theFIREstarter

This is not Cheltenham (It’s Lingfield)

So this week I’ve been doing a little experiment with matched betting without the “matched” part, which is otherwise known as “gambling” 🙂

However with so many offers flying around for the Cheltenham Horse Racing Festival, if you bet in the right way may the odds be forever in your favour? (Answer… Yes). I could have ended up making less than straight up matched betting or even losing money, but this was a risk I was willing to take (mainly because I am lazy and it meant less time laying bets off).

Anyway if you missed the first two parts and want a better overview of the offers I was hitting up then see part one here, and how the first two days of the festival went see part two here. Here is how the final two days went!

cheltenham day three results

Before we start with the individual break down a little spoiler (if you remember the results at least). I fully subscribed to the Gamblers Fallacy today whereby I noted the champion jockey Ruby Walsh had not had many (any?) winners at all so far in the Festival. Seeing that he had three short priced favourites today I decided his luck could change today so I backed doubles and trebles across the short priced horses (Yorkhill, Un de Sceaux and Lets Dance) as well as Trebles, Quadruples and a 5 fold accumulator across all 5 of his mounts (the remaining two were Isleofhopendreams and Nichols Canyon). The five fold acca returned a cool £10K off of a £2.50 each way stake, a nice dream of course, but my total stake was  only £80 for this bet and I was sure he’d get at least two winners and return my stake.

In case you hadn’t noticed this is nothing to do with matched betting, it is straight up gambling, but having made a bit of profit already on the festival I fancied having a flutter on top. I would not advise anyone else to do this, I am just telling you what I decided to do on this day! Anyway on with the results.

13:30 – JLT Novices Chase – winner Yorkhill 6/4 – P+L: £148.50

I dutched every horse in the first race to take advantage of the plethora of offers again and managed to get things a bit more even today with no major losers, which was helped by a couple of free bets left over from yesterday. I really thought Yorkhill was going to win as well so left a small win on that one. It turned out that not only did he win, the price drifted after I back it so I got a Best Odds Gauranteed boost across all of my bets ¹ for what turned out to be a lovely profit on the first. I’d also backed Disko and Top Notch each way with the Grosvenor double odds offer so a small win on those too. I also made quite a lot of free bets to use up for the rest of the day so it could not have gone much better really.

And not forgetting, the first leg of my dream acca came in 🙂

14:10 – Pertemps Handicap Hurdle – winner Presenting Percy 11/1 – P+L: –£35

A small loss on this one, I did the Betstars offer but laid them all off so accepted a qualifying loss, and punted a few of my free bets. I got Jury Duty in the frame but the odds were short and stake was low so still a loss on this one.

More importantly Isleofhopendreams did not win so my dream acca was already down, but I still had the doubles, trebles and four fold acca alive for a decent win.

14:50 – Ryanair Chase – winner Un de Sceaux 7/4 – P+L: £27.50

I’d already backed Un de Sceaux at 11/4 with a free bet earlier in the day, the odds got backed into 7/4 at the off! Ruby Walsh ran another good race and it won so made a small profit there and it meant at least one of my Ruby Walsh doubles had come in and the trebles and quad were still running.

15:30 – Stayers Hurdle – winner Nichols Canyon 10/1 – P+L: £0

Backed Zarkander and West Approach each way with some free bets but they came nowhere.

More excitingly, Ruby Walsh won again and it meant things got real interesting real quick. Seeing as this was the biggest price by far left in my bet it meant I was already guaranteed quite a decent win now with the trebles, about £300 from my back of the fag packet calculations.

By taking that away from the potential winnings on the bet slip which was about £1200, and the last horse in the bet being even money to lay on the exchanges, I worked out I could guarantee myself around £750 by laying £450 of it off. I decided to not lay the whole lot off as that would have been boring, but I’m not that stupid to turn down some guaranteed money, so I laid about £300 of it off so guaranteed myself £600ish if he lost, with a potential total win of £900ish if he won.

16:10 – Plate Handicap – winner Road to Respect 14/1 – P+L: £0

Had a few free bets here none of which came in, but in reality all my focus was on the next race by this point! 🙂

16:50 – Mares Novices Hurdle – winner Lets Dance 11/8 – P+L: £998

Another great patient ride from Ruby sees him come from the middle of the pack for a relatively easy win in the end and secure a very nice profit on the day for me! My calculations were slightly wrong and I ended up with slightly more than I thought I would have done, which was pleasantly surprising.

