wins, you win $100 at the sportsbook and lose your $97.56 stake on ProphetX. Result: about +$2.44.
• If Team B wins, you lose $100 at the sportsbook and win about $102.44 on ProphetX ($97.56 × 1.05). Result: about +$2.44.

Now suppose that instead of taking +105, you use the +/– controls to post an offer at +110. If it is matched, the Calculator tells you to bet about $95.24, and your guaranteed result roughly doubles to about +$4.76. Same match, same sportsbook bet, just a slightly better price on the covering bet.

This is why posting an offer at slightly better odds can be worth it when the event is still far away and you have time to wait. The balance is always the same: a better result if your offer is matched, against the risk of staying unmatched and having to take whatever price the market offers later.

In every ProphetX market there are two prices worth reading: the best odds you can take right now, and the odds that the resting offers are asking for. The gap between the two is called the spread.

A small spread usually means the market is liquid and efficient. For example:

Available now: +150
Being asked: +152

A large spread usually means the market is less liquid or less active. For example:

Available now: +150
Being asked: +180

The spread tells you how much there is to gain by posting an offer instead of taking the current price. When the spread is tight, there is very little to gain: taking the available odds costs you almost nothing and gives you instant certainty, so it is usually the right choice. When the spread is wide, an offer inside the gap can get you a meaningfully better price. But a wide spread also means a quieter market, so expect a longer wait and a higher chance of staying unmatched.

For Matched Betting, a smaller spread is usually better: the odds are more stable, and it is easier to get matched close to the price the Calculator used.

ProphetX charges a 2% commission only on your net winnings.

This means commission is not charged on every single bet separately. If your bets lose, there is no commission to pay. The same goes for cancelled offers: a wager that was never matched costs you nothing.

The NinjaBet tools and the Calculator already account for commission. Just make sure the commission percentage set in the Calculator is correct for the market you are using, because the wrong percentage will make the result inaccurate.

ProphetX is powerful because there is no sportsbook setting the prices: users bet against each other, and the odds come from the market itself. But that also means it works like a real market. Odds, liquidity, and matching are constantly changing.

For Matched Betting, your goal is not only to find a good price. Your goal is to place the correct covering bet, at the correct odds, with enough liquidity, and to confirm that it has been fully matched.

Once you understand liquidity, resting offers, partial matches, and commission, ProphetX becomes much easier to use safely and effectively.