How To Guarantee Value This Cheltenham
Value – The Holy Grail for all serious sports bettors.
As you’re reading On Course Profits, I’m sure that the concept of value isn’t new to you but, just to be absolutely clear on what I’m talking about here, value is taking a price on a fair coin toss of bigger than 1/1 (or 2.0 in decimal odds).
It’s as simple as that.
A true value bet is a bet that – if placed enough times – is mathematically guaranteed to make you money overall.
It’s what we all aspire to do with our horse racing wagers and, on that front, there’s bad news and good news…
The bad news is, for 99% of the year, it’s far from easy to identify.
The good news, however, is that for four magic days each March, even the world’s worst racing judge can guarantee that the bets they are taking are value ones.
There are three main methods of achieving this value and, in this article, I’ll run through what they are, where you’ll find them, and, just as importantly, any pitfalls.
The Concession
Everybody loves a special offer, and during Cheltenham week bookmakers trip over themselves to hand them out.
They do this to try and secure your return business for the week but, guess what?
You are under zero obligation to continue betting with a bookmaker just because you took a free bet offer on race one of day one. Indeed, the smart bettor does nothing of the sort. The smart bettor has a bunch of accounts with a bunch of bookmakers that he only ever uses when they have a free bet offer on.
Now, I can’t tell you what offers are going to be on in 2025, but I can tell you that based on recent years they are likely to include some variation on the following:
Money back as either cash or a free bet if a loser
SkyBet will almost certainly offer this at least once or twice and it is the most ‘no brainer’ of all the bookie promotions.
Money back as either cash or a free bet if 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc
This is much more commonly offered and the main bookies to look out for here include SkyBet, Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook, William Hill, Unibet, 888Sport and BetMGM.
Bet £X on race X, get £X on race Y
Ladbrokes, Coral and occasionally bet365 like to offer this but, as with all the offers I’m mentioning today, there may well be other bookies that get in on the act this year.
Sign up and get £X of free bets if you do X
If there are any legitimate bookmakers out there who you don’t currently have an account with, then Cheltenham is one of the very best times to take advantage of any welcome offers, not least because a lot of bookies boost their welcome offers in the lead up to Cheltenham…
As I said earlier, there’s nothing at all to stop you from placing one or two bets with a bookmaker, withdrawing any profit, and never betting with them again.
How To Take Advantage
With these offers, you have two main options…
- Lock in a guaranteed profit or no lose/potential profit.
- Take the value.
Option 2 is ideal if you were going to have a bet on the race anyway… If you wanted to place £5 on Big Dave in the first race at Cheltenham, then you are getting guaranteed value by placing him with a bookie that will give you a £5 free bet on the last race at Cheltenham regardless of whether you win or lose.
As for option 1, here’s how to do it…
Find a horse in the race in question with similar back odds, to their betting exchange lay odds. At the time of writing, I quickly found a horse called Belle Montrose who was available to back at 4/1 (5.0) with bet365 and lay at 5.1 with Betfair:
You now back the horse on the bookmaker site with the offer and lay the horse on the betting exchange.
Regardless of whether the horse wins or loses you will now pretty much break even on the back/lay (you’ll lose a few pence depending on the odds difference) but will have the opportunity to profit from the free bet/cash refund part of the offer.
Potential Pitfalls
The pitfalls of bookie concessions entirely revolve around five critical words:
READ. THE. TERMS. AND. CONDITIONS.
Now when I say this, don’t worry… you’re not going to have to block out an afternoon to read 30 pages of legal jargon just to ensure you qualify for a £5 free bet. However, there are a handful of key terms that you need to look out for.
They are as follows:
- Minimum odds. Some promotions require a minimum price for a bet to qualify for a promotion e.g. 1/2 (1.5).
- Maximum stake. Money back as cash is a fantastic promotion but be aware that there will be a maximum stake. Don’t bet your house and expect to get it back if you lose.
- Deposit method. Some welcome offers don’t allow deposits from PayPal, for example, so if you don’t deposit with a standard debit card, just be aware of that.
- Opt in. Many promotions these days require you to actively opt in. Always have a quick scan of the T&Cs page for an ‘opt in’ box.
The only other thing to say is if opening a new bookmaker account, make sure that you are able and willing to provide ID and proof of address documents. They will ask for them before processing a withdrawal.
Free-To-Plays
Next up, we move on to the absolute pinnacle of value betting… the ‘free-to-play’.
These are opportunities that bookmakers give us to win a cash prize without risking any cash of our own and, right now, they’re in plentiful supply…
Which means at Cheltenham, you won’t be able to move for them!
Now, I know what you’re thinking…
“I’ve heard of the ITV7. It’s all well and good, but I’m never going to win it, am I?”
