matched betting – how to make money betting each way horse racing (part 2)

Jul13
by TFS on July 13, 2018 at 5:15 pm
Posted In: Gambling, Matched Betting

Some horses, definitely not racing

 

Welcome to part 2 of my guide to Each way sniping.

It does seem I picked a bad time to start wanging on about this each way betting stuff, as I’m having terrible luck so far in July*! However, that is not to say you are as well, because it depends on what bookmakers you are using and what times you are checking the Oddsmonkey Each Way Matcher tool. No two each way bettors is ever going to have exactly the same outcome, which is worth bearing in mind. So hopefully YMIV 1.

*Since I started writing this intro though I have hit a really big day (Thursday 12th) – my best ever so far in fact – which has put me well ahead, so hopefully anyone else who has started up recently managed to keep going until Thursday and has hit some good winners as well!

Having been through the theory of Each Way Arbing / Sniping and some basics of how to actually go about it, using the Oddsmonkey (<– Affiliate Link) Each Way Matcher tool (<– non affiliate link) in part 1, I’ll now just throw out some more detailed thoughts and strategies of how to maximise profits, gubbings, specific bookies, and so on. If you missed part 1 click here to have a read!

Before we go on I’ll repeat my disclaimer in full from part 1… please do not say you have not been warned if you lose money!!!!

Each Way Sniping is basically gambling, not matched betting. You could in theory lose every penny you “invest” into it. It’s highly unlikely of course but still worth knowing and really thinking about this fact before deciding this is for you or not. Further, there are big winning and losing swings from day to day and even week to week. If you can’t stick something out for at least 2 weeks with a potential big losing streak, this is not the side hustle for you.

 

Gubbings

Let’s start with everyones favourite topic when it comes to matched betting in general… GUBBINGS!

Gubbing means a bookmaker has restricted your account in some way but there are a few different levels of gubbings which usually come in this order:

  1. Offer privileges taken away – If you have been obviously abusing all the offers that bookies put up (i.e. matched betting) then they will say you are not eligible for any further offers. This often includes removal of BOG (Best Odds Guaranteed 2)
  2. Stake restrictions – They will “stake factor” you for example by 1/10th. This would mean if a “normal” account could get £100 on a bet, you would only be able to bet £10. Simples.
  3. Account closed / Stake restricted to zero – They don’t want any of your business anymore. You are officially a shrewd operator in their eyes. Congratulations! 🙁

“Obviously” part 1: the great thing about Each Way betting is it still works fine on Gubbed level #1 accounts. Even better if you still have BOG privileges, but if not no matter. I reckon having BOG on an account is worth an extra 1% ROI long term. It’s a bonus if the accounts you are using happen to still have it, but certainly not necessary to make a good profit.

“Obviously” part 2: is that you should hit up as many offers as you want if there are good ones on any given account, until they remove privileges. Then you can start doing the each way sniping on those semi gubbed accounts.

To be honest, there aren’t really that many decent offers I bother with nowadays, but I have a Bet365 account with Offer privileges somehow still intact from years ago, and I will defend that one to my dying day (if possible). Luckily I also have another one without offers on it, that is perfect for each way betting, and they are happy to lay me as much as I want so far 😉

It’s up to you how you want to play this. There are plenty of accounts I am using for each way sniping that technically have offers still intact but I just can’t be bothered with it as I think it takes too much time for the potential rewards, but if you are keen on doing offers AND EW 3, then obviously you should really only play EW on Gubbed level #1 accounts.

One final note on withdrawals… Sometimes bookies get funny if you have won money off them and then be like a bit of a bunny boiler girlfriend/boyfriend who wants to know your passport details, bank statement, and exactly what you were doing last Wednesday night when you told them you were working late but then came home stinking of booze. Don’t get angry with this, just have copies of the relevant ID you need (usually photo ID and a bill from within the last 3 months as of address) and send it to them.

