What is Matched Betting?
Matched Betting is a technique that allows you to make guaranteed money from free bets that bookmakers offer their customers. Unlike traditional gambling, luck doesn’t come into it as you cover both the positive and negative outcomes of an event, so you make profit no matter what happens.
”That sounds too good to be true!” I hear you cry. It isn’t; bookmakers want to entice customers with attractive offers, and the technique of matched betting uses mathematical calculations to remove risk and guarantee profit. I’ll explain how in this article.
What is involved?
A typical bookmaker offer will be something like “Bet £10, Get A £30 Free Bet” so lets use this an example.
First, you go to the bookmaker web site and place £10 on an event, for example “Red Rum to Win the 15:00 at Ascot”. This is called the Back Bet.
Next, you use a Betting Exchange (such as Betfair) to place a bet on Red Rum to not win the 15:00 at Ascot. This is called the Lay Bet.
The amount you bet on the exchange depends on the odds on offer, so you should use a matched betting calculator to work out how much to place — lets say it tells you to place £9.75; the difference is based on the difference in odds between bookmaker and exchange, and factors in exchange commission.
No matter what happens in the event, one of your bets will win and the other will lose, cancelling each other out.
Lets say Red Rum won the race:
- Your bookmaker bet loses so you have lost ~£10
- Your exchange bet wins so you have won ~£10
- Overall you have broken even*
If Red Rum lost the race:
- Your bookmaker bet wins so you have won ~£10
- Your exchange bet loses so you have lost ~£10
- Overall you have broken even*
* You will lose a few pence commission charged by the exchange, but it will be negligible.
You have now qualified for a free £30 bet with the bookmaker. You go to the site and place it on another event, for example “Shergar to Win the 13:30 at Cheltenham”. This is your Back Bet but this time you are not using any real money, just the free bet.
Again you use a matched betting calculator and go to the Betting Exchange, placing the bet on Shergar to not win. This is your second Lay Bet.
This time it is slightly different.
Lets say Shergar’s odds were 5/1. For this lay bet you need to match the £150 you will win at the bookmaker, but you do not need to cover the £30 stake as it was free. This means your bet will be smaller, around £25.
If Shergar wins:
- Your bookmaker will give you £150 winnings but your £30 free stake will not be returned.
- Your Betfair Exchange bet loses ~£125
- You have made ~£25 profit
If Shergar loses:
- Your bookmaker bet of £30 loses but it was not real money.
- Your Betfair Exchange bet wins ~ £25
- You have made ~£25 profit
Either result means you have kept around 80% of the free bet’s value, and this is the average amount you will generally make. The higher the free bet, the more profit you earn.
Is there a way to simplify all this?
There are tools out there to help you, such as matched betting calculators that will tell you what the lay bet amount should be. There are also sites offering lists of currently available offers.
SmartMatchedBetting.co.uk have a unique wizard that will walk you through offers step by step, telling you how much and where to place your Back Bet, while taking care of all the lay betting for you automatically through a deep Betfair integration.
Using a tool like this takes away most of the detail described above. SmartMatchedBetting will find the bets with the closest odds (and therefore highest return), place a calculated lay bet on your behalf, and explain exactly what to do for the back bet, all as part of a wizard that does one step at a time. SmartMatchedBetting also lists all of the available sign-up offers, weekly bet clubs, and ad-hoc deals offered by bookmakers, saving you the hassle of scouring the internet or paying for another service to do this for you.
SmartMatchedBetting.co.uk are currently offering their services for only £12.99 per month / £99.99 per year, which you will earn back even if you only do one offer per week, and with ~£700 initial profit available from bookmaker sign-up bonuses there is no better time to get started.
Is Matched Betting Legal?
Matched Betting is legal in the UK but you do have to be aged 18+ to sign up for a bookmaker or exchange account.
Bookmakers do not like Matched Betting, however they tolerate it because sometimes it is the bet on their side that loses so it isnt always a bad thing for them. Besides, the revenue they make from bonuses enticing in “mug punters” far outweighs any loss from what they call “bonus abusers”.
How do I get started?
The easiest way to get started with Matched Betting is to use SmartMatchedBetting.co.uk as it takes away the complexity and does all of the calculations for you. If you want to save time, this is the way to go as you will never have to look for suitable bets, offers are presented in one consolidated list, and all interactions with the exchange are done in the background.
Also — your first offer is completely free on SmartMatchedBetting!
Do I need much “startup capital”?
When you place a bet on an Exchange, the liability is deducted from your balance. As an example, if you lay £10 at 3/1 your balance will be reduced by £30.
The more you have in your Exchange account, the more offers you can do at once. For example if you have £100 in your account and you do an offer that has a first bet of £10 at 2/1 and a free bet of £30 at 4/1, your entire £100 will be deducted and you will need to wait for both events to finish before you can start the next offer. Adding more money to the exchange will enable you to do another offer immediately — either way you will end up with the same profit, it will just take a little longer.
So the short answer is: No you don’t need much startup capital, but the more you have the faster you will get through the offers and have the profit in your account.
Are there any risks?
The biggest risk with Matched Betting is human error. This is another reason why tools like the wizard at SmartMatchedBetting are invaluable as they automate the bits that people tend to get wrong — betting exchanges don’t have the simplest of interfaces.
The only other risk is that if a bookmaker spots that you are only using them for matched betting they may close your account or ban you from having any more bonuses — there are plenty of bookmakers though so this is not a big deal, and there are ways to avoid this happening.
Is there a reason not to do it?
No! — www.smartmatchedbetting.co.uk
