The Bonus lock-In Calculator is an advanced Matched Betting Calculator that we can use to profit from a specific type of Bookmaker offers.
Some Bookies offer a bonus or free bet if your selection wins. By overlaying our selection we can make the offer risk free and even lock in a small profit, to do so you will need fairly close matches that are close to the minimum odds required to be eligible for the bonus. If you want to learn about using the Bonus Lock-in Calculator when you need your qualifying bet to lose, click this link.
NOTE THAT BET365 NO LONGER RUN THIS OFFER. YOU MAY STILL FIND THIS GUIDE USEFUL IF THERE IS ANOTHER BOOKMAKER RUNNING A SIMILAR OFFER.
The most popular bookie for these kinds of offers is Bet365 and their horse racing 4/1 ITV and feature races promotion.
They have 2 feature races daily where you can lock-in anything from £3.50 to £7 with a £50 back stake (depending on the match you get and which exchange you use). For this reason, I will use that offer as an example to demonstrate how to overlay and lock-in a profit on each of the races.
Firstly, you will need the bonus lock-in calculator set in the correct mode, "bonus applied if bet: WINS".
Secondly, you will need to find a good eligible match. For this example, I managed to find a horse that was 6.5 to back with Bet365 and 6.60 to lay with Smarkets.
Note - The closer to the minimum odds (5.0) and closer the match then the more profit you will generate. You can often find decent matches closer to the off if you're struggling to find a match. Alternatively - Check out Match Catcher, our new essential tool for horse racing refunds. Don't look for your bets manually - let Match Catcher do it for you.
The bonus retention is set to a default 80% but you can edit this and change to what you feel you can comfortably extract from the risk-free bet on the next feature should your selection win. I am confident I can get £40 from the £50 risk-free bet so I will leave it at 80%.
The calculator will calculate an overlay of your selection against the bonus value if your bet wins. So as we know we can extract £40 from the £50 risk-free bet the bonus value to lay against is £40. The calculator will then work out the standard lay amount and then add the additional lock-in amount on top giving you an equal lock-in profit should your selection win or lose.
If you look at the results section you will see that the lay stake is particularly higher than that of a normal lay stake, this is where your £4.36 profit comes from should your selection fail to win, your profit will be in the exchange.
If your selection does win then you will be at an initial loss of £35.63 BUT knowing that we can gain £40 from our risk-free bet brings our overall position to £4.37 profit.
My selection failed to win!
Because we overlaid our selection our profit is £4.36 which will be in your exchange and you're done with this race. You can now move on to the next one and repeat the process.
My bet won!
So for this example, our selection won. We are at a loss of £35.43 because of the overlay. Now we will need to find another eligible selection on the next feature/ITV race. For this example, I managed to find a match of 10.0/10.50.
Note - The higher the odds and the better the match the higher the bonus retention we gain. Again, you can often find decent matches closer to the off if you're struggling to find a match. Alternatively - Check out Match Catcher, our new essential tool for horse racing refunds. Don't look for your bets manually - let Match Catcher do it for you.
Standard risk-free bet conversion.
Using the standard calculator lay this off as "Free Bet (SNR)".
If the bet loses, because we underlaid, we lost £7.92 from the risk-free bet.
Exchange win (£42.08) - Back stake (£50).
The £50 back stake will be refunded by Bet365 because the previous selection won and we were at an initial loss of £35.43 leaving our overall position as £6.65 profit.
If the bet wins, because we underlaid, we gain £42.08 into Bet365
Bookie winnings of £500 - stake - liability of £407.92 = £42.08
But because the previous selection won and we were at an initial loss of £35.43 leaving our overall position as £6.65 profit and another free bet SNR shot at the next race.
Overlay/lock-in risk-free bet conversion!
This is a more advanced way but you can lock-in the potential risk-free bet by overlaying your free bet SNR selection.
My previous bet won. So for this example, our selection won. We are at a loss of £35.43 because of the overlay. Now we will need to find another eligible selection on the next feature/ITV race.
For this example, I managed to find a match of 7.5/7.6.
Note - With this method, it is best to get a match that is between 7.0 and 10.0 and of course a good match too. Again, you can often find decent matches closer to the off if you're struggling to find a match. Alternatively - Check out Match Catcher, our new essential tool for horse racing refunds. Don't look for your bets manually - let Match Catcher do it for you.
By leaving the bonus retention as 80% you are looking to gain £40 from your £50 risk-free bet on the next race should this one win.
If the bet loses we lose £2.81 from the risk-free bet.
Exchange win (£47.19) - Back stake (£50).
The £50 back stake will be refunded by Bet365 because the previous selection won and we were at an initial loss of £35.43 leaving our overall position as £11.76 profit.
If the bet wins we gain £42.08 into Bet365
Bookie winnings of £375 - stake of £50 - liability of £317.79 = £7.21
But because the previous selection won and we were at an initial loss of £35.43 leaving our overall position as -£28.22 with another risk-free bet to come on the next feature/ITV race which we must gain £40 from. So we are effectively £11.78 in profit!
I would advise against using this for offers where the minimum odds is based on SP. If your horse dips below the minimum then you have no chance of the free bet and therefore could lose out.
For more information on what to do if your bet has been affected by Rule 4 then please read here.