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Man of Mystery

I opened my Betfair account on 22nd April 2003. I was one of the first subscribers to Adam Todd's BetTrader and was a founding partner of JuiceStorm.com on 17th February 2007.

Latest posts by Man of Mystery (see all)

• The TopTrap Greyhound Profit And Loss Account On Betfair - March 17, 2022
• Betfair Best Execution – 11 Requested & Filled At 320 - January 16, 2022
• BTB System e-book - March 13, 2015

Part 1 in a series of 3 articles by Alistair Hamilton.

Part 1 – Introduction

Part 2 – The Importance Of Odds

Part 3 – The Rolling Free-Bet Matching Spreadsheet.

For some time, Bet365 has had a great offer on all there CH4 televised horse races, usually on a Saturday. In addition, the also have at least two feature races per day as well a similar offer on certain greyhound meetings today that are televised by SKY. This article is aimed primarily at beginners, but hopefully anyone who has done these offers in the past will pick up a few tips as well.

Before doing these offers, make sure you read the terms and conditions published on the bet365 site as these offers are essentially the same, but with subtle differences.

In essence, bet365 will give you a free bet if your qualifying bet wins. If the free bet wins, you’ll get another free bet and so on. Any free bet you receive MUST be used in the next qualifying race. The differences between the offers are as follows:

1. All bets, including any free ones, must be placed at odds of 4/1 and above for the horses, whereas the greyhounds only require 2/1 and above.

2. The Channel 4 races and the featured races are treated as a different offers. This is important when you win on the last qualifying race of the day as your free bet must be used on the next qualifying race. In the case of the Channel 4 races, this may well be the following Saturday, whereas it could be the next day in the case of a featured race.

So what is the strategy for doing these offers?

Essentially, each bet on bet365 should be laid off on Betfair to minimise your liability in the hope that, when/if you find a winner, you’ll have a free bet to guarantee a nice return.

In fact, there’s many variations on a theme, but they all boil down to being one of these strategies:

1. Wait For A Winner – Lay off on Betfair so that, after commission, you’ll get back the amount you staked on bet365 when your pick loses. However, if your pick wins, you will be in the red by an amount determined by your lay odds. Don’t worry though, as you have a free bet that will recover this loss and put you in profit.

2. Over Lay – Waiting for a winner before you see a profit can be tedious. With this option, your lay stake would be larger so that in the event of a loser, you get a small profit. However, in the event of a winner, your red figure will be greater and the free bet has to work harder to get a bigger profit.

3. Under Lay – This option is a riskier strategy, but can pay dividends if you get it right. The idea is to place a lay bet that is less than your stake on bet365 with the remainder placed at lower odds – often in-running. Assuming everything goes to plan, you will frequently find yourself in profit irrespective of whether your pick wins or not. Clearly though, if your in-running part doesn’t get matched, and by definition your pick loses, then the lay will not recover the losing stake from bet365.

Generally speaking, option 2 is the preferred method with option 3 providing the best returns – but it should only be attempted by those that are happier with the greater risk involved.

One thing I’ll mention before bringing this introduction to a close…

I am no longer able to do these offers as bet365 have kindly banned me from receiving any bonuses and free offers. Hopefully, if you are not aware of it already, these offers are very lucrative and, quite frankly, easy money. Although I have no idea whether it works or not, I’d advise that you regularly place bets on non-offer events at bet365. Obviously, you can lay these off on the exchanges to minimise the liability. Also, make sure those bets are of similar stake levels. The idea is that you want to give bet365 the impression that you are a ‘mug punter’ and not just after their free offers.

Despite the claim of their promotional blurb, “Keep backing those winners and we’ll keep giving you free bets”, they WILL pull the rug from under your feet as they did with me. By placing apparent ‘mug punter’ bets you will hopefully postpone that day indefinitely.

In the next part of this series of articles, I’ll discuss the importance and effect of bet matching at different odds and odds spreads, along with some numbers.

Alistair Hamilton

Part 2 – The Importance Of Odds

Part 3 – The Rolling Free-Bet Matching Spreadsheet