> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://tickside.mintlify.site/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Backing and laying > Two words from betting exchanges, and what they mean if you have never used one. Every price on the ladder can be traded from either side. The two words for that come from betting exchanges, and they are worth ten minutes because the whole desk is built on them. A bet that it **will** happen. On a prediction market this is **buying** the outcome. On a stock market it is going **long**. A bet that it **will not** happen. On a prediction market this is **selling** the outcome, or buying the other side of it. On a stock market it is going **short**. On a two outcome market they are the same trade seen from opposite ends. Laying "Yes" and backing "No" put you in the same position. That is why one ladder covers both sides and never asks which one you meant. ## Which way the numbers run The ladder shows **decimal odds**. They are a price, upside down. | Odds | Chance it happens | In cents | | ---- | ----------------- | -------- | | 1.01 | almost certain | 99c | | 1.50 | two in three | 67c | | 2.00 | a coin flip | 50c | | 10.0 | one in ten | 10c | | 1000 | almost impossible | 0.1c | So **long odds sit at the top** of the ladder and **short odds at the bottom**. As something becomes more likely its odds **shorten** and the number falls. Prefer cents or percentages? **Settings, Display** switches the whole desk to either. Nothing else changes. ## Where you put an order, and which way you then want it to go Say the market is at 1.50. A ladder column at 1.50. A resting back sits above at 1.62 and profits as the odds shorten. A resting lay sits below at 1.42 and profits as the odds drift out. The part that catches people out is that you **place on one side and profit on the other**. A resting back waits above the market, then wants the price to come down to it and keep going. That is not a contradiction. It is exactly what a limit buy order does on any exchange. ## Waiting or taking | You click | What happens | Fee | | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------- | --------------------- | | **away** from the market price | your order rests and waits | none | | **into** the market price | it fills now, against someone else's resting order | the venue's taker fee | Resting is how you get a better price than the market is offering. Taking is how you get filled right now. Most of the desk exists to make the first one easy.