Manchester United will be hoping to get their hands on the FA Cup for the first time in 12 years tomorrow and Ladbrokes are getting in on the action. If both teams score in the FA Cup Final between Crystal Palace and Manchester United, Ladbrokes will refund losing First Goalscorer, Correct Score and Half Time/Full Time bets as a free bet up to a maximum of £25.00 per market. Translated into matched betting terms, this gives us a risk-free potential profit of £9.03 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.
We need to place our qualifying bet on a Correct Score that sees someone keep a clean sheet. This ensures that if both teams score, we will automatically be eligible for a free bet refund as our qualifying bet will have lost.
Having looked at the odds available, I’ve opted to place my qualifying bet on 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 stake using my matched betting calculator…
As you can see, the calculator tells us that our lay stake should be £20.90…
Place £25.00 on 1-0 Man Utd @ 5.50 = Potential profit of £112.50
Lay £20.90 on 1-0 Man Utd @ 6.60 = Potential liability of £117.02
Let’s have a look at our potential profit/loss for the possible outcomes…
| 1-0 Man Utd | + £112.50 – £117.02 = £4.52 loss |
| Not 1-0 Man Utd and both teams score | – £25.00 + £20.48 + £20.00 (extract 80% from our £25.00 free bet) = £15.48 profit |
| Not 1-0 Man Utd and someone keeps a clean sheet | – £25.00 + £20.48 = £4.52 loss |
So, as things stand, if both teams score, we will make a nice profit of £15.48. Any other outcome and we’ll lose £4.52.
In order to make this offer risk-free, we can place an extra lay bet on both teams scoring at Smarkets. In order to work out our lay stake, we just need to divide £4.52 (our potential loss) by 0.98 (to account for the 2% commission) which gives us £4.61…
Lay £4.61 on ‘Both Teams Score – Yes’ @ 2.40 = Potential liability of £6.45
Let’s have a look at our overall profit/loss for the possible outcomes…
| 1-0 Man Utd | – £4.52 + £4.52 = £0.00 |
| Not 1-0 Man Utd and both teams score | £15.48 – £6.45 = £9.03 profit |
| Not 1-0 Man Utd and someone keeps a clean sheet | – £4.52 + £4.52 = £0.00 |
So, if someone keeps a clean sheet, we will have broken even and there’s no harm done. However, if both teams score we will have made a risk-free profit of £9.03 on this Ladbrokes 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.
NOTE: If you want to guarantee yourself an equal profit on any outcome, just divide £20.00 by 2.38 (lay odds minus 0.02). This gives you a lay stake of £8.40 and a liability of £11.76, leaving you with an overall guaranteed profit of £3.71, regardless of the outcome.
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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.