Cheltenham Festival 2024

With Cheltenham 7 days away, it’s time to make sure you have the main methods ready, in order to make it a successful festival. 

As I always advise, let’s start with the guaranteed profits. There isn’t much point in BOG hunting, using your bankroll and leaving behind the guaranteed profits.

Risk Free
I expect to see Risk Free (money back if your horse loses) offers from the usual suspects in Betfair and Virgin/Livescore (if anyone has those) on every day of the festival. They will all be on the Racing Matcher, which will be your friend over the festival. Aim for odds over 4.0 and lock in profit!

Full guide here: https://members.oddsmonkey.com/guides/guide?id=109



Price Boosts
We will also likely see Price Boosts from various bookmakers. These ones are nice and simple for the most part again. Back and lay if the back odds are boosted higher than the lay odds for profit!

Full guide here: https://members.oddsmonkey.com/guides/guide?id=168 

Now, onto the offers with an element of risk; 

Horse Racing Refunds

These will be everywhere I imagine and again, they will all be loaded into the Racing Matcher, which will be a critical tool. If you’re not used to using it, take a look! https://members.oddsmonkey.com/matchers/racingmatcher

With Horse Racing Refunds, you can sometimes lock in a very small amount of profit, but over the long term you’re much better off just backing and laying. You will either take a small qualifying loss or your horse will finish in the places for the offer, so 2nd, 3rd or 4th.

A general rule for qualifying losses is no more than £1 per £10 stake. Keeping these QL’s low is key to being profitable in the long term. 

Full guide here: https://members.oddsmonkey.com/guides/guide?id=66 

Extra Places
If you’re new to Matched Betting or Extra Places, it may be something you leave until last, if at all this festival. They’re not going anywhere, so it’s better to leave it than rush and make a mistake.

There will be big enhanced extra place races, mainly from Sky and Bet365 and sometimes up to 8 places paid.  Remember, minimum IO of 10 on multiple places or 1.5x the number of runners. 

Full guide here: https://members.oddsmonkey.com/guides/guide?id=167 

Lastly, some other offers, tips and tricks;

BOG's
When it comes to BOG's, I would only be aiming for them when the rest of the offers are on. They're a chance at some risk free profit, so we could have put them in the first section, but they're also not guaranteed profits so I would be not making them a priority, unless you have some balance in the Exchanges that is just sat there, looking pretty. 

As most of you know, if you're on All Access, we have the BOG Matcher which you can find here: https://members.oddsmonkey.com/matchers/bogmatcher 

Again, it's a back and lay taking £0 qualifying loss at a chance for the horse winning at higher odds. BetConnect recommended for the lays! 

Full guide here: https://members.oddsmonkey.com/guides/guide?id=29 

Each Way betting with Each Way Pro

Like the BOGs, I would only be looking here for profit once the above are done and you still have a balance left. Primarily used for gubbed accounts, you can lock in a profit by backing and laying, but you do tend to need large stakes, so I have put this here, especially for those with a limited bankroll. BetConnect recommended again for one click lays!

Full guide here: https://members.oddsmonkey.com/guides/guide?id=178 

Shared Liability
If you have a limited bankroll, this point is key! Lots of the offers will be on the same races, especially if you're going down the route of Extra Places. Shared Liability helps us with the Exchange balances. If we place a £10 back and lay on a horse to win at odds of 6.0 and then a further £10 back and lay on a different horse in the same race at odds of 3.0, nothing further will be taken as only one of these horses can win. The Exchanges will take the worst case for you in terms of loss, which would be the horse of 6.0 winning at the bookmaker. 

If you do have a limited bankroll, then I would really make the most of this by trying to put everything you can through a single exchange. 

You can find out more here: https://members.oddsmonkey.com/guides/guide?id=144 

To make a head start, you can find all of the Cheltenham Offers here: https://community.oddsmonkey.com/tags/cheltenham2024 

My final point here is that sometimes as it gets extremely busy, there can be some tech issues with the Exchanges and the Bookmakers. In terms of Exchanges, having more than one available to you would be a good idea. Try to make sure you have all of your funds where you need them, but mostly in your bank to fund an Exchange should the worst happens. 

Let's hope it's a good festival and we all make a ton of profit!