Bad start - does it get better?

To recap, after one bet I have a pending £50 free bet, but am £18.85 down.

Then came the bet365 difficulties. This should have been straight forward, but I got confused by the terms and conditions of the free bet offer. To start with, I put too much in (£50). I then didn't read the free bet terms and conditions correctly. I saw place one qualifying bet of £5 or more and you will be entitled to a free bet ... £25. Essentially, I read what I wanted to read and thought 'oh goody - just £5 to get a £25 free bet'. So I bet my £5 and got a £5 free bet. The terms actually say place one qualifying bet of £5 or more and you will be entitled to a free bet to the same stake as your largest qualifying bet up to a maximum of £25. You get to use the free bet immediately, so I did.

For the record, I bet £5 on Sochaux to beat Grenoble at odds of 1.90 and then used my free bet of £5 to do the same. I countered this with a lay of £10.03 at the exchange at odds of 1.95. I've still got £45 in the account, so I read the terms once more and again misread them. bet365 give further free bets the more you use them. I didn't want to make the minimum stake mistake again, so I put three £15 bets on Sochaux again thinking that would get my next free bet of £15. a further 5 qualifying bets of £5 or more I then read. So I end up depositing a further £30 to get my £15 free bet. Messy. I countered all these with a lay of £75 to match the bets and £7.11 for the free bet.

Apparently, "new boys Grenoble produced a stunning late comeback to get their Ligue 1 campaign off to a winning start at Sochaux" (1 : 2) resulting in a net gain on this bet set of £7.53. I'm £11.32 down, but making life complicated.

Undaunted, I chose my next site from those on offer in Quidco. I chose Jaxx. £25 cashback from Quidco, £25 deposit and bet gives a £25 free bet. The smallprint - I paid a little more attention this time - bet odds of at least 1.6 and the bet will be matched up to a value of £25. For the qualifying bet, I chose to back Reading away to Nottingham Forest at odds of 2.5. The lay at Betfair was £25.51 at odds of 2.5. The game ended 0 : 0, which meant that I won £23.71 (£25.51 - 5%). You should expect to lose slightly on a qualifying bet and win a larger amount when using the free bet. I was down £1.29 on the bet, and overall down £12.61. The free bet should show in the account in no more than two working days.