Risk-free Bet Builders are a popular promotion offered by many bookmakers like Bet365, Unibet, and others, allowing you to place a Bet Builder bet, and if it loses, you’ll receive a free bet of the same value. This is a fantastic opportunity to make a profit with minimal risk, especially when you use matched betting strategies. In this blog, we’ll dive into how these risk-free Bet Builders work, how you can lay them for profit, and how value betting can help you consistently profit from these promotions—be sure to pair it with our breakdown of Bet365’s 25% boost for specific examples.
A risk-free Bet Builder is a promotional offer from bookmakers that allows you to place a Bet Builder bet, and if it loses, you’ll receive a free bet equal to your original stake. This promotion typically applies to football matches, where you can combine multiple selections (e.g., match result, total goals, etc.) into a single bet—perfect for the fixture angles we outline in our football betting strategies.
Here’s an example of how it works:
This offer gives you a great opportunity to utilise matched betting techniques and turn the free bet into guaranteed profits, even if your initial Bet Builder wager loses.
There are two main ways to make risk-free Bet Builders profitable: Laying the Bet and Value Betting.
Laying a risk-free Bet Builder is one of the most straightforward ways to guarantee a profit, and it’s where matched betting comes in.
Value betting is another profitable strategy that works with risk-free Bet Builders. Here’s how you can use this approach, borrowing principles from our value betting guide:
Place the Bet: Place the Bet Builder and hope it wins. If it wins, you’ve made £70, minus your initial stake, for a £60 profit.
Lay the Free Bet: If your Bet Builder loses and you get a £10 free bet, you’ll now lay the free bet. The key here is that even if the free bet loses, your total loss is minimal, usually only around £1 or £2, as the lay bet offset will cover the rest—our matched betting calculator help article walks through this step-by-step.
High Probability of Profit: Even if you lose a handful of these bets, the high value of your Bet Builders means that over time, you'll come out ahead. If you win 1 in 20 bets with this method, you'll be heavily in profit.
The reason both of these strategies are profitable is that they allow you to effectively "lock in" profits or minimise losses with minimal risk. When using matched betting and laying off your Bet Builder bet, you ensure that the free bet you receive can be converted into real cash profits—very similar to the techniques we cover in our arbitrage betting guide.
With the value betting approach, by consistently placing high-value Bet Builders and laying the free bets, you’re setting yourself up for long-term profitability. Even a small win rate — such as 1 win out of every 20 bets — will result in substantial profits over time.
Risk-free Bet Builders are a fantastic way to make money with minimal risk, especially when you apply matched betting techniques. Whether you’re laying the bet using the calculator or creating value bets, these promotions can be a great addition to your matched betting strategy. Combine them with other football promos like Sky Bet’s Acca Freeze to keep your weekends packed with value.
By combining these methods with the use of tools like matched betting calculators, oddsmatchers, and free bet trackers, you can consistently generate profit from these offers. Even if your initial Bet Builder loses, your free bet will provide a second chance to secure a risk-free profit—just stay mindful of the account health pointers in our gubbing avoidance guide.
A risk-free Bet Builder is a bookmaker promotion that allows you to place a Bet Builder bet, and if it loses, you receive a free bet equal to your original stake.
You can make it profitable by either laying the bet using a matched betting calculator or by building a value bet with higher odds, ensuring that even if you lose the free bet, you still make a small profit in the long run.
You can lay a risk-free Bet Builder bet by using a matched betting calculator to calculate the correct lay stake. Once you’ve placed the back bet, lay it at the exchange to lock in a guaranteed profit or minimal loss.
Keep exploring matched betting with our value betting guide, dive into the matched betting tools roundup, and test ideas instantly in the Oddsmatcher tool.