Free Horse Betting Spreadsheet To Lock-In Profit on 2nd Place Refunds Offer

Horse Betting Spreadsheet 

Regarding the “2nd Place Refund”, you may want to access 6 Best Ways To Make Extra Money from Horse Betting 2nd Place Refund.It lists horse betting key strategies including which race & horse to select, which bookies to chose and when & how to place lay bet to maximise profit from 2nd place money back offer etc.

Brief Explanation About Horse Racing Refund Offer

“Bet on any ITV 4 Racing, and if your horse finishes second, get your stake back as a free bet. Max £/€25” is a sort of typical claim of 2nd Place Refund Offer.

It is one of the most popular offers which you see at least a few times every week. The most popular races are the channel 4 races on Saturday, however some bookies offer this promotion during the week.  Big bookies run this offer regularly with a few variations. The below shows the rank from profitability view point among the major offers;

• Money-Back If Finish 2nd or 3rd – the more the places the more chances you get refund, so it’s the most profitable
• Get Refund  If Finish 2nd – basic type, usually shows posiitive EV (Expected Value)
• Refund If Finish 2nd to SP Favorite – probability is extremely smaller compared with the above 1. & 2., depending on the odds of the horses though, very limited EV or could be negative EV if qualifying loss is big
• Refund If Your Horse is Beaten by a Length or Less / By Neck or Less etc. – Ditto

I summarized the basic EV valuation & how additional condition such as the 3. to SP Favorite make your refund probability so difficult in the 6 Best Ways To Make Extra Money from Horse Betting 2nd Place Refund. The point is unless you’re a seasoned matched bettor, better to focus on 1. & 2. offer only.

Let’s See The Real Examples

2 Offers

Skybet runs 2nd & 3rd Place Refund every Saturday. I pick their offer on Betfair (suggest use of Betfair Alternatives) Cash Out Handicap Hurdle at 13:50 Newbury 11 Feb 2017 as below;

Sportingbet also runs 2nd Place Refund on the same race as below;Therefore I decided to take this Sportingbet offer as well since I can not only cover more horse to increase the chance of the refund but also achieve more efficiency, Why? You will find it in How To Minimize “Exchange Commission & Liability” in Matched Betting.

T&C

As usual, we have to read the promotion’s T&C (Terms & Conditions) carefully before placing the bets because each bookie, each offer has unique conditions. The below is Sportingbet’s T&C, which says the maximum refund is £25. Skybet’s one is more or less the same but their maximum refund is up to £20.

Matched Betting Process

Matched Betting is a simple concept. Place back (win) bet on your selected horse at Bookmaker and lay (not win) bet at Exchange. Since these 2 bets will be cancelled out of each other (usually not 100% but with marginal loss), if your horse finishes 2nd, then that refund will be your profit. For the full explanation, suggest you go through Matched Betting For Dummies – 9 Essential Things. 

BTW, we have summarized 5 most common welcome offers among UK & European bookies & brief instruction on how to use matched betting to extract cash from each offer in this guide, just FYI. 

Besides, many people imagine matched betting is for only UK & Ireland, wrong, by using this approach everybody in the world including US citizens can make decent profits from this risk-free betting technique.

Finding The Horse

In case you are unfamiliar with the initial process of the matched betting, please see Matched Betting Starting Guide: Welcome Bonus (2): Place Qualifying Bet, which is a step by step instruction on how everything to be done. Our priority is Not predicting the horse to finish the 2nd (or 3rd) but finding the horse of which odds is Shorter & Tighter (between bookmaker & exchange). Tighter is more important than shorter to achieve better profit (or less loss) though, considering the refund condition of 2nd (or 3rd) finish, it’s wise to select the horse among favorites rather than less favorites or underdogs.

The below shows the Oddschecker table listing the each bookmaker’s odds of every horse in the 13:50 Newbury. Unfortunately Sportingbet’s odds is miserable all through the horses. This is often the tactics of the bookies that they attract bettors with offer but provide with not impressive odds to offset their book. Anyhow, yet still the 2nd place refund has a good value, having checked the lay odds in SMakets, I chose “Tobefair” in Skybet & “Scotchtown” in Sportingbet.

The below shows the Exchange (SMarkets) lay odds I finally took just before the race;

Then, what’s next?

I’ll show you both Standard Matched Betting Approach and Lock-In Profit Approach.

Standard Matched Betting Approach

This is a usual approach of “Bet & Lay by Hoping My Horse Finishes 2nd”. How do we do? We use Trickybet, Free Matched Betting Calculator and enter Back Stake Amount / Back & Lay Odds / Exchange Commission (in this case 2% SMarkets).

Skybet

I enter my horse “Tobefair” information and the calculator shows the required lay stake of £19.14 at SMarkets and expected loss of £1.25 no matter what the final result of “Tobefair” will be, as below;

Then, 2 possible scenarios are;

• if “Tobefair” finishes other than 2nd or 3rd, I lose £1.25
• when “Tobefair” finishes 2nd or 3rd, I will receive £20 Refund in Free Bet, which is worth approximately 80% of cash value, means £16 in cash. Therefore my final profit will be £16 (refund cash value) – £1.25 (qualifying loss) = £14.75

Sportingbet

I enter my horse “Scotchtown” information and the calculator shows the required lay stake of £21.98 at SMarkets and expected loss of around £3.45 no matter what the final result of “Scotchtown” will be, as below;

Then, 2 possible scenarios are;

• when “Scotchtown” finishes other than 2nd or 3rd, I lose around £3.45
• if “Scotchtown” finishes 2nd or 3rd, I will receive £25 Refund in Free Bet, which is worth approximately 80% of cash value, means £20 in cash. Therefore my final profit will be £20 (refund cash value) – £3.45 (qualifying loss) = £16.55

 

Lock-In Profit Approach with Horse Betting Spreadsheet

Underlying Concept

Alternatively, I show you how to lock-in profit. What we do is to Lay Off not only Win part but also Place part to generate Guaranteed Income no matter what the final result will be. We effectively lay against the 2nd Refund. You don’t need to know the detail formula to construct it but it’s important to understand the whole concept. Don’t worry, the spreadsheet will do everything for you. BTW, Place is the way to bet on multiple top places, usually 1st to 3rd depending on the number of runners, and you can bet in the form of Each Way (both Win & Place) at bookmaker and lay Place separately at Exchange. For further details, How To Maximise Profits in “Extra Place” Matched Betting will be of you help.

