By Michael ·
Cheltenham extra places are bookmaker offers that pay more each-way places than the standard terms on selected races at the Festival. For a matched bettor the maths is the same as on any other day. What changes is the pace, the size of the fields and how much liability you carry at once.
If the method is new to you, start with extra place matched betting, step by step. For how the two halves of an each-way bet work, see each way matched betting explained.
What changes in Festival week
Cheltenham's own site gives the 2027 Festival as Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March: four days and 28 races. You might expect far more extra place races that week. Our own records don't show that. On the four days of the 2026 Festival, the two bookmakers we tracked then offered extra places on 27 to 36 races a day, across all courses. On ordinary weekdays in the weeks either side, the count was 20 to 37. Seven races a day at Cheltenham had an offer.
So the week doesn't give you many more races to work. It changes the races you work. Prices on Festival races can move quickly. The big handicaps can have large fields, and the number of runners is what sets the places a bookmaker pays.
Bookmakers such as Paddy Power, Betfred and Ladbrokes run extra places on selected races, and the terms differ from one to the next. The free list of today's extra place races, a page on our site, shows the places each bookmaker pays against the standard, read at 09:00.
The terms to read on every race
An each-way bet is two bets of the same stake: one for the horse to win and one for it to place. The place part pays a fraction of the win odds. This is the standard table at Paddy Power, Sky Bet and William Hill:
Runners and race type | Places | Fraction |
|---|---|---|
5 to 7 runners | 2 | 1/4 |
8 or more, non-handicap | 3 | 1/5 |
8 to 11, handicap | 3 | 1/5 |
12 to 15, handicap | 3 | 1/4 |
16 or more, handicap | 4 | 1/4 |
Extra place races add places, and some lower the place fraction from 1/4 to 1/5. Paddy Power and Sky Bet both say that in extra place races they may pay five or six places at 1/5 in a handicap of 16 or more, instead of four at 1/4. Betfred pays four places at 1/5 instead of three on some races, and five at 1/5 instead of four on others.
Field size matters here too. On Betfred's four-place races, standard terms apply if fewer than 12 horses run. On its five-place races, it pays four places if fewer than 16 run. The Ladbrokes race terms we read fall back to standard terms if 10 or fewer horses run.
So read the places and the fraction on the term line, then check the runner count. Our guide to how many places each way UK terms pay explains every row.
Ante-post bets and multiples
An ante-post bet is one you place days or weeks before the race. Betfred's extra place offer excludes ante-post bets. Ladbrokes' offer excludes them too, along with Tote and Betting Without bets, and it counts real-money singles only.
Multiples differ by bookmaker. Paddy Power counts singles and multiples for its extra places, with no opt-in, and settles each-way multiples win-to-win and place-to-place. Betfred counts each-way singles or multiples.
Even where a multiple qualifies, you can't lay it leg by leg the way you lay a single, so matched bettors stick to singles. If you struck an ante-post bet as a punter, treat it as a separate bet, not part of your matched betting.
Which place market to lay
A lay bet is a bet that something won't happen, placed on a betting exchange. On some big races the exchange lists more than one place market, for example a four-place market and a five-place market. Which one you lay changes the deal.
Example, with a made-up handicap. Your horse is 16/1 (17.0). You back £5 each-way, £10 in total, and lay the win at 18.0. Commission, the exchange's cut of your net winnings, is 2% here; check your own rate. The four-place market lays at 5.0 and the five-place market at 4.4. Every figure comes from the formulas our calculator uses.
Bookmaker terms | Place market laid | Ordinary results | Pays if | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|
5 places at 1/4 | 4 places at 5.0 | −£0.45 | 5th | +£24.55 |
6 places at 1/5 | 4 places at 5.0 | −£1.23 | 5th or 6th | +£19.77 |
6 places at 1/5 | 5 places at 4.4 | −£0.67 | 6th | +£20.33 |
The win lay is £4.73 in every row, with a liability of £80.37. Liability is what leaves your exchange balance if the lay loses. The place lays are £5.02, £4.22 and £4.79, with liabilities of £20.08, £16.87 and £16.30.
The small loss on ordinary results is your qualifying loss. To break even, the extra place has to land about 1.8% of the time in the first row. It needs 5.9% in the second row (5th or 6th) and 3.2% in the third (6th only).
The point is the shape. Laying the four-place market gives you two extra places for a bigger cost. Laying the five-place market gives you one for a smaller cost. Results vary with the prices you get.
Plan the week before it starts
The liability is the part that bites. Each bet in the table needed about £97 to £100 in the exchange. Open five or six bets on a busy afternoon and you're carrying several hundred pounds, often across races that haven't settled yet.
Set three limits before the first race:
A stake per bet that is small enough for a lay at a longer price to still fit your balance.
The most liability you will have open at once. When you reach it, wait for a race to settle.
A daily stop. Most bets end in the qualifying loss, so a day with no extra place is normal. The urge to win it back on the last race is where mistakes happen.
Check every bet in our free Extra Place Calculator before you place it. It needs no account, and it catches a wrong place market or a mistyped price before it costs you.
What goes wrong at Cheltenham
A late non-runner causes two problems. Paddy Power can take a Rule 4 deduction from your winnings when a horse is withdrawn, capped at 90p in the £1. That deduction hits the bookmaker side, so your matched outcomes can drift apart. A smaller field can also cost you the extra place, as the runner thresholds above show.
Prices move. Back and lay within seconds of each other, and run the sums again if the lay price changed.
Place markets can be thin. An unmatched place lay leaves you holding a straight bet on a 16/1 shot, so check both lays are fully matched before the off.
With two or three place markets on one race, it's easy to lay the four-place market when you meant the five-place one. Read the market name before you confirm.
A Bournemouth University study (September 2026) found that just over half of 2,112 matched bettors had lost money overall, mostly through execution mistakes. Our guide to account restrictions covers what happens when a bookmaker limits your account.
Some races aren't worth it. The extra place pays only if your horse finishes in exactly that spot. If the cost on ordinary results looks high for the payout, skip the race and wait for the next one.
Start with the free list
After Cheltenham, the same approach works for the Grand National.
On the Professional plan, Extra Places alerts compare the bookmaker's each-way price with both lay prices. You can set the minimum exchange liquidity an alert needs, for each exchange, under Configuration, then Extra Places, in the members' menu. Alerts come by e-mail, web push or Discord, and you place every bet yourself. Our guide to finding extra place offers shows how to use the list before the week starts.
Checked against Paddy Power's, Sky Bet's, William Hill's, Betfred's and Ladbrokes' terms on 14 November 2026.
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