Channel 4/1 Offer, Bet365, Guaranteeing Profit.
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Hi all,
Most people like to take advantage of Bet365’s Channel 4/1 offer by backing and laying a horse for a small qualifying loss, hoping for the horse to win. However, I wanted to share the possibility of guaranteeing a profit (after all, this site is about matched betting). As usual, I like to start out with a highly theoretical approach before considering practical implications.
With the Channel 4/1 offer, you back a horse at odds of 5.0 or above and, if it wins, you receive a risk-free bet on the next eligible race. The second part of the offer, which is easy to overlook, is that if you win and place a risk-free bet on the following race, you can win another risk-free bet again (if it wins). Therefore, the theoretical approach is to take the offer as an infinite sum!
Firstly, it’s obviously optimal to find odds on a horse as close to 5.0 as possible – this maximises our chances of winning a free bet. Let’s suppose you have two races in a row with horses @ 5.0 on both Bet365 and the exchange (yes, I know, very unlikely but let’s start out theoretically). It’s important to note that your strategy actually doesn’t matter in the long-run, really. I assume 2% commission, as on Smarkets.
Approach 1)
We can play the offer somewhat naively and simply overlay the first leg. Back £50 on the horse @ 5.0 and lay £51.02 @ 5.0. If the horse wins, we lose £4.08 and get the £50 free bet. If the horse loses, we breakeven.Approach 2)
Wait, hang on… Let’s guarantee a profit! Knowing that we’d have a £50 free bet should the horse win we can guarantee a profit; let’s assume 80% extraction. Back £50 on the horse @ 5.0 and lay £58.23 @ 5.0. If the horse wins, we’d lose £32.93 and get the £50 free bet (which we can turn into £40 on the next race). If the horse loses, we’d get £7.07. Regardless of outcome, we’ve just made £7.07!Approach 3)
Let’s go one one step further… If the horse does indeed win, we not only get a £50 risk free bet, but we also get another chance at winning a free bet! The calculation becomes an infinite series. In a theoretical world, if you have an endless stream of races with horses which can be backed and layed @ 5.0, we can guarantee a higher profit than before. It turns out that we can guarantee £8.82 per race in this scenario.Turning to a more practical side, I think the best strategy for the Channel 4/1 offer is to look at the day’s races and use a spreadsheet to calculate optimal stakes to (more or less) guarantee a profit regardless of outcomes. You can often guarantee £50 on a Saturday if you follow the correct approach.
