Free Play Money - What d'you do with it?

[ourbet]

Okay you math geniuses out there, I know this subject has been mentioned before, so my apology for raising it again but how IS the best way to deal with all that ‘free play’ money sportsbooks love to give us please? My aim is to keep as much of it as possible.

Btw...I am still a bit of a newbie, so if you could spell it out for me (as though I were a six-year old - or David Beckham), I’d be really grateful to you. Thanks a lot for any help with this!

[rm18]

Either large underdog moneylines or 3 team parlays, anything with high + odds basically

[ourbet]

Either large underdog moneylines or 3 team parlays, anything with high + odds basically

Thanks rm18, to be honest, I've never parlayed before, but I assume that's pretty straightforward. Thanks again!

[rm18]

I would not advise them normally other than the same game, but if you get 6/1 odds on a 3 teamer that you have a 1/8 chance to hit then you will on average make a 75% return on free play money.

[Mudcat]

I generally try to turn freeplays into as much cash as possible - and then I integrate that cash into my system.




I have been asked this question before. Here is an answer I saved:



At the account with the freeplay, I find a moneylines underdog as lop-sided as possible (ncaab, nba, MLB alternate runlines, some nfl props, tennis, boxing – these are all good candidates). You also have to have at least one other account to play against. Pinnacle and Mansion are the best for that. And then you want to compare lines between books and find a pair that are as close together as possible (again, with the underdog being at the book with the freeplay).

Example:

+400 at book with freeplay bonus
-420 somewhere else

You can work with that. You can do better with patience, but that's pretty good.

+400 at book with bonus
-480 somewhere else

Not so good. Lines are too far apart (too much of a straddle).

Or else:

+220 at book with bonus
-230 somewhere else

Also not so good. The lines are nice and close together but it works best if you have a more lop-sided proposition.

+1050 at book with bonus
-1100 somewhere else

Fantastic.

Okay. So basically you just have decide what you're willing to settle for. Say you're using $200 worth of freeplay money and you're willing to settle for turning it into $150 guaranteed cash (that equals 75% of the $200). Using my first example, you would go like this:

$200 (freeplay) @ +400 = $800 if it wins. Your "to win" on your other bet would be $150 (because in this example we're talking about turning the freeplay into 75% guaranteed cash). You've found a nice tight line of -420 so you would have to risk $630 to make $150. So in this example if the favorite wins, you've lost $200 worth of freeplay money but you've added $150 cash to the other account. If the dog wins, you've lost your $630 bet at the second account but you've added $800 cash to the first account so you've actually made a bit more: $170. Yee haw - cheer for the dog.

You can tinker with the numbers to balance it or pay off more for the favorite or whatever you want. (I recommend just balancing it so the result is roughly the same regardless.)

With the second example I gave of +400/-480, what you would find is that, to make the $150 on the second bet you would have to risk $720. You'd only be making $80 if the dog came through ($800 - $720). You could go for it - or fiddle with the numbers so you were only going to make $135 either way (or whatever it works out to). Me, I'd just go back to the drawing board and look for something better.

Now with that last example, if you balanced it perfectly, it would look like this:

$200 (freeplay) @ +1050 = $2100
$1925 @ -1100 = $175

Either way, you've turned $200 match-play into $175 guaranteed cash. That translates into turning a 20% match-play bonus into a 17.5% cash bonus. If you've got patience and good alternate accounts, you should be able to achieve close to that. It's been ages since I was eligible for a bonus at 5 Dimes but I would expect myself to be able to at least turn a 20% match-play there into 16% cash using this concept (without waiting around forever for the perfect lines). I would think that if you can just turn it into 15% cash like I outlined in my first example, that should be pretty good. Most days you should be able to find enough good sets of lines to accomplish that.

Hope that helps.

[ourbet]

Hope that helps.

That's an understatement Mudcat, it's fantastic. Thank you very much for posting this detailed advice.

[pags11]

mudcat,

that's awesome stuff...

I usually just do the 8 3-team parlays and turn 72.5% of the free play into actually cash (so a $100 free play would be turned into $72.50)...will definitely look at what Mudcat has posted though...

