My Cover Bet Strategy

I’ve got a strategy I’ve figured out. I think it can possibly be used to get huge returns. In the worked example below I had a bet with a qualifying loss of approx. £10 and a potential profit of £250.

It goes like this:
–Place a 2nd place cover bet on a horse. This means if it wins you get the payout at the odds offered, however if it comes second, your stake is refunded. If it comes third or more you lose the stake.
–Lay the horse to win at an appropriate stake based upon the lay odds.

If the horse comes:
–1st – You lose the lay and have to pay the liability. You win the cover bet. Overall, I’d expect a small loss on this.
2nd – You win the lay bet. You get your stake refunded for the cover bet.
3rd – You win the lay bet. You lose your cover bet stake:

By timing a bet and lay today I seen an opportunity for this wager to be placed. Unfortunately the horse didn’t come 2nd:
-Cover bet on horse at odds of 5.0 with £250, potential profit of £1000
-Lay the win on the exchange at 5.1 £246.20, liability of £1009.42. If won – 2% commission = £241.28.
-1st place=£1000-£1009.42=-£9.42
2nd place=£241.28
3rd place=£241.28 – £250=-£8.72

So far I think its a good strategy, however one issue lets it down. If the markets move against your interest. e.g. in the example above say the lay goes up to 7.0 you greatly increase your losses and shrink your profits.

One workaround for this problem is cashing out. On a site like Bet365 this is ideal as you will return approx 90% of your money if I remember correctly. However I got gubbed fairly fast after using this strategy on B365 and I’m currently using William Hill. However the cashout percentage varies depending on the state of the market so you can easily only get 75% of your money back on this site. I’ve seen PaddyPower offers cover bets too but I haven’t tried them yet.

Can anyone think of any way to improve this strategy?

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hydro
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August 22, 2016 at 3:28 pm

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Tony 12 August 22, 2016 at 3:38 pm

It might be because I have never heard of a “cover bet”, but isn’t what you are suggesting just the same strategy as used on money back 2nd refund offers? If so, aren’t they normally limited to £25 refunds?

I guess what I am saying is, what is a “cover bet” and where do you see them shown on bookie sites?

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hydro 0 August 22, 2016 at 3:50 pm

Bet365 has them under more markets.

William hill has it listed as insure 2 places under insurance markets.

Paddypower offers them also as insurance bets.

You can stake as much as desired on them.

For an upcoming example. Brighton 16:30

Coverbet for County Wexford is 6.5. The lay is 7.4. Hoping this drops to say 6.8 (optimistic but possible). Lay it for £95.59.

If you put £100 on this:
1st=bet win-lay liability = 550-554.41= -£4.41
2nd=lay stake-2%= £93.68
3rd+=Bet stake lost + lay stake -2% = 100-93.68=-£6.32

If your using B365 and the odds go against you, you will lose £10 by cashing out. Unfortunately I’m restricted on B365 so can’t do it this way.

EDIT: Lay odds for County Wexford are currently 6.4

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Tony 12 August 22, 2016 at 3:59 pm

I see – these cover bets are not something I have even noticed before, but now that you point them out yep, there they are right in front of me! Strange how you never notice some things until they are pointed out to you.

So, I now appreciate how your strategy works, but my immediate thought is that it cannot be profitable (otherwise everyone would do it and some spotty teenager would have created a website selling advice on how to do it!) but I suppose it’s another one to mull over whilst bored at work.

Have you had any success with it so far? Immediate concerns would be the size of bets required to make it worthwhile – as in how quickly these would lead to a gubbing/restriction, as you have experienced with 365. I guess you could always use smaller stakes though.

Clearly it is going to boil down to the frequency of 2nd places and the bumper payday that brings in relation to the qualifying losses.

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hydro 0 August 22, 2016 at 4:01 pm

Yeah, I’d say that’s why I’ve been gubbed. Still though its profitable if you are lucky enough to choose the right horse.

I’ve not been profitable so far but mostly due to luck. I’ve done about 10 of these bets and I’ve got 1sts, 3rds, etc… everything but a 2nd :/

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Tony 12 August 22, 2016 at 4:05 pm

Gambling is profitable (and less complex) if you are lucky enough to pick the right horse 😀

If a strategy relies on luck then it’s not really worth considering, is it? 😉

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FoG_BLoG 47 August 22, 2016 at 4:26 pm

I am looking at the next race on B365.

Wild Flower is 5.0 to win. If you take cover insurance the odds are only 4.0.

You would need to be getting pretty close match to 4.0 to be making a manageable Qualifying Loss. If you could get anything close to 4.0 to lay, they you can just back the simple win and lay at close to 4.0 for the arb.

Good luck with your strategy, but I don’t see the value in the cover/insurance bets myself. If I was you I would keep very tidy records, bet small stakes or imaginary stakes for a month and prove the value. Then ramp up the stakes slowly if it really is profitable.

How are you choosing your horses? Favourites? 2nd favourite to a very short odds on favourite? Lowest qualifying loss?

If I know the bookies they will have the probability of the horse coming 2nd all built into the odds and then another chunk of profit added for themselves, so that the 4.0 is probably no more value than the 5.0 without insurance.

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FoG_BLoG 47 August 22, 2016 at 4:32 pm

County Wexford odds are 8.0 to win 7.0 cover bet and the lay on the exchange is 9.4.

Fairly expensive qualifying loss there compared against the cover bet. If the lay did drop back down to 6.8 or 6.4 then you would just take the arb against the 8.0 straight win.

Do you back and lay the cover bet at the same time. Or back the cover bet and gamble/hope that the lay will drop before the off?

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hydro 0 August 22, 2016 at 7:00 pm

I think this strategy has its uses, but I think I agree its not good enough to be used consistently.

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RyanB 11 August 22, 2016 at 8:15 pm

As Fog said the odds for this cover bet must be quite a bit below the win odds, therefore if the cover bet odds are ever near the lay odds to win you’d be better off just arbing.

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Dave_Jones 7 August 22, 2016 at 8:33 pm

Yes I think if the odds were to make this idea profitable you would be better off arbing as the guys have said. Thanks for posting up the idea though hydo, its always good to see people putting up ideas for ways we might be able to use to wangle some more money out of the bookies.

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FoG_BLoG 47 August 22, 2016 at 8:41 pm

Yes definitely an interesting idea and very similar to the e/w arbing strategy that some are making a lot of money off.

I wonder if there are certain favourable circumstances where the insurance is worth it. Two very short favourites for example.

Just doubt that the bookie will set the cover odds to make it worth while.

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