Every round in your league comes with a slate of betting markets, and every market is a pari-mutuel pool: the bets on it go into one pot, whoever backed the winner splits that pot in proportion to their stakes, and the app takes nothing. No money ever passes through ForeYourLeague. It keeps the book, tells everyone who owes whom after the round, and you settle up between yourselves.
If you would rather watch than read, the six chapters of Betting in 5 minutes cover the same ground in order. If you run the league, Running pre-round betting pools covers the organizer's side.
What is pari-mutuel betting?
Pari-mutuel betting means everyone's stakes on a market go into one pot, and the people who backed the winning outcome share that pot in proportion to how much each of them staked. There is no bookmaker and no house line. The odds shown beside each outcome are simply the pot divided by the money on that outcome, so they move as bets land and are only final when betting closes.
Three consequences follow:
- You are betting against the other bettors, not against the app. A player everyone backs pays little; a player nobody expected to win pays a lot.
- Ties share. If two players tie for a market, everyone who backed either of them splits the pot together.
- Nothing is skimmed. Every dollar staked on a market is paid back out to that market's winners. The only way to get less than the pot is a tie, and then the pot is still paid in full, just to more people.
Each market lists every player in the round as an outcome, plus one more called The Field, covered below.
How do I place a bet?
Open the round's markets from the Play tab's event card or from the Markets tab, tap a market, tap Bet beside the outcome you are backing, choose a stake, and tap Place. The market page shows what your stake would return at the current odds; the final return is set when betting closes.
Betting opens as soon as the event is open for RSVPs and closes when the round actually starts, which is the first score entered or the organizer starting the round, not the scheduled tee time. A bet stands once it is placed; there is no cancel, because in a shared pot letting a backer pull out would let them keep the upside while shedding the risk. You can add to a position any time betting is open.
You can usually bet on yourself. The exceptions are markets that reward a bad result, such as biggest blow-up hole, where you cannot back your own outcome, and head-to-head and spread markets you are named in, where you can only back your own side.
What is The Field, and why does it matter?
The Field is a single outcome on every slate market that stands for every player nobody has individually backed. If the market's winner turns out to be one of those unbacked players, The Field wins on their behalf and everyone who backed The Field splits the pot.
It matters because a pari-mutuel pool can only pay out if somebody holds a winning ticket. In a round of sixteen players where bets sit on four favourites, any of the other twelve winning would otherwise leave no winner at all, and the market would void and refund everyone. One bet on The Field, of any size, removes that risk completely. While betting is open, a market with money on players and nothing on The Field shows an amber warning saying so.
The Field's number is how many players it currently covers. Once every player in the round has been backed individually, The Field has nobody left to win for and cannot win; the app stops taking Field bets at that point and marks any standing Field bet as unable to win.
How does a round settle?
When a round completes, every market on it is graded from the round's scorecard and stats, the same numbers you see on the event's leaderboard and stats pages. If the round had any bets, the markets wait for the commish or an admin to confirm the payout; if nobody does within a day, the app settles them on its own. Rounds with no bets settle immediately, since there is nothing to pay.
Grading pays each market's winners from its own pot in proportion to stake. A market that cannot produce a winner voids instead, and voiding refunds every stake on it: fewer than two bettors, a two-sided market with all its money on one side, nobody holding the winning outcome or The Field, or an over/under that lands exactly on the line.
Bets stand after betting closes even if a player withdraws or is disqualified later in the round; their backers ride the result. A ticket on an outcome that can no longer win when betting closes, for example a player who left before the round started, is refunded at that moment rather than at settlement.
Can I make my own market?
Yes. Any league member can make a market from the Markets page with Make a Market, and your opening bet is placed as part of creating it. There are three shapes:
- Head-to-head. Player A against Player B on a chosen stat such as low score or most birdies. Only those two rounds matter.
- Over/under. A numeric line on one player's result, such as whether a player shoots over or under 84.5. Half-number lines mean the result cannot land exactly on the line.
- Spread. Player A against Player B with strokes given, such as one player beating another by more than 3.5. The favourite has to win by more than the line.
Custom markets use the same pool rules as the slate. A head-to-head or spread needs money on both sides to pay out, or it voids and refunds. If you are one of the named players, you can only back your own side; in an over/under about you, you can only back the side that rewards playing well.
How do payouts work?
Each market pays its own winners from its own pot, split by stake. Your net for the round is everything you won minus everything you staked across all of that round's markets. The app then reduces the whole round to the fewest player-to-player payments that square it, so instead of a web of small debts between everyone who bet, each player sees a short list: who they owe, or who owes them.
Two people who are each up and down the same amounts will always be paired the same way, in the preview before settlement and in the final sheet, so nobody is surprised by whom they are paying.
You can see all of this on the Payouts tab of the Markets page, one round at a time. The summary at the top shows what you are owed, what you owe, and your net for that round. Each line opens to show the bets behind it, with every stake and what it returned, and below your own lines the rest of the round's settle-ups are listed as well, so the whole book is in the open.
No money moves through the app. Pay each other however your league prefers, then tap mark settled on the line. The league page's Money list under Standings keeps the season's running net profit and loss for everyone.