[ourbet]

Now with that last example, if you balanced it perfectly, it would look like this:

$200 (freeplay) @ +1050 = $2100
$1925 @ -1100 = $175

One quick question Mudcat, how do you 'balance' your calculations please to ensure that you receive equal returns? Do you use an arbitrage calculator for that? :mellow:

[HAPPY BOY]

what are your thoughts on this, say you re-up at the beginning of the football season. you have 2 books each offering a 20% bonus. u send 1k to each book getting a free 200.00 play at each book. u take any game on the board and bet one bonus on one team then the other books bonus on the opposing team ,any way one book is up 200.00 bucks guaranteed. I know it's conservative but 200 bucks is 200.00 bucks!

[ourbet]

what are your thoughts on this, say you re-up at the beginning of the football season. you have 2 books each offering a 20% bonus. u send 1k to each book getting a free 200.00 play at each book. u take any game on the board and bet one bonus on one team then the other books bonus on the opposing team ,any way one book is up 200.00 bucks guaranteed. I know it's conservative but 200 bucks is 200.00 bucks!

Sounds good Happy Boy but I still don't think your way would return anything like what Mudcat calculates...and none of Mudcat's calculations rely on luck.

It's true that in Mudcat's +1050/-1100 money line scenario, if your underdog won, you'd be in clover; but if it lost, you'd be converting less than 20 bucks into cash, when in fact $300.00 is possible simply by taking time to position your free play money.

In another scenario, assuming you have -105 on both sides of a spread, I believe you'd still only be able to bank $190.00...so respectfully Happy Boy IMHO I'd have to say that it's probably best to follow what Mudcat has written.

In conclusion I know that "200 bucks is 200.00 bucks!" but in each of the four scenarios presented by Mudcat, not one of them goes below a 65% conversion rate to real money. That's impressive but probably more important...that's at least $70 more than just dumping your free play money on both sides of a spread.

[Mudcat]

One quick question Mudcat, how do you 'balance' your calculations please to ensure that you receive equal returns? Do you use an arbitrage calculator for that? :mellow:

Hmmm. I just do it by recognition. If I see a pair of lines like +400/-425, then I know from experience that I can turn the freeplay into about 75% cash and just plug that amount in as the "to win" on the favorite bet. Then I see how balanced it all is and possibly fiddle a bit.

I'm sure it could be turned into a nice elegant formula. You'd have to use decimal style odds. Lemme see what I can do . . .

[Mudcat]

Okay this is actually not too bad a formula. If you want to perfectly balance your play using the concept I have outlined, here's what you do:

Let's call the freeplay bet "A" and the other bet "B"

For "A", the freeplay:

WinA = oddsA(riskA)

Assuming you have found a couple of lines you want to test, all the values are given. Example: for a $200 freeplay at +400 . . . . . . . $800 = 4($200). (You can see I'm stating the odds as a decimal. If the odds were +621, I would have used 6.21. Simple enough.)

What we're looking for is the value of winB that will perfectly balance the plays.

What you have to do is state oddsB, not in proper decimal form, but just divide the absolute value of the line by -100. It is always going to be a large negative number so it's simple. -420 becomes 4.2. -585 would be 5.85. Piece of cake.

Here's the balancing formula:

winB = winA/(oddsB+1)

That's it.



Just to run through an example. Suppose you have a $200 freeplay and you find some lines of +400/-420.

winA is going to be 800. ($200 at odds of +400)

oddsB you have to state as 4.2 (like I said above).

Plugging into the formula

winB = 800/(4.2+1)
winB = 800/5.2
winB = $153.85

And if you run the numbers through, you will find that your risk amount for B would be $646.15. ($153.85 x 4.2).

Either way, you are turning the $200 freeplay into exactly $153.85 cash. Obviously you could round things off from there.



So that's it: winB = winA/(oddsB+1)

[ourbet]

Excellent!!! Many (MANY) Thanks Mudcat for time you've taken to provide a very comprehensive answer here!

[pags11]

one must remember that in order to do things the way mudcat is talking about one must have a fully funded account at the book where you are betting the favorite...other than that, it's a great strategy...