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Make Money from Matched Betting – Beginner’s Guide

Earning money online is always a huge topic up for discussion, with many people swearing by their method of bringing in a little extra cash every month. From surveys, Swagbucks and online teaching it all gets debated. However, one thing that is always on that list, is matched betting. 

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What is Matched Betting?

Over recent years, matched betting has exploded, and has become of the most popular ways to earn money online. Quite often, the word betting scares people away, but thankfully it doesn’t involve gambling away your money, and if done properly is a guaranteed profit every time

Matched Betting is a clever system, using bookmakers offers such as new customer offers and bonus offers to make a profit. Your money is never at risk, covering all outcomes of a bet, earning you a tidy profit at the end of it. 

Matched Betting is mostly done online, although there are some in-store offers that you can take advantage of once you become more experienced. Bookmakers love new customers, so offer free bets to anyone that signs up, bookies like Coral, William Hill and Ladbrokes all have year-long offers that you can take advantage of to start your matched betting journey.

It’s easy to get started and fortunately, you don’t need to have a massive bankroll to begin. Many people begin with only £25, although the more you have to start with the quicker you will roll in the profits. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWNFR3FyBDQ&feature=emb_logo

Jargon Buster

Before we get started, it’s probably best if you know what we are talking about. Matched Betting is full of terms that you probably won’t be familiar with, so it’s best to find out some of the key terms before you continue reading. 

  • Back Bet – this is just like a normal sports bet. You choose the outcome of a game, so if it was Scotland vs England, you would choose England to win, and that’s your back bet. 
  • Lay Bet – this is a bet that you place which contradicts the back bet you have already placed. So, if we placed England to win against Scotland, our Lay Bet would be for Scotland to win against England. 
  • Free Bets – these are bets that you have gained through bookmakers by fulfilling certain requirements. For example, bet £10 get £20 in free bets. 
  • Trigger Bets – these are sets of instructions programmed into a system which mean you don’t need to be there placing bets, saving you time and money. 
  • Mugging – quite often bookmakers will shut down accounts that don’t lose any money, or win too much, because they aren’t making a profit from it. Mugging is the term used to describe putting on bets that don’t have any bonuses attached to them, making them look more like a normal betting account. 
  • Arbs – Arbitrage betting, another form of risk-free betting and something we will discuss later. Until then, all you need to know if that it is risk free, tax free, and just as lucrative as matched betting. 
  • Wagering – this is the amount of money you must spend to get access to funds. For example, you have a £10 bonus which must be wagered which means you must meet the wagering requirements of that specific offer. 
  • Stake Returned – you’ll see this throughout your training on matched betting. It’s simply a term that means once your bets win, you will receive the amount of stake back. So, for example, you stake £1, to win a £15 bet, you will receive £16 back. 
  • Stake Not Returned – again, another term you will become familiar with. This means that should you place a bet and win; the stake isn’t given back to you. This is common when using free bets instead of real cash. 

How Matched Betting Works 

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A Popular Free Bet offer from Coral

We’ve already mentioned that you will never lose a bet because you cover all the possible outcomes within the bet that you’re placing. So how does that work?

Sometimes it’s hard, especially as a beginner to get your head around all the terminology and the small details, it can be tough to visualise it. That’s why we will use an example, just to make things a little easier. To explain exactly how matched betting works we will discuss the Coral Bet £5 get £20 in Free Bets offer. 

What is a Betting Exchange

A betting exchange is another term that you will soon become familiar with over your matched betting journey. In simple terms, it’s a site that allows you to put bets on for any outcome of a bet and when we do Matched Betting we typically use Betfair Exchange. It is very similar to a normal bookmaker, just with a few subtle differences. A betting exchange is based on people buying and selling the outcome of games, usually, it’s you vs bookmaker, here it’s you vs someone else placing the opposite of what you have. An essential thing to remember when matched betting with a betting exchange is that the exchange will take a percentage away from your profit, so this is something you need to keep in mind when choosing your bet.  

Firstly, it’s important to always read the small print when signing up to new offers. Many of them require you to be a new customer, meaning you can’t already have an account and then sign up for a new one, they just won’t let it happen. So, before you deposit any money, do your reading. 

Signing up for an account and depositing money doesn’t always give you free access to the bets, quite often you need to bet a required amount before getting your free bets. Just like the examples we have used, you must place your £5 on a bet, allow the bet to finish and then you’ll receive your free bets. 

This is what we call a Qualifying Bet. 

What is a Qualifying Bet

Just a 4p Qualifying Loss!

So, let’s say you’ve chosen a Scotland vs England Match and you want to get your free bets. You have placed your £5 deposit on Scotland to win. You’ve placed your £5 bet (this is your back bet), but you don’t want to lose that £5, because let’s be honest, Scotland definitely wouldn’t be winning that game. Your next step is to use the Betfair betting exchange to place a bet on Scotland not to win (this is your lay bet), making sure that your profits from the bookmaker and the exchange are roughly the same, that way you can make a small profit. To make sure that you’re on the right track, we recommend that you use a matched betting calculator. 