And sure, the likelihood of you winning 100k+ from that particular ‘free-to-play’ is very small, but that’s not really what I’m talking about today.
Today, I’m talking about freebies that I regularly profit from. Not life changing amounts sure, but handy sums that add up, such as the £100 that recently dropped into my account from a Coral freebie:
Five Of The Best
In no particular order, here are five of the best ‘free-to-plays’ that I’m currently partaking in:
- Coral’s Football Super Series
Not racing, but this is the free-to-play I made £100 on, hence the mention. They select one football match a week and get you to predict four match stats from multiple choice options, such as how many cards will be shown. If you get 4/4 you bag £100, but there are also prizes for two or three correct answers.
- Coral’s Racing Super Series
This is perhaps my favourite free-to-play at the moment as it’s very winnable and provides extra entertainment on a big day of racing.
It works in much the same way as a placepot, whereby you need to select a placed horse in seven races.
If you manage it successfully, you win a share of the prize pot. I’ve won it a few times, including for 40-odd quid a couple of weeks back.
- Tote’s £1 free placepot.
This isn’t open to everyone every week, but most Saturdays and most Cheltenham Festival days Tote give me a £1 free placepot. Just login to your account and check your promotions page. If the offer is there, opt in and bob’s your uncle.
- Tote’s free daily spin.
Tote also offer a free daily spin on a prize wheel that can give free casino spins or cash prizes. Though cash prizes are rarer than hen’s teeth, I usually get awarded casino spins and, crucially, any winnings from these casino spins are awarded as cash. I’ve won £10-20 from these on multiple occasions and even the small penny wins add up nicely over time.
- ITV7 and the bet365 equivalent
If you’re not already aware, the ITV7 gives you the chance to win potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds by predicting seven winners on a day of televised racing. There’s also a similar game on bet365 which is also free to enter but only requires six winners.
Marginal Gains Done Right
While some of these prizes may not seem all that exciting to you, they really do add up over time and, for an investment of maybe five minutes a day, are well worth it…
Plus, who knows, maybe one of these days you won’t be landing a £100 win like me, but one of those elusive 100k+ jackpot wins. Oh, and as for potential pitfalls, there are none. It’s free!
Price Boosts
Today’s final profitable pillar is the one that is probably the most popular with bookmakers these days… the price boost.
It’s also my favourite because you can usually get bigger stakes on than a standard concession offer. However, there is one golden rule:
Not all boosts are born even.
Just because a price is boosted, it doesn’t mean it’s good value. Indeed, a lot of so-called boosts are anything but. Many are available at bigger ‘un-boosted’ prices with other bookmakers.
So, how do you tell if it’s value or not?
Simple… check the lay price.
As I type, bet365 have just posted up a ‘Super Boost’:
And the price on betting exchange, Smarkets:
As you can see, the super boosted price is quite clearly value. You could even back and lay it for a guaranteed profit if you wanted to.
Where To Find The Legitimate Boosts
The best purveyor of the legitimate boost at the moment is bet365 but do stick to the ones marked as ‘Super Boosts’, as their standard boosts are generally not value. Happily for us, bet365 will almost certainly provide a super boost every day of the festival, and allowed stakes can be as high as £50 per bet.
Elsewhere, SkyBet generally provide some decent boosts and are likely to continue to do so during Cheltenham week, as do Paddy Power and Betfair Sportsbook.
The Big Question
As for why bookmakers knowingly offer us this value, the answer is simple…
It’s a loss leader. Just as free welcome bets are a loss leader.The bookmaker knows that even though the price boost/free bet/free-to-pay will cost them money, down the line they will end up getting that money back from many bettors, plus a healthy profit on top.
Your job then isn’t to worry about fixes, or conspiracies (“they’re boosting Constitution Hill so they must know something we don’t). It’s to take the gift and move on.
A Helping Hand
If you found what I’ve written today interesting (and if you like making money, I’ve no doubt you will have done) then I’d like to direct you towards the jumps’ festival service, The WIndecate.
It's that rarest of things in the horse racing world… a betting service with genuine longevity. Indeed, this year will be its 13th year, having started way back in 2013.
Daily during the Cheltenham Festival, the Aintree Grand National Festival and the Punchestown Festival, we provide our members with all the guaranteed value betting opportunities open to them each day, as well as our written analysis of the races and our betting tips…
Tips which have made significant profits over the years, including Grand National winners, winning tricasts, winning placepots, and winning singles as big as 150/1.
It’s all available for a small one-off fee, which could easily be covered with just a couple of the guaranteed value opportunities we highlight, and we’d love to have you on board with us this year.
To get involved, just click this link today. https://www.betchat.uk/windecate25
Josh Allen
