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Betting Trends at Wimbledon: Analyzing Top Seed Losses

Before the year 2000 you would have to go back to 1962 to find a player out of the top 5 seeding in the ladies tournament that won. Since and including 2000 there have only been 10 players that were within the top 5 seeding that have won the ladies tournament. Where did these players fall by the wayside and what odds on the exchange could you lay them off at?
2024 saw 31 seed Krejcikova winning the tournament with a 2-1 victory over 7 seed Paolini, but the top 10 seeds started falling out in the 1st round with the dismissal of Zheng and Vondrousova with sportsbook odds of 1.17 and 1.13 respectively. Round 2 saw 5 seed Pegula lose to unseeded Wang, her sportsbook odds were 1.25. The third round was a disaster for the seeded players with 1 seed Swiatek (Odds 1.08), 9 seed Sakkari (Odds 2.2) , and 10 seed Jabeur (Odds 1.5) all crashing out. This left just 4 of the top 10 seeded players progressing into the 4th round which also saw casualties in the form of 2 seed Gauff (Odds 1.29) and 11 seed Collins (Odds 1.44). (I have included Collins at 11 seed because No 3 seed Sabalenka withdrew before round 1 and did not play in the tournament). Both remaining top 10 seeded players, seed 4 Rybakina and seed 7 Paolini made it safely through the quarter finals but the semi finals were the limit for seed 4 Rybakini (Odds 1.2) who lost to eventual winner Krejcikova. As mentioned before Paolini was the last of the top 10 seeds to fall and became tournament runner up with match odds of 2.2.

The implications of these events warrant some serious investigation into either backing the underdog at sportsbook odds if you haven’t got an exchange account or laying the seeded player on the exchanges.

2024 Round 1 Matches

Wimbledon 1st round matches backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

The table above shows the results and profit had you backed the underdog with Bet365 sportsbook for a £1.00 level stake. As you can see your profit would have been £1.00

Wimbledon 1st round matches laying the top 10 seeded players.

This second table shows the results and profit achieved when laying the top 10 seeded players for a £1.00 liability at the exchange with a 0% commission If you factor in a 2% commission then the profit would be £3.02 instead of £3.25.

2024 2nd Round Matches

Wimbledon 2nd Round Backing the Underdog at £1.00 Level Stakes

In the 2nd round just 1 seeded player was knocked out and the “underdog” for the match was Wang Xin who was 3/1. Total stakes for round 2 was £8.00 producing, after Wangs’ win, a total loss of £4.00. This brings our total P/L for the tournament if we were backing the opponent of the top 10 seeded players to -£3.00.

Wimbledon 2nd round matches laying the remaining top 10 seeded players for a £1.00 liability

This table above shows the results if we had laid the remaining top 10 seed players. Our loss after 2% commission would be £3.74 giving a total loss of £3.72

2024 3rd Round Matches.

Wimbledon 3rd round matches Backing the underdog for a £1.00 level Stake

2024s’ 3rd round saw 3 of the top ten seeded players get knocked out including No 1 seed Swiatek which produced the highest individual profit of £7.00. The overall profit for round 3 backing the underdogs at Bet365 was £5.30 giving us an overall tournament profit of £2.30.

Wimbledon 3rd round matches laying the remaining top 10 seeded players to £1.00 liability

The dismissal of 3 of the remaining 7 top 10 seeded players has put our P/L back into the black with a 3rd round profit of £5.71 before commission deduction. With this factored in the 3rd round profit is £5.51 giving a tournament profit of £1.79

2024 4th Round Matches

Wimbledon 4th round matches backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

The dismissal of both Gauff and Collins in round 4 would have given us a level stake profit of £2.50 backing the underdog at Bet365 the retirement of both Keys and Kalinskaya ensured safe passage to the Quarter Finals of the remaining 2 top ten seeds Paolini and Rybakina. With these two wins in this round our total tournament profit for backing the underdog now stands at £4.80.

Wimbledon 4th round matches laying the remaining 4 top 10 seeds to a liability of £1.00.

Laying players at such short odds at the exchange has paid off in this round giving us an after commission profit of £3.10 adding to our tournament profit giving a total of £4.89

2024 Quarter Finals

Both of the remaining top 10 seeded players made it safely through to the semi finals reducing our Level stake profit when backing the underdog to £2.80. Laying the seeded players also had the same effect on our laying to a liability profit to £2.89 after commission.

