What 'oddsmatcher-ready' means
Providers use 'oddsmatcher-ready' loosely. Here is what a feed has to do to a price before an oddsmatcher can show it, and how to tell who does that work.
3 min read · Updated 22 Sep 2026
An oddsmatcher is a table of bookmaker offers paired with exchange lay prices, sorted by how cheap each pair is to place.
An oddsmatcher-ready feed has done that work before you see it: each pair arrives matched, checked for money on the exchange, and carrying everything needed to rate it. The five steps below show how far a feed goes.
The checklist
| Criterion | What to ask for |
|---|---|
| Fixtures matched | Selections mapped to one canonical fixture across bookmakers |
| Pairs returned | Each row is a back price with its exchange lay, not two separate prices |
| Ready to rate | The back price, the lay price and the money available on every pair |
| Liquidity checked | Pairs dropped when the exchange has no money at that price |
| All types | Standard, Each-way, Extra place, Best odds guaranteed, Dutching and 2Up |
1. Match the fixture and selection
Two bookmakers describe the same event and the same outcome in different words. Before anything can be compared, those have to be matched to one canonical fixture and selection, across every bookmaker and every market.
Get it wrong and the wrong back price is paired with the wrong lay, and the table shows a precise, wrong number. In a finished feed you never see this step.
2. Pair the back with the lay
A matched bet is a bookmaker back price set against an exchange lay price. Pairing them means lining up the right exchange market and lay price for each bookmaker offer.
Raw feeds stop short of this. They hand you the prices and let you pair them. An oddsmatcher-ready feed returns the pair as one row.
3. Carry what the rating needs
Not all pairs are equal. Matched bettors sort on a rating: how close the back and lay prices are, which sets what the qualifying bet costs.
The rating depends on each user's own exchange commission, so it belongs in your tool rather than the feed. What the feed owes you is the inputs on every pair: the back price, the lay price and the money available at that lay. With those in hand, the rating is one line of arithmetic.
4. Drop pairs with no money behind them
A pair is no use if the exchange has no money at that price. Dropping those pairs leaves only the ones people can place.
Without it, you filter them out yourself.
5. Cover every offer type
'Matched betting' is not one calculation. Standard, Each-way, Extra place, Best odds guaranteed (BOG), Dutching and 2Up each have their own logic, and a complete feed handles all of them, selectable per request.
Ask which of them a provider serves ready-made. Standard alone covers only match offers.
Where OddsRelay fits
OddsRelay's matched feeds do all five steps before a pair reaches you. Rate each pair at your own commission, or embed the oddsmatcher widget and let it do that.
From the blog
- The complete guide to matched betting odds dataBack prices, lay prices and the money on offer: what matched betting data holds and what you work out.
- How to build an oddsmatcherAn oddsmatcher is paired price data plus the product on top. Which half deserves your engineering time.
- What is an oddsmatcher?An oddsmatcher ranks back prices against exchange lay prices. The data it needs, and the sums it runs.
Related
- Matched-betting feed checklistEight checks for the feed under an oddsmatcher.
- Lay & exchange coverageLay prices, the money behind them, and what to check in a feed.
- Choosing a providerEight things to check before you buy: coverage, update times, schema, delivery, support and terms.
- Matched-betting platformsPaired back and lay prices for every matched-betting tool.
- Odds & betting glossary