 

Multiples (Doubles/Trebles/Permutations etc…)

Here are my figures on singles vs multiples (all figures in this post are complete up to the end of June FYI)

1st column is profit, 2nd stakes, 3rd ROI%

As you can see the singles are the bulk of the profit, but I still think it’s worth doing multis. If you keep doing them for long enough, one day you will hit a big win treble or maybe even a quadruple and return £1000’s, I am certain of it. I’ve hit quite a few big win doubles already but no win trebles yet. I’ve had tonnes of place doubles and trebles as well.

Just to clarify a double is just where you select two horses, then you will see multiple options to place a “Double” on the betslip. For example:

Obviously a treble is where you have 3 horses, and so on.

All of the horses in your selected multiple have to win for the bet to get the full pay out. As we are going each way, if they all place you will get a place multiple pay out as well, which is unfortunately much lower than the win part of the multiple. In the example above, you can see “To Return £235” – that’s if both horses win. If both place (or one wins and the other places) then you will only be paid out a measly £35. Nonetheless it is still worth going each way because that is essentially where the value is in these bets (and it will happen far more often than you think)!

You can only place multiples when 2 or more selections come up with the same bookmaker. For example in this screenshot below you could put doubles and a treble across the three highlighted selections via Betfair Sportsbook.

So just to clarify, if you were faced with the above page, you would not put a double on Maries Diamond and Dee Ex Bee with Betfair Sportsbook, because the odds for Maries Diamond would likely be lower on Betfair Sportsbook than on Coral and Boylesports (otherwise it would have also come up in the Each Way Matcher as a selection for Betfair Sportsbook). This game is all about the odds and getting good value prices, always remember!

Some more bullet points about multiples:

  • Stakes: You need to keep your stakes low when doing multiples, for the simple reason that if you don’t the variance will be mad and you might get REKT. I am doing £5 EW on doubles if the odds are both in the medium range which is a quarter of my usual stake, and that is probably a bit on the high side to be honest. With trebles you should halve that again. If you are just starting out with Multiple bets, I’d halve both of those again so say if you were doing £2EW on singles, do maybe £0.25EW for doubles and £0.15EW for trebles or something like that, and see how it goes.
  • Perms – Shit gets cray: Especially where there are TV meetings and especially if you have a Bet365 account, you will often get 12 (for example) or more selections at a time. When there is more than one selection per race this is called a permutation or Perm, because you can back doubles across all 12 selections and there are obviously lots of different permutations of how that bet can work out. If you do perms of doubles/trebles/quadruples…etc(!) across all of them your total stake gets massive very very quickly. It might be worth just sticking to a maximum of trebles for now, and/or only doing perms across 3 races, which will keep the total number of lines down, until you get an idea of how these work. And just keep those stakes low as mentioned. I’ve had some great wins on these but also some crushing losses as well, so just be careful if you decide to get involved in perms.
  • Low odds doubles: I will often double up two lower odds selection (say around 3/1 or 4/1… which is another reason I have my filter settings to >4.0 rather than >6.0) with each other rather than betting them as singles. As the double is lower odds, I’ll up my maximum bet to half normal stakes.
  • Terminology: If you don’t know what they are already, it is worth reading up a bit about the terms such as Trixie (which is doubles and a treble across 3 Horses), Yankee, and so on. Something like this should help!

 

Bookmaker breakdown

Here I will write up some comments on each bookmaker that I’ve used so far with regards to specific strategies, gubbings, and so forth.

Here is a breakdown of my P+L per bookmaker so far:

I’ll go through them in rough order they appeared in that table:

