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So many of you may know that Cheltenham Festival is one of the biggest horsing events of the year, which means it’s a great time for matched betting and for making some profit, potentially a lot of profit.
Cheltenham Festival 2021 will be 4 days of racing from the 16th March – 19th March. During this period, there are so many offers taking place on each different race. I will be listing some of the best free bet offers below and three different methods for making profit from the offers. Check terms and conditions of each offer.
If you are new to matched betting, I would recommend reading my matched betting page first. I would also be very cautious over the festival as it may become a bit overwhelming if you have not had experience with horse racing offers and so mistakes may occur.
So to make matched betting so much easier and simpler, I always recommend Profit Accumulator. It is an amazing site that provides you with all the necessary tools for matched betting, including: betting software, calculators, instruction videos, support, forums and available offers. In my opinion, it is a must have service, which only costs £24.99 a month, however they do offer a free trial, which can earn you around £45. I’ve been with Profit Accumulator for years now and I wouldn’t be doing matched betting without them.
Top Offers
There doesn’t seem to be as many free bet offers for existing customers as other years, however there are some great enhanced Cheltenham sign up offers for new customers. Check full terms and conditions for each offer.
William Hill £50 Free Bets Enhanced Sign Up (Mobile Only) – Sign up via mobile or tablet and use promo code H50 by Sunday 14th March. Once registered, place a £10 bet at min. odds of ½ (1.5) or greater using the mobile or tablet device. You will then be credited with 5 x £10 free bets to use on the Cheltenham Festival.
Virgin Bet £40 Free Bets Enhanced Sign Up – Place a £10 qualifying bet before 5.30pm 16th March at min odds of 1.5. You will be rewarded with a £20 free bet, plus £5 free bet on any Cheltenham race on 16/03, plus 3 x £5 free bets to be used on selected Cheltenham races only.
888sport £40 Free Bets Enhanced Sign Up – Min. £10 deposit using promo code CHEL40. Place a qualifying bet of £10 at min. odds of 1.5 (1/2). You will then receive £20 in free bets, plus a £20 free bet to use in the Cheltenham festival. Free bets expire after 7 days. Payment exclusions apply.
Betfair £50 Free Bets Enhanced Sign Up – Open a new account using promo code ZSKAHG and deposit a minimum of £10 via Card or ApplePay. Place a min. single sports bet of £10 at min. odds of 2.0 on Betfair Sportsbook, which must settle before
23:59, Monday15th March. You will receive a £10 free bet, plus an extra £10 free bet every day of the Cheltenham Festival.
Betbull £110 Free Bets Enhanced Sign Up – Open an account with BetBull and deposit £10. You may need to re-deposit for the latter part of the offer. You will receive 3 x £10 free bets to use after your £10 qualifying bet (min. odds of 2.0) has settled. BetBull will also give you a refund up to £20 if your first bet loses and you can attempt this four times, once on each day of the Cheltenham Festival (Tuesday 16th March, Wednesday 17th March, Thurday 18th March and Friday 19th March). To get profit from these refund offers, use the Bonus Lock-In Calculator on Profit Accumulator.
Sky Bet £10 Risk Free Bet – 1.20pm race on the first day of the festival (16th March). £10 refund if bet loses. Calculate as Free Bet (SNR) using Profit Accumulator calculator and use high odds to maximise profits.
Paddy Power 3 x £5 Free Bet – £5 free bet on the 1.20pm race on the 16th and 17th March. The final £5 free bet can be used on any Cheltenham race on Thursday 18th March. These are completely free bets, although new members must deposit £5 via debit/credit card or Apple Pay (can be withdrawn after account creation). Calculate as Free Bet (SNR) on Profit Accumulator calculator. As the guaranteed profits won’t be that much, I would rather use these free bets as an advantage play.
Ladbrokes £5 Free Bet – Log in to Ladbrokes and claim a £5 free bet to use on any horse racing at Cheltenham on Tuesday. Calculate as (SnR) using the standard calculator and use at high odds to maximise your profit; or simply use as an advantage play, seeing as no qualifying bet is needed.