17:30 – Kim Muir Challenge Cup Handicap Chase – winner Domesday Book 40/1 – P+L: –£60

Did a few Betway bets here to avail of their offer, none of which came in.

Final Day Three P+L: £1079

I have mixed feelings about today. Obviously very, very happy about winning a lot of money, but the experiment itself didn’t do so great, with just an £81 profit for the day not including my silly Ruby Walsh bet. Let’s see if I can be as lucky on day four!

cheltenham day four results

13:30 – JCB Triumph Hurdle – winner Defi du Seuil 5/2 – P+L: £18

I realised that I’d actually been doing the William Hill High 5 offer slightly wrong all week, which was lucky as it had never copped so far. I thought that the total stake was £25 max allowed but this was only for the free bets if a loser part. If the horse you actually backed wins by 5 lengths or more you can get up to £100 worth of free bets as the 25% of winnings boost! So if you are backing the favourite at say, 9/4 (3.25) then you just divide £400 by the odds to get your total stake. So in the case of Defi du Seuil I could have put £177 (per account) to max out this offer.

So I realised my folly and put more lolly on the jolly! ²

It turned out to be good timing as the favourite did end up winning by exactly five lengths so I copped about £110 worth of free bets to use, plus came away with a small profit of £18 on the race in total. Plus quite a few other free bets from Skybet, Betway, Sunbets and Boylesports.

14:10 – County Handicap Hurdle – winner Artic Fire 20/1 – P+L: £0

Backed L’ami serge each way with a free bet which came in 2nd, and lost a bit on the QL’s for the Betstars offer, hitting none of those for the 3rd day running, booo! Which resulted in pretty much a scratch result on this race.

14:50 – Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle – winner  Penhill 16/1 – P+L: £0

Did a few Betway free bets here, none of which came in. Starting to look like a damp squib of a day at this point!

15:30 – Gold Cup – winner Sizing John 7/1 – P+L: –£40

The big race of the day! I sought inspiration from Mrs T for selections on this one seeing as I was having no luck myself but unfortunatley she was out of luck as well so lost £40 here as well as a few free bets.

16:10 – Foxhunter Chase – winner Pacha du Polder 16/1 – P+L: £132

Finally my luck with the free bets started to change and hit a winner with Pacha du Polder, which I’d actually backed at 22/1 with a sunbets free bet, so a nice profit here!

16:50 – Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle – winner Champagne Classic 12/1 – P+L: £396

Well luck does tend to come in streaks, hit another winner with Champagne Classic which I’d actually backed at 33/1 earlier in the day with a Skybet free bet (£10 each way). It subsequently got backed into 12/1 and won! Someone must have known something or maybe it was just the ladies on the champagne on the course backing it all in. Either way quite a few people would have been happy at this outcome I am sure!

17:30 – Grand Annual Handicap Chase – winner Rock the World 10/1 – P+L: £155

Well they say things come in threes and it was true of my winners today! I backed Rock the world each way with a free bet and outright for the Betway last race offer, to nicely round the day off with a profit of £155 and still some free bets from William Hill and Betway left to use up over the weekend.

Final Day Three P+L: £661

the final furlong

Total Profit For The Week: £2,868.50

Wowza…. that is all I can say really.

Fair play I got lucky with the Each way dutching coming off almost perfectly, and obviously the Ruby Walsh bet but even without both of those things I would have made around £1,000 which for around 5 hours of “work” per day is £50/hour which is not a bad hourly rate I think, tax free and all.

The result would have been a lot different without the 3 winners at the end of the last day for my “no lay” strategy but it just goes to show if you keep playing long enough the maths works out that you will end up winning, and that is how things played out ultimately, you can’t argue with the final result.

Overall I would say my experiment was a roaring success. It was much more fun having a potential big win on each of the races, knowing that if you lost all you would be losing was a free bet. Upside large, downside small, this is the sort of opportunities our good old friend Nassim Nicholas Taleb advises us to look for in The Black Swan, is it not? 🙂

Having said that, I’m not going to go full lay for the rest of my MB activities, but I think I’ll definitely be doing it for Cheltenham again next year that is for sure.

How did you all get on!? Let me know guys!