A possible 1931 Fund fundraiser

I have a half-baked plan. I'd be interested in further comments and a hint as to whether anyone who bets in units of £20 would be interested in joining the said caper.

The aim is to raise £300 for the 1931 Fund. We need this to help cover the payment of £345 to ECFC for James Norwood's sponsorship, which I won't allow myself to take out of people's monthly payments.
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Sporting Bet have an online offer at the moment whereby you get a free £300 bet if you place five bets of at least £20. I can’t access their site at the moment, but I believe the £300 bet is on total goals in a live televised game.

Could we arrange a group of seven of us to sign up to Sporting Bet?

Each of us places our five £20 bets as normal within a certain timeframe, say a month, keeping our own returns. It's every man/woman/mug for him/herself at this stage.

When we’ve each qualified for our free £300 bet – and as I said, I think it has to be for total goals in a game – then we organise ourselves to back 0 goals, 1 goal, 2 goals, 3, 4, 5 and I think the usual top is ‘six or more goals’. All bases covered.

The odds on each of these should be at least 2/1 ranging to 12/1 or more for the higher scoring options. (Unless Sporting Bet are deliberately frugal with televised games to reduce the value of the free bets offer).

Our free £300 bet would thus return at least £300 (we wouldn’t get the £300 ‘stake’ back of course), which I’m asking the winner to donate to the 1931 Fund as above.

We could then agree to split the rest of the returns between the seven of us. It could be just a few quid if our chosen game is 1-1, but might just make decent money back if we find ourselves a 4-2 thriller.

In essence, I think we’d all have to expect to make five regular £20 bets and accept that our free £300 bet goes to a good cause. There’s the possibility of it working out very well for us individually, but that’s a bonus.

Anyway, what crucial point have I missed? Over to you...

Oops, sorry, it might in fact be Sporting Index. I can't access gambling sites at work to check. Exeweb, however, is still critical for business purposes.

Al

Sporting Index is a spread betting site which is rather different from a betting site - essentially you 'buy' and 'sell' the outcome of various scenarios, which dictates how much you win and lose.

For instance, Sporting Index might advertise the spread for the number of goals in our game with the Saints at 2.5. If you thought there was likely to be at least three goals you'd buy at 2.5; if you thought there were likely to be less than three goals you'd sell.

The problem, as regards your idea, is that in spread betting your losses are dependent on the result. Say I think there won't be many goals in the Saints game and sell at 2.5, if it's then a seven-goal thriller, I don't lose £20, I lose 4.5 [2.5(spread)-7(goals)] x £20, that's to say £90. Conversely, if the game finished 0-0, I'd make 2.5 [2.5-0] x £20 or £50.

The problem, therefore, is that it's not a question of simply placing five £20 bets - and in a worse-case scenario losing £100 - to earn your £300 'free' bet. The unit stake for each of your five bets is £20 but you could lose several times that with every bet.

That said, I think the betting angle does have some legs.

Most of the bookies give free bets to new customers and next month there will be all sorts of special offers, over and above the normal, to coincide with the Cheltenham Festival (though that's not to say you have to place the bets on horses). If we could get a group of, say, a dozen people together it should be fairly easy to realise your £300 goal with virtually no risk.

This is how it works...

We get a dozen people to come on board.

Let's say Ladbrokes are offering anyone who opens an account and places a £50 bet a free bet of £50 (in Cheltenham week you may well find a £50 bet will earn you a free bet of double the original amount).

Everyone puts £50 on Exeter to beat whoever at, say, 2-1. At the same time, everyone goes on Betfair and lays Exeter - that's to say takes a bet of £50 of someone else who wants to back Exeter - to cover their stake.

Assuming there's not to much variation between the odds at Ladbrokes and on Betfair, whatever the result of the game, everyone will break even at which point they can withdraw the £50 they started with and play instead with the free £50 bet they have just qualified for.

We now have 12 people, each of whom has now got their original £50 back, armed with a £50 free bet.

How we proceed now depends on the odds. Let's say Exeter are 6-4, the opposition are 2-1, and it's 5-2 the draw. We put £200 on Exeter, which would return £300; £200 on the opposition, which would return £400; and £200 on the draw which would return £500.

Bob's your uncle! ;-)

Thanks Egg.

I think there was a fixed odds element to the Sporting Index thing, but maybe I got em muddled with Sporting Bet when I checked. Sorry for confusion.

As you say, there are other deals. But anyway, it looks like there's not much desire to mess around with bookies so we'll leave this one there.

Yep sorry al .. am a fairly regular better but not particularly keen to do this one .. especially if it leads to an online account ...

Yeah, no worries. Think I was having one of my manic spells.

Incidentally, I put £125 into a Victor Chandler account last Saturday, planning to get about £100 in free bets as a result. I ended up withdrawing the funds, unused, today when I realised that frankly (a) I've got no strong hunch about anything, and (b) Their odds are crap. A moment of clarity from a mug punter there...