What is Matched Betting?
Matched Betting is a risk free, easy to learn method of making money online. Regardless of the name containing the word ‘betting’, there is no element of gambling to Matched Betting whatsoever, therefore it can be done by anybody looking to make risk free cash online, also, no knowledge or interest in sports is required to profit from Matched Betting.
There are a plethora of online bookmakers all of which compete amongst each other for the public’s custom.
Online bookmakers set out to entice new people to come and bet and then subsequently continue to bet on their platform, the main way in which they do this is by offering bonuses to their customers.
These bonuses are referred to as free bets, (risk free chances of making money) and it is these free bets which provide us with the opportunity that we need to make guaranteed, risk free profits from all of the online bookmakers on a daily basis.
You will be amazed at the combined amount of free bets and bonuses that online bookmakers continually give away to their customers.
As a rule of thumb, any free bet that we have, we are able to extract 80% of that free bet amount into a guaranteed profit.
What Are Back Bets And Lay Bets?
There are two different types of bets that all matched bettors use in to lock in their profits, both are really simple to understand and use yourself.
Back Bet:
A Back Bet is a conventional type of bet that most everyone is likely to have heard of at some point.
Simply put, a Back Bet is the act of risking a certain amount of your own money on a horse or football team to win at an event in the hopes of winning more money back from the bookmaker should they do so.
Example:
Placing a £10 Back Bet on Manchester United to win a football match in the hopes of getting £20 back in return from the bookmaker if they do.
We only place Back Bets with bookmakers such as Coral and Betfred.
Lay Bet:
A Lay Bet is simply the opposite of a Back Bet.
Placing a Lay Bet refers to the act of risking some of your own money
on a horse or a football team to not win at that particular event, in the hopes of winning more money back in return should the horse of football team not win.
This means, if the horse of football team that you placed your Lay Bet on go on to win at the event, you would lose any money that you had at risk on your Lay Bet, this is due to the event that you bet against actually occurring and coming to fruition.
However, if the horse or football team that you placed a Lay Bet on did not win at the event (which also includes a draw in a football match) this means that your Lay Bet is a winner and therefore you would make a profit from the bet.
Example:
Placing a £10 Lay bet on Manchester United to not win a football match in the hopes of getting £20 back in return if they don’t win (lose or draw).
We only place Lay Bets on Betting Exchanges such as Smarkets and Betfair when Matched Betting.
You can learn more about the differences between back and lay bets here.
How Does Matched Betting Work?
As previously touched on, we will be “bonus abusing” by taking advantage and making continuous profits from every free bet provided to us by online bookmakers.
Unfortunately, bookmakers don’t usually like to give away their freebies for free, although this can happen, bookies almost always want us to bet X to get Y.
This isn’t a problem though, all this means is that we need to unlock any free bets that are available to us, we can do this simply by using both a back and lay bet.
The use of both a back and lay bet will ensure that we are able to unlock our free bet without risking any of our own cash.
Below is a welcome offer for new customers run by one of the online bookmakers.
Coral bet £5 and get £20 free bet.
As you can see from the above image, the online bookmaker Coral is offering us a bonus, bet £5 of our own cash and in return they will credit us with a £20 free bet.
Great, of course, we want to get our hands on the £20 freebie to convert it into real cash, however, we don’t want to risk our own £5.
Matched Betting is all about making risk free money online after all!
So, here is what we do to make sure that we don’t risk any of our own money whilst simultaneously unlocking the £20 free bet.
- We place our £5 Back Bet on Manchester United to win at Coral.
- We place a Lay Bet on Manchester United to not win on the Betting Exchange Smarkets.
Above, the calculator informs us of the amount of money that we should use on our Lay Bet to more or less breakeven.
You can see the breakdown of the two possible outcomes that can occur in the profit breakdown section.
A.) Either the Bookmaker Back Bet with Coral on Manchester United to win the match wins:
Overall Profit -£0.14
B.) Or, the Smarkets Lay bet on Manchester United to not win the match wins:
Overall Profit-£0.15
As you can see, the outcome of the match is irreverent to us.
We are guaranteed to lose on 1 bet and win on the other.
This process will cost us just a few pence of our own cash, 14p or 15p to be exact.
We are more than happy to take this small loss as we can now make a significant profit from the free bet that we have just unlocked.
Making Our Profit From Matched Betting
At this point we have now unlocked our free bet, all that is left to do is make our profit of £15!
Because we have now received the free bet from Coral this has given us an advantage over them, we are now able to hedge out a guaranteed risk free profit.
All we need to do to make the profit is repeat the same simple process again!
However, this time there is just one minor difference, we simply change the calculator preset to “free bet SNR” and then look for a football match or a horse race with high odds on the bookmaker’s website to use our free bet on.
