First Race Special (13:50 Newmarket) – Sky Bet

There’s a big day of racing at Newmarket today and it’s time for another Sky Bet First Race Special! If our horse finishes 2nd or 3rd in the 13:50 at Newmarket, Sky Bet will refund our stake as a free bet, up to a maximum of £20.00. Translated into matched betting terms, this gives us a potential profit of £13.73 and here’s how…

The Terms:

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.

Qualifying bets must be placed between 14:00 on Friday 4th May 2018 and 13:50 on Saturday 5th May 2018, to be eligible.

Qualifying Bet:

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 or 3rd place finish.

At the time of writing, the lay odds aren’t quite tight enough, so I’ll use fictional odds for Sharja Bridge in the following example and I’ll update the bottom of the post with an actual selection after the race.

I like to place my exchange lay bets with Betfair as they have great liquidity in the run up to races and the site is really easy to use.

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 £19.72…

Sky Bet Logo

Place £20.00 on Sharja Bridge @ 3.50 = Potential profit of £50.00

betfair logo

Lay £19.72 on Sharja Bridge @ 3.60 = Potential liability of £51.27

Outcomes:

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

Sharja Bridge wins + £50.00 – £51.27 = £1.27 loss
Sharja Bridge places 2nd or 3rd – £20.00 + £18.73 + £15.00 (extract 75% from our £20.00 free bet) = £13.73 profit
Sharja Bridge finishes outside top 3 – £20.00 + £18.73 = £1.27 loss

So, we’ll make a nice profit of £13.73 if Sharja Bridge places 2nd or 3rd and we stand to lose £1.27 on any other outcome. Risking £1.27 to make a profit of £13.73 gives us effective odds of 11.81, which I’m sure you’ll agree, makes this a profitable offer in the long run.

If you’re unsure how to extract 75% of a £20.00 free bet, check out my Free Bet Strategy page for a walk-through guide on how it should be done.

* See my Horse Racing Offers page for a full list of money back offers available today! *

* Sharja Bridge was available at back odds of 5.00 and lay odds of 5.20. Sharja Bridge finished 2nd, resulting in a profit of £13.44 on this Sky Bet offer. *

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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.