The FA Cup 4th Rounds gets underway on Friday night and Ladbrokes are getting in on the action. If both teams score in the Derby County v Manchester United match, Ladbrokes will refund losing Correct Score, First Goalscorer 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 potential risk-free profit of £8.59 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 means 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 0-0 draw.
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 £20.28…
Place £25.00 on a 0-0 draw @ 8.50 = Potential profit of £187.50
Lay £20.28 on a 0-0 draw @ 10.50 = Potential liability of £192.63
Let’s have a look at our potential profit/loss for the possible outcomes…
0-0 draw | + £187.50 – £192.63 = £5.13 loss |
Not 0-0 draw and both teams score | – £25.00 + £19.87 + £20.00 (extract 80% from our £25.00 free bet) = £14.87 profit |
Not 0-0 draw and someone keeps a clean sheet | – £25.00 + £19.87 = £5.13 loss |
So, as things stand, if both teams score, we will make a nice profit of £14.87. Any other outcome and we’ll lose £5.13.
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 £5.13 (our potential loss) by 0.98 (to account for the 2% commission) which gives us £5.23…
Let’s have a look at our overall profit/loss for the possible outcomes…
0-0 draw | – £5.13 + £5.23 = £0.00 |
Not 0-0 draw and both teams score | £14.87 – £6.28 = £8.59 profit |
Not 0-0 draw and someone keeps a clean sheet | – £5.13 + £5.13 = £0.00 |
So, if someone keeps a clean sheet, we will have broken even and there’s no harm done. If both teams score we will have made a risk-free profit of £8.59 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.
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Matt Kirman – Matched 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.