Some bookmakers offer free bet only if your selection loses. The Bonus lock-in calculator will make sure your lay stake is the perfect amount to guarantee a profit regardless of if your qualifying bet wins or loses.
For this guide we will look at an example offer where you receive a £10 free bet if your £10 qualifying bet loses at the bookmaker.
1. Find a good eligible match - you can often use the Oddsmatcher for this. Just remember that you're then putting those details into the Bonus Lock-in Calculator rather than using the Oddsmatcher calculator or integration. Odds between 4.0 and 10.0 are often good selections for refund if loses style offers like this and anything with a good rating when you switch SnR mode on:
We've found a good match with back odds of 7.5 and lay odds of 7.8.
2 You will need the Bonus lock-in calculator set in the correct modes - Bet Type: Normal & Bonus Applied If Bet: Loses like so;
3. Populate the Bonus Lock-in Calculator. The bonus retention is set to a default 80% since is approximately the amount you will redeem from any free bet (e.g. a £10 free bet will give a profit of around £8). The back commission is 0% since the bookmaker where we're placing the back bet isn't charging any commission.
4. Place your back bet at the bookmaker if you haven't already
5. The calculator will then show you how much to lay. You want the Standard section (not underlay or overlay):
It tells you that your lay stake is £8.59. This means we need to place an £8.59 lay bet on the exchange against our selection (in this example it's Villarreal). Click the Copy button so your lay stake is ready to be pasted into the exchange stake box. So now go ahead and click the link to the exchange from the oddsmatcher (or manually search for your event).
Click the pink lay box next to your selection. You'll see the odds line up with what the oddsmatcher showed us (7.8).
Then place your lay bet for the amount shown on the Bonus Lock-in Calculator (£8.59 in the stake box).
The calculator will tell you how much profit you're making depending on the outcome (you can see that you make £6.59 regardless of the result in this example):
6. If your bet wins at the bookmaker, you're finished with the offer. You won't receive a free bet and you're already in profit. If your bet loses with the bookmaker, you'll initially be in the position of a small loss but you'll receive a free bet. You then need to back and lay the free bet in 'Free Bet (SNR) mode' to realise the profit.
If you want to learn more about laying bets without the embedded oddsmatcher one click integration then click here.