So, Scotland vs England game has finished, and you’re not surprised to see that Scotland lost. Checking your accounts, you’ll notice that your bookmaker account has lost but your exchange account has won, meaning you haven’t lost any money and you’ve managed to bag that £20 in free bets from your bookmaker. Easy, right?

Okay, so it may take a little practice and experience before you can do this seamlessly but it’s a relatively easy process to get to grips with, it’s like riding a bike, once you’ve learned how to do it, you’ll never forget it. 

What is a free bet

What is a free bet
£17 profit! Lovely!

Well, you’ve now got your £20 in free bets to use to make the real profit. This £20 is most likely going to come as 4 X £5 bets, so to maximise your potential profit you’ll be placing 4 separate bets on 4 different games. 

We will discuss the process for one of these £5 bets, and you simply need to rinse and repeat that process for the other 4. 

Let’s say you’ve now seen that Crystal Palace are playing Manchester City and you want to use your £5 free bet on this. You think that Manchester City will win so you place your free £5 bet on that outcome. 

Again, we don’t want to just lose out on that if the outcome doesn’t go the way you want. So, we need to head back over to the betting exchange and put a bet on Manchester City not to win. You’ll have to use your own funds to place the lay bet, again making sure to use a matched betting calculator to get a nice profit margin. 

Once the bet settles, you’ll see that you will have won either one of the two bets. The better news is that this time, because you used a free bet, you’ll have a bigger profit. 

All you have to do now is to use this process for the other two bets, meaning that by the end of it you’re likely to see a profit of around £17 from the four free bets, all for a few minutes work. 

Is Matched Betting A Scam?

The simple answer to this is no. No, matched betting is not a scam, it is a completely legitimate way of earning extra income from completing online bookmaker offers. There are companies out there who offer help, and we will come onto these later however you can do this yourself with the right tools. 

It’s important to remember, that just with everything, you need to do your own research however with thousands of people cashing in on matched betting every day, a scam is the last thing that matched betting could be. 

What does it mean Risk-Free?

This is a term you are likely to hear quite a lot, not only by matched betting companies but also by people involved in forum discussions online. It’s simply a term used to describe the way in which we get access to free bets from bookmaker offers. By following the guides on here as well as matched betting company sites you’ll gain access to risk-free offers meaning you’ll always have a profit at the end of it. 

Is Matched Betting Legal? 

A totally tax-free, easy, online method of earning money sounds too good to be true, and we are often told to avoid things that are too good to be true. However, matched betting is completely legitimate and a legal way of filling your wallet. 

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when completing matched betting however. Many sites require that you have a UK address, signing up with anything other than that can see your account shut down and you’ll lose all your profits that you managed to grab. Also, the legal age of gambling in the UK is 18, meaning you have to be 18 or over before you can start matched betting. Many bookmakers require some form of identification when signing up or withdrawing cash from their site in order to comply with UK law so don’t get surprised if you sometimes get asked for a scan of your driving license when you first sign up with some bookies. This is known as Know Your Customer (KYC) and is there to protect you by stopping underage people signing up to betting websites and to stop fraudulent accounts being made.

Do I Need to Understand Sports or Betting to do Matched Betting?

Understand Sports or Betting to do matched betting?

Absolutely not. If you can follow the process outlined above, then you’ll be in a good position. Knowing about the sport or exactly what you’re betting on won’t make a difference. Matched Betting is all about the maths, and using the tools such as the matched betting calculator means that all you have to do is type the numbers in and make sure it matches up to what you have on your accounts, that’s it. 

Practically anyone can learn how to make money with matched betting, that is why it is so popular, and thousands of people are bringing in a chunk of extra cash every month. On the plus side, if you’re new to matched betting, the chances are that you don’t have any, or very little active betting accounts, meaning you can really take advantage of the new customer offers that bookmakers have on offer, as opposed to people who bet on a regular basis who may already have several accounts. 

Do I Need to Declare This to HMRC?

Another great aspect of matched betting is that it is totally tax free. This doesn’t sound too important when you’re just starting out and winning £20 a day, but once you reach the tastier offers and start making £100’s a day, it’s nice to know you won’t have to give any of it to the tax man. 

The reason for this? Because it’s winnings, not an income. Winnings are tax free, so whether it’s the lottery, a competition or matched betting, anything that you win, is yours to keep. Just another reason why so many people flock to matched betting instead of other online income streams. 

Does Matched Betting Impact Your Credit Rating?

No, it doesn’t. Matched betting won’t have any impact on your credit score, as many credit report companies have explicitly said that they don’t record betting transactions. A credit report is there to check your ability to pay something back it isn’t there to judge your spending habits.

As to be expected, you’ll be required to sign up to many bookmaker sites, and some of these sites do soft searches of your credit score, usually just to find out if you’re really who you say you are. Thankfully these searches don’t sit on your record, so no-one can see them. 

The only other thing to mention here is that matched betting should be done with funds that you have readily available to you, your disposable income. Don’t use credit cards or other forms of credit to fund a gambling habit, or to chase loses, that’s how you get into debt, exactly the opposite from what you’re trying to achieve. Be sensible, and if you find that you’re losing money, go back to the start and make sure to follow the guide exactly how it says. 

