Matched Betting Extra Places (Part 2): Walk-through Example

Andrea

17 Jul 2020

Updated: 21 Feb 2023

If you haven’t already we recommend reading Part 1 on the basics behind Matched Betting Extra Place Offers before proceeding with this article. Part 1 covers what Extra Place Offers are, each-way betting (backing and laying) and discusses the basic concept of how we make money from Extra Place Offers.

GO TO EXTRA PLACES PART 1

A Full Example of Matched Betting Extra Place Offers

In this example walk-through of Matched Betting Extra Place Offers we are going to use a very important tool known as the Extra Place Catcher - which is only available to Platinum and Diamond Outplayed members.

Although (in theory!) you could attempt to do Extra Place Offers without this tool it would be so EXTREMELY time consuming that it would no longer make the offers worth doing.

So, before we get started on the full walk-through we first need to take a bit of time to learn about the Extra Place Catcher and how we can use it to help us find and place the each-way bets we need to use to profit from Extra Place Offers.


What is the Extra Place Catcher Tool?

On a ‘slow’ Extra Place Offer day there can be more than 30 bookies each offering extra places on anything from 1-4 races.

On a ‘busy’ Extra Place Offer day (usually weekends or horse racing festivals) there can be more than 50 bookies each offering extra places on anything from 1-15 races!

Each race then also usually has anywhere between 4 and 20 horses running in it as well.

Based on this information how long do you think it would take you to find a decent each-way bet to do on a horse that will give you a good qualifying loss of less than £1?

Hours is the answer! Hours!

With our Extra Place Catcher though you can find great value each-way bets to do in seconds!

What’s more is that the Extra Place Catcher also automatically calculates the lay stakes you’ll need to use against the win and against the place at the betting exchange(s) – so you don’t even need to open a Matched Betting calculator.

The Extra Place Catcher literally does everything you need for you when it comes to Extra Place Offers.

Let’s have a closer look at this awesome piece of Matched Betting software and how it works.

Understanding the Extra Place Catcher

To access the Extra Place Catcher you must be a Platinum Member of Outplayed.

You also definitely need to be pretty well affiliated with our basic Oddsmatching Tool as well – otherwise, the Extra Place Catcher might completely overwhelm you! As you’re here considering starting Extra Place Offers we will assume that you are already pretty savvy with the basic Oddsmatcher and how to use it to find good Qualifying Bets to do.

Platinum and Diamond Members can open the Extra Place Catcher here and view a video guide of it in action in our special training guide here.

(If you’re not a Platinum Member yet then we’re sorry to tell you this – but just this single tool is easily worth more than the subscription we charge per month. We have loads more tools on top of this one as well, all of which are included in the price as well. Our membership really is exceptional value for money. If you don't believe us just browse some of our members' stories in our Facebook Group. Still not sure? Then give Platinum a try for a month with our 30-day money-back guarantee, you won’t be disappointed!)

The Extra Place Catcher finds and sorts available each-way bets for us to do by races that are available that day with a simple drop-down menu.

When we select a race the Extra Place Catcher then lists all available each-way bets on that race by horse with the smallest Qualifying Loss. (Just like the standard Oddsmatcher Tool does).

On this race at York we can see the horse named ‘Muraad’ has the smallest each-way qualifying loss available at -£0.14, then the horse Fox Premier at -£0.89 and so on.

If we click the +50 button next to a horse’s name:

We will get a list of alternative each-way bets on that horse which are available at other bookmakers and betting exchanges:

With this section opened we can now see that we could do each-way bets on Muraad for a -£0.14p Qualifying Loss at Betfred, SkyBet, Betway and Unibet if we wanted. The choice is ours thanks to the Extra Place Catcher!

Some of you may have also spotted that the Extra Place Catcher also makes use of multiple betting exchanges to find us the best (or cheapest!) way of fully completing our lay of the each-way bet.

On the horse Muraad you can see that for each of the 4 bookies listed here that for us to get the smallest Qualifying Loss on our each-way bet we are best to lay the win at Betfair Exchange, then lay the place at Smarkets Exchange.

(Again, imagine for a second trying to find all these each-way bet options for yourself! The Extra Place Catcher really is something special when you really take look at what it’s doing for us!)

If we go back to the initial results from the Extra Place Catcher now, where we can see multiple horses listed, the only other column we’re interested in for now is the second to last column – the Extra Place Profit:

This is the profit we would make if we did the each-way bet suggested by the Extra Place Catcher and our selected horse then did finish in the extra place on the race.

(We are not going to worry about the Rating % or Implied Odds columns just at the moment – we will talk about these more when we discuss Extra Place Offer strategies in more detail in Part 4 of our Extra Place Guide).

