If Offers – Paddy Power “Dunguib”

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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.

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The offer which Paddy’s have had for the last few years on the first race at the Cheltenham Festival is a brilliant one if you understand how the if offers work. This article was written for the 2010 version, where Paddy offered to refund all bets up to £200 on the win market for the race if Dunguib (the hot favourite) won.

If Dunguib wins the Supreme Novices Hurdle (16th March), Paddy Power will refund all losing win singles on the race. Max refund per customer £200/€300.

The reason this offer is so good is because the “if” event is a low price. In general the lower this price is the easier it is to match out the offer for a profit, even with appalling odds on the qualifying bet.

Strategy:

Back Get Me Out Of Here at 6 at PP £200

Lay £134.08 at 9

Total loss on this bet either way before refund = £72.63

Lay Dunguib for £100 at 2.06.

If Dunguib wins:

Lose £72.63 on original bet.

Lose £106 on Dunguib lay

Get £200 refund from PP

Profit £21.37

If anything else wins:

Lose £72.63 on original bet

Win £95 after commission (5%) on Dunguib lay

Profit £22.37

Ante post only – Non runners

if Dunguib does not run:

lose £72.63 on original bet

Win £95 on Dunguib lay.

If Get Me Out Of Here doesn’t run:

Win £134.08 less £6.70 com at Betfair

potentially lose £106 on Dunguib lay (which you could trade out)

Explanation:

The £72.63 loss is what would happen if you backed and laid Get Me Out Of Here at the quoted prices at any bookmaker without any offer and did nothing else. The loss would be the same whether that horse or any other won the race, including Dunguib. Its quite obvious why this would be a stupid thing to do unless there was a good reason, but in the case of this offer there is a good reason.

If we did this at Paddys and just left it we have the following scenario:

If Dunguib loses we lose £72.63.

If Dunguib wins, we lose £72.63 but get our £200 stake refunded at Paddys. We have therefore made a profit of £127.37 on Dunguib winning, because the original loss on Get Me Out Of Here was laid off on Betfair, so that is accounted for. This is actually exactly the same as backing Dunguib to win at approx. 2.75 (£127.37 profit on a £72.63 stake, so divide 127.37 by 72.63 and add 1).

What we have effectively done is create an arb on Dunguib at 2.75/2.06 at the quoted prices. If you put this into the calculator with a £72.63 stake, the lay amount at 5% com comes out at £99.37 for a profit of £21.77 either way.

(This is not the way I originally worked it out, but it does show how the numbers fit together and it is always reassuring to get the same answer when you approach a maths problem in 2 completely different ways.)

This method will work on any if offer where you can lay the if event at Betfair, and I have since created a spreadsheet matcherforifoffers using this example which can be found in the Spreadsheet Library. The numbers are slightly different because the spreadsheet uses the exact “if odds” not the approximate 2.75.

Forum discussion from BetSeventyTwo of another offer for the same Cheltenham meeting using the same method:

Victor’s refund if Paddy wins

by mikestodds » Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:58 am

Any value in this?

Wednesday 17th March, 3.20 Cheltenham, Queen Mother Champion Chase, Live on Channel 4 & victorchandler.com

If FORPADYDEPLASTERER wins the Queen Mother Champion Chase we’ll double your losing stake as a free bet!

Max free bet £50 (€50) per person. Applies to win only bets and win part of each-way bets. Applies to bets placed from 16/03/2010. Singles only. Internet and telephone bets only. Free bets credited within 24 hours.

by corner123 » Wed Mar 17, 2010 8:57 am

This is nowhere near as good as the Dunguib offer because Forpadydeplasterer is a much higher price. The lower the lay price on the if event, the better the returns are.

You can lock in a profit of about £3 at the moment by using the spreadsheet (in post above) and putting £25 in the stake box and £50 in the refund box and placing your £25 on Master Minded (currently 1.909/1.9)

Alternatively you may like to wait and see if Master Minded drops a bit so that he is an arb. You need 1.86 at Betfair for this. You can then put your bet on Master Minded for no loss and a nice surprise if Forpadytheplasterer wins.

Note that the 2nd part of the spreadsheet doesn’t work if your qualifier is an arb, since you can’t put a negative lay on at Betfair! Sorry, but I am not clever enough to program it to work for arbs

by mikestodds » Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:46 pm

I decided to match off £25 on Master Minded on 3 accounts and cheered on Paddy! But my £150 worth of free bets went with him! Least he put in a spirtied showing.