2024 Semi Finals

Wimbledon 2024 Semi Final Matches showing the backing of the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

Paolini triumphed in her semi final match against unseeded Vekic but backing Krejcikova to win against Rybakina paid dividends producing an overall semi final profit to £1.00 level stakes at Bet365 of £2.0 giving us an overall tournament profit with just the final to play of £5.30.

Semi final matches involving the remaining 2 top ten seeded players when laying to a £1.00 liability.

Again laying the seeded player instead of backing the underdog produced a greater profit before 25 commission was deducted even with the commission subtracted the profit is £3.28 giving a total tournament profit with just the final to play of £6.17

2024 The Final.

The Final for Wimbledon 2024 where 31 seed Krejcikova beat 7th Seed Paolini 3/6 6/3 6/4

Backing the “Underdog” in the final at Bet365 produced a profit of 73p which when added to our tournament total for backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes has given us a tournament grand total of £6.03

Laying the seeded player paid off again giving a small profit after commission of 78p

Laying the no 7 seed Paolini at odds of 2.25 has seemed the only sensible bet in the tournament given the odds of the eventual winner, Krejcikova, of 1.8 at the exchange. A profit of 78p was achieved after the reduction of 2% commission and when added to the tournament total for laying each and every one of the top ten seeded players produced an overall profit of £6.95. This is 92p more than backing the underdog at a sportsbook.

Analysis of the tournament.

Without doubt had we laid the top ten seeded players then our profit would have been more than backing the underdog at the bookmaker. However there is the fact that bookmakers need to create at least a 7% overound and we may well have benefited more by backing the underdog at an exchange especially if you have a promotional 0% commission. Without the top seeds falling by the wayside early on in the tournament the profit would have been less or even a loss might have occurred, certainly our profit was boosted by the single fact that Swiatek crashed out in the 3rd round!
Overall a success and in fact a low risk strategy. Laying to a liability of just £1.00 means that we can monitor and control any losses. We can make the lay bets in the knowledge that if we start with a small bank of just £10 and not let any emotion enter into our decisions we can keep this strategy fun.

How the seeded players faired in previous years.

2023

Top 10 Seeds

Swiatek – Lost in Round 4 (Odds 1.19)
Sabalenka – Lost in Semi Finals (Odds 1.7)
Rybakina – Lost in Quarter Finals (Odds 1.71)
Pegula – Lost in Quarter Finals (Odds 1.76)
Garcia – Lost in Round 3 (Odds 2.05)
Jabeur – Lost in The Final (Odds 1.5)
Gauff – Lost in round 1 (Odds 1.34)
Sakkari – Lost in round 1 (Odds 1.36)
Kvitova -Lost in Round 4 (Odds 1.8)
Krejcikova Lost in Round 2 (Odds 1.35)

Swiatek
Reached the 4th round where she lost to Svitolina After losing 3 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £5.26 giving a profit of £2.54
Sabalenka
Reached the Semifinals where she lost to Jabeur. After losing 5 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.43 giving a loss of £3.57
Rybakina
Reached the quarter finals were she lost to Jabeur. After 4 losing lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.41 giving a loss of £2.59
Pegula
Reached the Quarter finals where she lost to Vondrousova. After losing 4 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.32 giving a loss of £2.68
Garcia
Reached the 3rd round where she lost to Bouzkova. After losing 2 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won 96p giving a loss of £1.04
Jabeur
Reached the final where she lost to Vondrousova. After losing 6 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £2.00 giving a loss of £4.00
Gauff
Lost in the 1st round to Kenin. We would have won £2.94.
Sakkari
Lost in the 1st round to Kostyuk. We would have won £2.78
Kvitova
Reached the 4th Round where she lost to Jabeur. After losing 3 lay bets of £1.00 each we would have won £1.25 giving a loss of 1.75
Krejcikova
Reached the 2nd round where she lost to Andreeva. After just 1 losing lay bet of £1.00 we would have won £2.86 giving a profit of £1.86

Conclusion.

We would have lost £5.51 over the whole tournament this year if we had laid each of the top 10 seeds to the end.

