"Make free money!" they said... Something that triggers both my interest and scepticism. It was a concept that I had never heard of: Matched betting. I have never been that much into betting, but when this crossed my path I was living in Ireland and the betting shops were pretty present in the streets. I sometimes overheard coworkers brag about a game that they won big money on. So maybe this was interesting after all... And so I started my research and experiment.
Matched betting is the strategic way of placing opposing bets with both bookies and betting exchanges in a way that guarantees you a profit. The nice thing is that you don't need to know anything about the sports that you are betting on. Not knowing a thing might even work in your favour so you can go in unbiased! The idea is that you take advantage of promotional free bets by putting in that free bet and hedging all the possible outcomes at the exchange with matching odds and money (back and lay bets). That way you have yourself covered for the bet, and you get a big portion of the free bet's money returned.
To get myself started, I read some guides at the Matched Betting Blog, subscribed at 2 bookmakers (with the new customer offers at the blog) and 1 exchange and put some money in my accounts. Placing the first bets, I have to be honest, was pretty nerve wracking. But after the first few soccer matches it became clear that it worked. I made a profit!
After some time and practice I found that I mostly played with the Betfair and Smarkets exchanges. The bookmakers that I used did depend on the promotions that they offered and the odds they had. Some just weren't that lucrative to start with! After a while, I couldn't live without the OddsMonkey's Oddsmatching tool that collected all the odds and did the math for me. It was just a matter of searching the tables and jump in as soon as the odds started matching.
Did it work?
Well, initially it did work really well! It wasn't a get rich quick scheme, but I have made a few bucks. If you read about it they say you could make up to around €500 per month. I didn't reach that amount, but I can see that it is doable. And besides the money.... it was also quite rewarding to "beat the bookies". However, after the initial new customer free bet offerings, it became harder to find the right promotions to use and to learn new advanced strategies to work around that.
Where did it go wrong then?
At some point there was this bookie that didn't like what I was doing, and they restricted my account to a €1 maximum bet each time. In the mean time, I still had to make around €250 worth of bets to free my money for withdrawal. You can imagine that this was frustrating and did also cost a lot of time. Eventually it worked out, though.
After some time, I had a few accounts limited on me, and at that time the free bets had too many conditions. Everything just became too much of an effort with the risk of accounts being shut down, so I decided to quit , withdraw the money and try something else.
So can it work for you?
It could, but just promise me not to try this if you have an addictive personality, or just like betting too much (or are slightly greedy). I have heard many stories of people thinking a 1:100 bet on the exchange couldn't loose and they ended up nearly bankrupt after paying all the winners their money. Rule number one: follow the rules of matched betting despite the lucrative odds and nobody gets hurt!
Also, do your research. Next to the earlier mentioned blog, I personally like the Matched Betting Collection because it shares a lot of great strategies.
Don't jump in head first and create accounts with all the bookies at the same time. Learn the game and make some profit before you grow your "business". Be aware that you have to put in some money in every account and it will take some time to be able to withdraw again. With too many accounts, this could become complicated.
And last but not least. Don't be me! Make sure you spend some time making many extra bets so the bookies don't restrict your account thinking you are someone taking advantage of just the promotions. Don't get gubbed!