Will Matched Betting Affect My Chances of Getting a Mortgage?

Again, another simple no. You won’t be declined a mortgage solely because you participate in matched betting. However, as mortgage lenders look at bank statements, they may question the multiple bookmaker transactions on your statements. 

The best idea if you’re serious about matched betting is to open a new bank account to be solely for your matched betting accounts so that your regular bank account doesn’t get swarmed with betting transactions. Opening a bank account however may seem a little extreme so in case you don’t want to do that, one of the more popular options is to use an online wallet to keep your matched betting funds in. PayPal and Skrill are some of the easiest ones to sign up to, and you can use these to keep track of your incomings and outgoings to bookmakers. 

How Much Money Do You Need to Get Started with Matched Betting

Getting started with matched betting doesn’t need to cost an arm and a leg. In many cases you can get started with as little as £25, however, this may mean that it takes longer to build up a decent bankroll. It’s therefore recommended that you start with around £50-60, making it easier and quicker for you to power those sign up/new customer bonuses before moving onto the better offers. 

As with anything that involves money, you need to be disciplined, especially as it is possible to make mistakes that can cost you a chunk of your bankroll. Don’t rush into placing all your bets at once, especially if you’re brand new to matched betting, take your time, learn the tips and tricks and you’ll make the most of your profit. 

Can I do Matched Betting if I’m not very good with technology!

You don’t have to be a techno wizard to make money with matched betting. It does help however if you have a basic understanding of how to browse the web and interact with different tabs, but this is something that anyone can learn with a little bit of time and patience. 

To get started, you ideally would have a laptop or a PC, however it is possible to use a phone or tablet if that’s all you have. You must also have an internet connection, and a reliable one at that. You’re likely to be browsing several web pages at once, and the last thing that you want is your internet connection to drop mid bet and lose the chance to bag a profit. 

It’s also recommended that you get yourself an email address solely for the purpose of matched betting. You’ll get tonnes of emails from different bookmakers almost every day, so if you don’t want your personal email address to become clogged, just set up a new one. Just make sure that you use the correct email address when signing up to the bookmaker sites. 

I’m not in the UK, Can I Still Do Matched Betting?

Matched Betting is focused on the UK market and UK residents. Many of the bookmaker sites that are available to UK residents are not available out with the country. However, this isn’t a be-all and end-all. 

If you’re outside of the UK and want to get involved with matched betting you can. However, you must check the small print when signing up to bookmaker sites, as some sites will shut your account down or won’t let you open one if you are not a UK resident. 

Why do I need to pay for a Matched Betting company?

You can always get started matched betting on your own. There are plenty of forums and online resources available if you feel confident enough to learn on your own with plenty of research. However, the most popular and probably the most profitable way of matched betting is to join a matched betting company. There are several companies out there that will show you the ropes and guide you through placing a bet and show you how you can make the most profit possible. These companies do charge a fee however with the amount of profit available to make, you would hardly notice it each month. Let’s take a look at a couple of these companies in more detail:

Profit Accumulator

Profit Accumulator Matched Betting

Profit Accumulator is one of the founders when it comes matched betting and with thousands of happy customers, it’s no wonder why it’s one of the most popular matched betting company in the UK.

You can get started for FREE with their free trial, giving you access to their renowned training system which gives you step-by-step guides on how to make your first £40 with matched betting. 

The training system provides in-depth video tutorials which can help even the most nervous of matched bettors. They also have tonnes of offers available to customers, which they say is more than any other matched betting company. 

However, all of the goodies mentioned above isn’t available to free trial customers, so it’s vital that you sign up to the site in order to make the most out of the offers available. Prices start at £24.99 a month or £180 a year which is the best value for money. 

Profit Accumulator has come a long way since its conception, now offering an on-the-go app that means you can take your matched betting anywhere with you. 

On top of this Profit Accumulator has also released Bonus Accumulator which focuses more on slot / casino offers and brings over £3000+ of sign up offers alone!

If you want to find out more about Profit Accumulator we have a detailed review of them here on our blog.

Profit Accumulator Special Offer – £76 OFF!

The Money Shed and Profit Accumulator have teamed up to offer you the ability to get their Premium Membership at a discounted rate knocking £76 off your yearly price! To take advantage simply Join here.

OddsMonkey

Oddsmonkey Matched Betting

Another popular option for people looking to get started with matched betting. OddsMonkey, probably most well-known for its odds calculator, has a host of options to guide new users to reaching their money goals. 

A FREE trial for new users means you can get to grips with the Oddsmonkey system before making a monthly or yearly commitment. Much like other services, Oddsmonkey charge £17.99 a month or £150 for the year, again making it cheaper to pay yearly. 

Oddsmonkey pride themselves as having the best matched betting software in the UK, some people even pay for Oddsmonkey just to use their matched betting calculator, never mind all of the training they have on offer. 

Oddsmonkey holds your hand through the training process, giving detail guides and step-by-step processes to make your first profits. Moving on, Oddsmonkey have a detailed calendar with all the upcoming offers, meaning you’ll never miss a good offer again.

