Free Bets on the Grand National

It's not far away now, on 6th April 2013 the Grand National will take place at Aintree so time is running out for the chance to bet for free on the showcase race of the national hunt season.

Why is time running out for a Grand National free bet? Well because in general the bookies usually withdraw their free bet offers during the week of the Grand National.

Why do they do that? Well I believe it is because they know damn well that most punters will have a few quid on a horse that week. So with that in mind, they don't need to bother offering a free bet to entice a punter to open an account.

When all is said and done, why bother to give a free bet away for opening an account, if the punter is probably going to open the account regardless?

This is why I recommend that anybody wanting to open an account to bet for free on the Grand National would be wise to make their move over the next few days, possibly before March is out. 

Start looking for a bookie now, but be careful as some require you to use your free bet within 7 days of opening your account. So to make sure you are covered, find a bookmaker that gives you 30 days to use your free bet from the day you open your account.

At the moment Betfred, BetVictor, Blue Sq, Boylesports, Paddy Power and Stan James all give you 30 days to use their free bets in.

At the recent Cheltenham Festival I noticed that a lot of the bookmakers reduced their free bet offers, rather than withdrawing them all together. Maybe they will follow that protocol for the Grand National, I'm not sure?

All I can go on is what I have witnessed over recent years and that is that a lot of them will withdraw their free bets altogether.

Paddy Power (there is currently a £50 Paddy Power Free Bet available to new customers)  are the main player in bucking that trend as they tend to accept loss leaders. Maybe with them involved in offering incentives, certain other bookies will keep their bet for free offers open - but just to be on the safe side, if you want to secure a Grand National  Free Bet I would act soon.

Paddy Power Phone Account Profits

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, this is the first of two decent earners I made during the Euro's that I need to update the site with.

To start with, going back to the Sweden V England group game on 15/06/12, I made a nice return using Paddy Power's enhanced price offer on England for all new phone accounts.

England were on offer at 100/30 (compared to the general price of around 5/4) to anyone opening a new phone account, at the same time they were available to lay for between 2.4 and 2.5 on Betfair.

The maximum bet you could place (with Paddy Power) was £100, so we (my Missus) phoned up and opened a new phone account and placed £100 on England at 100/30, guaranteeing a return (from Paddy) of £433.33.

I then went on Betfair and layed England at 2.46 for £180. This left me with a red of £262.80 on England, and a green on Sweden or the Draw of £171 after commission. This meant that my total outlay for the bet was £363.80, and I was guaranteed a minimum return of £433.33 before a ball was even kicked - no matter what happened in the match.

Breaking that down, this meant that had England not won, I would have lost my £100 stake with Paddy (by the way, the Paddy Power free bet is for £50), but I would have won £171 on Betfair, giving me a return of £71.

Or if England won (which they obviously did), I got £433.33 from Paddy Power, £100 stake back + £333.33 winnings, and I lost £262.80 on Betfair - leaving me with an overall profit of £70.53.

This takes the over all free easy money profits pot up to £652.05

I have noticed on Twitter that Paddy Power sometimes do offers like this through their Facebook page for existing (I think) customers, so it could be something worth keeping an eye on.

There are free bets available with all the bookmakers listed in the column on the right hand side of this website. These can be used to bet free with by customers opening new accounts.

Paddy Power Grand National Offers

As usual Paddy Power seems to be the only bookmaker trying to grab the initiative, this time they have a series of offers for the Grand National to attract the punters.

They are offering Faller Insurance, where you can back your horse at a slightly lower price, (ie, a 7/2 shot would become 3/1 with insurance) if your horse (with insurance) then falls, you get your money back.

They are also offering 5 Places on all Each-Way bets. And on top of all that they have a £20 Free Bets offer.

If you place 5 bets of £10, that will be matched with a Free Bet of £10. Repeat the 5 bets of £10, and Paddy Power will give you another Free Bet of £10.

West Indies V England 5th Test Day 2 Betting

After Day 1 of the 5th Test the bookies are just favouring the draw with England not far behind. England reached a slow painstaking 258/2 at the close of play with Captain Andrew Strauss again making a century on his way to an unbeaten 139. It would appear the bookies have concluded that England are going to post a large enough total and that the contest will then really start when it comes to trying to take the twenty wickets required.

West Indies tactics mirror this view with their team selection of replacing spinner Sulieman Benn with an extra batsman Lendl Simmons, they also slowed the pace of the game by bowling part time bowlers and not attcking at all, also bowling well wide of the batsmen making scoring almost impossible at times. This decision could well back fire on West Indies as a negative vibe throughout the team could be dangerous when they come to bat. Add to that, that this is West Indies we are on about who are generally less reliable than England and the chances are 11/10 with Betfred on England could be a good price.


Draw is Even money with Paddy Power (there is a £50 Paddy Power Free Bet available to new customers)
England are 11/10 with Betfred
West Indies are 14/1 with Blue Sq

There are free bets available with all the bookmakers listed on this page to customers opening new accounts, these can be used to bet free with.

Paddy Power Free Bet

To open a Paddy Power account, please click here.......

The Paddy Power free bet is ideal for Bonus Bagging or matched betting as it is a straight forward first bet 100% match up offer.

All you need to do is to open a Paddy Power account and place a bet between £5.00 and £50.00, and Paddy Power will match it with a free bet for the same value.

This means if you place a first (qualifying) bet of £5.00 and Paddy Power will give you a free bet of £5.00, place a first bet of £50.00 and get a Paddy Power free bet of £50.00, etc.

I would imagine you will want to get as much of the free bet as possible, so remember to make sure your first (qualifying) bet is for the maximum amount of £50.00.

The first (qualifying) bet must be placed at odds of 1/2 (1.5) or greater. Multiples can be placed as long as the combined odds are again 1/2 (1.5) or greater.

The bets must only be placed on Paddy Power sportsbook (not lotteries or totepool), and the free bet is valid for 30 days, after which it will cancelled.

When placing free bets from Online Bookmakers always make sure you are fully aware of what you are doing and that you have read and understand the terms and conditions. It is the aim of this site to bet free, or as close to free as possible,  using free bets is one easy method of achieving this.

To open a Paddy Power account and claim a £50.00 free bet, click here......