2022

Top 10 seeds

Swiatek – Lost in Round 3 (Odds 1.2) – P/L £3.00
Kontaveit – Lost in Round 2 (Odds 1.50) – P/L £1.00
Jabeur – Reached the Final (Odds 1.83) – P/L -£4.80
Badosa – Reached the 4th Round (Odds 3.4) – P/L -£2.58
Sakkari – Reached the 3rd Round (Odds 1.20) – P/L £3.00
Pliskova – Reached the 2nd round (Odds 1.71) – P/L £0.41
Collins – Lost in the 1st Round (Odds 1.79) – P/L £1.27
Pegula – Reached the 3rd Round (Odds 1.57) – P/L -£0.25
Mugurusa – Lost in the 1st round (Odds 1.25) – P/L £4.00
Raducanu Reached the 2nd Round (Odds 1.70) – P/L £0.43

Conclusion

We would have Won £5.48 over the whole tournament this year if we had laid each of the top 10 seeds to the end.

Betting Insights: Analyzing Provisional Odds for Winners

Yesterday I showed you how to create a basic query in TSMs’ Selection Hunter to find some likely winners using the back test mode to discover any trends and it came up with the following 3 horses
The selections are
13:50 Stage Star
14:25 Copperhead
15:00 Sunray Shadow.

If you missed it you can read the post here

13:50 Stage Star
Stage Star met the provisional odds criteria of between 2.00 and 2.99 but went off at a BSP of 3.21. Our conditions of placing a bet with betangel were that the BSP had to be between 2.00 and 2.99 for the software to trigger. 3.21 was out of our range at 3.21 so no bet was made.

Stage Star only managed 4th out of 5

14:25 Copperhead
Joe Tizzards’ Copperhead also qualified as the provisional odds were posted as 2.85 but again the BSP was outside of the criteria and went off at 3.5 giving us another miss fire from Betangel.
Copperhead Won by 14 lengths!!!

15:00 Sunray Shadow
The final selection was the Skelton trained and ridden Sunray Shadow who’s Provisional odds were posted at 2.5. Winning by a length and a 1/4 the BSP was well within the range at 2.23 and Betangel Fired the bet in 10 seconds before post time catching 2.25

Summary
2 of the 3 selections went off at odds outside the criteria one of them winning but alas one losing
2 of the 3 went off as favourites despite all 3 being ranked as provisional favourite.
Betangel fired just one bet and this returned 125% ROI
Given the strike rate of the criteria when back tested (68%) 2 actual winners from our query seemed to tentatively back this trend.

Cautionary note
While this was a completely genuine test run you should not go out and back every Aintree runner with a BSP of between 2.0 and 2.99 even though I back tested over a period of nearly 2 years results you should always do as much research as you can and start with stakes that you can afford to lose.

Build your bank steadily Racing is not going to finish tommorrow!!!

The staking Machine software has limited use for free but If you want to take advantage of the Selection Hunter you will need to pay – It only costs £24 for 1 year – Twenty Four!! this is not a typo and can be paid via paypal
That’s only 2 quid a month and if you had backed Sunray Shadow for a quid you would have made over 1/2 a months subscription already.

Discovering Profitable Staking Plans for Premiership Teams

There are many “get rich quick” schemes flying around and to many staking plans are typical of these and to others the holy grail of betting. In this feature I am going to look at and back test just some of the miriad of plans that are available, some you may have heard of and some you most definitely haven’t.
As with any thing that is potentially damaging to your bank balance rigorous testing should be undertaken before risking your money with the bookies. In this series of posts I will be using the “Staking Machine” website software to analyse the results from a set study of Premiership teams taken from last seasons finishing positions of top (Man City) 5th Place (Tottenham) and 10th Place (Crystal Palace)

What are staking plans? Essentially staking plans are a tool where you can use a pre determined equation to set your stake for the next bet in a sequence that you have chosen beforehand you would like to bet on. This could be following a racing tipster in your favourite newspaper to betting on a set trap number in greyhound racing. This post will focus on football and backing your favourite team through the season.

So which staking plan would you choose? The list is quite extensive and I will be analysing all of the plans that are on the staking machines website but to name just a few there is level, percentage, 1326, Fibonacci, Parley and the list goes on.
There are some basic things that you would need to input into the software for some of the plans and one of them is that it needs the average winning odds. This means the average of the odds where the selection won.
There is a section on the main software screen that shows strike rates, average winning odds average odds losing sequences and winning sequences a snap shot of which is shown below.

This is the quick stats snapshot from the data |I have entered for Crystal Palaces’ 23/24 season. Click to view a larger version in a new tab.

