We’re heading to Haydock today for another Sky Bet First Race Special. If our horse finishes 2nd in the 1.45 at Haydock, Sky Bet will refund our stake as a free bet, up to a maximum of £25.00. Translated into matched betting terms, this gives us a potential profit of £18.64 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.
At the time of writing, there are only 6 runners in this race, so it makes sense to select a horse with short odds in the hope of a 2nd place finish. At the time of writing, the lay odds are pretty poor, so I’ll use fictional odds in the following example and then 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 stake using my matched betting calculator…
As you can see, the calculator tells us that our lay stake should be £24.12…
Place £25.00 on Threat Assessed @ 2.875 = Potential profit of £46.88
Lay £24.12 on Threat Assessed @ 3.00 = Potential liability of £48.24
Let’s have a look at our potential profit/loss for the possible outcomes…
| Threat Assessed wins | + £46.88 – £48.24 = £1.36 loss |
| Threat Assessed places 2nd | – £25.00 + £23.64 + £20.00 (extract 80% from our £25.00 free bet) = £18.64 profit |
| Threat Assessed finishes outside top 2 | – £25.00 + £23.64 = £1.36 loss |
So, we will make a nice profit of £18.64 if Threat Assessed places 2nd and we stand to lose £1.36 on any other outcome. Risking £1.36 to make £18.64 profit gives us effective odds of 14.71, 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.
Many bookmakers run 2nd place refund offers and there’s big money to be made, so you might be interested to read my 2nd place refund strategy guide.
* I actually placed my qualifying bet on Threat Assessed at back odds of 2.25 and lay odds of 2.22. Threat Assessed finished 2nd, meaning I made a profit of £20.06 on this Sky Bet offer. *
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Matt Kirman – Matched Betting Blogger
Since 2014, I’ve blogged over £85,000 worth of profit, and made it my mission to make matched betting accessible to everyone.