So, if you've followed our strategy and guide in order, you'll feel more confident about the QUALIFYING BETS and the SIMPLE FREE BETS by now. There are stacks of different types of bets, however, we don't wish to bamboozle you at this stage, so we are covering the main bets, that account for over 80% of the main Matched Betting Opportunities worth considering.

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Moving on now to the RISK-FREE BET STRATEGY.

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So what does this mean?

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Well, so far we've covered how to qualify for and use the simple free bets. Risk-free bets are still a super source of profits, however they work slightly differently, due to the fact that the Bookies will only give us a FREE BET if our first bet LOSES.

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Now you could easily be forgiven for thinking that the correct strategy would just be to pick a high odds event, then 'hope' that your chosen pick LOSES, in order that you qualify for the free bet.

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However, this is not always the best methodology but hey, we used to do it ourselves before we realised it wasn't the best tactic! Every now and again our high odds result would WIN. A WINNING result would mean, no free bet, just a small qualifying loss from the qualifying bet. Our tactic would be using to try and use the two strategies we've covered so far, the Qualifying Bet, following by the Free Bet, IF, the event LOST. Sometimes it was fine, but other times, with a WIN we had no profits to speak of :-(

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We then realised by playing around with some figures and our Matched Betting Calculator that by under-laying our Qualifying Bet, we could lock in a GUARANTEED profit.

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Lets talk you through just how it works..

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Firstly we need to find such an offer. We are looking for Bookies that offer a FREE BET if our chosen first bet LOSES, they call them Risk Free Offers and Bets, as technically they are just that, you bet from £5-£30 (average amounts for these types of offers) and IF it LOSES they give you your stake back as a FREE BET.

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A number of Bookies offering these types of bets, include, DAFABET, TOTESPORT, GENTING BET, BET BRIGHT...

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For our chosen case study example, we will choose DAFABET, as they seem to consistently offer the same RISK FREE BET OFFER.

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Bet between £5 and £30 as your first bet and if it does NOT WIN, they will refund the same amount as a FREE BET.

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As always folks, please double check the t's and c's... Thankfully the Dafabet offer is simple, just make sure your bet is between £5 - £30 and at odds of 1.5 (1/2) or more...

 

 In this example, I have chosen another popular Matched Betting sport, Horse Racing, just so that we cover another option for you to consider. The liquidity isn't always there with horse racing until the day of the action (with football you can get your bets on days, even weeks in advance sometimes) but on the day of the race, the liquidity on most of the races is decent and especially on the big races, Ascot, Cheltenham, Grand National etc etc..

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Like with the SIMPLE FREE BETS, with RISK-FREE betting, we always look for higher odds and you'll see why in the table below. As always with ANY Matched Betting we are looking for tight odds, close together, like 10.0 BACK, 10.0 LAY, or 16.0 BACK 16.5 LAY, or even better, 14.0 BACK and 13.5 LAY.

 

Tight odds are great and there are some little gems out there, finding them makes a super difference to your overall profits. Occasionally you may need to accept a 8.0 BACK, 10.0 LAY but if you've got a bit more time on your hands to search for tighter odds, we recommend you do so.

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So lets have a look at the ODDS for the 15.00 at Ascot...

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BACK Odds at Dafabet...

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LAY Odds at Betfair...

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Now you'll remember we said high odds once again for the RISK-FREE BETS, so lets get to grips with just why we recommend high odds.

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Now you won't of paid much attention to it yet, but there is an extra column on our Matched Betting Calculator for just these types of bets. The column is the 'cashback' one, it's available when you click on the RISK-FREE BET option at the top of the calculator.

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So we know that we want to stake (BACK) £30 at Dafabet. We also know the we need to fill in the 'expected profit' column on this Risk-Free Bet. We know that on average we expect to make around 75% profit from FREE BET OFFERS. Usually slightly less from RISK-FREE Bets, but not by much and for simplicity sake, we'll stick with 75%. In this case, 75% of £30 = £22.50 as the figure to enter into our 'expected profit' column.

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* You should generally expect to make around 50% - 75% profit of your staked money from RISK-FREE BET OFFERS  - Example, £30 RISK-FREE BET should net you around £15-£22.50 Profit *

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So lets plug the numbers in our Calculator and see what our best betting options are, the calculator is a few lines down, the table summary of options is shown below:

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Now where Horse Racing differs from betting on Football, is the number of outcomes in the WIN MARKET. In a Football match you have 3 for the main TO WIN MARKET (which is the most popular for Matched Bets, due to tighter odds and better liquidity), for example, England WIN, England LOSE, England DRAW.  

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However, in a Horse Race, you can have anywhere from 3 Runners, to 40 runners in the Grand National. Our example at Ascot above shows 14 runners. This means you have 13 other horses that can effectively stop you horse from WINNING! This is good, as you ideally want your Matched Bets to lose if possible, not all the time, but most of the time. Like any other business, Bookies like to make money, if you WIN ALL THE TIME, they will likely restrict the amounts you can bet. Its called 'Gubbing' and you'll probably read more about this on our forums. That's another story though, back to the Risk-Free Bet!

