Sky Bet Offer – 2.15 Haydock

We’re heading to Haydock today for another Sky Bet First Race Special. If our horse finishes 2nd, 3rd or 4th in the 2.15 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 £18.20 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, 3rd or 4th 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 stake using my matched betting calculator…

Back Bet (Bookie)

%

Lay Bet (Betting Exchange)

%

Min £
Max £
Lay stake required: £
Bookie
Exchange
Cashback
Total
If back (bookie) bet wins
£
£
£
= £
If lay (exchange) bet wins
£
£
£
= £
Total profit: £

Optimal Underlay

Lay stake required: £
Exchange liability: £

If back (bookie) bet wins: £
If lay (exchange) bet wins: £

Optimal Overlay

Lay stake required: £
Exchange liability: £

If back (bookie) bet wins: £
If lay (exchange) bet wins: £

As you can see, the calculator tells us that our lay stake should be £23.67…

skybet

Place £25.00 on Ch’tibello @ 5.00 = Potential profit of £100.00

smarkets white

Lay £23.67 on Ch’tibello @ 5.30 = Potential liability of £101.80

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

Ch’tibello wins +£100.00 – £101.80 = £1.80 loss
Ch’tibello places 2nd 3rd or 4th -£25.00 + £23.20 + £20.00 (extract 80% from our £25.00 free bet) = £18.20 profit
Ch’tibello finishes outside top 4 -£25.00 + £23.20 = £1.80 loss

So, we will make a nice profit of £18.20 if Ch’tibello places 2nd, 3rd or 4th and we stand to lose £1.80 on any other outcome. Risking £1.80 to make £18.20 profit gives us effective odds of 11.11, 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 a £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 Gwafa at back odds of 8.00 and lay odds of 8.20. Gwafa won the race, meaning I made a loss of £1.04 on this Sky Bet 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.