After much deliberation thankfully 188bet have kindly refunded our initial £25 bet. However it would appear our fortunes at 188bet are matching that of Arsenal’s current form and the lack of available markets, in particular the correct score market, will make this week’s bet tough to ensure a sizeable profit. For the upcoming away leg against Udinese it could even involve betting on the virtually impossible – the Gunners winning by half time.

The importance of this game can’t be underestimated, we all know if we miss out on Champions League football this year it could be a very long time until it’s seen again at the E******s. The odds shown on Betfair last week for Champions League Qualification and winning the Barclays Premier League have become incredibly outdated already and as predicted we’ve drifted way behind Liverpool, especially in odds to win the league. For any Gunners’ fans with true optimism now might be the best time to put little on us to win the league with odds having drifted so much that they are now double that of last week’s at 24, however these are likely to drift even longer after the Man Utd game at the weekend.

Anyway, just like Wenger we shouldn’t be looking any further than tomorrow’s match against Udinese so back to 188bet, if you click on “Football” you’ll see “Matches by Date”, “Wednesday 24 Aug” and from there you can find the “Udinese v Arsenal” game. Now that we’ve been refunded our £25 lost at 188bet from the Liverpool match we can consider ourselves +£13 from our winnings at Betfair. So whilst the highest odds that can be found at 188 are for the Arsenal win at half time they are far too distant from the lay odds at Betfair therefore the best move in this situation is to treat it like it’s a qualifying bet and maybe accepting a slight loss from our £13 profit made last week. This is why I’m backing the full-time draw. At 188bet under “1x2” the draw has odds of 3.2 as I place the refunded £25 on it meaning it could return a £55 profit. (Ed’s note – make sure you back the draw under the ‘1x2’ category, and not the ‘1x2 – 1st Half’)

At Betfair find the “Udinese v Arsenal” match and lay the full-time draw which as I did this had odds of 3.55. (Ed’s note – 3.5 when I placed this, meaning a £50 liability, instead of £51 for Russell)

I placed a lay of £20 meaning it had a liability of £51 and left the following outcomes...

- Full-time result a draw: +£4 (+55 at 188bet, -51 at Betfair)

- Full-time result not a draw: -£5 (-25 at 188bet, +20 at Betfair)

Unfortunately 188bet’s lack of markets this week has meant we’ve had to settle for a pretty standard bet. However this type of promotion where they refund your initial bet instead of offering you a free promo bet can actually be very effective. Unlike when you’re granted a free promo bet in this instance you’re refunded your actually money so can include the backers stake in the winnings. Along with this, if the markets are there you can actually have two attempts at trying to win a larger amount rather than having to use a qualifying bet to unlock the offer. So whilst it hasn’t worked out this time around I would still recommend it to anyone involved with the scheme should they come across this type of offer again. None the less it’s still a guaranteed profit and over the two weeks we’ll leave from 188bet with either +£8 or +£17 depending on the result of part 2 tomorrow evening. And of course if anyone offered the draw to us right now we’d most certainly take it, ensuring qualification to the next stage.

Check back in a few days as I look to join another bookie before the Man Utd match in the aim to win a lot more next time around.

Remember...

“Why gamble when you can win!”