With last years football results this is easy as all the data can be downloaded from http://www.football-data.co.uk, which provides downloadable raw data from most leagues from around the world but in so much detail as regards to the domestic leagues you need to slim the excel sheets down a bit. What I will be using is the spreadsheet available below and filtering out the home and away results of the teams mentioned above to glean the average winning odds.

Premiership 23-24 staking plan study worksheet Download

Man City’s Home odds when they won at home

The screenshot above shows Man City’s home wins and the average home win odds provided by http://www.football-data.co.uk
The screenshot below shows the matches where Man City were playing away from home and the average odds for an away win.

Man City’s away odds when they won when playing away

As you can see I have used the power of excel to determine the average of the average home win odds when they won and the average of the away odds when they won away from home and these are – Average winning Home odds 1.21 and the average winning away odds are 1.39 giving an over all average winning odds last season of 1.21 + 1.39 = 2.6
2.6/ 2 = 1.30

We can now enter this figure into the staking machine software. The rule for this is that you take the decimal odds of the average win odds and subtract 1 so the figure we enter into the winning odds box is 0.3

You can click the image above to open it in a new tab to make things clearer. Once this has been saved we can start entering the data from the spreadsheet. It should be noted at this point that the bank box is pre populated with £100 – you don’t physically need a £100 bank this is virtual all you need in your bookmaker account is the funds to make the next bet which is usually 1% of this i.e. £1.00. The demo mode of the software only allows you to input 10 results but I have subscribed so I can show you the full seasons bets.

Manchester city won 28 of their 38 league games last season (23/24) and subsequently finished league champions and everything that goes with this title but how did the devoted fan, who backs his team to win for £2.00 per week, fair? – Not too well to be honest. He would have lost £3.96 over the season. How can this be?

This graph shows the cumulative total using level stakes backing Manchester City to win throughout the season to a £1.00 level stake.

For a staking plan to work you need winners we all agree on that, but if the winners are at such a short price as Man City’s were then you need more winners. You may recall that the average “Winning Odds” for Man City last season was 1.3 this means that you would need a 76.8% strike rate to call a profit. Man City’s actual strike rate for last season was 73.7%. So Man City won the league and the bookies won the money- again!!!
This is just one instance where the advocates of level stake betting won’t turn a profit even though the strike rate is over 70%. There are however staking plans that will net you a profit but they are not life changing. I will explore these in more detail as time goes on but for now I will outline what would have happened if you had backed Tottenham throughout the season to win.
So again we first determine the winning odds for Tottenham by finding the average home winning odds and adding them to the away winning odds and dividing by 2. We can easily do this by filtering the data in excel as we did for Man City.

Tottenham won 13 of their home games producing an average of 1.79 winning odds.

When playing away their strike rate was very much reduced and their winning odds averaged 1.83
If we add these together and divide by 2 we get : 1.79 +1.83 = 3.62 / 2 = 1.81

Plagued by bad luck or just better teams Tottenham achieved a winning strike rate of just 52.6% where in weeks 11 – 15 saw their longest losing streak. Average winning odds of 1.8 require a winning strike rate of 55.5%. So Again the bookies win and the fans wonder why when their team did so well in coming 5th in the table have, to a level stake of £2.00 on each game £5.00 less than when they started.

This graph shows the frequency of the odds grouped into values and how many matches they won at those ranged odds.

As you can see from the graph above when the odds were below 1.5 (7 in total) Tottenham won all of their games – as the odds suggest that they should have. the plan all starts to go pear shaped when the odds rise above 2.0 and more research might reveal that not backing Tottenham at these odds could improve the profit figure. The table below shows the ranges of odds and the profit/loss and a return on investment (ROI) had you just backed tottenham within these ranges. It should be noted that these figures are to a £1.00 level stake not £2.00

Click on the image to open in a new tab for a clearer look.

Finally on this post the results from 10th placed Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace had a total of 13 wins out of their 38 league matches giving a strike rate of 34.2%. Their average winning odds for these 13 games was 3.36 which required a strike rate of just 29.7% for all games over the season. This team would have made their fans a profit of £8.39 over the season if they had backed them to win with a level stake profit of £2.00

The following graphs and tables show in more detail the figures quoted above for Crystal Palace and the 23/24 season

Backing matches at “Bread and Butter” odds (1.5 – 3.0) would have shown a profit and 2 wins, one at odds between 5.5 and 6.0 and another at odds of above 10.0 and this can be better seen in the table below Again these figures show profit/loss to a £1.00 level stake.

