Beginner’s Guide To Matched Betting

This guide is intended to teach people the basics of matched betting in 2015. We have listed the most frequently asked questions. Feel free to comment below if there is anything else you would like answering.

Can Students Take Part?

The concept of matched betting originally became so popular as it was something that was easily achievable by students. Nothing has changed – it remains popular amongst students given their technical knowledge of navigating the Internet and using bookmaker websites.

Whether you’re a work at home mum, student, working professional or unemployed, its definitely something that can be learned quickly. If you’re looking for a guide for dummies, click here and join the free trial.

Is There An Easy To Follow Guide?

People looking to learn the basics of matched betting may have heard of Profit Accumulator. It’s a matched betting service that we have reviewed in detail here. Some features of the site are:

• It won’t cost you anything
• You don’t need to fill out any long forms or enter card/payment details
• There are both video instructions and written instructions
• Its VERY clear and easy to understand
• You’ll make £45 profit just by learning the process on the two websites that are shown to you

What Is The AutoMatcher?

The AutoMatcher is the software that finds the best and most profitable bets for you. It is often referred to as the ‘bet finder’. Hundreds of people that do matched betting have no interest in sports – or have ever really placed a bet before.

The automatcher is simply a table on a webpage that displays a list of bets for sporting events in the next few days. It can be filtered/sorted to quickly find what you need – so you can search it to find football bets with Betfred with the minimum/maximum odds that you desire.

It gets updated very quickly and makes the whole process a breeze. I’ve listed it below in my ‘getting started’ section.

Where Can I Find a Calculator?

Profit Accumulator includes a free basic and advanced calculator. Just click here and navigate to the calculator page. It may seem complicated initially, however its very simple and quick to use once you get started.

If you’ve no idea what you’re doing and it looks scary and confusing, just go to the ‘Join’ page, and sign up with the Free Trial. There is both video and written instructions showing you exactly how to use it.

• Bet Type : If its your first bet with a bookie then choose normal. If you’re calculating returns for a free bet, its nearly always SNR – unless mentioned otherwise
• Bet Stake : This is how much you are placing on the bet with the bookmaker
• Back Odds : This is the odds of the event you have chosen – Chelsea to win for example
• Lay Odds : This is the odds at the exchange (like Betfair) on the event you have chosen – Chelsea to NOT win for example
• Lay Commission : This is the amount of commission the exchange charges on winning bets. Betfair is 5% and Smarkets is 2%. If you’re unsure, choose 5%

What Are Matched Betting Offers?

These offers are what allow people partaking in this process to continue to make money. They will generally refer to them as ‘reload’ or ‘existing customer’ offers. These are done after sign up offers.

Whenever a sporting event happens, bookmakers and other companies compete with one another for your business. They do so by offering additional free bets, enhanced odds, extra place, inplay offers, bonuses, best odds and various other promotional opportunities to entice you to place bets with them.

Matched betting folk take part in these offers EVERY day of the week. Some will return a small £6 profit, some will return larger, more lucrative £40 profits. Hitting each and every offer on a regular basis is what allows people to make £1000+ a month – just from small promos.

There are regular casino offers, slots offers, bingo offers and scratchcard offers that can be profitable to do – especially given that they are risk free. Sometimes they relate to a certain loophole, sometimes they are just golden opportunities as they are no lose bets or you will get refund on a losing bet.

What Are Accumulators?

Matched betting accumulators refers to placing a bet that contains more than one selection. Sometimes called an ‘acca’, it can be profitable as bookies offer a refund on losing accumulators of a certain size.

Someone that regularly carries out this process can place a lay bet on each selection, allowing them to profit from an accumulator by breaking even and then being given the refund if a team loses. Its quite an advanced technique and one that is taught at Profit Accumulator.

How Much Money Can You Make?

Simply making an account with each of the bookmakers and using their free bets will make you over £2000 richer. Continually using their ongoing promotions for existing customers on a regular basis can easily make you between £1000 – £2000 a month, depending on the number of hours you spend on it.

Bingo

Bingo websites can be used to make money. There is a special method to making money from Bingo sites, and over 20 popular bingo sites that you can do it with. You can learn how to do it at Profit Accumulator – but only if you join as a platinum member. The theory behind these offers relates to value – if something will make a profit in the long term, it has good value.

Can This Be Done With an App Or On Mobile?

Each bookmaker has a mobile site or an app that can be downloaded for Android or iphone, allowing you to do matched betting on your mobile phone.

I would personally say that its a little easier and quicker to use a tablet, laptop or PC – however once you’ve learned the process it can be done on your phone.

Can You Make a Living From This?

Many people make a living matched betting and do it as a career. It can be done from home, without having to get up early or go out in the cold! People are earning £2000+ a month thanks to this concept.

It is recommended that the concept is fully understood before attempting to do this full time. Certain things need to be established and smoothed out. A stable internet connection is definitely required.

You will need to keep your accounts in good shape. You will not be continually be sent promotional offers unless you look like a regular punter and place ‘mug’ bets – that don’t take value from the bookmaker.

Read our advanced guide to learn exactly how to do this.

