Guide to Each Way Betting (with Q+A)

With Cheltenham coming up, I’ve decided to write this guide and the subsequent thread to hopefully stop other threads getting hijacked by E/W betting. So all questions in here please.
I’ve deliberately put this in the matched betting forum instead of the newbie forum because I don’t see it as a newbie skill. No offence to any newcomers, but there really is a knack to this. You have to be very confident with horse betting before you do this because if it goes wrong, it can go VERY wrong. You have been warned. Also, this needs quite a big float (1K+) so if you’re just starting out, look away now.

Each way betting is used for two main reasons, when there is an extra place race and when there is what bookies call a “bad each way race”
hopefully you have read Matts guide to extra places
https://matchedbettingblog.com/extra-place-offers/

but i’ll quickly go through the basics. First things first, When you place the bet you will notice that double the stake is taken. This is because when you bet each way you are actually placing two bets, one to win and one to place. Once you have placed your back bet, you now have to place TWO lay bets, one to cover the win part and one for the place part. Obviously, the value of each is half of your original back bet. You need to find the terms of the race and find out how many places they are paying, and at what fraction of odds. This is usually clearly stated.

To find the place odds (in decimal odds), you subtract 1, divide by the fraction of odds, then add the 1 back on.

Lets take Gubstar, who’s being offered at 16/1 with 1/4 place odds and 3 places.

16/1 = 17 decimal
17-1 = 16,
/4 = 4
+1 = 5
so the place odds for Gubstar is 5.

just to be redundant, here’s a harder one

say he’s going off at 11/4 and its only 1/5 odds

11/4 = 3.75 decimal
-1 = 2.75
/5 = 0.55
+1 = 1.55
so now his odds to place are 1.55

Now you know the place odds being offered you can easily compare them to the exchange and lay accordingly.

Doing an extra place race is pretty straight-forward, find a horse with close odds, back, lay, hope! Its usually much better to do several horses over several bookies for these offers to increase your chances of hitting the extra place. Don’t forget, most gubbed accounts can still do the extra place offers.

To take advantage of a bad each race (E/W arbing) you have to understand how it works. Basically a bookie will offer very short odds on the favourite, and unfairly long odds on the others. That is fine on the win market, maybe the other horses really don’t have a chance (especially Gubstar), but because the other horses have a very good chance of coming second or third, by offering a fraction of the odds for the win, the numbers just don’t work anymore. Therefore the odds offered by the exchange are a much truer reflection of the odds on a horse placing, and much shorter than the bookie offers by default because of the combined nature of the each way bet. I hope that makes sense.

The things to look for in a bad each way race is a very very short favourite (about 2.8 and below), a couple of hopefuls (around 4/1ish) and a few complete outsiders (100/1+)

There’s a couple of ways to play these, either back and lay straight away, or you can back early and lay much closer to the off. The price almost always comes in sharply around ten- five minutes before the race and it takes nerves of steel (again not for newbies). You can also choose to fully lay to guarantee profit, or underlay to win more if you place and break even if you don’t.

The problem with this approach is the danger of non-runners, which are two-fold.

First, the bookie will apply “rule 4” which is where they will cut the odds AFTER YOU HAVE BET to take account of the fact there is less competition. This is fine if you have backed and laid at the same time as the exchange will recalculate as well. But if you haven’t, you need to take account of the reduction and lay accordingly. (the bookie will usually list how much they have reduced by on the race page). You can imagine the havok this causes when it happens 3 minutes out and you haven’t laid. It can save a lot of trouble to just underlay when this happens and hope you place.

Second problem is when you have a race with the number of runners on the threshold of the place market rules. A race of more than 8 will pay out on 3 places but if one or more horses drops out and the number of runners drops below 8, the place odds will drop to 2 BUT THE EXCHANGE WILL STAY THE SAME. I assume this is because people have bet on where it will place, so its not the exact same market. Similarly for a race with 16 down to 15 or less.

Handy guide to places:

Handicaps of more than 15 runners 1/4 4
Handicaps of 12-15 runners 1/4 3
All other races of more than 8 runners 1/5 3
All races of 5-7 runners 1/4 2
All races of less than 5 runners – win only

When things go wrong.
Betfair have various markets for various places, and even an each way market, so you might find a lay that is not too much of a loss should things go wrong. You can also keep an eye on what the horses SP will be and hope for a favourable BOG (possibly). Some bookies offer cash out as well.

Further reading:
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/my-theory-beyond-matched-betting/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/ew-arbing/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/early-prices/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/the-bookie-angel-twitter/

HTH guys, and please chip in if I’ve missed anything.

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deathstar
25

February 1, 2017 at 12:01 pm

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Tony C
Blocked
1 February 1, 2017 at 12:12 pm

Words really can’t express how much of an incredible lad you are mate. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being so helpful 24/7, Matt – give him a medal or make him an admin!

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Tony C
Blocked
1 February 1, 2017 at 12:18 pm

I’m thinking about starting EW arbing after Cheltenham – see what I win on there, see which bookies I lose and then give this thing ahead + I’ll have a bit more experience as I’ve just recently started Extra place offers.

1) Which bookies are the best for EW arbing?
2) Does it lead to a faster gubbing?
3) Something I never understood that people say – how do you each way arb in a gubbed account if your max bet is like 0.58?
4) about the float – I should be comfortable having 1.5k+ in Smarkets, no?

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dreyy 1 February 1, 2017 at 12:41 pm

Thanks for this guide, came at the right time.

