June 1st – Santos v Sao Paulo

This is my first attempt at getting a bonus out, and as it’s a stake return one it should be a little easier.  As I had won the last game I was working on getting out €67

There was a game going on with odds for Santos to win at 3.3, and 3.0 at Betfair, another arb so I’m keen to put it down quickly.

Mistake #2 I forgot to convert the lay amount back from Euros to Pounds.  Mistake #3 I didn’t check the market had enough money in to take my lay.   Mistake #4 Never bet on a live event, the odds change too quickly.

Mistake #2 was cancelled out by the #3 as only £35.78 of my lay went through but then mistake #4 meant I had to put the rest through at odds of 3.1.  Trying to calculate lay amounts when half your money is at one odd and half at another is a right pain trust me.  I ended up settling for values I thought looked ok and hope for the best.

 

Bet Amount	Bet Odds	Lay Amount	Lay Odds	Cash	Profit
£54.47	3.5	£58.80	3.0/3.1 (3.04)	£158.16	£21.59/£17.65

 Outcome

The game ended in a draw so my profit was the lesser of the two values, but it was more than the free bet was worth so I was happy.  It also dawned on me afterwards that I could have just withdrawn the winning from the previous round rather than bet it as well.  This would have meant I wouldn’t have had to put extra money into my BF account to cover the high liability.  However it could have entailed conversion rates, I’m not even sure how GB pay things out, and due to the arb the extra cash helped make extra profit.

Gamebookers DONE
Freebet Value: £16.26
Amount Released: 114%

Not bad for my first go.

Profit So Far: £56.69

Hopefully all my mistakes have been made now.
 

June 1st – Poland v Denmark

Gamebookers are offering a £20 sign up bonus at Quidco, plus they’re offering to SR match €20.  Now moving into different currencies might be a bit of a silly thing to do at this early stage but due to the Quidco amount I’ve not really got anything to lose.

It cost me £16.26 to get €20 so I’m using that ratio through all my conversions.  This isn’t the same as the market rate but it means my value of the euro stays consistent and I’m not losing a small percentage in 10 different places.  Bet odds on the draw are 2.35 and they are actually lower at Betfair 2.29 - my first arb giving me a loss of 4p!

This is where I make mistake #1.  When I was laying against the bet I put £16.26 into the stake amount and not £17.05 as the spreadsheet told me to.  I guess with all the extra figures used in the conversion I lost track of what I was doing.    The minimum amount you can lay in Betfair is £2 so I couldn’t correct it either. This also meant my liability was reduced by a small amount.

Bet Amount	Bet Odds	Lay Amount	Lay Odds	Lay Risk	Profit
£16.26	2.35	£16.26	2.29	£37.3	£0.91/-£0.81

Outcome

The game ended in a draw so my mistake actually made me £96p better off!  I like those kiind of mistakes.

Profit So Far: £39.04

The odds were good for this one, and the SR amount showed instantly. Quidco is showing validated as £0 but hopefully this will change by September. All in all a valuable lesson learnt, check your figures!
 

 

 

29th May – Holland v Denmark

So this is the first bet and I really feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.

Quidco are offering £10 if you follow their link, sign up to William Hill (WH), deposit and bet £5.  On the bookie’s website they’re SNR matching bets up to £25 so I plump to go for the full £25.  It’s simple to get the money in with a Maestro card.

As I’m really nervous but keen to find out how this works I want to get on with things.  I’m already signed up with Betfair (BF) so I can use this to lay bets.  There’s a friendly between Holland and Denmark with bet odds for a Holland win at 1.5 and lay odds at 1.59.  The bet conditions at both companies are the same so it’s ok to go ahead.  According to the matcher spreadsheet I should bet £25 and lay £24.35 giving me a risk of £14.37.  So in total I’ve had to put in £39.37 (bet + risk) of my own money to get this rolling.  The total loss what ever the outcome is £1.87, or 7.5% of the stake.  As this is a qualifier bet (QB) for potentially £35 (Free bet + Quidco) I’m happy with this for a start. I got someone with experience to check my figures through and make sure I hadn’t made a hideous error. They did point out that better odds were around but I decided to go with what I had.

Bet Amount	Bet Odds	Lay Amount	Lay Odds	Cash	Profit
£25	1.5	£24.35	1.59	£39.37	-£1.87

Outcome

The result at 90 minutes was a draw so I lost £25 at WH and my BF account went up by £23.13 as that’s the lay amount minus BF’s 5%.  I got the promotional £25 credited to my WH account very quickly, and strangely £20 tracked in my Quidco account.  The Quidco part isn’t due for payment till August.

Profit So Far: £18.13

Final thoughts are maybe I could have found better odds, but I’m happy that I’ve proved the system works whilst only risking a few quid.  The challenge will now be to get the bonus out.