These are back tested results and show what would have happened if you had backed your team to level stakes and while not entirely picked at random for this study it does show that care needs to be taken when blindly backing at level stakes. Manchester city might have won nearly 3/4 of there league games but it was not enough to turn a profit
In the posts that follow I will be analysing the same 3 teams using a variety of staking plans to determine if there was a greater profit or a reduced loss to be made and still keep the betting enjoyable.

There is one more point I would like to make on the subject of strike rates and winning odds averages. The bookies know that if they are offering odds that are below the average winning odds then they are going to win. If you know about odds movement when a match is in play then you will realise that there are many times that you can back a team in play when the win odds of the team will rise above the average winning odds giving you the edge instead of them – There is of course the distinct possiblity that they may score early in the game!! These are all things that have to be considered and a risk assessment taken. Don’t be in such a hurry to lose your money!

The staking plans I will be using will be taken in the order listed on the staking machines software and after Level stakes the next plan is called “Percentage”. Below is a list of all the staking plans used which, when I have written the post will have a link attached so you can easily go straight to the post. Some of the plans I have never heard of and further reading on his site reveals that he himself has invented them.

Percentage
Fibonacci
Dalembert
Parlay
Pro
Secure
Fixed
Kelly
Square Root
Labouchere
Retirement
Bookies Bank
Bookies Bank v2
XYZ
Up X Down Y
LP 28
Recovery
Recovery Type 2
Recovery Type 3
SAW
Rolling Doubles
Coup Master
1 Point
i-TSM Plan

Timeform 5* selections for 8th June 2024

Timeform is a respected and well followed source of racing form and they rate each horse for each race by using a star rating. You may have read my post on using this rating system to pick your horses for the ITV 7 well what if you were to back each 5 star rated horse in every race for a day.
Below is a PDF of the 5 star Runners for 8th June 2024 and how they faired. The figures are based upon the ISP (Industry Starting Price) and the stakes reflect a £5.00 profit should the horse win. It is worth noting that at least one of these selections (Billyb) was available at odds greater than the starting price as I actually backed it at odds of 4.50 at 11am that morning.

08-june-2024-timeform-5-star-selections Download

If you had backed each 5 star rated horse that ran on this day to a £1.00 level stake you would have got a profit of £3.87 which is a 10.18% ROI (Return on Investment)
If you had backed them as I do to a £5.00 target profit then you would have a £24.93 profit but the stakes involved are greater! My total stakes for all races would have been £117.94 for that £24.93 profit but it is still a 21% ROI
After a quick analysis of the results there were a total of 38 runners of which 15 won which is a 39.5% strike rate.
More interestingly is the fact that if you had backed the horses which ran in just the handicap races then of the 31 handicap races run 27 actuall ran of which 12 won.
This gave a profit of £12.41 to level £1.00 stakes giving a 46% ROI. Staking the horses to a £5.00 target profit gave a profit of £32.52 for a total of £58.79 stake money yielding a 55.3% ROI.
This is just 1 days analysis but it seems that it may be worth pursuing further.

timeforms-5-star-rated-horses Download

The above file can be downloaded so you can do your own analysis

More on this to come
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My ITV 7 8th June 2024 – The Results

7 races – 7 winners how hard can it be?
The criteria for this exercise in losing money is that I selected Timeforms 5 star runners and where these were non runners as in race 3 and 7 the next best 4 star runner with the lowest odds.

Race 1:
14:05 Beverley
Maw Lam backed at 3/1 for a stake of £1.67
Lost

Running P/L -£1.67

Race 2
14:15 Bangor on Dee
Can’t beat history backed at 4.5 for £1.42
Lost

Running P/L -£3.09

Race 3
14:25 Haydock
Divina Grace backed at 3.5 or £2.00
Lost

Running P/L -£5.09

Race 4
14:40 Beverley
Moving Force backed at 2.75 for £2.86
Lost

Odds moved slightly in my favour but still no return
Running P/L -£7.95

Race 5
15:00 Haydock
Sea Theme backed at 5.50 for a stake of £1.11
Lost

Running P/L -£9.06

Race 6
15:15 Beverley
Billyb backed at 4.5 for a stake of £1.43
Won 🤑

A rule 4 deduction reduced my profit from £5.00 to £4.75
Running P/L -£4.31

Race 7
15:35 Haydock
Ramazan backed at odds of 6.00 for a stake of £1.00
Lost

Total Loss for todays ITV 7 is £5.31

Greyhounds Backing The Favourite Day 1 (2nd March 2024)