We have a details review on OddsMonkey and all that it offers which you can read here on our blog.

Why is it Important to Use a Matched Betting Company?

This question is one that always crops up amongst newbies, after all, no-one wants to be spending £150 straight away if they don’t know how much profit they are going to make. 

However, using a matched betting company is one of the smartest and easiest ways to make profits. Everything is handed to you, they do the work, you copy what they say, and you rake in the profits, it’s really that simple. You get constant updates on new offers and ways to make money, you’ll never be without a money-making opportunity. Alongside this, customer service support is available 7 days a week, so even if you find yourself stuck there will always be someone on hand to help get you back on the right tracks. 

Now, can you imagine going solo? Starting yourself and having to find all of your own bets? It just seems a little too much work when you can have it all spoon-fed to you. 

Do Matched Betting Companies run any Special Offers?

Getting a bargain is always a great feeling, so getting a bargain whilst earning even more money is like gold dust. We’ve discussed the free trials that you can take advantage of when starting your matched betting journey. However, these free trials don’t last forever, and you will soon find yourself struggling to make the money that you wanted. 

Thankfully, matched betting companies quite often like to be generous. Both Profit Accumulator and Oddsmonkey regularly offer £1 for 7 days premium membership. That means you get full member access for 7 days for only £1. That’s access to all of the training, all of the offers, all the tools, full member support and the rest of the premium benefits. 

It’s understandable that £17.99 a month may seem a little steep, especially if it’s something your brand new to. So, looking out for these £1 offers could be the most cost-effective way of raking in those profits. The chances are that once your 7-day offer is over, you will have enough to cover several months, perhaps even the yearly subscription to these sites. 

What are some of the common Matched Betting offers available?

Sign up Offers

Sign up Offers should be your bread and butter when it comes to the first few months of doing Matched Betting. With some paying as much as £50 for just a few minutes work and around £1000 up for grabs with all the sign up offers available it’s a fantastic way to get your bankroll up in size before moving on.

It’s always very easy to get distracted by ‘other offers’ at the start I found but keep our head in the game and work through all the sign ups and you can’t go wrong as not only does it take you through earning a great amount of money but it also exposes you to different offers types which will benefit you further down the track!

Reload Offers

Reload offers come in all shapes in sizes and should be started after you’ve finished all the betting sign up offers so that you have a good-sized bankroll to play with. The majority of which tend to be of the simple ‘Bet £10 get £30’ type. It’s easy to sidestep them as not worth your time however always remember that each reload offer only takes a few minutes to do and earning a good few quid for that time is well worth it. Especially come the end of the month when you add them all up!

2nd Place Horse Refund Offers

These simple horse refund offers should be a staple for your matched betting each and every weekend. You simply back and lay the chosen horse and hope it comes in second. Use tools like Match Catcher on Profit Accumulator or Racing Matcher on Oddsmonkey to keep your qualifying loss down to pence per race and you should be able to do a good handful of these each weekend and hopefully you will trigger a refund or two. You will mostly see this sort of offer with the likes of SkyBet, Ladbrokes, William Hill, Betfred, SportingBet etc.

Free Bet on Horses over 4.0 Offers

This offer was my first foray into Horses! You simply back and lay a horse (again, use the tools mentioned above to keep your qualifying loss to pence per offer!) and hope the horse wins the race. With this offer I would say don’t bet TOO far in advance as odds tend to drop as your horse needs to be at 4.0 or ABOVE at the time of the race. So it’s no good placing a bet on a horse than at 11am is at 5.0 and by 2pm when its race time has dropped to 3.8 as your bet won’t count.

Extra Place Horse Offer

I would look to personally only do Extra Place Horse Offers during the weekend. This is because I have found in the post the odds are far too high and varied during the week. Extra Place offers are when bookies will pay out on extra horses (generally on high profile races). So normally on a 20 horse race the bookies might pay out on the first 4 horses but on this occasion are paying out up to the 5th.

An each-way bet is 2 separate bets. You are betting on both the horse to win with one bet and a separate bet on the horse to be ‘placed’. You make money from these offers when the bookie is offering more places than the exchange is.

As I mentioned above it’s important to look at how many horses are running in the race to understand how many places are on offer.

  • 2-4 runners: 1st only 
  • 5-7 runners: 1st, 2nd 
  • 8+ runners: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
  • 16+ runner handicaps: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th

If your chosen horse wins, you would win both bets.

If the horse finished 2nd, 3rd or 4th, we would lose the ‘win’ part of our bet, but the ‘place’ bet that you also made would be a winner.

There are a number of ways we can do Extra Place Offers such as simply backing and laying or even betting multiple horses in the field with a handful of bookmakers. Oddsmonkey even have a fantastic Extra Place Matching tool to do all the hard work for you!

William Hill Golden Goal

The William Hill Golden Goal offer is much like the one above and once you’ve mastered it is very easy to do each week. If your backed team score but DON’T go on to win the match they will still pay out.

