What are extra place races?

Every day certain bookies will pay extra places for an each way bet. The standard terms for a each way bet is 1-3 meaning that if your horse comes 1st, 2nd or 3rd you will get paid out on the place part of your bet. However on a few races every day bookies will offer 4 places or even 5 places. We can use this to make a profit.

How do we make a profit

We have talked before how we can make a small profit on each way bets from backing and laying the win and the place part of the race at Betfair Exchange. We can use the Each Way Catcher to look for profitable each way bets. This usually results in a small profit depending of course on our stake. However with extra place races there is a chance to make a much larger profit. If we back and lay a horse in an extra place race and the horse finishes in that extra place (either 4th or 5th depending on the terms) our bet will pay out at the bookie as an each way winner and our lay bet will pay out as a winner as well. This is because the place market at the exchange does not offer the extra place. So because we have layed the place our lay bet is a winner because our horse finishes outside the top 3 places. This can lead to huge wins when the odds are favourable.

What is the Each Way Catcher – Click here to learn more

An example bet

A horse called Bambino Lola is running in the 15:50 at Salisbury today. Coral are paying 4 places on this race. We are going to bet £10 each way on this horse, for a total stake of £20.

The back odds at Coral are 18/1 (19.0) which means the place odds are 4.60.

At bet fair we can lay the win at odds of 20.0 and lay the place part of the race at odds of 4.0

Using the lay bet calculator we can work out what we need to lay for each part.

As you can see from the image we are going to lay the win on Betfair for £9.52 which gives us a loss of 88p if it wins and 96p if it loses. Now we must lay the place part of the bet as well.

On the image above you can see we need to lay the place for £11.65 which will gives us a profit of £1.05 for the win and £1.07 for a loss.

This means after we have backed and layed both parts we will be 11p in profit no matter what happens in the race. However if our horse finishes 4th Coral are going to pay out a win for the place and Betfair are going to pay out a win for the place meaning our potential profit is £46.11 !

This means we have a risk free shot at winning £46.11

Using the Each Way Catcher is the best way to find low loss or even no loss bets for Extra Place Races.

How do we find extra place races.

There are a few bookies who offer them every day. Usually Sky, Ladbrokes, Coral, Betfred, Totesport and Paddy Power are the most regular. Checking their websites will let you know what races they are offering extra places on.

Big events like Cheltenham will see most bookies offering extra places across dozens of races. Meaning there are loads of chances to clean up for practically no risk!

Covering the field.

When the odds are good there is a chance to cover every horse in the race by backing a different horse at various different bookies. It requires all the bookies to be playing the extra place. This usually only happens at the big horse meetings. However by covering the entire field we are guaranteeing ourselves a profit as at least 1 horse is going to finish in an extra place. In races where there are 2 or 3 extra places to be had we can make huge sums of money by covering every horse.

The only down side to covering the field is you will need a large bank roll in Betfair to be able to cover the liability.