For a while now I have been pondering the possibility of backing the favourite at the dogs to see if there is any money to be made. Even though the rumours that greyhound racing is not the most virtuous sport you can make a wager on it is certainly the most abundant sport with over 140 races each day and that is just the UK. According to the Oxford Stadium website 35% of all favourites win! This however is across all tracks, distances and, classes of race. To this end I decided that the only true way of sorting the wheat from the chaff is to back every single favourite in every single race and use the power of excel to weed out losing statistics from the more profitable. So without ado I will post day by day findings on this blog

My criteria is simple I will back each race favourite 20 seconds before the post time to a liability of just £1.00 so in effect my average stake should be kept to about 30p per race. This means that should the favourite win then the Profit will be £1.00 and if loses the stake determined by the odds that are available at that moment in time on the betfair exchange. There have been instances where the odds of two of the dogs have been exactly the same at the 20 second point and no bet was struck. This is unfortunate but one of those things. After testing that the software worked as required on March 1st testing began in earnest on March 2nd and showed an overall profit of £13.41 with profits showing from all meetings except Crayford and Hove.

Starting with Central Park, there were a total of 6 winning favourites giving a small profit of £2.66 The rest I will put into a table for easy reference.

Track	Winning Favs	Avg Stake	P/L
Crayford	1	45p	-£3.85
Doncaster	9 (2 Meetings)	69p	£4.73
Hove	6	£1.43 **	-£0.51
Monmore	10 (2 Meetings)	57p	£2.44
Newcastle	6	48p	£1.69
Oxford	8 (2 Meetings	63p	£1.26
Perry Barr	8	47p	£1.48
Romford	10 (2 Meetings)	53p	£3.03
Swindon	4	49p	£0.48

** Quite a few Odds On Favs Lost!!!

Crayford was quite obviously not a track to back the favourite on this day as just one favourite won, Hove had a few odds on favourites running hence the average stake of £1.43 with the shortest priced favourite of the day losing costing a massive £3.12 All in all not a bad day for the first day.
There were a total of 160 races of which 64 favourites won giving a 40% win rate.

Lets go on to look at the best performing meeting of the day which was Doncaster. Producing an overall profit of £4.73 with 9 winning favourites at the 2 meetings.
Of the 8 winning favourites 4 were in OR class races or Open Class and scored a 100% strike rate as did the OR3 class which accounted for 2 more winning favs.
The sheer volume of information I have collected just over the last 20 days is by no means enough and in subsequent posts I will delve a little deeper into which tracks are more profitable than others using this system and which Races should be avoided on all counts after looking at the stats.

Just as a Taster the best performing track using this system between 2 March and 22 march is Nottingham with a profit of £15.89
The worst Track for winning Favourites is Sunderland with a loss of £22.03

My total profit for this period backing every race is £38.28

FreeBet if 2nd or 3rd (Wednesday 28th March 23)

Continuing my analysis of backing the favourite to earn a free bet if placed I should include Monday and Tuesdays results.
Mondays races started with the 13:45 at Lingfield and the favourite when I backed the horse at 10:28 that morning was Hiromichi

The second race was from Wincanton and again when I placed the bet The Kings Writ was favourite at odds of 4.33. He failed to place coming in 4th of 8.

Total profit for Monday was £12.50 taking the total tally to £55.00 and a free bet of £5.00 which I used on the Austria v Estonia Euro Qualifying game as a Correct Score bet on 2-1 This also Won taking the total profit upto Monday night to £95.00

Tuesday
First race was Huntingdon at 14:30 and I Backed Keplerian at odds of 4.33(fav at the time) This was a Non Runner and as I had already made a cash bet on this race I am not entirely sure if a subsequent bet would qualify for the promotion but it was the favourite Master Malcolm that won at odds of 3/1

The second promotional race from #virginbet was the 15:45 at Hexham where I backed the favourite Lewa House at odds of 3.25. Lewa House placed giving me a £5.00 free bet.

Total loss for Tuesday £5.00 but a £5.00 free bet gained
Total Tally so far Profit of £90.00 plus a new free bet to play with.

Wednesdays bets are as follows.

