CLAUDIUS      No place indeed should murder sanctuarize.

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber;

Hamlet returned shall know you are come home;

We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence

And set a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together

And wager on your heads.    (4.7.125-132)

No place indeed should murder sanctuarize: Claudius, smoothly, in a way that manages to be both sanctimonious and shocking, accommodates Laertes’s bloodthirsty, sacrilegious outburst, absolutely, dear boy, you’re right, there isn’t a single place where it wouldn’t be appropriate to do this—and he’s now completely happy to use the word murder, which resonates outwards to encompass his own murder of his brother, Hamlet’s failure to kill Claudius, and also, perhaps, the suggestion that Hamlet wouldn’t be safe from the consequences of his murder of Polonius (if it was murder; Claudius is happy for it to be thought so) even if he were to seek sanctuary. Revenge should have no bounds; nothing should limit it. (Again the audience knows more than Claudius and Laertes about the bounds of revenge in Elsinore.)

But he needs to get this nailed down: but, good Laertes, will you do this? I need a firm commitment (he doesn’t stop for an answer, mind racing ahead as to how to go about it). Keep close within your chamber, keep yourself to yourself, and Hamlet returned shall know you are come home, we’ll make sure of that. Moreover, we’ll put on those shall praise your excellence and set a double varnish on the fame the Frenchman gave you. We’ll talk you up, encourage other people to commend your skill; mount a PR campaign! (It doesn’t matter, therefore, that Claudius may well have invented the story of Lamord’s praise of Laertes’s skill in fencing.) And then we’ll bring you in fine together and wager on your heads. We’ll conclude by setting up a competition between the two of you, and take bets! The plot is taking shape; Claudius has been setting it up meticulously.

(Betting on the outcome would be the natural thing, especially at court, where gambling was endemic; not to take wagers would be suspicious.)