LiveScore £5 Free Bet Per Day – Place a £20 bet at odds of 1.8 or greater on any race at Cheltenham. Calculate as ‘normal’ using the standard calculator. Bets must be placed and settled on the same day. Your account will then be credited with a £5 free bet after your bet has settled, which must be accepted by 23:59 Friday and will expire after a further 7 days. Calculate as ‘SnR’ and use at high odds to maximise profit. This offer can be done once per day during Cheltenham Festival.
There are many more offers, which can be found on the Cheltenham Festival Summary page found in the reload offers section of Profit Accumulator. This includes extra-place offers, refund offers, double winnings and price boosts.
Guaranteed Profit Method
So this is the general method used when matched betting because it gives you guaranteed profits regardless of the outcome of the race, as long as you are either using a free bet or a risk-free bet.
With this method, you can normally make around 70% of the free bet amount, dependant on the odds and the chosen bet. So with a £20 bet, you can make around £14, or even more if the odds are closely matched and higher.
To use this method, when using the calculator on profit accumulator, keep it in simple mode and copy the lay amount that gets suggested to get the highest amount of GUARANTEED profit. So in the example below, you would make a guaranteed profit of £38.58, regardless on the outcome of the race.
Underlay Method
So this is the method I started to adopt, but it’s not necessarily the one I recommend because you may either receive less profit then the previous method, or potentially make a much higher profit then the previous method. Each race can vary and the amount of profit made will be dependant on the outcome of the race.
With this method, you can be a bit more flexible and have control over the potential amount of profit you want to make. I would recommend setting the lowest win amount to be equal or more to your qualifying loss (for qualifying bets), so that no money is lost. Also note, the closer the slider gets to 0, the lower the liability needed, so it may be a safe method for anyone who doesn’t have the funds needed for larger odds or stakes.
For this method, you will be using your calculator in advanced mode. You can keep it simple and copy the underlay number, or you can use the custom slider bar for more control. I always use the custom bar to try and get more profit out of the bet. Firstly, set the minimum to 0 so that the custom bar is not restricted. If you want to avoid losing money, make sure the ‘Exchange Lay Wins’ amount is the same or more then your qualifying loss.
Have a play around with the slider to see what suits you best and decide how much guaranteed profit you want to get. If odds change on the bookmaker or lay odds, remember to change them on the calculator accordingly.
As you can see in the example below, you can dramatically increase your potential win (now at £185.36 if bookmaker bet wins), whilst also not losing any money if the exchange lay wins.
WARNING! If you choose the underlay method during Cheltenham, you may make little to no profits, dependant on where you move the custom slider, and the race results.
Advantage Play Method
This will be the simplest method, but it comes with a price because you could lose money also. So with this method, you could treat the free bet or risk-free bet as an advantage and simply place the free bet on the bookmaker without doing any matched betting or using any calculator. If the bet loses, you will not gain anything, but if the bet wins, you will win the maximum amount possible, just like a normal bettor would do.
The reason you may lose money from this method is because you may have to place a qualifying bet in order to receive the free bet. Therefore if your free bet loses then you will have also lost money from the qualifying loss during the qualifying bet.
The qualifying losses are often quite small, but if your free bets keep losing then you will keep losing money. Only make qualifying losses that you can afford to lose. This method is the riskiest and is all down to luck, so not recommended if you want to make consistent profits.
I chose to do this method recently for a £50 risk-free bet with Bet365. I had a qualifying loss of £2.47 from my qualifying bet, but then I got lucky and my £50 free bet won me £400. Bear in mind though that a lot of my free bets have lost also, which resulted in a small loss, therefore this method is a bit of a gamble.
WARNING! Choosing this method during Cheltenham may result in losses. Only use what you can afford to lose.
Here is a summary of what you would win from the 3 methods using the £50 free bet example with back odds of 5.00 and lay odds of 5.10. We are also assuming there was a qualifying loss of -£3.50.
Guaranteed Profit: £38.58 win – £3.50 qualifying loss = £35.08
Underlay Method: £3.50-£185.36 win – £3.50 QL = £0-£181.86
Advantage Play: £0 or £400 – £3.50 QL = -£3.50 or £200
I would still recommend the general guaranteed profit method as it gives you consistency and you won’t have to worry about the results of the race, like you would in the other methods. As the underlay and advantage methods are down to luck, there is no knowing how much you will make when using them.
Page Last Updated: 13/03/2021
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