  • Betfair Sportsbook – Great bookie, easy to navigate website. They often have stand out prices and even though I’m sort of gubbed/limited I can still get around £5-8EW bets on, which I think is ample for most people out there. They also have a minimum lay guarantee on all Class 1 and 2 races where they will lay you to win £500 (i.e. £50 on a 10/1 shot) which again is pretty massive stakes for most people. Good or what?! Also I like watching the in running prices on the exchange during the race to see what horse won. Sad I know, but it can actually be quite exciting 🙂
  • Skybet – Not many bets tend to come up with these guys, but I have had some success with some of the international racing (see below!). Definitely worth keeping in your bookie filter IMO.
  • Bet365 – The best bookie out there by a country mile. They will lay you big amounts and are always doing better each way terms than other bookies (mainly on the big/ITV meetings) which is why stakes are so high with them. Been using this account for 3 months and no sign of stake restrictions yet. They also do the 4/1+ offer so if your account still has that offer active you can obviously get a free bet on the next TV race, with every 4/1+ TV winner you get. Ace!
  • Sporting Bet / Bwin – They don’t do BOG 4 which is pants but they leave up such outrageous arbs it more than makes up for it. They are/were very quick to gub and restrict me to pennies though so be careful! Bwin use exactly the same odds as Sporting Bet, but so far have not been as quick to gub, so hopefully I’ll get a good run out of them.
  • William Hill – Not been gubbed on any accounts yet but not really done a massive amount of stakes. Their boost feature is good (although not as good as Ladbrokes). You get one boost per day, which only works on one bet, either a single or an accumulator. Please note the boost does not cover the place part of your each way bet, but if your bet is already a selection on the each way matcher it’s obviously a great way to boost your EV 5
  • Ladbrokes – Ah my personal fave (can you tell why?). Their odds boost is brilliant. They give you one per day but you can split it over many bets on the same betslip, and even add it to a double as well on that same betslip. You can be backing a double that should be 100/1 at like 120/1… massive value! I’ve gotten a few big wins doing that. They often give you more boosts throughout the day on certain race meetings. Again like the William Hill boost this is a great way to boost your already positive EV even more, or on a quiet day if a selection is just outside of the selection criteria, boost it and it becomes a decent selection. Also the boosted odds cover the win and place part of your bet, so it is better than William Hills boost in almost every aspect. When I started with using the boost I could put £200 worth of bets on per betslip but this has since been reduced to £50. I don’t know whether that is across the board or I’ve been slightly gubbed but either way £50 is probably a high amount for most people getting started anyway to fill your boots with some boosted odds 🙂
  • Totesport/Betfred – Can’t say much about Betfred as I’m severely restricted already with them and just use that account for a few fun golf bets really. But Tote use the same odds (you will find this happens a lot across many bookmakers) and are pretty good, and no sign of a gubbing yet, albeit a rather clanky user interface.
  • Unibet / 888Sport / 32 Red / LeoVegas – I’ve lumped them all together because, you guessed it, they all use the same odds. But you can be gubbed with one and still open an account with another, although it won’t tend to last long (that’s with the stakes I’m doing at least, you might get a much longer run with lower stakes). They do tend to offer great odds but then don’t seem to like you actually putting a bet on it, which is a bit odd but oh well 🙂
  • BetVictor – Very similar odds to Bet365 but not quite, which is odd (terrible pun intended and apology sought). I had a good run with them but am fully gubbed now but definitely made hay while the sun shone. Great for multiples as well.
  • Coral – A terrible website but throws up some good bets from time to time. No sign of a gubbing yet despite having some big priced winners.
  • Betstars – I really like Betstars, the website is quick and easy to navigate, and they tell you the “Max bet”. I’ve been limited to about £5 per bet so probably not going to use them anymore but as I’ve repeated above I assume that is probably ample for most folks doing this so you’d probably get a decent long run out of them.
  • Boylesports – Losing on this account yet have been stake restricted, I think that sums it up really. They do have a few stand out bets every week though so worth a look.
  • Marathon Bet – You might not get a big bet on but they often leave big prices up. Worth a look! Oh their desktop site looks like it’s from the late 90’s as well which is good fun if you like nostalgia!
  • Sunbets – I have only just started using Sunbets but I think they have got promise! Hopefully a gubbing is not just around the corner.
  • Paddy Power – Would imagine they are great for this, but am stake restricted before I even started the each way stuff, so not really using them much.
  • 188Bet – Nothing to say apart from I hate 188Bet. I am not actually gubbed but I try not to use them unless I really have to 6.