Using the Extra Place Catcher to place an each-way Matched Bet

Using the horse named Muraad as an example, the Extra Place Catcher is telling us that we could now do the following:

  • Place a £10 each-way bet stake at Betfred on Muraad to win at odds of 10.0. (Remember - our total stake for this each-way bet would then be £20, £10 on Muraad to win and £10 on Muraad to place)
  • Place a £9.57 lay stake against Muraad winning at odds of 10.50 at Betfair Exchange (with 5% commission).
  • Place a £10.77 lay stake against Muraad placing at odds of 2.60 at Smarkets Exchange (with 0% commission).

Then it shows us that doing this bet would give us an overall Qualifying Loss of just £0.14, and a potential profit of £27.86 if Muraad finishes the race in the Extra Place.

If we use Muraad’s information from the Extra Place Catcher alongside our Extra Place Profit Table we used in Part 1 of this Extra Place Guide, you can hopefully see exactly what’s going on and where our profit is coming from if Muraad finishes in the extra place:

We’d recommend taking a few minutes to digest this table if you can as it’s always best with more advanced reload offers like these to try to understand as best you can what’s going on and exactly where your profits are coming from.

Changing Odds and Editing the Extra Place Catcher

We all know one of the difficulties of Matched Betting on horses is that their odds can change quite regularly – especially near the start of a race.

The Extra Place Catcher deals with this issue by allowing us to edit the odds at the bookmaker or at the exchange(s) easily, as and when we need to. Once these are edited it then automatically updates the lay stakes we need to use as well. The amount of the each-way stake can also be changed as needed too.

(Basically each row on the Extra Place Catcher has its own inbuilt Matched Betting calculator for us to use).

Now we’ve got to grips with the Extra Place Catcher and how to use it to place an each-way bet on an Extra Place race we’re going to do a full walk-through of one strategy that’s commonly used to increase our chances of profiting from Extra Place Offers in Matched Betting.


Example Walk-through of Matched Betting Extra Places

The Multi-Horse Strategy

The strategy we’re going to walk-through here can be referred to as the ‘multi-horse approach’.

The foundation of this strategy is based on us each-way betting on as many different horses in the same race as we can, but with each bet being done at a different bookmaker that is offering an extra place on the race.

By betting on as many horses as we can in a race we are trying to increase our chances that one horse will come in on the extra place and make us a good profit.

If there are 14 horses in a race and we bet on just one of them the chance of them coming in that extra-place is approximately 1 in 14 times (or 7.14% of the time).

If we bet on 6 horses in the race, the chances that one of them may come in the extra-place increases to 6 in 14 times (or 42% of the time).

If we also look to exclude horses that are very strong favourites (with odds less than 2) or horses that are extreme outsiders (e.g. odds of 25 or more) this also tends to increases our likelihood of hitting the extra place.

Important factors to consider with this strategy

The multi-horse strategy makes sense and sounds simple enough doesn’t it?

However, there is one thing we need to be careful of with this strategy as beginners – our total qualifying loss vs potential profit.

The cost of placing several each-way Qualifying Bets on different horses can soon add up and we therefore need to be very conscious of this and the fact that even if we cover 75% of the horses in a race we could still not make a profit from that particular race if none of our horses finish in the extra place (this can and does happen!).

Although we know over the long-term we have the advantage and can make money doing Extra Place Offers with this strategy there will be times where your horses just seem to refuse to land in the extra place for some time. It’s important you are prepared mentally for this and also have the Matched Betting bankroll available to cope with such times. On the flip side of the coin there are also times where horse after horse seem to finish in the extra place too! (Cha-ching!)

If you’ve started Matched Betting casino offers already and understand expected value and that we make our profit over the long term – Matched Betting Extra Place offers are based on exactly the same concept. If you’re already tackling football 2up early payout offers as well – Extra Place Offers also sit in the exact same bracket as these offers profit-wise.

Approaches to using the Multi-horse Strategy

There are unfortunately no set of hard and fast rules to follow when it comes to using this extra place strategy as people develop different approaches that work for them.

Approaches often have to be flexible to some extent too and may vary depending on:

  • the available qualifying losses on horses;
  • the available potential profits per horse;
  • how many horses there are in a race;
  • experience someone has with doing Extra Place Offers;
  • how much time someone has available to place bets that day; and/or
  • the size of someone’s current Matched Betting bankroll.

Our advice is to start Extra Place Offers with a simple multi-horse strategy in mind.