There are a number of ways you can approach this offer. You could just back and lay the team to win. If they score first and lose you would win at both WH AND the Exchange, else you would just lose your qualifying loss. You could also do the Guaranteed Profit Method which involves laying your team to score the first goal at the exchange by using the ‘Next Goal’ market. You would back your team as normal at the bookie side. Your lay odds will obviously be lower and you will make guaranteed profit.

william hill golden goal matched betting
Some easy profit to be made from the William Hill Golden Goal Offer!

Football Accumulator Offers

acca catcher matched betting
Profit Accumulator’s “Acca Catcher”

Football Accumulator Offers are a HUGE source of constant income. Many years ago I remember we used to use complicated spreadsheets to keep on top of them but now everything is done for you by either using Profit Accumulator’s Acca Catcher or Acca Finder with OddsMonkey.

Many bookies such as PaddyPower, Betfair etc will offer refunds if 1 leg of your Acca fails but the rest win. Using the Acca software we can easily see how much we need to lay and when to do it to make the most amount of money from these acca offers continuously. I tend to have around 4-5 accs running a week among a handful of different bookies and tend to hit at least 1 acca refund a week during the UK football season.

Virtual Horse Offers

Virtual Horse Offers really seem to be on the rise over the last year or so. You are unable to lay these bets off so it is best to just treat these offers as ‘Advantage Play’. One regular offer you will see tends to be the ‘Bet £50 on Virtual horses and get £10 free bet’. With these you are best off doing 10x£5 bets to help with variance. The free bet that you receive can be used on ‘normal’ sports and you would just lay it off as SNR.

2UP Football Offers

2UP Football offers are a HUGE source of revenue throughout the football season. Bet365 and PaddyPower are the bookies most well known for running this offer and it’s very easy to do.

You would place a bet at the bookmaker for Chelsea to beat Norwich City. If Chelsea takes a two-goal lead then the bookie will pay out early. If Norwich go on to make a comeback and the game ends with them winning or a draw then you have won at both the bookie AND the Exchange.

When the bookie pays out early it then results in you having an unmatched lay bet at the exchange side so you have two options at that point. You can either cashout on the exchange side or use one of the Early Payout Calculators available on Profit Accumulator or OddsMonkey to find other ways to deriving profit after the bookie has paid out for your chosen team going up by two goals.

In Play Football Offers

There is some great money to be made by doing in-play offers with the only downside is that you have to be around for when the match is taking place. The likes of BetFred / ToteSport tend to do quite a lot of in-play offers every weekend offering their Double Delight or Hat-trick Heaven deals. You simply place an in-play bet on the next goalscorer and lay it off as normal and if he goes on to score another goal you will get double winnings at the bookie end and triple winnings if he scores a hattrick.

Bet365 tend to offer the ‘Holy Grail’ of In Play football offers via it’s £50 free bet offer which requires you to place a prematch £50 bet before the game and then another £50 one during the match. This gives you an easy £35-£40 profit risk free so once you are signed out for them keep an eye out for emails they send to you around important football matches such as Champions League games.

2nd Chance Goalscorer Offers

This is an easy enough offer to do and unlike the one above can be placed before the game takes place. A variety of bookies offer this deal and you want to be placing your back bets on the 1st Goalscorer markets on players that tend to score a lot of goals (Ronaldo etc.) and then lay it off as normal. If your player scores 2nd you will receive either a free bet or cash with you can just withdraw straight away.

Bore Draw Offers

Bore Draw Offers are mostly seen on Bet365 however they also appear on Ladbrokes and William Hill. They are simple enough to do and only require you to place a back bet on the game-ending 0-0 that you would lay off as normal. It’s then just a case of waiting to see how the game ends up but you would honestly be surprised just how many English football games end 0-0 so if the qualifying loss is right it’s an offer worth doing on a few games each weekend.

Price Boosts

Price Boots are a fantastic source of income for anyone doing Matched Betting. While they do require you to be a bit ‘hot off the mark’ if you are around then price boosts come in they are a fantastic way to make some easy money, especially during racing festivals such as Cheltenham. A price boost is when the offers on a particular event get extended as part of some kind of promotion. This means that the difference between the back odds and the lay odds are further apart and you can simply back and lay and make instant profit. There are Price Boost threads to follow on the forums for both Profit Accumulator and OddsMonkey that you can subscribe to and get desktop notifications if people post one. They are very much money for nothing and so well worth doing!

Weekly Bet Clubs

Weekly Bet Clubs are often overlooked because they tend to only bring in around £5/£10 each and there is quite a lot of them so it can require a bit of discipline to get the free bet. They typically require you to place say £25 of bets each week to get a free £5 bet. Now if this is with a bookie you use a lot either through regular reloads or maybe you are using that bookie to run an Acca or two each week you will have already covered the requirement to gain the free bet so it’s just another cherry on top of using that bookie. To join in there is normally an ‘opt in‘ page and then after that just let the free bets roll in each week.

