Underlay, Underlay!

One of the Frequently Asked Questions in my inbox is “How do you tackle offers that have a wagering requirement attached to their free bet or bonus?”

Of course there is more than one way to play any type of offer but for these types of bonuses a great method is by utilising a technique known as “underlaying”

No we are not promoting carpet based products or even excitable Mexican chants here……

Underlay simply means laying less on the betting exchange than you normally would to equalise the profit regardless of the outcome. The principle of it is to compensate yourself for the downside of actually winning at a bookie i.e. you have to carry on with the Wager Requirement before you can withdraw. So that is more time, effort and your money is tied up for longer.

Remember time is money so you should reward yourself for having to spend more time on an offer.

To explain more here is an example using the recent 50% sign up offer at Betsafe

In GBP £, you can deposit £40 and get the maximum free £20 bonus (which is instantly credited to use too). The value of the deposit + bonus must be wagered over 4x before you can withdraw so that is £240 of bets that have to be placed.

OK so firstly decide what is an acceptable (& realistic) minimum profit that you would like to make from the free £20 bonus.

Let’s say we are happy with a minimum £12 risk free profit from this offer (a 60% ROI on the bonus). It’s all free money at the end of the day!

So let’s look at a real life game from last weekend….

Using Oddsmatcher we found the Espanyol v Betis, La Liga game where the Draw price was a close match up at 3.35 to back at Betsafe and 3.45 to lay on Betfair just before kick off.

Using the custom slider feature in the advanced calculator within the Oddsmatcher software (see below), we setup a bet to cover the full £60 at Betsafe (£40 deposit and £20 bonus) with a lay bet £55 on Betfair (a liability of £134.75 at the exchange).

The slider feature in Oddsmatcher is fantastic as let’s you weight the outcome of a bet in whatever proportion you like and see instantly your profits at the bookmaker and betting exchange as you adjust it.

This gave the following profit outcomes:

It’s a Draw, so the Draw bet wins = +£141 at Betsafe MINUS £134.75 at Betfair = +£6.25 (with the £20 bonus still in tact to carry on wagering with to meet the 4x deposit+bonus requirement). So in effect we now had a £26.25 bonus and £180 of wagering to do.

It’s not a Draw, so the Draw bet loses = -£40 at Betsafe (we had £60 but the extra £20 was the free money bonus they gave us) PLUS +£52.25 at Betfair (after commission) = £12.25 overall profit all done and dusted.

As it was Espanyol won the game 1-0 and all the funds ended up in Betfair for an instant £12.25 profit. 25p over our 60% target and we can immediately move onto the next one!

Underlaying is a great way to play these type of roll over offers as you are effectively paying yourself for your time to carry on wagering by making a little extra profit each time the bet wins at the bookmaker. In fact, with a series of wins you can end up winning far more than the value of the initial free bet or bonus by the time you complete the wagering. So again that is an extra reward for extra time spent.

But if you bust out then you are all done, the money is all in the betting exchange and you can move onto the next one. So again all good too.

Either way the power of Underlaying can really allow you to maximise your time to profit ratio, perfect when there are so many offers about to do.

If you need anymore information regarding underlaying then please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@bet72.com

And to find out more about the many benefits of Oddsmatcher – click here

Happy Underlaying!