UK licensed bookmaker Marathonbet has extended it’s signup offer. The ‘TV20’ promotion was due to expire in September but will now run until at least December 31st 2017. It’s good news to anyone that hasn’t yet opened an account with the bookie. The offer gives up to £20 as a free bet voucher, adding value for traditional punting and matched betting alike.
In order to receive the free bet token, the relevant promo code must be entered during the registration process. You must then deposit a minimum of £10 and wager four times the deposited amount to receive the free bet. The minimum odds for wagering are 4/5 (1.8) and the free bet will be credited immediately. Once received, you will have seven days to use the free bet on the Marathonbet sportsbook.
Marathonbet Free Bet Value When Matched Betting
Members of matched betting sites such as Oddsmonkey or Profit Accumulator will have access to specialist tools and offer instructions that enable a profit to be locked in from the Marathonbet welcome offer. You should expect to make at least £15 from the promotion when adopting the money making technique.
If you are new to the concept, matched betting is a tried and tested means of exploiting bookmaker offers to make a sustainable profit. This includes signups and ongoing reload offers. In it’s simplest form, this is done by placing a back bet on a selection to win with a bookmaker and a lay bet on the exact same selection with a betting exchange, in order to qualify for the free bet. Once the free bet is received, the process is then repeated to extract a cash profit from the free bet token.
At this point you may be wondering what a lay bet is. Essentially it is betting that something won’t win. This is done by taking the position of the bookmaker on a betting exchange. For example, if you were to lay £10 at odds of 4/1 (5.00) you would need £40 to cover the liability of the bet. This is because if the selection were to win, you would need to pay out £40. If the selection were to lose, you would retain the lay stake minus any commission charged by the exchange.
The Marathonbet offer requires a little more effort but the method is pretty much the same. Let’s say you bet £20 on Auxerre to beat Lorient at odds of 1.86 to start your wagering and the lay odds at Smarkets are also 1.86. A lay bet of £20.22 will result in a minimal qualifying loss, as outlined below;
- Win at Marathonbet = £37.20 bookmaker return + £17.39 loss at Smarkets = -19p
- Win at Smarkets = £20 loss at bookmaker + £19.82 profit at Smarkets (£20.22 – 2% commission) = -18p
Seeking similarly close matches for each of your four qualifying bets will allow you to trigger the free bet for less than £1 all told. This can be done with ease thanks to the odds matching software available on matched betting sites. And you needn’t worry about the actual working out, as there are bespoke calculators to do the sums for you.
With the free bet in hand, you can now look to extract a profit. Let’s say you plump for a 0-0 Correct Score bet and the odds at Marathonbet are 13.50. If the Smarkets lay price was 14.00, then a lay stake of £17.88 would return a nice profit. Remembering that you are using a free bet where the stake is not returned, see how this would work out below;
- Win at Marathonbet = £250 bookmaker return + £232.44 loss at Smarkets = £17.56
- Win at Smarkets = £0 loss at bookmaker + £17.52 profit at Smarkets (£17.88 – 2% commission) = £17.52
At the end of the process in our above example, you would be looking at a final profit of at least £16.50 (total qualifying loss + profit from free bet). The matches we used in this article were found on a Tuesday with little in the way of competitive football available, so similar results should be easily achievable on any given day.
More About Marathonbet
A relative newcomer to the gambling scene, Marathonbet have been around since 1997. The firm benefitted from the growth in online betting in the 2000’s and nowadays is a viable alternative to some of the better known betting brands. It is an official betting partner of Scottish Premiership side Hibernian FC, Spanish La Liga team Malaga CF, Ukrainian Premier League regulars FC Dynamo and Premier League giants Manchester United. Alongside sports betting, the website also provides online casino and live casino betting.
The internet betting site lacks the highly polished look of some of it’s competitors but this has no effect on its performance, which is as good as any other leading bookie. It has some really nice touches too, such as displaying how much you can bet on each selection when hovering your cursor over the odds. This is very handy when matched betting, as there is nothing worse than spotting what you think is a good match, only to find that the bookie won’t accept your desired stake.
In terms of betting offers, Marathonbet doesn’t promote much after the signup. However, its strength lies in highly competitive odds when compared to most other bookmakers. This makes it a good bet for those who seek arbitrage opportunities. Arbing is taking a bookmaker price that is higher than the lay odds to guarantee a profit, regardless of the outcome of the event. It can be risky though, as bookmakers have measures for detecting such activity. However, taking the occasional arb is okay and Marathonbet is among the best for doing so.
Marathonbet works well on desktop and can be accessed via mobile devices when on the move. There are also numerous betting apps that can be downloaded for smartphone and tablet devices. This makes for ease of use when on a break at work or down at the pub with your mates. Altogether, Marathonbet can be considered a good bookmaker to have at your disposal when matched betting.