Guide to Each Way Betting (with Q+A)

  • With Cheltenham coming up, I’ve decided to write this guide and the subsequent thread to hopefully stop other threads getting hijacked by E/W betting. So all questions in here please.
    I’ve deliberately put this in the matched betting forum instead of the newbie forum because I don’t see it as a newbie skill. No offence to any newcomers, but there really is a knack to this. You have to be very confident with horse betting before you do this because if it goes wrong, it can go VERY wrong. You have been warned. Also, this needs quite a big float (1K+) so if you’re just starting out, look away now.

    Each way betting is used for two main reasons, when there is an extra place race and when there is what bookies call a “bad each way race”
    hopefully you have read Matts guide to extra places
    https://matchedbettingblog.com/extra-place-offers/

    but i’ll quickly go through the basics. First things first, When you place the bet you will notice that double the stake is taken. This is because when you bet each way you are actually placing two bets, one to win and one to place. Once you have placed your back bet, you now have to place TWO lay bets, one to cover the win part and one for the place part. Obviously, the value of each is half of your original back bet. You need to find the terms of the race and find out how many places they are paying, and at what fraction of odds. This is usually clearly stated.

    To find the place odds (in decimal odds), you subtract 1, divide by the fraction of odds, then add the 1 back on.

    Lets take Gubstar, who’s being offered at 16/1 with 1/4 place odds and 3 places.

    16/1 = 17 decimal
    17-1 = 16,
    /4 = 4
    +1 = 5
    so the place odds for Gubstar is 5.

    just to be redundant, here’s a harder one

    say he’s going off at 11/4 and its only 1/5 odds

    11/4 = 3.75 decimal
    -1 = 2.75
    /5 = 0.55
    +1 = 1.55
    so now his odds to place are 1.55

    Now you know the place odds being offered you can easily compare them to the exchange and lay accordingly.

    Doing an extra place race is pretty straight-forward, find a horse with close odds, back, lay, hope! Its usually much better to do several horses over several bookies for these offers to increase your chances of hitting the extra place. Don’t forget, most gubbed accounts can still do the extra place offers.

    To take advantage of a bad each race (E/W arbing) you have to understand how it works. Basically a bookie will offer very short odds on the favourite, and unfairly long odds on the others. That is fine on the win market, maybe the other horses really don’t have a chance (especially Gubstar), but because the other horses have a very good chance of coming second or third, by offering a fraction of the odds for the win, the numbers just don’t work anymore. Therefore the odds offered by the exchange are a much truer reflection of the odds on a horse placing, and much shorter than the bookie offers by default because of the combined nature of the each way bet. I hope that makes sense.

    The things to look for in a bad each way race is a very very short favourite (about 2.8 and below), a couple of hopefuls (around 4/1ish) and a few complete outsiders (100/1+)

    There’s a couple of ways to play these, either back and lay straight away, or you can back early and lay much closer to the off. The price almost always comes in sharply around ten- five minutes before the race and it takes nerves of steel (again not for newbies). You can also choose to fully lay to guarantee profit, or underlay to win more if you place and break even if you don’t.

    The problem with this approach is the danger of non-runners, which are two-fold.

    First, the bookie will apply “rule 4” which is where they will cut the odds AFTER YOU HAVE BET to take account of the fact there is less competition. This is fine if you have backed and laid at the same time as the exchange will recalculate as well. But if you haven’t, you need to take account of the reduction and lay accordingly. (the bookie will usually list how much they have reduced by on the race page). You can imagine the havok this causes when it happens 3 minutes out and you haven’t laid. It can save a lot of trouble to just underlay when this happens and hope you place.

    Second problem is when you have a race with the number of runners on the threshold of the place market rules. A race of more than 8 will pay out on 3 places but if one or more horses drops out and the number of runners drops below 8, the place odds will drop to 2 BUT THE EXCHANGE WILL STAY THE SAME. I assume this is because people have bet on where it will place, so its not the exact same market. Similarly for a race with 16 down to 15 or less.

    Handy guide to places:

    Handicaps of more than 15 runners 1/4 4
    Handicaps of 12-15 runners 1/4 3
    All other races of more than 8 runners 1/5 3
    All races of 5-7 runners 1/4 2
    All races of less than 5 runners – win only

    When things go wrong.
    Betfair have various markets for various places, and even an each way market, so you might find a lay that is not too much of a loss should things go wrong. You can also keep an eye on what the horses SP will be and hope for a favourable BOG (possibly). Some bookies offer cash out as well.

