Make Risk-free Money through Matched Betting -

When I mention that you can make money through a method called Matched Betting to people who have never heard of it, they always get suspicious and automatically turn their bullshit siren on. And when I tell them that it’s 100% risk-free, they turn off completely. They nod along and swiftly change the subject when I’m done.

And rightly so. The idea of making tax-free guaranteed money without much effort sounds too good to be true. Especially if the method includes the word ‘betting’ in it.

Although it was my brother who had first told me about matched betting, I dismissed it. In fact, I actually thought he was being scammed or getting pulled into gambling. So I tried to persuade him to stop.

But here’s the thing, matched betting does not involve gambling. And it’s not a scam nor some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. It’s just a method based on simple maths. The idea behind which is to take advantage of promotional offers that betting companies offer.

In this post, I explain exactly what matched betting is, how it works and how you can get started. Sound good? Let’s begin.

What is Matched-Betting?

In the betting industry, bookmakers use welcome offers to attract new customers, and existing customer offers to keep customers.

People who don’t know about matched betting use these offers to gamble and always lose. But you don’t have to. You can use matched betting to make a guaranteed profit from these offers.

You won’t get rich doing it but you can make decent money in a short space of time. And the best part? It’s easy and you can start with little money.

Before we go through an in-depth example, let’s look at the different types of promotional offers that bookmakers offer.

Welcome offer

Welcome offers come in two forms: a free bet or a bonus. In either case, you would need to place a qualifying bet, an initial bet after registering with a bookmaker.

Of course, at this stage, there is the risk of losing your initial stake. Don’t worry, though, you can easily eliminate this risk. The goal at this stage is to break even, to neither make a profit or a loss but to qualify for the offer in question – and then to profit from the welcome offer.

Free Bet

Free bet offers are the most popular and come in two types: Stake Returned (SR) and Stake Not Returned (SNR).

Stake Returned free bet. This kind of offer is the best for a logical reason: you get to keep the value of a free bet in the event of you winning. A bet of £25 at odds of 2.0, for instance, would return £50 (SR free bet of £25 plus the £25 profit) instead of just £25 profit.
Stake Not Returned. Unlike the SR free bet, you don’t get to keep the value of the free bet. So an SNR free bet of £25 at odds of 2.0 would return just return the £25 profit instead. Almost all bookmakers offer SNR free bet, but we can still extract up to 80% in profit.

Bonus

Some bookmakers offer a bonus for joining instead. You can still extract profit from bonus offers but it’s more time-consuming because they have wagering requirements. This basically means that you have to place a specific number of bets — which differs for different bookmakers — to be able to withdraw any money.

Example of a welcome offer

Here, for instance, Ladbrokes has a welcome offer in the form of £50 free bet:

This is an SNR free bet offer, so it doesn’t have a wagering requirement — perfect for a beginner. I would recommend starting with SNR free bets first then bonus welcome offers.

To qualify for this £50 free bet, of which you can extract up to £40 in pure profit, you have to place an initial bet of equivalent value. The process is straightforward: sign up to Ladbrokes, enter the ‘F50’ promo code and place your first bet.

But before you place your first bet, read and understand their terms and condition. Here’s a chunk of Ladbrokes’ terms and conditions:

The terms and conditions are quite long but I would highly recommend giving it a read. Here are the things you must do, though:

Enter the ‘F50’ promo code before placing your first bet.
Deposit £50 using a Debit card.
Bet at odds of 1.5 or greater on your first after registration.
Place your first bet within 14 days of signing up.
Use your free bet within 4 days after it has been issued.

Betting exchange

A betting exchange is a marketplace where bettors bet against each other and is the key that makes Matched Betting risk-free – exchanges such as Betfair Exchange gives you the ability not only to back an outcome but also to lay, to bet against an outcome in an event.