Decimal odds of around 4 or 5 is the sweet spot.
The OddsMatcher is able to find games with the highest odds which are close in value to the lay odds on the Betting Exchange.
To Lock in The profit:
- We place the £20 free back bet we have acquired with the bookmaker Coral.
- Place a lay bet on the same outcome with the Exchange Smarkets.
That’s it, all that’s left to do is wait until the match ends and the profit from the free bet is ours!
The below image of the calculator shows our overall profit of £14.44, along with a breakdown of how we will make that profit.
As you can see from the image, we are guaranteed a profit of either £14.46 or £14.44.
A.) Either the Coral free Back Bet wins:
Overall Profit +£14.46
B.) Or, the Smarkets Lay Bet wins:
Overall Profit+£14.44
This is because 1 of our bets is guaranteed to win and the other is guaranteed to lose just like earlier when unlocking our free bet.
The free bet that we used ensures that we will make our profit from the offer regardless of either bet winning.
It’s that easy, and the vast majority of Matched Betting offers work in the very same way, you can just rinse and repeat this method over and over again and continue to make easy money online!
Lay Bet Liability
In Matched Betting, liability is the amount of money needed in your Exchange balance to place a lay bet.
For example, if you place a lay bet at odds of 4.5 using a stake of £14.44 (just like we did in the earlier free bet example), the liability that you will need in your Exchange account would be £50.55.
This is the amount of money that will you need to pay out if your lay bet lost.
Note: If your lay bet losses and therefore you lose your liability on the Exchange, you will always make it back at the bookmaker account where you placed your back bet.
Click Here For More Information on Liability.
Exchange Commission
The Betting Exchanges charge a small commission fee for any winning bets on their site (generally around 2% of the winnings for all winning bets) there is a box on the Matched Betting calculator for you to enter the commission rate that you are on.
Note: If you are an OddsMonkey member you will get 0% commission on Smarkets, this helps earn extra money over the course of the month.
Join OddsMonkey For Free And Earn £63!
FAQ:
Is Matched Betting Legal:
Matched Betting is 100% legal and has been since the rise of online bookmakers in the early 2000s. Each year more and more people start Matched Betting as its popularity level continues to rise.
Matched Betting has also featured in various mainstream newspapers such as The Telegraph and The Guardian.
Why Doesn’t Everybody Just Do It?
Most people aren’t actually aware that Matched Betting exists, it isn’t widely publicised on television, after all, it costs the bookie’s lots money each year and they don’t want to promote it.
Also, certain types of people simply can’t be bothered to put the effort in to learn matched betting.
Although Matched Betting has a low barrier to entry and requires minimal effort to be profitable, most people would much rather have a quick fix where they place lots of bets with different bookmakers and win lots of money, the reality of that is, it simply doesn’t work.
How Hard Is It To Learn?
When first introduced to Matched Betting it may seem a little daunting. However, I guarantee that you will pick it up really quickly its a very simple make money online system.
Matched Betting is very systematic and once you have repeated the required methods a few times it will become super simple for you to continually profit from.
Will I Be Taxed?
Although Matched Betting isn’t gambling and is completely risk free it still falls underneath the gambling umbrella.
In the UK any winnings from gambling websites are tax free, so no, you will not pay any tax from Matched Betting, what you earn is yours to keep.
How Much Money Can I Make Matched Betting?
Each of the different online bookmakers offers a lucrative welcome offer to entice new people to sign up and bet on their websites, these welcome offers combined will earn you £700+.
After that, depending on how much time you are willing to invest you will be able to make anywhere from £100-2000 each month.
How Much Money Do I Need To Start Matched Betting?
You can start with as little as £50 and slowly build up your bankroll.
Personally, when I first started Matched Betting I invested £100 of my own money and significantly built my bank from my initial investment.
Note: The more money that you start with the quicker you can get the ball rolling, this is because you will be able to place more matched bets at the same time which ultimately ties up more liability with your lay bets on the Exchange.
What is The Bookies View on Matched Betting?
They don’t like it! Bookmakers and gambling organisations in general have a track record of being sore losers.
After you extract a certain amount of money out of a bookmaker they will view you as invaluable to their business, at that point they may restrict you from some of their bonuses.
Should this happen you are still able to withdraw any of your earnings from these bookmakers.
All you can do when this happens is withdraw any cash that you have in that account and move on to next.
When you are restricted from a bookmakers bonuses or “gubbed” as it is termed in Matched Betting circles, take it on the chin, be proud of the fact that they have kicked you off their platform because you have beaten them at their own game.
There are loads of online bookies so the odd restriction here and there won’t be too much of a hit.
Learn How You Can Avoid Being Gubbed Here
How to Start Matched Betting?
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