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So why have we chosen Fletchers Flyer. Well, firstly, its about 6th favourite out of 14, so 'statistically' its not as likely to win the race as any of the 1st 5 with shorter odds. Obviously it can WIN, but the higher the odds, the less likely. That's just plain common sense!

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Secondly and to be honest the MAIN reason we have chosen this horse, is the tight odds. They are bang on at 11.0 and 11.0 for the BACK and the LAY. This is perfect, as it means we make more profit.

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So its not a favourite and its got very tight odds. Perfect. Sometimes you will get odds of 11.0 BACK and 10.0 LAY, snap em up! These odds won't last long and you'll make even more guaranteed profit.

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Looking at the table we are set to make a very tasty profit of £19.20 on Fletchers' Flyer.

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The table above is based on your horse WINNING. In which case the BET OFFER is FINISHED. You don't get the FREE BET, however, you still make your £19.20 profit, which you cash out along with your winnings (try no to clean out your accounts, the bookies don't like it, we tend to leave £10/£20 in our favourite MB accounts). This makes more sense when you see the figures below in the Matched Betting Calculator!

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Should your horse LOSE, you WIN the FREE BET. Of which you would expect to extract around 75% as profit, so 75% of £30 = 22.50. So there is still one more step to the process, you would treat this last bet as a normal SIMPLE FREE BET strategy.

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We've shown a couple of other options, just for comparative purposes.

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If we bet on GO CONQUER we WIN £15.39 profit

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If we bet on REGAL ENCORE we WIN £12.56 profit

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As you can see, its a no brainer to bet on Fletchers' Flyer, as it easily generates us the most profit.

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If hypothetically we were to bet on a low odds horse, lets say there was a horse at 2.5 BACK and 2.7 LAY, then we'd only make around £11.32 profit. Really really poor from a £30 RISK-FREE BET OFFER.

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S2B Tips - Pick Tight Odds, Choose Higher Odds if possible, Do NOT choose low odds, Do NOT choose odds that are far apart (like the regal encore example above).

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How to place the Risk-Free Bet

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We know all the variables we need, BACK amount £30, BACK ODDS 11.0, LAY ODDS 11.0, COMMISSION 5% and not forgetting the 'expected profit' column £22.50. As well as the table shown above, lets take a look at the Matched Betting Calculator, which always helps in terms of understanding what's going on...

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We have highlighted the main areas of interest again. All you would need to do is take note of the LAY STAKE required and click on the PINK LAY BOX in Betfair, showing odds of 11.0...

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Based on a LAY STAKE of £28.08, you will see the Calculator says the liability is -£280.80.

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So once we have clicked on the pink box showing odds of 11.0, then added £28.08 to the stake figure column on the betslip, then clicked on 'place bets', we should be good to go.

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* If you've read our S2B 10 Commandments yet, you'll know that our 10TH COMMANDMENT says of 'thou shalt not place a LAY stake without first checking there is enough LIQUIDITY and also that there is enough LIABILITY in our exchange account to cover the bet! *

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So based on this offer if Fletchers' Flyer WINS the race we will make a quick and easy £19.20 at Dafabet.

 

If it LOSES the race, we will make £19.18. This figure is based on -£30 (your LOSING BACK stake at the Bookie) +26.68 at the Exchange (you WINNING LAY stake at the exchange) +22.50 (your 'expected profit' from the £30 FREE BET, which is estimated at £22.50)

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In reality you may actually make slightly more or slightly less than the estimated £22.50 profit from the £30 FREE BET. This will come down to the odds you find on the day. Remember, if your bet loses and you get the FREE BET you treat the FREE £30 (or however much you decide to get as a matched free bet) as you would a normal SIMPLE FREE BET STRATEGY.

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Whatever happens in the race though, if Fletchers' Flyer WINS or LOSES we are set to make a guaranteed £19.18 from this RISK-FREE BET OFFER.

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S2B Summary

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• Make sure when doing RISK-FREE BETS that you enter the 'expected profit' figure in the column provided

• Try and choose a market with TIGHT ODDS

• Try and choose a market with HIGHER ODDS

• If your bet loses, treat your £30 FREE BET, as a normal SIMPLE FREE BET STRATEGY

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RISK-FREE BET OFFERS IN GENERAL

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You can take advantage of RISK-FREE OFFERS in many ways, including sign-up offers (as demonstrated in our sign-up offer challenge) reload offers (such as SkyBets 'money back if your horse loses in the first race at many selected big meetings) any money back on NET LOSSES bets (188 BET cashback offers are a good example of this) and probably most widely regarded as the best RISK-FREE OFFER in the business (the BET365 IN-PLAY OFFER - Bet up to £50 before a big footy match and get a £50 in-play bet risk-free) these guys even offer you the full £50 risk-free as cash, so you can enter the full £50 into the 'expected profit' column, as opposed to 75% of the free bet amount which would normally be the case.

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Anywhere you see these types of offer, take FULL advantage. We BLOG about many of them, however, sometimes you will be sent exclusive offers from the Bookies, like WELCOME BACK offers, if you haven't placed a bet in a while. Just make sure when you sign up, you click the 'email me' box, otherwise you likely won't receive them and you'll be missing out big time!

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NEXT - MUG/SMUG BET STRATEGY

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