No such thing as a free bet

Amate of mine, let’s call him “The Dealer”, received an email from a bookmaker last week. This e-mail offered him a free bet to the value of 30% of his first bet of the weekend.

Such offers normally come loaded with terms and conditions. For example, the bet you place must be at a certain price. But he scanned the requirements and found nothing. This appeared an opportunity too good to pass up.

The first thing he did was load his account with R10 000, by his own admission much more than he would usually bet on sport. The aim was to find a sure thing, then enjoy a free crack with what would relate to a tasty R3 000 bet.

If you are looking to put on a short-priced bet, look no further than tennis and The Dealer stumbled upon a game that had started with in-running betting available.

He admits he cannot remember the players’ names and I would imagine they were probably ranked somewhere between 300th and 400th in the world. One player was two sets up and 3-1 to the good in the third. His price with the bookmaker was 1/100 to win.

This was the opportunity. The Dealer lumped “the baby” on the favourite, knowing he would only collect R100, but would then have his free bet.

Easy game right? Wrong! It was round about that time things started to go pear shaped. The opponent broke back and eventually won the third set.

The 1/100 shot actually hit 2/1 at one point as they played the decider. Usually calm under pressure, this lad was now sweating bullets as he watched the live scoring.

Thankfully, the favourite managed to pull it out of the fire and the most stressful R100 The Dealer will ever earn was banked.

He then placed his R3 000 free bet – which he lost, so overall he had gone through absolute turmoil and risked R10 000 to bank a R100 profit.

I have said it before and will say it again, there is no such thing as free money!

Brent Graham is a sports betting blogger at

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