Virgin Bet – Cheltenham Festival 2022 Offer

Cheltenham Festival 2022 is here, and you don’t want to miss this Virgin Bet offer! Back a winner at odds of 3/1 or more in any race at Cheltenham, and Virgin Bet will give you a free bet equal to your stake, up to £20.00. Translated into matched betting terms, this gives you an overall potential profit of £100.00+ and here’s how…

Key terms

  • Offer applies to your first single win cash bet on each Cheltenham Festival race between Tuesday 15th March 2022 and Friday 18th March 2022.
  • Qualifying bets must be placed on the day of the race to be eligible.
  • Offer applies to the win part of each way bets.
  • If your horse wins at odds of 4.00 (3/1) or greater, you’ll receive a free bet equal to your stake up to £20.
  • Free bets will be valid for 72 hours.
  • Free bet stakes will not be returned with any winnings.

Qualifying bets

This offer is available on all 28 Cheltenham Festival races between Tuesday 15th March 2022 and Friday 18th March 2022.

I’ll take you through a worked example below, but for more information about ‘Back a Winner’ type offers and a walkthrough of how they should be done, please see my Bet365 4/1 Offer guide.

Please see my qualifying bets guide if you’d like more information about them and how they work.

At the time of writing, Energumene is back odds of 4.00 (3/1) to win the 15:30 on Wednesday. The lay odds are currently 4.30.

Either exchange works for this offer

Betfair and Smarkets are both great options for this offer. If you’ve not used one of them, now is a great time to give them a try.

  • Money back as cash up to £20
  • 0% commission for 60 days

Option 1:

If your horse wins, you’ll be able to convert your £20.00 free bet into 80% cash. Therefore, you can add 0.80 to the back odds to get your effective odds…

4.00 + 0.80 = 4.80

Using my Matched Betting Calculator, you simply enter 4.80 as your back odds instead of 4.00 and lay the amount shown. Overlaying like this is fine, but the fixed profits are likely small.

Option 2:

Your second option is to lay your bets as usual and hope your horses win for bigger profits.

You can calculate your lay stake using my Matched Betting Calculator

Select bet type

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 you that your lay stake should be £18.69…

Virgin Bet logo

Place £20.00 on Energumene @ 4.00 = Potential profit of £60.00

Betfair logo

Lay £18.69 on Energumene @ 4.30 = Potential liability of £61.67

Outcomes

Let’s look at your potential profit/loss for the possible outcomes…

OutcomeVirgin BetBetfairFree BetProfit/Loss
Energumene wins+ £60.00– £61.67+ £16.00£14.33 profit
Another horse wins– £20.00+ £18.31£1.69 loss

So, you’ll make a nice profit of £14.33 if Energumene wins; otherwise, you’ll lose £1.69. Risking £1.69 to make a potential profit of £14.33 gives you effective odds of 9.48. So, given that Energumene is odds of just 4.00 (3/1) to win the race, this is a profitable offer in the long run.

You won’t find a suitable selection for every race, nor should you be aiming to bet on every race. It’s best to be selective, but with all 28 races to go at, there’s an overall potential profit of £50.00+ up for grabs on this Virgin Bet offer!

If eligible, free bets will be credited within 2 hours of your qualifying bet being settled and valid for 72 hours. Free bet stakes will not be returned with any winnings.

If you’re unsure how to convert a £20.00 free bet into £16.00 cash (80%), please see my free bets guide for a walkthrough of how it should be done.

I’ll update the following table with some selections at the end of each day…

RaceSelectionBack OddsLay OddsProfit/Loss
14:10 TuesdayRiviere D’etel5.005.40£1.79 loss
16:10 TuesdayStormy Ireland5.005.00£0.33 loss
14:50 WednesdaySaint Felicien6.506.40£0.03 loss
16:10 WednesdayDelta Work4.3334.60£14.55 profit
16:10 ThursdayCelebre D’Allen5.505.50£0.34 loss
14:10 FridayState Man4.004.40£13.92 profit
15:30 FridayGalvin4.3334.40£0.61 loss
16:10 FridayBob And Co6.506.60£0.64 loss
16:50 FridayConcertista4.004.40£2.11 loss

Don’t miss out on one of the most profitable weeks of the matched betting calendar! For a comprehensive list of available bookmaker offers, please see my Cheltenham Festival 2022 Offers page.

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.