British Horse Racing Returns!

Andrea

1 Jun 2020

Updated: 19 Nov 2023

The British Horse Racing community have been chomping at the bit to get back into action – even if it will be behind closed doors. There were 369 horses entered for the 10 races at Newcastle today and 454 entries for the 9 races at Kempton tomorrow.

(To celebrate this we're offering 50% off your first month on Platinum with us - but this will only be available for a limited time only - so grab it now before you miss out!)

What does horse racing coming back mean for matched betting?

Well, we hope the return of horse racing will also result in the return of more horse racing refund and extra place offers at the bookmakers for us to take advantage of. Both these types of offer provide great opportunities for us to profit.

Plus, there's the added benefit when doing these horse racing offers that we could hit a 'BOG' and make some unexpected or extra profits too. Everyone loves a good 'BOG' :)

('BOG' means Best Odds Guaranteed on a winner - if you don't know what a 'BOG' is and how awesome they are in matched betting there's a great forum thread about them here)

How to do matched betting on horses?

In matched betting horse racing refund offers work in a similar way to how football 2up, or early payout offers work.

In brief, for horse racing refund offers all we have to do is back and lay a horse for a small qualifying loss and if they finish in a certain position in the race we will then either receive a refund as cash or a refund as a free bet (depending on the bookmaker’s offer). If the refund is as cash we will be in instant profit. If the refund is a free bet then all we have to do is matched bet the free bet in the normal way and extract our profit.

Horse racing extra place offers then work in a slightly different way to refund offers. For our qualifying bet at the bookmaker we have to make sure we do an each-way bet rather than a standard to-win bet and then at the exchange lay off the place as well as the win. If our horse then comes in at a certain position in the race, which we refer to as the ‘extra place’, we win our place bet at the bookmaker and also our lay bets at the exchange. Hitting the extra place can therefore be very profitable for us - especially if we have used a large stake.

Below we provide walk-through examples of both types of offer for you, followed by some useful tips for matched betting on horses in general, and finally a list of useful resources for those wanting to start making profits matched betting on horses.

A walk-through example of a matched betting a horse racing refund offer

Paddy Power are promoting the following offer today:

£10 money back as a free bet if your horse finishes 2nd, 3rd, or 4th in the 13:35 at Newcastle (with the usual kind of terms and conditions, see full guide here)

For any Paddy Power offer like this we recommend using Smarkets rather than Betfair as your choice of exchange (plus Platinum Members get 0% commission on Smarkets).

The first step in this offer is to find a suitable qualifying bet to do that has the smallest qualifying loss possible. For a £10 back stake ideally we want a qualifying loss of 50p or less. Sometimes members choose to go up to an 80p loss. They tend to do this if there are only a few horses running in the race as this increases our chances of their selected horse placing in a profitable position (2nd, 3rd or 4th in this case).

The fastest way to find a good qualifying bet is through using our special horse racing odds matcher software known as the Match Catcher. As horse racing odds change regularly throughout the day the best approach for finding a small qualifying loss is to use the notification feature on our Match Catcher. This feature will alert you as soon as a suitable match with your pre-defined maximum qualifying loss (or less) comes up during the day. The Match Catcher is considered as one of the most valuable assets to our members matched betting on horse racing refunds as it saves them so much time and money through reducing their qualifying losses to the smallest possible amounts.

Once we’ve found a good match, all we have to do now is enter it into our matched betting calculator in normal mode, remembering to use a £10 back stake (although the Match Cather can automate all this for us too). Once we have our lay stake from our calculator all we have to do then is place our £10 qualifying bet and wait.

If our horse finishes the race, but not in 2nd, 3rd or 4th position, we will be down just by our small qualifying loss.

If our horse finishes the race in 2nd, 3rd or 4th, within 2 hours of the race finishing Paddy Power will give us a £10 free bet to use on horse racing. Once we have the free bet we can use our Oddsmatching Tool to find a suitable free bet for us to do, work out our lay stake at the exchange with our matched betting calculator in Free Bet (SNR) mode, then place our Free Bet to make ourselves a profit. Ideally we would be looking to extract a profit of at least £7.50 from this free bet, which would put us at around £7 profit overall.

(If this had been a cash refund offer instead of a free bet refund offer we would have been in instant profit at the end of the race if our horse came in 2nd, 3rd or 4th).

(To see more matched betting reload offers like the one below and get access to all the tools and resources mentioned in this post you need to be a Platinum Member. You can access 50% off your first month by signing up today. The offer will only be available for a few more days!)

A walk-through example of a matched betting a horse racing extra place offer

The first thing to understand about these types of horse racing offers is exactly what we mean by an extra place.

In a normal race a bookmaker classifies a horse as placing if it comes in 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Using this classification a bookmaker can then state that they will pay out on 3 places if a place (or each-way) bet is done with them and wins.

Betting exchanges use exactly the same classification for their place bets too, but at the exchange we are able to lay place bets off as well as back them. A lay place bet will lose at the exchange if a horse does come in 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the race, but will win at the exchange if the horse does come in at 4th place or higher in the race.

