Why you shouldn’t bet before breakfast

I had a £20 free bet to use today and getting up early to watch the Chinese Grand Prix I was keen to use it straight away. Normally I would be expecting a 75% return on free bets where the stake is not included in any winnings (known as SNR) so I should have been looking at a profit of about £15.

However in my rush to use up the bet I threw my money on Hamilton to win the race at odds of 2.00, with a lay bet being placed at the same odds. Unfortunately this was my first mistake as when free bets are SNR you really want odds of around 6.00 to maximise the return. Although as it was I could still expect to make a profit of £10, i.e. a 50% return. But I didn’t stop there….

I tried to trade my way out of it by placing over 40 different bets throughout the race to try and improve my return. This was my second mistake as I left myself exposed to events that occurred during the race. True to form they did go against me leaving me with a £21.28 liability at Betfair which is greater than the £20 return I am expecting from the bookmaker.

So in 2 hours I had turned an expected profit of around £15 into a £1.28 loss. I have another £30 free bet to use sometime today, but I might go and have breakfast first!