Profit in Gambling Through Value Part 4
Part 4 Using Bonuses and Offers to increase your edge
In the first three parts of this series we looked at what value is, how we evaluate value and using appropriate bankroll management techniques to maximize that edge. In this part we look at taking advantages of bonuses and offers and how we can make that edge even more.
This article starts with a look at how we can incorporate bonuses into our betting strategy. Moving on, we describe how offers can be used to increase our edge. The article and the series ends by bringing it all together. If you have not yet read the first 3 parts, then follow this link to part 1 to begin the journey.
Bonuses and Value
On occasions you might have claimed a bonus at a site which you quickly realise that you won’t be able to clear. For example you might have claimed a £50 bonus at a site which needs you to gamble 600 at the site for the amount to be yours. Following the advice on the previous pages, you should be selective in your betting, so it is realistic that you won’t actually meet the bonus amount. However when faced with this situation, you can actually take a different approach.
As you know you’ll need to gamble £600 to claim £50, this is the same as saying that every £12 you gamble at the site will gain you £1. This actually means that you can place a bet which you consider to be completely break even (ie in the long run you won’t profit or lose by placing the bet) and still make a profit.
As an example you place two £60 bets at even money which you consider to be exactly the right price. Normally you wouldn’t place these bets as there is no edge, but in this situation you should. If one bet wins and one bet loses (as you might hope to expect to happen with two 50/50 shots) you’ll break even with the bets, but clear £120 of the bonus (and effectively earn £10 of the £50 bonus).
You could even go one step further and place a bet where you expect to lose! For example you could place two bets on what you consider ‘even’ bets where the bookmaker is only paying out £57 if you win. In this situation, if one wins and one loses again, you’ll make a loss of 3 on the bets, but make the same £12 on the bonus.
This is a much better approach than simply letting the bonus slip away. Many professional poker players use a very similar approach – they won’t actually win money at the tables with the edge being so small, but all of their profit comes from the bonus schemes and reward points.
Free Bet offers
You can also incorporate free bets into your calculations when gambling. Many gambling sites will offer free bets if a certain event happens within a game – for example if a particular football player scores or if a game finishes without a goal.
But how do we incorporate this into our betting?
Well the first step is to work out exactly how much the ‘free bet’ is worth. With any free bet you find online, you’ll not actually receive the stake back if the bet wins, so if you receive a free £10 bet and it wins at even money, youll only receive 10 back, as opposed to the £20 you’d receive back if you’d placed £10 from your own account. Because of this you should actually halve the value of the free bet to see its true value (a 10 free bet on an even money shot will warn you £10 if it wins, and nothing if it loses, so in reality it’s actually worth £5).
Now let’s look at an example where a free bet actually makes a bet worth placing:
A major bookmaker has an offer where you receive a free bet if you back a horse and it falls. There is a 3 horse race at Newton Abbott and the second favourite is priced at odds of 4.0. You’ve studied the race and have come to same conclusion that the horse should be priced at 4.0. Normally, with no edge here, you wouldn’t place the bet. However, the free bet offer here actually gives you that edge and makes the bet worth placing.
Let’s take a quick look at the maths behind this:
You decide to go ahead and have £50 on the horse at odds of 4 to 1. Because you think the price is dead right, you would expect the horse to win 25% of the time, so if the race was run millions of times, your expectation would be that you would finish absolutely level. However, you also consider that this horse will actually fall once every 10 races. Knowing you’ll receive a £50 free bet if it falls (which is worth £25) every ten races, this is actually worth £2.50 to you here. This means that your overall expectation on the race has gone from level to a £2.50 profit, which represents a 5% profit on the race.
Profit in Gambling through Value – Part 4 Overview
In this part we looked at how you can use bonuses and offers to find value bets where perhaps there wasnt any obvious value to be had – another useful weapon in your betting armoury. In the final part of the series, we take a closer look at evaluating the odds of a sporting event accurately.