Big Betting Online's Guide to Matched Betting

Almost every Online bookmaker offers a free bet as an incentive to sign up. These free bets are a great way try out a bookie and see what they have to offer you. Many people who sign up for the offers don't realise that by placing another bet at a betting exchange you can make the free bet almost risk free. By using this matched betting technique you can earn a little extra cash while trying out these offers.

Step 1 - The Betting Exchange

The most crucial part of this method is the betting exchange. There are many betting exchanges out there, but some are a lot better than others. With betting exchanges you are not actualy betting against the exchange, you are betting with another user. Therefore you have to be looking for an exchange with enough users to get your bets matched. Big Betting Online recommend Betfair.com. Betfair is the market leading exchange and if you will get a £25 free bet when you sign up here

The betting exchange is crucial because of the ability to lay a bet. When you lay a bet you are basically acting as the bookmaker. You are betting that an outcome will not happen. Betfair has a lot of information on this and Big Betting Online would strongly recommend you get comfortable with the idea of laying a bet as it is an important part of steps 2 and 3. Once you have opened a Betfair account and feel you can lay a bet you are ready for the second step.

Step 2 - The Qualifying Bet

The next step is to find a bookmaker offering a free bet. There are loads of them, you can find a list of them here. Read the terms and conditions relating to qualifying for the free bet. A lot of bookmakers require the bet to be made on events over a certain odds. Some also place restrictions on the payment methods. Reading the t&c is always a good idea. They usually are not very long anyway. While your there, take a good look around the site and make mental notes of the things you like or don't like. It pays to know what bookie you prefer, that way you can return later with your considerably larger betting bank. Loyal customers often get special promotions and offers not open to the general public.

Once you know the conditions attached to the qualifying bet, you need to find an event to bet on. For the qualifying bet Big Betting Online recommends looking for an event with odds as close as possible to the minimum required. Try and find a few different ones and make a note of them.

The next part is to go to Betfair.com and look at the laying odds for the events you have selected at the bookmakers. Ideally, you want the lay odds to be less than the odds at the bookmakers, but this almost never happens. Instead you want the lay odds to be as close as possible to the bookmaker's odds. Once you have found an event were the odds are the closest, use our calculator to calculate the stakes you need to bet. Lay the bet at betfair for the calculated amount and back the same event at the bookmakers for the free bet amount.

It is most likely that you will lose a small amount (£2-£3) at this stage, but don't worry- in the next step you will easily make this back and a lot more. The loss at this stage is guaranteed, you are completely in control, you know you will lose that small amount, no matter what happens. See the Example to understand how this really works.

NOTE- If you were lucky enough to find lay odds less than the backing odds, you will make a small profit in this stage.

Example:

Suppose you find a bookmaker offering a £50 free bet after you have made a qualifying bet of £50 on an event with odds of 2.0 or more. You find a football team with odds of 2.1 for a win. You find that the lay odds at betfair are 2.2.

Using the calcuator to calculate the lay stake of £48.84 you lay the team at Betfair for £48.84 and back the SAME team at the bookmakers for £50. As you can see from the screenshot below, whatever happens you will lose £3.60.

Once you have received your free bet its time for step 3. Note, it can take a couple of days for the free bet to be processed after your qualifying bet, check the terms and conditions

Step 3 - The Free Bet

Step three is the real money maker. It is pretty much the same as step 2 but instead of using your own money, you are using the bookmakers. The procedure is similar to step 2 except this time you can look for events with higher odds, about 3 or 4 is a good target. Use the spreadsheet to calculate the lay stake and lay the event at betfair, then back the same event at the bookmakers. Look at the examples and it will become clearer.

Example:

This time you find a horse with odds of 3.7 at the bookmakers and lay odds of 3.75 at betfair. Using the calculator, the lay stake should be £36.49. Look what happens:

As you can see whatever happens you are guaranteed £34.66 which ever horse wins the race. Combine this with the loss in step 2 and you have made £31.06. Not bad for about 15 minutes worth of work.

If you do this with all the free bet offers at the moment you could easily make over £1000. A great boost to your betting bank and you should also gain a lot of knowledge about online bookmakers. You should also keep a note of the bookmakers you like best, so you can return and start building on your rather large betting bank.