As an example this could be to only bet on horses with a Qualifying Loss of 50p or less, horses that have potential profit of £15 or more, and on races that have 14 or fewer runners where you can aim to bet on at least 3 horses in the race using 3 different bookmakers. Alternatively you could also set a maximum qualifying loss per race of £3 rather than a maximum about per horse as this then gives you more flexibility on Qualifying Loss per horse.

(Remember if you’re sticking to a strict 50p qualifying loss or less you may end up only betting on one horse in a race if the other horses' Qualifying Losses don’t become small enough to meet your requirement. Other times you might be able to place bets on 4 or even 5 horses in one race).

If you have a smaller Matched Betting bankroll, you could also opt to start with using £5 or even £2 each-way stakes at first with the aim of building up your stakes over time.

Mutli-horse strategy walk-through example

This walk-through a Matched Betting Extra Place Offer is from a race that took place at Epsom on Saturday 4th July 2020 at 15:00.

There were 15 runners initially listed in the race and more than 30 bookmakers were offering an extra-place on the race – which was 5th place. The standard number of places was initially classified as 1st to 4th by the bookies and betting exchanges.

As the extra-place in this race was 5th, this meant at the betting exchanges we would be laying off to place (or finish) in the top 4.

2 runners dropped out before the start of the race – which did cause some of the bookies (BoyleSports!) to change the standard places to 1st-3rd, and their extra place to 4th.

It’s very important to be aware that this can happen – albeit it does happen quite rarely. Just before you place any each-way bet at the bookie we always recommend double checking that they are still offering the extra place that you (and the Extra Place Catcher) are expecting them to be offering!

If you’ve already done an each-way bet on a horse at a bookie that changes their offer your bet basically turns into a mug bet. You can no longer make a profit from it as the initial extra place position is no longer being offered.

Our Selected Approach

The approach used for this walk-through was to have an average qualifying loss of £1 per horse, with a maximum total qualifying loss for the race of £5. (This meant we were going to aim to bet on 5-6 horses if possible). £10 each-way stakes would be used.

Around 10am on Saturday morning the Extra Place Catcher started to show good available Qualifying Losses on this race for various horses. If you’re looking to do Extra Place Offers it’s good to have the Extra Place Catcher open whilst you’re doing other Matched Betting reload offers. Although some people recommend waiting until near the start of the race to get the best Qualifying Losses this isn’t a necessity and we often see plenty of opportunities well before the start of a race too.

All bets were done on this race over the space of an hour (in between doing other reload offers and a few general personal tasks too). Actually placing the bets took around 20 minutes in total.

As each bet was done it was saved and stored in the ‘My Bets’ section of the Extra Place Catcher. Overall we managed to place bets on 5 horses in the race for a total qualifying loss of £4.72 (which was an average of 94p per horse).

Both Betfair Exchange (5% commission) and Smarkets Exchange (0% commission) were used for the lay parts of the bets.

Some of you may have noted that at Genting Bet we placed bets on 2 different horses. The general rule of thumb to avoid getting gubbed is that up to 2 horses per race per bookie is acceptable (when there are 10 runners or more). In races with 20 runners you could look to do 3 horses at one bookie.

All the horses we bet on were within a good odds range (6.0 up to 15.0). The good Qualifying Loss we got on the horse Johnny Drama (-£0.38) meant that it was OK for us to go slightly over £1 on other horses.

The smallest potential profit we could make was £19.62 and the largest £36.88.

Once you’ve successfully placed your bets it’s then just a waiting game!

The Race Results

One of the fastest places to check racing results is on Sporting Life’s website. You can also check results on both Betfair Exchange and Smarkets Exchange too, but they can take a little longer to come through.

As the horse You’re Hired came in 5th position in this race we made an overall profit of £22.28.

This was the profit from You’re Hired (£25.97) – the total Qualifying Losses from the 4 other horses (£3.69).

The other added benefit to using the multi-horse strategy on Extra Place Offers is that every now and again one of your horses may win the race and give you a BOG too.

Grab an Extra Place and a good BOG on the same race and you’re really laughing then! :)

(Worth noting thought that the BOG only tends to be given on the win part of your each-way bet, not the place part).


Now you’ve seen that Matched Betting Extra Place Offers is much simpler than you first thought, especially with the help of our Extra Place Catcher, you’re now ready to give them a go yourself!

Before you start though the 3rd and 4th parts of our guide could also be worth a read as they include some extra tips for starting Extra Place Offers and discusses alternative strategies, or adaptations on the one we’ve walked through here.

Part 3 - Matched Betting Extra Place Offers, Tips for Beginners

GO TO EXTRA PLACES PART 3

Part 4 - Matched Betting Extra Place Offers, Strategy Discussion

GO TO EXTRA PLACES PART 4

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