Matched Betting - How Online Bookmakers Give You Free Money

This is your simple guide to Matched Betting, an easy way to make a small additional income and a possible (more difficult and complex) way to make a substantial second or even primary income. Matched betting is a great way to profit from the massive number of online betting promotions. This is not gambling, if you're gambling, STOP, you're doing it wrong. In matched betting we profit from the greed of the online gambling industry without risking any of our own money

Spain - Chile - 10-09-2013 - Geneva - Gary Medel and Andres Iniesta

Spain - Chile - 10-09-2013 - Geneva - Gary Medel and Andres Iniesta via Wikimedia Commons

The concept is simple, you bet on two outcomes of a sporting event e.g. Win & Not Win (note that I don't say win and lose). The online bookmakers have numerous offers, new ones appear every day, to entice the unwary into risking, and losing, their money. We take these offers as pure profit without risking a single penny, because we cover all of the possible outcomes.

IS IT LEAGAL?

Yes, it is absolutely legal, provided of course that online gambling is legal in the location that you live. If it is legal to place 1 bet, it is perfectly legal to place 2 bets. There have been numerous articles in British papers (The Guardian etc) and online to recommend this practice. There are many publications and websites that are aimed at students in particular that encourage them to do matched betting as a way of improving their finances.

DOES IT REALLY WORK?

I have read of people earning thousands and giving up work to do matched betting full time. I am not one of these people and I never will be, however I have earned a nice additional income from this over the past year. The reason that Matched Betting works is that Online Bookmakers need to keep people betting and so they continually offer bonuses, free bets or whatever else they can think of to people to keep on gambling. Those offers are where we take our profit. It's pretty much like any other business promotion, but this one offers those wise enough a nice little earner. For those who are into the various mechanisms of betting or are interested in learning the way things work, this can be very profitable indeed.

This is an example of a good month, even though I made a couple of mistakes that cost me; yes it definitely works.

WHAT DO I NEED TO BEGIN MATCHED BETTING

Primarily you need to have an account with a "BETTING EXCHANGE" like Smarkets or Betfair and accounts at various different online bookmakers. I would however suggest that anyone wanting to try their hand at this also join a Matched Betting website, the better sites offer numerous essential services like: Detailed Tutorials, Odds Matching Software, Lists of Offers and Bet Matching Calculators. These services cost under £20 GBP per month and simplify the process greatly. I would go so far as to say that these services are the only realistic way to make the whole process accessible for "the man on the street". I personally use one of these services and could not have turned a profit without their help.

THE PROCESS

The process is very simple in its basic form and is very profitable for a little effort.

· A participant selects an offer from an online bookmaker, for example: "Place a £10 bet, get a £10 free bet".

· He or she then checks for a suitable qualifying bet on their odds matcher and calculates the bets to give a negligible loss or profit (see the spreadsheet and calculator images).

· After signing up for the Online Bookmaker and Exchange indicated in the Odds Matcher they place both the Back and the Lay bets.

· The first half of the process is complete, now it is just a matter of waiting for the event to finish and then collect your free bet.

· Follow the same process a second time, but this time use the bookmaker's money to bet with, the process is now over and a sizable portion (dependent upon odds) of the free bet is now your tax free profit.

Odds Calculators showing what to bet in the example shown above. Both initial qualifying bet and follow up free bet and the outcome. That's either £8.11 or £8.13 of free money. Whoever wins the game you always win.

I know that this sounds to good to be true, but it is both simple (with the aid of a Matched Betting service) and profitable at this level. There are other forms of bets that can be placed that involve multiples and other such things, but that is for someone who has a little more experience of the process.

TERMINOLOGY

Online Bookmaker: One of the various companies that will allow you to bet on an event of one type (sport, TV game shows, politics) or another online. Here you place a Back Bet.

Betting Exchange: A Website that offers you the opportunity to bet against a gambler (or several) that an event will not happen. This is called a Lay Bet.

Back Bet: To place a bet that something will occur. Example: Team No1 will win tonight's football match.

Lay Bet: To place a bet against something happening, in this you take the role of the bookmaker. Example: Team No1 WILL NOT win tonight's football match (not that Team No2 will win).

Qualifying Bet: A bet placed in order to access a free bet offer.

Odds Matcher: A program that shows sporting events that have similar odds for both back and lay bets.

Odds Calculator: A program that tells you exactly how much to place on a lay bet in order to cover a back bet with no loss and predicts the outcome prior to the bet being placed.