Bet free

Just so we don't lose sight of the ultimate target, we need to be in positive territory for the experiment to be a success, and at the moment, we're £75.17 in the wrong direction. Another day brought an opportunity to redress the balance slightly, as the 888sport and Canbet free bets became available.

I chose to bet that Dundee United would beat Hamilton at odds of 2.1 on 888sport and matched this with a Betfair lay of £12.91 (£15.23 liability) giving a profit of £12.27 no matter what happened.

Canbet proved a little more problematic. The available football events to use their free wager on were limited to long term competitions such as the eventual winners of the Premiership, F.A. Cup and Champions League, so I reluctantly turned my attention to horse racing. Even here, the free bet was only available on the next race, so meant betting on a volatile market - which, for risk free betting, I found to be extremely difficult.

I found I could split my free bet, so - being a horse racing novice - I decided to split into two £15 bets. My first bet was on Bartica at odds of 5.5 in the second race at Windsor. When I crossed to Betfair to set up the lay, the odds started lengthening, and my lay was never matched. Bartica started the race at odds of 8 and may be still running as far as I know.

My second bet was on the third race at Windsor and I tried to identify a horse with more stable (no pun intended) odds. I chose Rum Jungle at 3.3 and set up a 3.45 lay of £10.15 (£24.86 liability) on Betfair. Again the odds started drifting, and - at the start of the race - the bet had not been matched, but I flagged the lay as keep, and abandoned all hope of getting any money from this free bet.

Rum Jungle didn't win, but, for a time, it must have been in the running, because my bet WAS matched and I won £9.64 (£10.15 - 5%). This brought the overall deficit down to £65.53.