OK so those who followed on Saturrday should now be able to log into William Hill and see a balance of just over £30 after Arsenal returned to winning ways and prevented another giant killing from Wolves. There was a net loss though of a few pence because we laid the bet at Betfair but that is the way we roll. Upsets do happen, and this way we won’t always win a lot but we will always win!

So getting to this point we are £1 down but now for the second part, the real bet to make a profit. Look in your "my account" section, select ‘Free Bets & Bonuses’ and you should see a £25 freebet credit in there waiting to be used this week.

Now look at the odds on the correct score of Arsenal v Barcelona by selecting Sports, then Football, then UEFA Champions League and clicking on the game itself from the list of fixtures. Scroll down the page and then you will see the odds on the correct score. After looking at the form and the odds available on each result, the 1-1 draw seems the best value for our purposes. William Hill has that at odds of 8 (7/1) .So click 1-1 and it will appear in your betslip in the top right. Enter £25 as your stake, but do not select ‘place bet yet’! Firstly, below where it now says ‘Total Stake : £25’, there is a light blue box marked ‘Free Bets Available’. Click on ‘Select Your Free Bet’ and select the £25 free bet you received for opening your account. So the stake will come from your free bet and not the £30 odd you have in your ‘main balance’ as a result of Saturday’s win against Wolves. Now you can select ‘Place Bet’ and you are finished on William Hill for today.

Now at Betfair to lock in a profit, ee can go to the ‘Football Fixtures’ list, select the games for the 16th, select the Arsenal v Barcelona match and again view the correct scores. We will be laying (pink boxes) the 1-1 result for £15 ‘backer’s stake’ at odds of 9. This will have a £120 liability. (If your Betfair float is just under £120 at this stage you can lay £14 instead, adjust the exact amount to suit your bankroll but everyone should have around £120 at this stage in Betfair - new users using the Betfair code UKJAHQ7HF will have been given £25 by Betfair now). (Ed’s note – If the odds change from 9 in the pink square, when you select whatever is available there, your liability will appear in the betslip on the right before you confirm your bet. If it is not around £120, then adjust your stake accordingly and the screen will refresh until you are close to £120. You do not have to be dead on, just close. If your liability is greater than your balance you will probably be asked to add funds to your Betfair account, which you don’t want to do, so just ensure your liability is under your Betfair balance.)

What this means is:
If the result is 1-1 we have +£175 at William Hill (stake not returned on the freebet) and a £120 loss at Betfair, so a net +£55 profit!

The result is not 1-1 so that is no return from the freebet but we pick up another £15 at Betfair and are ready to go again at the weekend.

So there we have it, after the qualifying loss and paying commission on the win, realistically our worst case scenario is £10 to £15 profit, which is not great but as a worst case it is better than the collective gambling average! We fancy it to come in though which will be a nice £50+ profit, something to cheer for and still give Arsenal all to play for in the second leg.