Sky Bet Offer – Norfolk Stakes

Why bother looking for horse racing tips today, when you can do a bit of matched betting and make low-risk profits?  Sky Bet are back with another First Race Special on Thursday’s horse racing.  If the favourite wins the 2.30 Norfolk Stakes at Ascot race course, 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 risk-free profit of £12.71 and here’s how…

Sky Bet Offer - 2.30 Royal Ascot

Qualifying Bet:

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

For this particular offer, bets placed on the Unnamed Favourite or the Unnamed Second Favourite will not be eligible for a free bet refund.  This means we need to select a horse with long odds, which ensures that if the favourite wins, we will automatically be eligible for a free bet refund as our qualifying bet will have lost.  Having looked at the current odds on offer, I’ve opted to place my qualifying bet on Jazz Legend.  You may want to wait until nearer the start of the race to ensure that you are not backing the starting favourite.

Ordinarily, I would use the Betfair Exchange to place my lay bets but Ladbrokes are running a fantastic offer on their Exchange.  We can get 1% commission on the first race at Ascot every day this week.

skybet

Place £25.00 on Jazz Legend @ 21.00 = Potential profit of £500.00

ladbrokes

Lay £21.88 on Jazz Legend @ 24.00 = Potential liability of £503.33

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

 

Jazz Legend wins +£500.00 – £503.33 = £3.33 loss
The favourite wins -£25.00 + £21.67 + £20.00 (extract 80% from our £25.00 free bet) = £16.67 profit
Neither wins -£25.00 + £21.67 = £3.33 loss

 

So as things stand we will make £16.67 profit if the favourite wins.  We also stand to lose £3.33 on any other outcome and so we need to insure ourselves against this by laying the favourite at the betting exchange.  Although King of Rooks looks like starting the race as favourite at the time of writing, we should really place this next bet as close to the race starting as possible, so we can be sure we are laying the race favourite.  In order to calculate our lay stake, we need to divide £3.33 by 0.99 to account for the 1% commission.  This gives us a lay stake of £3.36.

ladbrokes

Lay £3.36 on King of Rooks @ 2.18 = Potential liability of £3.96

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

 

Jazz Legend wins -£3.33 + £3.33 = £0.00
The favourite wins £16.67 – £3.96 = £12.71 profit
Neither wins -£3.33 + £3.33 = £0.00

 

So if the favourite doesn’t win, we will break even and there’s no harm done.  However, if the favourite does win, we will make a nice risk-free profit of £12.71!

If you’re unsure how to extract 80% of our £25.00 free bet, check out my Free Bet Strategy page for a walkthrough 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.