What If You Run Out of Free Bets?

Bookmakers constantly give out free bets. Given the competition amongst them, its highly unlikely that they’ll stop. Whilst people are gambling online, there will always be free bets available.

Can You Take Part In The United States, Australia, New Zealand or India?

Americans, Indians, Australians, Irish and residents of New Zealand can all partake in matched betting, assuming that online sports and casino gambling is legal in your local territory. If it is, then the principles of matched betting will work for you. The currency will be different, the size of the free bets may be different, but the strategy to turn them into withdraw-able money remains the same.

What Is Gnoming and Dutching?

Without getting too complicated and unethical, gnoming refers to using more than one account with a bookmaker from within the same household. Some bookmakers are partner friendly, meaning your sibling for example, can also register an account.

Dutching is where a ‘back’ bet is placed with a rival bookmaker to cancel out the original back bet that was placed, rather than just laying the same selection with a betting exchange.

What Is an Asian Handicap?

An asian handicap is a market associated with football/soccer betting, where you give or take away an advantage to a team. Similar to handicaps in golf and other sports such as NFL, Rugby it works in a similar way – but with the safety of a refund on certain selections.

Getting Started

We’ve put together a beginner’s guide to matched betting over here. It can all be a bit overwhelming at first, but stick with it and you’ll be several hundred pounds richer by the end of the week.

There’s a couple of websites out there that teach you the concept of matched betting in return for a monthly or one off payment. I’ve tried and reviewed a few of them, the best of which is Profit Accumulator. I’ve written a review of Profit Accumulator over here. You can read about how I’ve been using it to make a regular £1000+ each month since becoming a platinum member.

 

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To make money with matched betting you just need 4 things – 2 websites and 2 tools.

Website One – The Betting Exchange

This is essential so read it twice if necessary. The betting exchange is a website where online gamblers bet against one another.

Imagine the final of Wimbledon. Some people will be betting on Andy Murray to win the match. Other people will be betting against him winning the match. The people who think he will win are betting against the people that think he will lose.

A betting exchange is basically a place for people to place their money on something TO HAPPEN or TO NOT HAPPEN.

Betting on something TO HAPPEN is called ‘backing’. If you bet on Andy Murray TO WIN a tennis match, you are backing Andy Murray. Its known a ‘back’ bet. You might hear chit chat in public such as “Yeah, I backed Murray with £10.” This is what they mean. Easy.

Betting on something NOT TO HAPPEN is called ‘laying’. If you bet on Andy Murray TO NOT WIN a tennis match, you are ‘laying’ Andy Murray. This is known as a lay bet. Again, you’ll come across people who say something along the lines of “I don’t reckon Murray will win, I’ve layed him.” So yeah, it basically means they’re betting against him winning. Simple as that.

This may seem complicated but it really isn’t. Just re-read what I’ve written…

A betting exchange is somewhere that you bet on something to happen, or not to happen. Sorted!

The company that runs the betting exchange therefore makes money from charging a tiny commission on a winning bet. For example if you win £10 on a tennis match they’ll take 20p.

Smarkets is my personal favourite betting exchange. They don’t cover really obscure stuff, but for the main stream football,horse racing and other big sporting events they’re perfect as they charge the lowest commission on losing bets. Get yourself an account with them.

Website Two – The Bookmaker

You’ll probably know all about bookmaker or ‘bookies’ as they’re more commonly known. They set the odds on sporting events and take your money. The odds on something happening are always lower than their true probability, and its by doing this that bookies stay in business.

Its true what they say, that the bookies always win. 95% of gamblers lose money. We won’t though, as we’ve got maths and promotional offers on our side to guarantee risk free money.

There’s hundreds of bookies to choose from when matched betting. You’ll eventually be making accounts with lots of them and taking their money by using the two tools we use to guarantee a profit.

Bookies stay in business by enticing customers to give them their money. They do this by running promotional offers, giving out free bets, refunding certain losing bets, giving you free money or offering higher odds. These offers are the bread and butter to making money with matched betting.

There will always be bookie offers for us to make money from. They won’t ever stop as its such a competitive business. Just in the same way that supermarkets run special offers to compete for your custom. Matched betting will always be a way to make money each and every week of the year.

Tool One – The Odds Matcher

As we’re not gamblers, a lot of us matched betters don’t have the time or interest to sit and stare at bookies websites looking at odds. We use a simple tool to find the best bets and odds in order to make a profit.

Its simple, quick and efficient. We like to make our money then move onto the website. This tool allows us to maximise our profits by finding bookies that have similar odds to the betting exchanges. This allows us to extract the most amount of money possible from the promotional offers we find.

Again, it might all sound confusing but it’s really not. Just take your time, have a good read and don’t panic. We’ve got you covered.

Tool Two – The Calculator

The other tool we use is a very straight forward calculator online. We enter the odds of a sporting event, and it tells us how much money we need to place and how much profit we’ll make.

As I mentioned, we like to be quick, efficient and to maximise our profits. The calculator does exactly that for us.

We don’t take risks and we don’t gamble. The calculator is what helps the simple system work to perfection.