So, firstly, I will show you the SMarket’s Place Lay Odds as follows;

Note

This lock-in method works only when the Exchange Place offers Less Than 2 for 2nd Place refund and Less Than 3 for 2nd & 3rd Place Refund. The place offer is Top 3 for this race as indicated in the above SMarket table, it works only for Skybet case.

Horse Betting Spreadsheet for 2nd (& 3rd) Place Refund

The below is the horse racing excel template after I input all the required info which are Back stake Amount / Back & Lay Odds / Refund Cash Value / Exchange Lay Commission;

It shows £5.06 Guaranteed Profit regardless of my horse “To be Fair” final result as pointed by blue arrow.

But given the top favorite of “To be Fair” I thought there were large chances of finishing within 1 – 3rd places, therefore I took Focus Approach (focusing on finishing top 3) by turning Profit Preference from “S” to “F”. This becomes Not Guaranteed Profit but Risk Free Approach as;

As shown, I can expect better profit if “To be Fair” ends up within top 3 while achieving break-even (means Risk Free) when “To be Fair” finishes other than top 3.

Actual Horse Racing Results

As seen in the below official record, my Skybet horse “To be Fair” won but my Sportingbet horse  “Scotchtown” finishes the 2nd from the bottom rather than from the top. 2nd horse was Underdog & 3rd horses was much lesser favorite;  

The Final Result of Each Method

• Standard Matched Betting Approach: Total Loss £4.7 (Lost £1.25 in Skybet and Lost £3.45 in Sportingbet)
• Lock-In Approach: Total Profit £1.61: (Profit £5.06 in Skybet and Lost £3.45 in Sportingbet)
• Risk Free Approach: Total Profit £4.6 (Profit £8.05 in Skybet and Lost £3.45 in Sportingbet)

Do you think even the best result of £4.6 is too small?

Well, just think about carefully. I completed this offer within 10 minutes (finding the bookies’ offers / selecting the horses / calculating the lay stake & estimate the profit in the spreadsheet / placing the bets), so, it is effectively equivalent to £27.6 hourly wage. Not bad productivity, isn’t it?

Conclusion

This time, the result supports Risk-Free Approach in Lock-in Profit Method. However, there is no right or wrong when it comes to choice.

For Standard Matched Approach, what we do in the Skybet case is risking £1.25 (expected qualifying loss) to achieve the £14.75 profit (refund receipt). This gives us 12.8 effective odds (£14.75 / £1.25 + 1), which is much bigger than the odds of “To be Fair” 4.0. Here, I take bold assumption that probability of winning is more or less the same as finishing the 2nd. Even including the 3rd, the total odds will be 8, then still 12.8 effective odds is better. Means this bet has a value.

For, Sportingbet case, I risk £3.45 for £16.55 profit which is 5.8 (£16.55 / 3.45 + 1) effective odds. It’s also better than “Scotchtown” 3.5 odds, mean it has a value.

When it comes to EV (Expected Value) for Standard Matched Betting Approach, Skybet case is £2.75 and Sportingbet case is £2.27 (as said before, you may want to see the basic rationale to calculate EV for 2nd Place Refund Offer in 6 Best Ways To Make Extra Money from Horse Betting 2nd Place Refund ), both are proven to be Positive EV.

Since Guaranteed Profit Approach in Skybet yields £5.06 & Risk Free Approach in Skybet shows £8.05, still lock-in approach gives better value in this case.

Bottom-line

All the approaches resulted in Positive EV. The choice mainly depends on individual’s preference. With our approach, both 2nd & 3rd and 2nd Place Refund Offers are absolutely profitable. If you take Standard Matched Betting Approach, you don’t always win. You will face variance, means, you may not get refund from the 5 races in a row but the refund of the following 2 races will make the whole 7 bets profitable. So don’t be fooled by variance. As long as you keep taking the positive EV offers like these, you will make a lot of money. You don’t need to believe me but believe the mathematics.

As said you see this offer every week in several bookies, and find massive amounts in big events such as Cheltenham Festival, Royal Ascott etc. It is a staple, ongoing food source for any active Advantage Player’s diet. You can easily profit over thousand of £ every year only from this type offer. Gambling is For Losers, We Never Lose.

Good Luck On Your Bets!!

PS

I also found Bet Bright below offer on the same day;

As briefly said, any additional condition like Beaten By Less Than A Length make your refund very difficult. Off course it’s not impossible, in fact our above example finishes 1.5 Length;

See, very close.

Appendix – Horse Racing Refund Offers Evaluation

Having said, I strongly suggest you take a look at 10 Horse Racing Refund Offers – Value Based Best Selection & Tactics To Win, where we show how to gauge the value, prioritize & select the popular offers together with the specific tactics to extract cash from them. I believe this document will give you an overall picture of horse racing refund offers and good insight on which offer should be or should not be taken based on value.

 

If you have any inquiry or need any help from us, please contact us anytime (don’t worry, we will not charge you any fee, everything is free here).

Good Luck!!

Joshua Walker (bio) 

Editor – Global Extra Money (GEM)