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deathstar 25 February 1, 2017 at 12:43 pm

Glad it helps. There will be plenty to bet on at chelts, so make sure you know what your doing before that. Goes a bit quiet afterwards until the Grand National.

1, whatever bookie has the best odds
2, no idea, I only use gubbed accounts for e/w
3, there is a difference between gubbed and limited. gubbed is just no more free bets. but some books will limit you as well. or some will limit first, then gub. I can still get at least £25 e/w at hills, paddy, coral, but sod all at stan, lads, 888.
4, the float question is entirely dependant on how much you are betting and on what odds you are betting on. Remember though that if you are betting on a few horses in the same race, you don’t need to match ALL of the bets, just the highest odds because of combined liabilities.
HTH

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harris 6 February 1, 2017 at 12:49 pm

Great guide deathstar ?

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Chris 18 February 1, 2017 at 1:18 pm

Good stuff deathstar, should help a lot of people although I do worry it may end in tears for some of them. To answer some of the questions from Tony:

1. Use oddschecker to see where the best odds are but from my experience over the last month, Betvictor are great for odds on outsiders and Stan James because they are so slow at updating.
2. Probably yes, depends on how much you win and the bookie. Since I’ve been doing it Betvictor gubbed me from promotions and best odds guaranteed which was silly because I never did any of their promotions.
3. You dont.
4. Depends how many you do in a race and if they come in. I find having 2.5k in on a saturday is about right.

Only other advice I have is underlay, underlay, underlay. I know theres a big “take the guaranteed” brigade on these forums but you’re wasting your time here if you’re just taking £5-10 here and there. This is for big profits, if you want £10 you need to do the regular matched betting promotions. I’ve had huge wins lately on the underlay and would have been disappointed if I had stuck to taking the guaranteed money.

Finally, one other tip is to pick out your races the night before and pick out your horses as early in the morning as possible but not betting on ones where the chance of a non runner screws you. Lay off the win as soon as possible. As you rake in more and more, you’ll find yourself more willing to take a loss here and there i.e if the odds dont come in or they are so bad you can let it run and risk losing £25.

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devans 0 February 1, 2017 at 1:26 pm

Yeah it’s a handy tip but isn’t it a quick way of getting your accounts closed down like me with Stan James. It’s a bit more to it but end of the day with bookies and they software they just picking these up as a straight Arb for sure. Also when people are only placing bets on these short odds fav races and backing high Ew prices I personally think this stands out like a sore thumb. Again that’s my view. I have spoke to people who stake a lot higher than myself and their accounts are still open.

Matt I don’t mean to stand on your toes with this, but what I found useful was finding out more about trading which helps immensely with this. Knowing when prices may come in and reasons for this.

As I said I been doing this for a month or two now, but not putting dampener on this as it’s a great strategy but I think bookies are clued up on these from now on.

Agreed use bookies that offer next to nothing promotions are restricted so if your cancelled out like I was last night with Stan it’s not a massive issue.

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Tony C
Blocked
1 February 1, 2017 at 1:27 pm

Cheers Chris, about the underlaying as I’ve never actually done it – should I use a calculator from google to calculate the numbers or is there some formula, or you just put 20 quid on something you had to lay for 25?

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Tony C
Blocked
1 February 1, 2017 at 1:29 pm

Devans, I got gubbed from Stan James after doing 2 promotions, they’re a horrible little bookie who gub their customers as fast as anything, don’t mourn about them. If I’m making the numbers some of these lads on here are for example, 2k+ a month doing EW arbing I really wouldn’t care even if I lose my most valuable bookies, end of the day you’re probably never going to make as much doing their promos.

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Chris 18 February 1, 2017 at 1:29 pm

Tony just use the trickybet lay calculator to work this all out https://www.trickybet.net/lay-calculator

Once you’ve done it a few times you’ll have all the underlay amounts etched in to your mind (£25.51, £51.02 for example).

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bobster 1 February 1, 2017 at 1:57 pm

Can anyone give a real world example of a current race that they’re doing / have done today?

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deathstar 25 February 1, 2017 at 2:06 pm

To the people that are worried about gubbings – you will get gubbed whatever you do, so I really don’t see the problem. OK the bookies can see what you are doing, but they can also see that you are betting £10 to get £5! and yes, I have been gubbed for doing that, so it was hardly worthwhile. Doing this is much more lucrative providing you understand what you are doing.
And, as I said earlier, I can still bet on accounts where I am bonus banned, so I might as fleece them for all they are worth. No point just having a (broken) account just sitting there is there?

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Chris 18 February 1, 2017 at 2:21 pm

Touche to that. All the time I was betting £10 to get £5, I could have been betting £50 to get £200.

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devans 0 February 1, 2017 at 2:29 pm

I totally agree with the above but with Chelts around the corner especially sky had some good promos. So really don’t want to be losing those at this time of the year.
What’s the technique then. Do you back and place the win market immediately or let it run.
With the Ew you kind of get to see the lowest point those odds will reach so you can get on the lay minutes before the off.

Not being personal but what kind of stakes are we talking about here. To attempt to see like your normal punter I have stayed around the 10-20 mark. Not got enough in my exchange for much more as you are aware the exchange amounts you need are pretty hefty.

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Chris 18 February 1, 2017 at 2:29 pm

Also, restrictions seem to be reversible over time too. My first William Hill account for example, I lost in March last year and was heavily restricted to 25p stakes. Shortly after Christmas I’ve been able to get 50ew on a 20/1 horse no problem.

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