Matched Betting Explained: A Step-by-Step Guide to Risk-Free Profits

With the help of an odds matching tool, which comes as part of a Matched Betting Service, you’ll consistently find a strong match between the bookmakers and betting exchanges. This ensures you maintain good profit margins, saves you time, and decreases the risk of making a (potentially costly) error. Matched betting is a process of using bookies’ free bets and other incentives to create risk-free profit opportunities. It involves the use of exchanges such as Betfair and Smarkets to lay off – or bet against – bets you have made as part of the free bet provided by the bookmaker. Executed in the right fashion, this “matched bet” will ensure that you make a profit regardless of the outcome of the event you have bet on.

How much money can I make from matched betting?

The good news is that Betfair will never limit you or close your account. They welcome matched bettors, as we typically place many bets with Betfair, which allows them to earn a good commission from us. As long as you are of legal age to participate in sports betting (usually 18+), it is perfectly legal to do matched betting. This means that if they win, we will get winnings of £450 minus our £100 stake (remember the condition of the bonus bet is that we don’t receive our stake back). Matched betting involves betting on all possible outcomes of a sporting event to ensure that we profit regardless of the outcome that actually occurs. We are matching a bet on one particular outcome with another bet on all other outcomes.

When you bet on every matchup across various bookmakers with distinct odds, you can be sure that your earnings are greater than the total cost of your bets. Multifunctional calculators in these tools allow you to foresee prospective winnings and choose optimal betting quantities alongside risk management. Your overall earnings can rise when you use these technologies to make the process easier and ensure you get favourable odds. Modern tools can remarkably boost your returns in matched betting. Outplayed Pro has all the tools you need to expand your profits from matched betting.

• I don’t have much to start off with and knowing I have to have enough to cover the liability is worrying.
• In football betting, for example, the ‘2Up’ concession offered by some firms pays out before the final whistle when a team goes two goals ahead in a match.
• These could all be signs that you’re using the matched betting strategy, and the sports betting site could act against you!
• As you can see, we’ll lose £0.10 regardless of whether Tottenham wins, loses, or draws.

With others you may have to wait a little longer and will have to go back to the auto-matcher again for the closest odds. Repeat the steps to find the free bet with the closest matching odds and this time, when you match the bet, you’ll be able to calculate the guaranteed profit from the transaction. This will typically be about £14 from a £25 free bet and not much less. So if your qualifying lay bet had been the unsuccessful one, then you’ll need to add extra funds to cover the liability of the new free bet.

Matched betting services

You might be mistaken for a professional bettor (or addict) if you bet at unusual hours. They shouldn’t be allowed to share information between one another. However, with so much consolidation between betting companies in the UK I would suggest mixing it up to protect yourself. “Liquidity” refers to the amount of available money on the Exchange (e.g. Betfair) to place your Lay bet.

To do that, you simply repeat the process, covering all outcomes on another event, but this time using your free bet. Take a look at the table below where we place our £10 free bet on heads, then a £5 bet on tails to guarantee a profit no matter 1xbet casino the outcome. ‘ overview answers some common questions about matched betting if you’re entirely new to the idea.

The risk is low and it’s a completely legal way of making free money. Matched betting is one of the most unique strategies in the iGaming space. For players, it offers a legitimate way to earn risk-free profits by leveraging bookmaker promotions. For operators, it’s a challenge that highlights the importance of sophisticated bonus management and AI-powered retention strategies. For every individual who profits from no-risk matched betting, another ‘mug punter’ will waste free bets. Your liability refers to the amount of money you’ll need in your betting exchange to cover your lay bet.

Find the same betting market that you used for your qualifying bet and “lay” it. This means that you win here if your original qualifying bet loses. The important part of this step is to find a good bet for matched betting. Some rely on third-party sites like Oddsmatcher, while others do it manually. Essentially, you want a good bet for arbitrage to minimize risks. If you’re not sure what that means, proceed to the next step where we’ll explain everything.

Matched Betting is not a scam and is recognised as the most effective way of making money online in the UK. It’s been featured in many national publications (Guardian, Telegraph and Calvin Ayre). Of course, the more time you can put in – both to learning and doing – the more you’ll get out of it.

2) The Free bet wins.Your Bookmaker account wins money without you placing any stake yourself, but your Lay bet loses. However, the risk free bet winnings outweigh the losses made from the Lay, and you’re up overall. Smaller bookies may have more ability (or inclination) to monitor individuals. In general, if you avoid close matches, the only other way Bookies can detect you’re matched betting is if you have a history of betting using only free bets.

Once we describe the mechanics of how it works, it will all make perfect sense. By lowering your stake and placing a bet on the reverse side of the same outcome, you can protect against all events and prepare to generate profits from free wagers. This balanced technique is vital to succeed in matched betting because it helps bettors use promotions from bookmakers. To recap, matched betting is a betting system that involves placing bets on all possible outcomes of a sporting event, thus eliminating any potential risks and guaranteeing a profit. It has become increasingly popular in esports and is a great way for fans to make money from their passion. Matched betting can be as hands-on or as casual as you want it to be.

Backing bets are placing a wager on a particular outcome occurring. For instance, backing a Steelers win during the NFL season means you think they will win the next game. A lay bet is a wager for any other outcome than the backing bet. So, in this case, a bettor laying the original bet would be betting on anything other than a Steelers win.

You need to make opposite bets to cover every potential result. In contrast to a back bet, you place your money on an outcome that will not occur. At betting exchanges, you place lay bets, which allow you to act like the bookmaker. You place a bet on their losing if you choose an alternative football team. There is no point me pulling the wool over your eyes like other matched betting blogs, here in matched betting explained, I will lay out the truth. The more cash you have, the more bets you can place at the same time, meaning the more profit you can make.

I’ll emphasise now that matched betting is not about taking risks or punts. It’s about using simple maths (no manual calculations needed!) to make a consistent profit from each offer you claim. To be able to lay your back bets, you will need to have a betting exchange account. Once you’ve got everything ready, it’s time to start carefully researching and choosing appropriate matched bets. The idea of Matched Betting is that it’s a safe free bet, so you can’t lose. At the beginning the idea is to break even in order to unlock free cash bonuses, however, after this the aim is to back your bets on two different sites in order to gain profit.

When it comes to making £1,000 profit every month (or there about) there’s no real secret. If you can dedicate around 30 minutes of your time every day to matched betting you will be able to make a healthy amount every month. This is made easier with the use of a matched betting service, that sources all the opportunities for you and helps to maximise profits (I use Oddsmonkey). You now choose the betting exchange again and find lay odds of 6.1 for horse A to win, with 5% commission. Our calculations state that you need to stake £24.79, which will leave you with a liability of £126.43. In order to qualify for the £30 bet, you need to deposit and wager £10 first.

In the past you were even able to get the free bet back with your winnings, but this is less common now. You can still make a tidy profit without it if you know what you’re doing. To take an example, William Hill offers a free bet of £25 after you’ve placed a bet of £10 with your own money. Then a tenner will win you £30, which is your stake plus £20. If Germany were to lose or draw then the bookie would keep your £10. If you were to do this without accessing a free bet afterwards it would be pointless, because your initial bet and matched bet would be cancelled out.