FreeBet if 2nd or 3rd Saturdays results

Firstly SkyBet and their CASH back if 2nd or 3rd

13:30 at Newbury saw Inneston start as favourite at 9/4. Unfortunately he could only manage 2nd. I got my fiver back as promised no loss or profit.

Next up was the 14:05 again at Newbury where Heltenham started 7/2 jt Fav after some elephant racing with the odds for Espoir De Guye and fellow jt Fav Super Six. Having backed Heltenham earlier in the morning I also got BOG which returned £22.50 netting £17.50 profit.
Finally the 15:35 at Kelso saw Forward Plan which I backed as favourite earlier in the day at odds of 11/4 was backed out of favouritism by Half Shot started at 4/1 but could only manage 3rd place earning me a £5.00 free bet

Total Profit for Friday and Saturday £42.50 plus a £5.00 free bet on #VirginBet and a £5.00 refunded stake from #SkyBet.

FreeBet if 2nd or 3rd

Following on from yesterdays post where both favourites won at odds of 3/1 and 15/2 giving me a profit of just under £25.00 Todays two races offering a freebet by #VirginBet are
Race 1 14:05 at Newbury
Race 2 15:35 at Kelso

Race 1
2 1/2 mile Handicap chase
#adrianmassey stats for this type of race read as follows
17796 bets on the favourite resulted in 30% winning and 53% placing giving an 83% chance of the favourite either winning or placing. In March this rises slightly to 84% with 31% of favourites winning. However on races run on a Saturday only 26% of favourites won and just 51% placed. Todays going is officially Soft and of the 3855 races run between 2003 and 2022 on this ground there is still an 82% chance of the favourite winning or placing. There have been 402 Handicap races run in the time frame at Newbury and 85% of favourites won or placed here.
There is very little difference between this race and both handicap hurdles of yesterday in terms of stats and will post results of Fav and price later. At the time of writing this there is no market available by #VirginBet but other bookmakers are making Heltenham favourite trained by Dan Skelton and ridden by Harry Skelton.

Race 2
3 1/4 mile Handicap chase
This distance has a 30% chance of the favourite winning and a significant lower chance of just 52% of placing but overall a 82% chance of either winning or placing. The going is good to soft with rain expected today perhaps softening the ground a bit more. The good to soft ground raises the expected place percentage to 54% leaving a 14% chance the favourite will not win or place. The present posted favourite, Forward Plan, has won over this distance on both good and soft ground pointing us toward another bet that will either win or a return in the form of a free bet.
Results will be posted later

Backing the Favourite in races that bookies promote with a free bet if 2nd or 3rd

A promotion offered by bookies that is becoming more common is the free bet if your horse comes 2nd or 3rd. This type of promotion started witha free bet if your horse finished 2nd to the favourite which encouraged punters to back non-favourite horses, can they stoop any lower? one asks. Evolving from this is the promotion free bet if 2nd or 3rd which if we really think about this the logical bet would be the favourite.

Today (24 March 2023) VirginBet are promoting two races the first is at Musselburgh at 13:50 a 2 1/2 mile handicap hurdle. Using stats from Adrian Masseys website the following can be assumed to be true as he is meticulous when he complies his stats.
From 2003 to 2022 there were 17720 handicap hurdle races run in Great Britain of these just 29% of favourites won and 57% placed. At Musselburgh 32% of favs won and 57% placed. If we drill it down to distance 30% of favourites won over 2m to 2m 1furlong and 58% placed. The official going today at Musselburgh is good to soft and just 28% of favourites won on this ground and 58% placed. The figures are similar for second race of the day prize money day of the week month of the year. In all about 85% of all favourites in a handicap hurdle will either win or more likely place so again the bookies have done their homework and there is about a 58% chance that the favourite will not win but place and a 14% chance that they wont be paying out anything.
In this case The favourite won and at 3/1 The SP 2nd and 3rd favourites Maimie’s Magic (5/1) and Poppy Rose (11/2) came 6th and UR respectively.

Second race that virgin are offering their free bet if 2nd or 3rd is the 16:20 at Hereford, another Handicap Hurdle being run over 2 1/2 miles as well as being on the same good to soft ground. Hereford has a slightly lower percentage of winning favourites than Musselburgh at 29% but still an 86% chance of the favourite winning or placing over all.
In the case of this race the favourite won again at S.P. odds of 15/8. Both the 2nd and 3rd Favourites pulled up 2 out.

Today the bookies lost and I won