Any others not mentioned are because I haven’t really used them enough yet (MintBet), or I just don’t like them or am too stake restricted to really bother with (Betway, Winner).

If there are any other bookies not mentioned here that you’ve had good success with, please let us all know in the comments!

 

Other Quick Tips

  • International Racing – I don’t have any stats to back this up as I’m not recording the track for each bet right now (sorry!) but I am fairly confident in saying that the hit rate for International tracks (by this I mean anything NOT in UK or Ireland) is absolutely freaking amazing. If you see a bet appear from an international track jump on it quick! The downside of these is that they don’t tend to last very long because prices on exchanges don’t tend to populate until shortly before the race, so you have to be in the right place at the right time. It’s probably not worth worrying about too much other than as I say, jumping on them when you see them. One thing to note is that it could lead to quicker gubbings, that is an opinion of a friend who’s been doing this for a while in any case, but personally I haven’t experienced any gubbings soon after doing them, so I think if you keep your stakes moderate you should be fine.
  • Double Screening – As mentioned by Sam in the comments below, it is much easier doing all of this if you have two computer monitors! Not necessary but it will make your life easier.
  • Horse blocker utility – If you are really worried about accidentally backing horses twice, or just to make your life easier in general, someone on the OddsMonkey forum has written a script to add “Block buttons” on each row so once you’ve bet the horse, you can block it from appearing again. How cool is that! Here is a link to to the forum post which has instructions on how to install it.
  • Combine with free bets/offers – if you’re doing EW on accounts that still have offers intact, you can often trigger free bets simply by putting the bets on, such as Coral and Skybets Free bet clubs (or whatever they’re called). Make use of the free bets for your each way bets and eek out that extra few %age points of ROI!
  • Psychology (i) – Mistakes – You will almost certainly make mistakes along the way. Some of them can be rectified such as betting a horse twice (as long as you realise, you can either cash straight or lay off the bet for a small loss/win on the exchange). You might put the wrong stake in – I had a winner one time but I put £2 instead of £20 as the stake… quite annoying. There are surely other mistakes as well. Try not to get too worried about any of it. Over time the luck with mistakes will balance out (I double bet a horse the other day and didn’t realise then it won, for example) (update: I did a massive perm today and bet the singles as well, but forgot to fill the stake in on hte only horse that won, costing me about £350… OUCH!!!!)
  • Psychology (ii) – Variance – Or in lay mans terms “dealing with losing streaks”. People have been shown to feel losses around twice as painful as they enjoy gains, that has been shown in research originally done in the brilliant book Thinking, Fast and Slow. It may be hard but I would just attempt to chuck that right out of the window. Knowledge is power so just knowing this fact about human nature can help you to reverse it. My personal mindset on this one is firm – Celebrate the wins and forget the losses. I don’t buy any of this ice man, poker face whether you are winning or losing crap. If I’ve just £800 on a 40/1 shot I am bloody well going to at least smile about it (with maybe a concealed fist pump if I’m at the office as well). Maybe I’m just a freak of nature and my risk tolerance is just ridiculously high. Either way… don’t get too down about bad patches, they will happen, and good times will come again soon if you just stick at it.
  • Golf – You can do golf bets using this method as well. I have had some limited success with it! No major tips on this but thought you might want to see my figures on it. I’d imagine the variance on this would be larger as there are less bets and prices are normally bigger on golf.

Actually there are a few Football bets lumped into the Horses figure, but it accounts for maybe less than 1% of stakes so it’s accurate enough

