Sky Bet Offer – 1.45 Ascot

We head to Ascot this weekend for our Sky Bet First Race Special. If our horse finishes 2nd or 3rd in the 1.45 at Ascot racecourse today, Sky Bet will refund all losing outright bets on that race as a free bet up to £25.00. Translated into matched betting terms, this gives us a potential profit of £18.06 and here’s how…

Qualifying Bet:

If you’re unsure about how to place qualifying bets, check out my Qualifying Bet Strategy page for a walk-through guide on how they should be done.

It’s entirely up to you which horse you go for, but it would make sense to select a horse with fairly short odds in the hope of a 2nd or 3rd placed finish. At the time of writing, the lay odds are pretty poor so I’ll use fictional odds in the following example and I’ll update the bottom of this post with my actual selection after the race.

I like to place my exchange lay bets with Smarkets as they have great liquidity in the run up to races, 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.

skybet

Place £25.00 on Voix D’eau @ 4.50 = Potential profit of £87.50

smarkets white

Lay £23.54 on Voix D’eau @ 4.80 = Potential liability of £89.44

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

Voix D’eau wins +£87.50 – £89.44 = £1.94 loss
Voix D’eau places 2nd or 3rd -£25.00 + £23.06 + £20.00 (extract 80% from our £25.00 free bet) = £18.06 profit
Voix D’eau places outside top 3 -£25.00 + £23.06 = £1.94 loss

So we will make a nice profit of £18.06 if Voix D’eau places 2nd or 3rd and we stand to lose £1.94 on any other outcome. Risking £1.94 to make £18.06 profit gives us effective odds of 10.31, which I’m sure you’ll agree, makes this a profitable offer in the long run.

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.

* I actually placed my qualifying bet on Padge at back odds of 6.00 and lay odds of 6.60. Padge won the race and due to Sky Bet’s Best Odds Guarantee, I was paid out at odds of 7.00, meaning I made a profit of £22.30 on this offer. *

Got a question?
Leave me a comment below

I usually respond within 24 hours.

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.