No Risk Slot Offers

No Risk Slot Offers usually come with a very slim chance of gaining any substantial amount of income but are worth doing. Typically you see them as ‘Refund all losses’ where the offer might be ‘Wager through £10 and get any losses back’. So with that you know no matter what you lose within that £10 you will get the money back. Personally, If I know that nothing is at risk I would do 10 x £1 spins and just hope of hitting something big.

Totally Free Spins Offers

Totally Free Spins Offers normally appears around big events or even seasonal ones. The likes of Betfair will usually do ‘5 free spins’ to celebrate literally anything happening in the sporting world. William Hill also does a lot as do the likes of BetVictor and BetWay. The only ‘catch’ is that more often than not there is wagering attached so if you win anything from your 5 free spins you may need to keep spinning the wheels to turn it from a bonus to ‘cash’. Remember though that you have nothing to lose with these. I remember once on Bet365 they gave out 20 free spins and I managed to last through wagering and took out £200 profit!

Low Risk Slot Offers

Low Risk Slot Offers typically will require you to put up anywhere from £5-£25 to take part in the office. Betfair Arcade and Ladbrokes tend to have new ones available each week and they are usually in the vain of ‘Wager £10 and get a £5 bonus’ My advice would be to start the offer doing 25p-50p spins when using the bonus and if you hit a bonus round early on to start upping your wager per spin. This is because a lot of these offers come with a 15-25x wagering requirement and the less you win during the initial part the better and it will require a lot less spinning to turn the bonus into cash.

High Risk Slot Offers

high risk slot offer matched betting
A £2000 slot win!

High Risk Slot Offers are something I would not consider doing until your bankroll is big enough to handle a substantial loss if you make it. They tend to come in two different flavours. Either straight-up ‘ Wager £500 to get a £30 bonus’ or the do what are called ladders where there are checkpoints you can hit as you wager. So Wager £100 to get £5 bonus, Wager £200 to get £10 bonus, Wager £500 to get £25 bonus’ etc. You can check out at any point but the idea of them is to keep you spinning as there is always a target to then reach before you get the next bonus. You typically see these offers with Betfair, PaddyPower and Gala Spins.

I didn’t start doing these until my Matched Betting bankroll was over £2000 so that I could absorb any losses (and trust me there WILL be losses) but you will also have monumental wins with my biggest being £2000+ from a £2 spin on Bonanza! My logic was that whatever I risked on these slot offers I could make back by then doing risk-free sports offers so I was sort of balancing everything out so to speak.

LIVE Casino Offers

Live Casino Offers tend to be very low risk I’ve found as they tend to want you to only put up around £5-£20. You are playing on LIVE casino tables and typically need to wager through playing BlackJack or Roulette. The bonuses that you get after qualifying for the offer will also require you to wager on the LIVE table so make sure you read about BlackJack strategy to understand when it is best to stand or twist. The advantage of doing LIVE casino offers is that nothing can go on ‘behind the scenes’ so to speak compared to if you play Arcade Blackjack where you are battling variance much more. Most of the big online betting companies offer LIVE Casino Offers so you can find chances to make money on the likes of Betfair, PaddyPower, Ladbrokes and 888Poker.

Bingo Offers

Bingo Offers are something that many skip over during the Sign Up Offers phase but are well worth doing and you should make a good few hundred from them. The tactic that Matched Betters use to take advantage of these ‘Deposit £10 get £20 free play’ offers is to deposit the initial £10 and then when they unlock the freeplay that will VERY QUICKLY go from room to room buying the highest amount of tickets they can and blasting through their freeplay in one big swoop. The advantage to this is that any winnings from those freeplays then go into ‘Cash’ rather than ‘Bonus’ so you need to be quick and you need to understand how the site works so you can spend your entire bonus across multiple bingo room lobbies.

How can you make even more money with Matched Betting during special occasions?

Bookmakers traditionally love massive sporting occasions such as the World Cup, The Grand National and what is without a doubt the richest 4 days of Matched Betting, The Cheltenham Festival. During those 4 days it’s not uncommon to make £600+ of tax-free cash just by taking part in all the offers available and we have a great guide showing 10 ways to earn extra money during Cheltenham.

On these sporting occasions bookmakers bring out new customer offers and a tonne of reload offers, to get people back into their site. That’s where matched betting comes in, and by using one of the matched betting companies you can get direct access to hundreds of offers that can make some people hundreds of pounds in the matter of a week or two. 

Keep an eye out for these times of the year as this is when you will make your most profit, and truly understand why people choose matched betting over anything else. 

How Much Money Can You Actually Make from Matched Betting

So, we’ve discussed pretty much everything possible about matched betting, but the age-old question is always, how much can I actually make?

Just as you might have guessed, there’s no right or wrong answer for this question as there are many variables which see people walking away with different amounts of money each month. Getting to grips with matched betting may mean that your profits take some time to build, so in the early days of your matched betting career you may not see much money coming in. 

However, keep pushing and completing more offers and you’ll soon begin to see improvements. Some people report average earnings of between £400-£800 a month, a nice bonus alongside your normal day job. Some people have also reported earnings of £1000+, and this is likely to be when the big sporting occasions have come around. 