  • Use an Odds Comparison Website – OddsMonkey is great and all but sometimes the prices are fairly out of date, which means by the time you’ve clicked through onto the bookmaker website and found your horse, the price has updated. By using an Odds Comparison site such as oddschecker.com you should get slightly more up to date prices (bear in mind that nothing like this is ever going to be zero latency and 100% up to date) as well as a direct way to bet on the horse: with most of the bookmakers you can either bet directly via odds checker, or you can click straight through to the bookie website and the horse will be sitting there already in your betslip. There is another benefit to this and that is sometimes a selection will come up on OddsMonkey and it’s not even the best price out there! Say a horse came up with Betfair Sportsbook at 20/1 and you quickly double checked on the odds comparison site and it was, say, 22/1 with Sporting Bet, but you just happened not to have Sporting Bet (or it’s cousin Bwin) ticked in your OddsMonkey filter, you would have missed the better price. And like I say sometimes OddsMonkey will just miss things like that, it’s not 100% perfect. So if having a place to double check things is a good idea if you have the time to do so. You have to be mindful that this extra check does not introduce too much extra time delay to your process though as time is often of the essence. If I sense that a price is just too good (for example a really high Rating %) and could be cut very quickly, I’ll just go straight to bookie and strike the bet ASAP. Also bear in mind that most Odds Comparison sites do not cover nearly anywhere near as many bookies as OddsMonkey does, but they cover most of the mainstream ones which should cover you for a fair while before you get gubbed and have to move onto the lesser known operators (which are unknown territory for me so far but will update you as and when I have any experience with them!). There is a slight worry that bookies will be quicker to limit your stakes / gub you if they detect you are linking through from an odds comparison website and those worries are valid, but yet again I will say I don’t really think it’s worth stressing over too much, as the utility outweighs any such worries. Just as an example, in the below screenshot, say “Muntahaa” came up as a selection with Bet365 at 9/1, you then checked and saw it was 10/1 with Betfair/Paddy Power, so you would obviously go and place the bet with them instead (assuming you have a valid account that is).

 

 

Monthly Profits

Finally here is my month by month breakdown. Not really sure how this will help anyone per se but thought it might be instructive as to what you might be able to make if you go big guns on it with the stakes:

Bear in mind I started with stakes of £10 EW in March, upped that to £15 EW during April, then up again to £20 EW in June. It does honestly seem like the more you stake the more you will win, but obviously remember the more you could in theory lose as well! I am happy to have increased my stakes as the bank grew as I am more and more “playing with profits” and it would take an almighty losing streak to go anywhere near broke right now. I think I will leave the stakes as they are for the foreseeable though as want to continue to fly under the radar of the bookmakers, although I have started to do a few £25 EW bets on lower priced horses (ones generally under 10/1).

 

And that’s your lot for part 2! Hope you enjoyed it!

I’ve also decided that since there were so many questions after part 1, and I am guessing will be a few after this one, I am going to do a part 3 where I collate all of the questions write them up into a FAQ! So get cracking with the questions below! (I might also do a bit more of an in depth stats analysis as mentioned by Craig on the last post).

 

Thanks as always for reading and may the each way odds be ever in your favour 🙂

 

 

Further Reading – If my 7000 words on this subject wasn’t enough for you, check out this OddsMonkey Forum thread by user Pingu2k4. He sounds a bit more systematic in his approach than I am (mainly WRT to bankroll management), but it would be worth reading someone else’s method who’s been doing this for a while. He also has a spreadsheet you can copy, and a tool that helps you do a few extra bits with the Each Way Matcher. Cheers Pingu2k4, what a legend!

Notes:

  1. Your Mileage Is Varying ↩
  2. This means that if you back a horse at 10/1 and it drifts to, say, 16/1 by the time the race starts, bookies offering BOG on your account would pay you out at the higher odds! ↩
  3. I am just going to write EW for each way from here on in for the sake of not going mad at writing Each Way 300 times during the course of this article! ↩
  4. Most bookies do this now but Sporting Bet and Bwin are two that don’t 🙁 ↩
  5. Expected Value ↩
  6. One example of why they are shit: If you have £24.85 in your account they will only allow you to withdraw £24. There is surely no reason for this apart from them being a total bunch of shysters. Really why do companies do this sort of thing? The amount they are making/keeping from those extra few pennies must pale in comparison with the lost revenue from people who see this practice and just think “well you’re obviously a bunch of c**ts, never going to use this account ever again”. Anyway, I digress… ↩
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