In essence, the invention of the betting exchange has given bettors the power of taking bets, previously at the disposal of only bookmakers. In the context of Matched Betting, you can use a betting exchange to eliminate the risk of losing at a bookmaker and guarantee a profit from promotional offers.

If so far, you found it difficult to follow along, then I would recommend trying Profit Maximiser – they have how-to video tutorials on all new and existing customers offers on the market. It’s how my brother and I learned the nuances of Matched Betting.

Example

Let’s go through an example to consolidate your understanding of Matched Betting so that you can start making money.

The qualifying bet: Crystal Palace Vs Watford

To qualify for Ladbrokes’ £50 SNR free bet, you need to place an initial bet of £50 at odds of 1.5 or higher:

Let’s suppose you want to back Crystal Palace – at this stage, select the outcome with the lowest odds but above a bookmaker’s minimum odds.

A Crystal Palace win would give you a profit of £65.00 ((2.30*50) – £50.00) at Ladbrokes. A draw or a Watford win, however, would mean losing your £50.00 initial bet stake.

But you can mitigate this risk by laying your selection at Betfair Exchange:

To work out exactly how much to lay, I headed over to OddsMonkey and used their free handy calculator. In this case, a lay bet of £48.94 against Crystal Palace at odds of 2.40 would eliminate the risk of losing your £50 qualifying bet stake at Ladbrokes.

Now if Crystal Palace loses or draw, you would lose £50 at Ladbrokes but win £48.94 at Betfair Exchange, £46.49 (£48.94 * 0.95) after their 5% fees on all winnings.

A Crystal Palace win, however, would mean winning £65 at Ladbrokes but losing £68.52 at Betfair Exchange.

Therefore, regardless of the result you would lose £3.52 but qualify for the £50 free bet. The loss in the qualifying stage can be minimised to zero by finding back and lay odds very close to each other, which happens close to the start of an event, from my experience.

The SNR free bet: West Brom Vs Man Utd

After qualifying, a £50 free bet, which you would have to use within 4 days, would be credited to your account. To maximise the amount you can extract from the free bet, find an event with some high odds:

As you can see, West Brom winning is very unlikely, as indicated by the higher odds. In this case, you have to back West Brom using your free bet. If West Brom then goes on to win, you would win £275 (£325 – £50) but if it doesn’t you would have wasted your free bet.

In order not throw away your hard worked for free bet, you would have to lay your selection at similar odds at Betfair Exchange:

A lay bet of £40.74 at odds of 6.8 would guarantee a profit. A draw or a Man Utd win would now mean losing your free bet at Ladbrokes, but winning £38.70 (£40.74*0.95) after fees at Betfair Exchange.

If, however, West Brom wins you would profit £275 at Ladbrokes but lose £236.29 at Betfair Exchange, meaning a £38.70 profit.

Therefore regardless of what happens, and after accounting for the loss of £3.52 at the qualifying stage, you would be left with a £38.70 pure profit. Not bad for the amount of work involved.

Conclusion

I did Matched-Betting back in 2014 straight out of university and made good money from all the welcome offers, including existing customer offers. And despite bookmakers making it more difficult over the years, you can still make some decent profit.

The regular offers make Matched Betting a possible source of consistent income, but would mean concealing your identity as a matched bettor. Bookmakers don’t like people who use arbitrage and would ban you as soon as they find out.

The risk of bookmakers banning you will always there, especially as bookmakers are notoriously good at identifying matched bettors. This makes the possibility of making consistent profits challenging and Matched Betting as an unreliable and undependable long-term source of income.

Therefore, I think Matched Betting is a good way to make a sum of money. If this interests you, I would advise taking advantage of each and every welcome offer on the market.

What next?

Matched Betting is a great a way to make some extra money initially. But I don’t think it’s a sustainable way to make money in the long-run. If you’ve used up all of your welcome offers and have made some capital, why not consider other business models such as selling on Amazon. Check out the following articles to find out the many different ways you can start selling on online.

Make Risk-free Money through Matched Betting