It’s never recommended to put all of your eggs in the one basket, and this is true for matched betting too. Don’t rely on this being your only source of income, as although some people report large earnings, it may not be the same for you. However, dedicate time every day to completing welcome offers and reload offers and you could add a nice pay packet to your bank account each month. 

Is Matched Betting Actually Worth It?

Yes. But don’t just take our word for it. Matched Betting has hundreds of thousands of people earning a substantial amount of extra cash every month. Yes, it takes a bit of training, some research, time and dedication but after a while, you’ll be spending on average around 30-40 minutes a day locking in your profits. So, for a few hours work a week it can certainly help boost your income and help pay for those things you’ve always wanted. 

Do Bookmakers Know About Matched Betting?

Yes, they certainly do, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are happy about it. Bookies know full well that matched betting goes on, and they also know that it is a completely legitimate way for people to make money. 

There are no rules or laws that even half suggest that matched betting is wrong. The only issue that bookmakers have is that by using matched betting, you are depriving them of their profits: once a bookie has got you to sign up with one of their offers, they’re expecting that you will keep coming back. Sometimes you’ll win, and other times the bookie will win. If you’re only taking advantage of offers, then the bookie stands to make very little money out of you.

Of course, this doesn’t make matched betting wrong in any sense of the word. It is purely a frustration for the bookies. After all, they are all businesses and their aim is to make a profit out of people like you and me. 

Can a Bookmaker Tell If I Am Matched Betting?

No bookie can see what you are doing once you have placed your bet. They have no way of knowing that the second you have bet on their site, you’re then hurrying over to the exchange to lay that bet, meaning that you win no matter what the outcome. What they can see, however, are your betting habits on their site.

If you sign up, take advantage of the sign-up bonus, place your bet, then disappear until the next time that you are offered a bonus, you may well raise their suspicions. Bookies will offer you more bonuses, but in time they will realise that you only place a bet when these are on offer. 

Something else that can be a bit of a giveaway to bookmakers is the odds when you’re placing a bet. If every time you place a qualifying bet, you are seeking the lowest odds possible (which makes sense to minimise your qualifying loss), but then come the time you are placing your free bet, you go to the other extreme, alarm bells will ring. 

There is no one sat in an office constantly reviewing your account, but computer programmes know exactly what is going on and can flag your account for review. Once that happens, they do not need to confirm that you are matched betting (they certainly won’t ask you). Their suspicions will be enough. 

What Happens If the Bookmaker Realises That I am Matched Betting?

Firstly they’ll call the police and have you locked away for the longest time that is possible. After that, they will raid your bank account and recover every penny you’ve ever had from them. Okay, so that was a (poor) joke. As we’ve already said, there is nothing illegal about matched betting: it is a legitimate way for you to make some extra cash. 

Once a bookie suspects that you are matched betting, the worst that will happen is that you will have your account closed. This is frustrating, as you will miss out on other offers with that bookie, but it is by no means the end of the world: there are plenty of bookmakers out there.

How Can I Make Sure My Account Stays Open?

The simple answer is to make sure that you are not sending signals to the bookmaker that you are matched betting. “But how do I do that?” I hear you ask. All you need to be doing is placing occasional bets that aren’t part of an offer. 

If you have had a couple of good bonuses from a bookmaker, rather than just waiting for the next one to arrive, place a bet that won’t give you any free bets. This is what is known as a mug bet. “Surely that’s just gambling, and no longer risk-free.”, you may say. Not if you make sure that you do it properly. If you place a £5 bet on a sport of your choice, with no prospect of a free bet in return, just do as you always do in matched betting: head over to the exchange and lay the bet. 

By laying the bet, as we’ve seen, no matter what the outcome you’re going to win at one place and lose at the other. With no free bet on offer, you’re possibly going to come in at a loss. That loss will never be more than £1. It is certainly worth losing the occasional £1 to keep your account open and to keep getting new offers and bonuses. 

Does it Matter if I Lose One Account?

In the grand scheme of things no, but you should do all that you can to keep your accounts safe and active. Why? Because once you are through the sign-up offers, there are a whole host of other offers coming your way, and these are the key to making a consistent income from matched betting. 

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, and even when you’re placing mug bets, a bookie will have suspicions that you are matched betting and then close your account. While there are so many bookies out there, the reason to be careful is that some bookies are linked to others: losing your account with one could see you losing accounts with 2 or 3 others. Matched betting is not gambling: it is a business activity, and as with any business, you need to be protecting the areas that bring you money!

When an account is gone, it is pretty much gone for good. Having to provide ID to verify who you are, means that trying to reopen an account would be tricky. It may be possible when a number have years have gone by, and if you have happened to change your address in the meantime. Generally though, once a bookie has closed your account, it is best just to accept this, move on, and concentrate on protecting your others. 

Top Tips for being successful at Matched Betting over the long term 

being successful at Matched Betting

Matched Betting isn’t difficult, however, there are some steps that you need to complete to ensure that you make the most of the offers available to you. Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to ensure your matched betting success. 