    Further reading:
    https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/my-theory-beyond-matched-betting/
    https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/ew-arbing/
    https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/early-prices/
    https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/the-bookie-angel-twitter/

    HTH guys, and please chip in if I’ve missed anything.

  • New to matched betting?

    My Matched Betting Academy is the best place to get started. Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.

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    ncfcmikey
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    What are everybodys selected races for today, my first day doing it please write em up in the thread ive started

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    orlandosteve 2

    Now your starting to understand the complexity of placing all those bets you talked about in the profits thread!

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    ncfcmikey
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    What you mean??? There’s not a single problem placing a bet or anything, I just want some help on my first day EW arbing lol.

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    orlandosteve 2

    So, What are YOUR bad e/w races for today?

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    ncfcmikey
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    I’m still having difficulties picking them meself reading the guide to ew betting on here. Whata re yours?

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    ncfcmikey
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    Give me your expert opinion on the 4;30 ludlow ? Potential race or?

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    ncfcmikey
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    2;10 kelso?
    2;50 huntingdon?
    4;00 ludlow?
    4;30 ludlow?

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    orlandosteve 2

    Looking at the races you have picked I’m not sure you understand the theory behind this. The reason there are opportunities is because bookies are “forced” to give you 1/4, 1/5 odds of the win price if you back each way AND because the exchange has different markets for win and place. If a race had a favourite at 1.4 and the next best price horse was 8.0, the horse at 8.0 has little chance of winning but a strong chance of placing, the bookie would give you 2.75 on the place part of your bet. Now, this is the important bit, because the exchange has a completely different market for the place-the market will be lower on the place than at the bookie creating an Arb.

    Taking the 14:10@Kelso, the race has 3 horses that are at a low price to win, the race pays 3 places so the odds at the bookie and the exchange for the win and the place will be similar. No really strong favourite with also rans=not a bad e/w race.

    Look at Athy River in the 16:00@Ludlow. Sky Bet are offering 10.0 for him to win so your place odds would be 2.8, the place odds at BF for him are 2.26=you’ve got yourself a place arb. Two problems though 1. His win odds at the exchange are 12.0, so you would lose quite a lot on the win part of your bet, BUT, you would still make £1.09 for every £100 you staked at Sky Bet. This though, brings us to problem 2. There is only £12 of liquidity on the win part and £20 on the lay part. This will increase as the day goes on, but what will the odds do? You could place your Sky Bet now and hold off on laying, but this is the gambling part of e/w arbing.

    Hope this helps.

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    ncfcmikey
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    I seriously can’t get my head round this, very confused. Which bookies shall I do it with? Does it need someone offering more places or is it all the same? And do I only do it with 8-9 and 16-17 runners only or I can do it with races with 13 horses for example?

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    Turniphead 0

    I’m so confused. I’ve done MB for a few years but never tried this EW stuff. I just want to do the bet365 Grand National offer but it’s so confusing. Bet365 are offering 5 places. So, to do an extra place.. I need to lay 1,2,3,4th on Betfair. But there’s literally pounds on each horse so I can’t lay anything more than £5.

    So therefore I should lay 1,2,3,4,5th, but I have to do some weird calculation (-1 off odds, divide by 5, add 1) but the total of that calculation is way lower than what the actual lay odds are on betfair. Please help!

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    orlandosteve 2

    Turnip, click the strategy guide at the top of the page and read the following guides:-Extra Place offers and E/W Arbing. The first thing you need to learn is what an e/w bet is and how to place one at the bookies and the process involved in laying that bet at the exchange, until you fully understand and have had experience of this you have zero chance of e/w arbing.

    The “weird” calculation you speak of is merely the way you work out what your place odds are with the bookie. Any mug punter on the street would be able to work this out, it’s really important that you understand this.

    Good luck.

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    deathstar 25

    i wrote a guide for extra places before last years cheltenham that might be a bit easier to understand
    https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/chelts-extra-place-offers/

    by the way, that “weird calculation” is the mathematical formula for converting from fractions into decimal, it doesn’t really have anything to do with betting other than the fact they both involve numbers.

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    betman 41

    What do ppl do to deal with withdrawals?

    Some bookies state the rule 4 deductions under your bet, but for others how do you find the price at time of withdrawal or do you take a rough guess from the smarkets reduction factor?

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    orlandosteve 2

    I contact the bookie and ask them, you cant really judge from Smarkets reduction factor as they are different rules. Also, if the withdrawal is at high odds bookies will sometimes wave the rule 4 and your original odds will stand.

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    bobster 1

    How do people manage to keep their accounts doing this? I started trying recently – at two different (unlinked) bookies done 3 races over about 1.5 weeks, now restricted to pennies on both

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