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A Beginner’s Guide To Sports Matched Betting

The easiest way to beat the bookmaker is by taking advantage of their offers, which I’ll explain in this beginner’s guide to sports matched betting.

Online sportsbooks in the UK entice new and existing customers with betting offers which can be used to make guaranteed profits using a method known as matched betting. Hundreds of thousands of people have cottoned on to the system and with the help of a matched betting calculator are using betting offers to earn a regular tax free income.

Use Betting Offers To Guarantee A Profit

When you sign up to a new online bookmaker you’ll be offered a free bet and, in most cases, you’ll be required to place a bet with your own money first. Matched betting involves using a betting exchange so that both outcomes of the bet can be covered and you lose very little or nothing to qualify for a free bet. You are guaranteed a profit by using the same technique with your free bet.

The matched betting calculator works out the ideal stakes to place on the betting exchanges to ensure you receive a balanced profit no matter if the selection wins or loses.

How much you make from an offer depends on how close the exchange odds are to the bookmakers' odds. Typically, matched bettors expect to lose about 5% of their stake to qualify for a free bet and to retain about 80% of the free bet value in cash.

Ladbrokes will give you a £50 free bet if you register and place a £50 bet with your own money. It may cost £2.50 from matched betting to obtain the free bet from which you can expect to retain £40 for an overall profit of £37.50.

How To Make A Profit From Matched Betting

Let's use the Ladbrokes welcome offer to show how the calculations work. To begin, you’ll need to have an account with a betting exchange like Betfair and register a new account with Ladbrokes.

The first step is to place a qualifying bet above the minimum odds for the offer which is 1.50. Find close matched odds on Ladbrokes and Betfair. In this example the horse Tahira is 2.75 to win on Ladbrokes and available to lay at 2.78 on Betfair Exchange.

Enter the odds and stake into the matched betting calculator and receive the following advice:

• Back £50 Tahira to win at Ladbrokes
  
• Lay £50.37 Tahira to lose on Betfair Exchange

The above transactions will cost £2.16 if Tahira wins or £2.15 if it loses and you will receive a £50 free bet.

Here’s how:

If Tahira wins:

• You win £87.50 on Ladbrokes and lose £89.66 on the exchange, 87.50 - 89.66 = -2.16

If Tahira loses:

• You win £48.85 on the exchange, accounting for 5% commission, and lose £50 on Ladbrokes, 48.85 - 50.00 = -2.15

Now that you have a free bet, you can find a close match at bigger odds and adjust the calculator setting for the free bet. It takes into account that the stake is not returned as none has been paid and works out the ideal lay stake to guarantee a balanced profit from the free bet.

The horse Red Charmer is available at 9.0 on Ladbrokes and 9.4 to lay on Betfair Exchange. This can be backed and laid to guarantee £40.65 profit if it wins or £40.64 profit it loses.

Here’s how:

• Back £50 Red Charmer at 9.0 on Ladbrokes using the free bet
  
• Lay £42.78 at 9.4 on Betfair Exchange

If Red Charmer wins:

• You win £400 on Ladbrokes and lose £359.35 on the exchange, 400.00 - 359.35 = +40.65

If Red Charmer loses:

• You win £40.64 on the exchange accounting for 5% commission and lose nothing on Ladbrokes as the bet is free. 40.64 - 0.00 = +40.64

Most online bookmakers give welcome offers to new customers in regions where the law permits and there is a lot of profit to be made from signing up to all of them. Frequent promotions aimed at existing customers allow similar techniques to be used to exploit those offers for profits, too and can be worth around £500 each month for about 30 minutes per day it takes to do the offers.

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