How to profit from promos that give a bonus bet equal to your stake if the bet wins

This article will teach you how to profit off of promotions that give a bonus bet equal to your stake if your bet wins.

Calculating EV for this promotion is a little different than usual, as Horsepower does not have a setting for it. The easiest way to go about it is by adding 0.8 to the back odds, and then either using a calculator to calculate EV, or "Eyepowering" it. The reason behind this is that the bonus is credited on a win, so by adding 0.8 to the odds we are accounting for the bonus at 80% retention.

Calculating EV:

For example, suppose a bookie is running this promo, with a $25 max stake, on a race where they are offering 1.80 odds on the favourite, whose lay odds are 2.00 at the time. Adding 0.8 makes the back odds effectively 2.60. Then, if you want 100% accuracy, you would plug those numbers into the simple back & lay calculator, and find that your lay stake should be $33.68, for an EV of $6.32 (with 7% commission, and assuming 80% retention).

Eyepower

Most matched bettors will not actually use calculators for this type of promo. This is because there is limited time before a race and the odds move quickly. Instead, they will use 'Eyepower' - which is just another way to say that they do the arithmetic in their head and use their experience to gauge the best options. 

For this promo, the eyepowering criteria is fairly simple - you are looking for short favourites, and you want close matches with Betfair odds. For favourites less than 2.00 odds, there will almost always be good EV. However, you will have to pay closer attention to getting a good match with Betfair when the favourite's odds are greater. You can substitute mock odds into the calculators to get a feel for 'eyepowering'.