With an extra place offer the bookmaker pays out on one additional place in the race – 4th. (Sometimes they pay out on 2 extra places - which would be 4th and 5th). The betting exchange however does not do this - they still work on just 3 places. This difference in number of places between the bookmaker and exchange means that through matched betting we can make ourselves a profit if the horse we bet on comes in 4th – the ‘extra place’. This is because our place bet will win at the bookmaker – as the horse came in 4th, but our lay bets will also win at the exchange (as the horse placed in 4th, above the 3 places)

Lots of bookmakers do horse racing extra place offers, similar to the following:

On the 13:00 at Newcastle we are paying 4 places at 1/5 of the odds.

How do we approach this kind of offer?

The first step for doing this offer is finding a suitable each-way qualifying bet to do. (Don’t know what an each-way bet is? See: how each way bets work)

The best way to find a good each-way for an extra place offer is by using another one of our special horse racing matched betting tools the Extra Place Catcher.

At the top of the Extra Place Catcher you can select the race you are looking to bet on and instantly get all available each-way odds matches appear in front of you for every bookmaker offering an extra place on the race. To identify if there is a good each-way qualifying bet available for you to do it’s worth reading our extra place offer guide and Extra Place Catcher tutorial first. Once you’ve identified a suitable bet to do the Extra Place Catcher will guide you on what bet stakes you need to place at the bookmaker and exchange (or exchanges depending on where the best odds are) to complete your qualifying bet.

When placing your bets you need to remember at the bookmaker to indicate the bet is an each-way bet rather than a single to-win bet (this is often done by checking off that it’s an each-way in your betslip) and then at the exchange to lay off the place as well as the win. Once your qualifying bet is placed, you then just wait for the race to finish and hope your selected horse comes in the extra place (4th in this case).

If it doesn’t come in the extra place you are just down your small qualifying loss. If it does come in the extra place then you’re laughing because you win at both the bookmaker and the exchange.

Extra place offers like this don’t tend to have stake restrictions on them, which means if you’ve built up a good matched betting bankroll you can use large stake for these offers and potentially get some very large returns!

Extra-place offers are very popular among some of our most experienced, long-term matched bettors.

Tips for matched betting horses

If you’re a relative beginner to matched betting we’d recommend avoiding potential profit horse racing offers until you’ve built up your matched betting bankroll and also experience. Previous experience betting on horses is particularly important for the extra place offers because often some of the best odds matches come when closer to the start of the races – but this means the odds are moving more quickly and you therefore need to be able to move quickly and confidently with what you’re doing.

Don’t be put off from learning about these offers though (see the full list of guides below), nor from giving them a go once you’ve completed all the sign up offers and got the hang of easier horse racing reload offers (there are some good ones available today here). They are so worthwhile doing once you’re ready to.

When doing horse racing refund offers remember to take advantage of shared liability where you can by doing multiple bookmaker offers on the same race (when available). Not only do you reduce how much money might move out of your exchange if a horse wins at the bookmaker but you can also sometimes increase your chances of one of your horses coming in a profitable place.

With extra place offers taking advantage of shared liability is also useful, but again doing multiple bookmaker extra place offers on the same race also increases your chances that one horse will hit the extra place. If there are suitable each-way qualifying bets available you can even do up to two different horses on the same race at the same bookmaker to enhance your chances of hitting the extra place as well.

With all kinds of horse racing offers remember to watch out for the number of runners changing if some horses drop out as this can change the terms and conditions on the offers.

Where to find daily matched betting horse racing offers?

On our matched betting forum head to the Reload Section, then Horse Racing (or click here). Every day the Offers Team will post lists of horse racing refund offers and horse racing extra place offers there.

Alternatively you can also go to the main Reload Offers section and look for the relevant guides which will be identifiable by the images below.

List of useful matched betting horse racing guides, tools and resources

The majority of these tools and resources are only available to our Platinum Members. All these guides and tools are absolutely essential to have access too before tackling these kind of horse racing reload offers. Without them it’s hard to find enough time to make these offers worthwhile doing as manually searching can take hours.

Guide on Useful Horse Racing Terminology

Horse Racing Reload Offer Section of the Forum – click here

Horse Racing Refunds Full Guide

Match Catcher (horse racing odds matching software)

Match Catcher Tool Tutorial

Bet365 Horse Racing Refunds (a more advanced horse racing refunds offer)

Rule 4 Guide (useful for the Bet365 refund offer)

Extra Place Offers and Each Way Bets, Full Guide

Extra Place Catcher (horse racing odds matching software)

Extra Place Catcher Tutorial

Each Way Calculator (matched betting calculator)

Shared Liability Guide


Want to learn matched betting?

To celebrate the return of horse racing we are currently offer a massive 50% off your first month on our Platinum Membership. This offer will only be available for a limited time only.

Click here to get 50% off now

Alternatively you can start learning for free with our free trial that's available here.

It’s also worthwhile joining the Facebook Group as there are over 5000 members there ready to help you, offer advice and show you the best ways to profit.

(Full terms and conditions of all promotional offers when valid are available here)