Is 80% too high?

I do mostly horse racing doubles for my freebets- If I have a £20 free bet Ill find 2 different horses around say 5-1 shots- both laying at time at around 6.2 (normally easy enough) then ill lay off about £16 on the 1st one at 6.2 (can even get BOG with some firms these days on muliples) If the 1st wins Ive extracted around £16 either way -80%- (without possible BOG boost) Then Ill be looking to lay the £83 or so off on the next 6.2 (which you could lay for more than £83 making your £16 extraction improve) because if the 2nd 5/1 wins (with no BOG) Then you will be kopping £620 -£20 FB stake =£600 form bookie and only paying out £430 ( +£83 already lost on 1st one) making around -£513 or so lost on the exchange if you accepted the £16 extraction. So roughly 1/6 times when 1st one wins you will be in an improved posistion. All in all I consider a strategy along these lines- higher odds than 5-1s better (as long as they are tight lays at time)- and factoring possible BOG and extra profit on 2nd lay on double if the 1st one comes in- I believe makes a £20 free bet worth between £17-18- at least 80% and pushing towards 90% in my book.

Cool Kevin. For me it improves the chances of finding very high odds with close match ups. So the 2 5/1 shots is in effect a 35/1 shot on the double coming in – with normally not to hard to find close match ups. Of cousre the ‘risk’ is the 2nd horse may drift by the time you come to lay off if the 1st one has won (just as likely though to have come in in price) Ideally you find a huge each way price that is a tight match up or actually an each way arb- Say a 50/1 shot that is laying bang on each way or better and do £10 e/way with the FB. Obviously the higher the odds you can match closely or even find an ‘arb’ for the closer you will get to maximising the value of the free bet. Many a time on a £20 FB i pick up I stick it on a horse upwards of 25/1 that is laying e/w for less or simalar- then just calculate my win/place match ups for at least a total £16+ on the win/place lays to lock in the minimum £16 profit and leave room for at least that much profit if the horse wins/places.
Normally much more chance of finding big price tight match ups/arbs on the horses than other sports. Just finding say for e.g a 12-1 horse that is laying for 13.5 is good enough- if I dont want to spend ages trying to find better to squeeze an extra £1-2 out of the £20fb- Lay it for £17.50 at 13.5. If it wins +£21.25 – loses im up £17 (inc the comms) locked in over 85%. Again with BOG you get the outside chance (in the case of a high price horse- of it winning at a higher price than the original back and layed price) which always adds at least a little bit of extra long term gain.
80% would be minimum return I would expect- and normally when I accumulate a £20 fb I think of its average value of about £17 (85%) I accumulate a lot of em and dont always wish to spend too long looking for ‘perfect’ match ups but would never settle for expected value on them being less than 80% (£16)

The Hosre racing TV offers on Bet 365 are very nice- Back a 4/1+ winner get up to £50 fb if it wins on next TV race. They are well worth getting to stuck into and finding close match ups on them- but try and stick the odd bet on a non offer race that is fairly tight to mix it up a bit help keep off the gubbing radar a bit. Worth losing the odd £1 or £2 to keep up punter appearences

Very nice Wiser! With most firms now paying out BOG on muliples the doubles or more on the horses FB method is even better now- Plus as i mentioned with at least a double you reduce the risk of a NR wiping out your FB (No refunds on FB nrs sadly) So unless you find a big each way arb jumps horse close to off time- I would never advise sticking your FB on a Horse single- I did recently have my 1st ever- prob from over 500!- FB double where both selections ended up NRs and that was the 1st time I donated an FB this way. If I have time now I often try and find a closely matched treble! But as the old saying goes Doubles For Dough- Trebles for show! – This quote dosnt have any relavance- but I like the old classic phrase- so dropped it in!

If the 1st leg has won- meaning in this example you have now lost £83 on the exchange- Your bet now has £120 going on on a 5/1- If the 2nd bet wins the bookies will pay you £720 – the £20 fb stakes =$700 (+£683 if a £20 fb is worth £17) So you can lay way more than the original loss on exchange of £83 + the expected value of FB £17 =£100 on the 2nd leg of the double. You could lay off about £110 on the 2nd leg for e.g (if still laying at same price say 6.2) If that loses your now up £27 in total (minus about £2 in commision- net +£25) If it wins you have lost £572 + £83 from 1st bet (total -£655) But you are up £700 with the bookie. So in this case either +£25 or if double wins + £45. Can play around with the stakes on 2nd leg as you see fit.

What you may be missing is the FB stake dosnt come off the 1st leg of the muliple- it comes off when the double (or more runners trebles etc) has been completed. At least it does in Ladbrokes/Boyles/PPs- so I assume all major firms do the same. For eg yesterday a £10 fb treble I did on a 3/1-4/5-11/8 paid about £165- so the treble was paid in full then the £10 fb was deducted to give the £165 total.

So by my reckoning on this example of the 2 5/1 shots. 1/6 occasions when the 1st leg wins you will be in an improved position of at least £8 more than the single bet 5/1 6.2 lay off of +£17. Adding about £1.60 to the long term original single 5/1 value. Im not one for breaking down exact pennies but hopefully you get my overall take on it.

Hi Scabba, re our earlier posts, I’ve persisted with the FB doubles’ and won another with Boyles today. I backed ‘accordingtogino’ @ 8 in the 14.10 and ‘defutureisbright’ @ 2.88 in the 14.45 (Warwick) first thing this morning and both won. Only problem is that as ‘defutureisbright’ went off at 3.75, I assumed bog and adjusted my lay accordingly but its only been paid out at 2.88 leaving me out of pocket 😠. Boyles promotion page announces ‘bog on multiples online and instore’ so just thought I’d check if anyone has had a similar experience and whether you think it’s worth contacting customer services ? Cheers