Be Organised

Organisation is key. We already spoke about creating a new bank account or setting up an e-wallet. Doing so means that you will have everything neatly organised, not cluttering up one big account. It also means you can keep track of exactly your incomings and outgoings. Some people set up spreadsheets to keep track of the bets and profits they have made, it’s simple and only takes a few seconds every bet to update it. 

Plan Ahead

This goes hand in hand with organisation. It’s important to plan ahead, knowing exactly what you’re betting on for that day, getting everything set up and ready to go, so it’s just a matter of typing in the numbers and pressing a button. It can become overwhelming, especially in the beginning if you don’t find yourself a strategy to keep on top of offers. Things like creating an online diary to remind you of upcoming offers could help. 

Keep Track of Your Earnings

We’ve just discussed using a spreadsheet to keep track of your earnings; however, you can use more professional methods such as Matched Betting Tracker or Ultimatcher which is a more sophisticated spreadsheet to help keep track of your earnings. Of course, the matched betting companies such as Profit Accumulator and Oddsmonkey also offer similar tools to keep you on track. 

Don’t Lose Faith

It’s easy to do a few offers, miss a day or two then just never go back to it. The key with matched betting is consistency. Don’t think that when you’ve finished with the sign up offers then that’s you done. That’s actually when the real money-making opportunities arise, with reload offers and other bookmaker offers available every day. Be persistent, don’t give up too early. 

Don’t be afraid to be a Mug

Mug betting, where you place bets that don’t have a bonus attached to them are important to keep your account active. You should try and complete these mug bets regularly when completing reload bonuses. That way you’ll be sure that your accounts will stay active for as long as possible. 

Mistakes Will Happen

Yes, we did say that it is a risk-free way of making money. However, just like with any human activity, there is the chance that mistakes will happen. This is especially prominent within your first few weeks as you’re learning the ropes. However, don’t be disheartened, you may lose £20 but the profits you make will far succeed your loss, so you’ll probably not notice that the £20 is gone. If you ever do get stuck with an unmatched or partially matched betting we have a fantastic guide to help you fix it!

Follow these top tips and you won’t go wrong, make your life easier and enjoy making money from matched betting by being organised and consistent. 

What About Arbitrage Betting?

If you do enough research into matched betting you may come across the term Arbitrage Betting. But what is it?

Arbitrage Betting is similar to matched betting in the sense that in order to make a profit, you need to cover all aspects of a game. This happens because bookmaker offer different odds for games and we can then take advantage of the difference in these odds to make a profit. 

So, in simple terms, you place a bet on a bookmaker at high odds and then use your betting exchange to bet on the opposite result at a lower price. The result is profit, something which we are very keen on. 

The profit on arbitrage betting isn’t always the highlight, with one bet bringing in around 2-3% profit each time. The aim of the game is to place multiple arbs in one day, adding up the profit margin to make a nice bundle of cash. 

However, it can take some getting used to and requires a larger bankroll than matched betting so if you don’t have a lot of money to start then matched betting may be the most sensible option. 

Arbitrage Betting is often frowned upon in the matched betting community as it can lead to your accounts getting shut down quite quickly. Bookmakers will quickly catch on to what you are doing, and they don’t take too kindly to it, so you could find yourself without accounts to do any sort of matched betting again. 

What is the future of Matched Betting?

Matched Betting has been around for a while now, and it won’t be going anywhere soon. With the online betting space growing there are now more online bookmakers than ever before, with many being solely based online as opposed to having a physical premise too. 

There is no better time than now to get on board with matched betting. There are tonnes of resources out there to get your teeth stuck into and learn everything you possibly can about matched betting. Matched betting will without doubt continue to be one of the most popular ways of earning an extra income online.

There it is the ultimate beginner’s guide to matched betting. A comprehensive guide to getting you started earning an extra £400 a month. We’ve discussed many topics here including what matched betting is, how to get started and have tackled loads of new terms and phrases along the way. Now, hopefully, you will be on the way to earning some extra cash with matched betting. Let us know if matched betting will be apart of your income plan. 

FAQ

What is Matched Betting?

Matched Betting is a no-risk way of earning money from free bets that you get from online bookmakers. It uses math to provide us with guaranteed value no matter what the result and is extremely simple to do.

Is Matched Betting a Scam?

Matched Betting is not a scam and is done by thousands of people in the UK to earn money each month. It has been covered in publications like The Guardian and The Telegraph as a legitimate way to earn money from home.

Is Matched Betting Legal?

Matched Betting is 100% legal. Bookmakers are even aware of it!

How does Matched Betting Work?

By using a betting exchange and some special online calculators we can take advantage of the free bets on offer from bookmakers. We are able to lay our qualifying bets and our free bets with the latter being where we make the guaranteed money.

How much do you need to start Matched Betting?

You only need as little around £50 to get started. As you make money with every offer you do you bankroll will increase very quickly as the start as you go through all the signup offers on offer.

What is the best way to start Matched Betting?

Use a Beginner’s Guides to Matched Betting to understand how it all works, sign up to a free trial with Profit Accumulator or OddsMonkey and follow their instructions.

Make Money from Matched Betting – Beginner’s Guide Pinterest

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Written by themoneyshed

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