Stan James Offer – Man Utd v Man City

It’s the Manchester derby this weekend at Old Trafford and Stan James are getting in on the action. If both teams score in Manchester United v Manchester City, Stan James will refund losing First/Last Goalscorer and Correct Score bets as a free bet up to a maximum of £25.00. Translated into matched betting terms, this gives us a potential profit of £8.50 and here’s how…

Qualifying bet

If you’re unfamiliar with qualifying bets, please see my Qualifying Bet Strategy page for a walk-through guide on how they should be done.

Whenever I do these type of offers, I always stick to the correct score market. We need to select a scoreline that sees someone keeping a clean sheet.  This ensures that if both teams score, we will automatically qualify for a free bet refund as our qualifying bet will have lost.  Having looked at the odds available, I’ve opted for a 1-0 Manchester United win.

I like to place my exchange lay bets with Smarkets as they have great liquidity, the site is really easy to use and they only charge 2% commission in comparison to the 5% charged by other betting exchanges. We can calculate our lay stakes using the matched betting calculator.

stanjames

Place £25.00 on 1-0 Man Utd @ 9.00 = Potential profit of £200.00

smarkets white

Lay £18.78 on 1-0 Man Utd @ 12.00 = Potential liability of £206.59

Let’s have a look at our potential profit/loss for the three outcomes…

1-0 Man Utd +£200.00 – £206.59 = £6.59 loss
Not 1-0 Man Utd and both teams score -£25.00 + £18.41 + £20.00 (extract 80% from our £25.00 free bet) = £13.41 profit
Not 1-0 Man Utd and someone keeps a clean sheet -£25.00 + £18.41 = £6.59 loss

As things stand, if both teams score, we will make a profit of £13.41, but we’ll lose £6.59 on any other outcome. By placing another lay bet on both teams scoring, we can make this offer risk-free. To work out our lay stake, we need to divide £6.59 by 0.98 (to account for the 2% commission charged by Smarkets), which gives us £6.72.

smarkets white

Lay £6.72 on Both Teams to Score @ 1.73 = Potential liability of £4.91

Let’s have a look at our overall profit/loss for the three outcomes…

1-0 Man Utd -£6.59 + £6.59 = £0.00
Not 1-0 Man Utd and both teams score £13.41 – £4.91 = £8.50 profit
Not 1-0 Man Utd and someone keeps a clean sheet -£6.59 + £6.59 = £0.00

So if someone keeps a clean sheet, we’ll have broken even and there’s no harm done. If, however, both teams score, we’ll have made a profit of £8.50 on this offer.

If you’re unsure how to extract 80% of our £25.00 free bet, check out my Free Bet Strategy page for a walk-through guide on how it should be done.

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Matt Kirman - Matched Betting Blogger

Matt KirmanMatched Betting Blogger

Since 2014, I’ve blogged over £70,000 worth of profit, and made it my mission to make matched betting accessible to everyone.