I suppose that’s sod’s law for you. The first time we punt against the Gunners for a long time and Arsenal actually manage to win after only triumphing once in their previous nine games. Anyway you can’t ever dwell over an Arsenal win and now that we know season ticket prices are on the up, it’s time to win a bit more through the gambling scheme.

This week I’m joining Betfred with the current offer being stake a £50 qualifying bet over the odds of “2.00” and get a free £50 bet. Join here. In the terms and conditions it says the offer is not available for deposits through moneybookers, neteller or paypal. However I used the live chat service and was informed that the free bet would still be granted to UK customers using moneybookers. Personally I think I’ll play it safe and use my debit card but if you want to give moneybookers a go it should be fine. You’ll only know for sure though once the qualifying bet has been settled.

So after the registration process is complete (there is no promotion code required), deposit your £50 and you can see on the left hand side ‘Price format’. As always change this over to decimals. Then go to ‘Football’, ‘UK Coupons’, and ‘England Premier League’. Open up the full market (’more bets’) for ‘Stoke v Arsenal’. Remember the qualifying bet has to be at odds of at least 2 so going for the Arsenal win doesn’t quite meet the criteria. However the Arsenal win at half time does, so go to where it says “H/T Betting”. At the moment it has odds of “2.5”(Ed’s note – drifted in to 2.38 when I placed my bet, but it’s above 2, which is the main thing as this is a qualifying bet). Place the full £50 qualifying bet in order to receive the full £50 bonus after it’s been settled. (Just be sure that the odds are over 2 so that you still qualify for the free bet).

At Betfair go to “Football”, “English Football”, “Barclays Premier League”, and then “Fixtures 08 May”. Open up the full market for “Stoke v Arsenal”. Go to the “Half Time” market and click the pink lay button for Arsenal which at the moment has odds 2.44 and lay £50. As it’s less than the 2.5 odds at BetFred I’ve actually found an ‘arb’ which means I can guarantee not making a loss with this qualifying bet. The profits work out like this...

Arsenal are winning at half time: +£3 (+75 at Betfred, - 72 at Betfair).

Arsenal are not winning at half time: 0 (-50 at Betfred, +50 at Betfair)

(Ed’s note, the price to lay Arsenal when I did it was 2.48, so I stood to win £69 on the qualifying bet at BetFred, but had a £74 liability at Betfair. For this reason, I changed my backer’s stake to £47 on betfair, giving a liability of £69.56, as this is a qualifying bet. So I will lose 56p if Arsenal are winning at half time and £3 if they are not, as the odds have changed since Russell placed his bet. Remember this weekend’s game is not about making money but unlocking a £50 bet for the next time we place our bets. You can decide what is best for you, but the amounts are not hugely significant as long as the odds on BetFred are greater than 2)

As ever though odds will fluctuate and if the odds don’t remain the same it could mean being slightly down at this point for some, but it shouldn’t be anything significant. If you’re lucky enough to find it still as an arb it will mean either being +£3 up or neutral, which isn’t bad considering we’re unlocking a £50 free bet in which we should be able to extract some very good profit. So remember...

“Why gamble when you can win!”