When taking part in offers, this technique of reducing the risk has the effect of allowing you to potentially securing yourself a profit no matter the sporting outcome! The odds at the betting exchange often do not perfectly match the odds at Ladbrokes and sometimes there is a fee, therefore you’ll likely lose a little bit of money on this first set of bets, but much less than risking your whole £20. This is how the offer could play out: You find something on Ladbrokes you want to bet on, above the minimum odds of 1/2 (decimal odds: 1.5) You find the odds for the same event on your betting exchange and calculate what size stake to make here Stake your £20 at Ladbrokes (called your back bet) Make your lay bet at the exchange: because the odds are slightly different (and there may be a fee depending on the exchange you use) it won’t necessarily be exactly a £20 lay bet you make. You’ll your overall position to be the same no matter the result of the sports match.
Strictly speaking, “matched betting” refers to betting on sports events which we’ll get into in a second. There are other types of offers which have a lot of crossover so in this matched betting guide I’ll really be talking about three different things all under the rough “matched betting” term: Let’s dive straight in to each one. Bookmakers (betting shops) run offers to entice both new and existing customers to join up and spend money with them. There is a way that you can take part in these offers, but without actually risking losing large sums of money. You do this by placing two bets: one “back” stake at the bookmakers and one “lay” stake at a betting exchange.
Here is how to take part in a matched betting, with an example. You may have seen adverts like this one below which is a typical sign-up offer for new customers from Ladbrokes: What it is saying is that if you sign up with them and place a sports bet over a certain minimum odds threshold, they’ll give you a free bet equal in value to your first bet: up to a maximum of £20. This sounds pretty good, but usually there is always the chance that both your initial bet and your free bet would lose: you’d be out of pocket your initial £20 and wouldn’t have won anything with your free bet. This is the route a normal punter takes, you might win big but you also risk losing all of your initial money. The difference with matched betting is that as well as your bet football betting odds today “back” bet at Ladbrokes, you also use something called a betting exchange. We’ll come onto how to calculate the stake, for now let’s say it is £19.50. Now you have both bets placed, depending on how the sports match goes you’ll either make money at Ladbrokes (and lose some at the exchange) or make money at the exchange (and lose some at Ladbrokes. But importantly, we calculate the amount we lay at the exchange so that the net result is the same no matter the sporting result.
After placing your qualifying bet of £20, you’ll typically be down around 50p depending on the exact odds, but now you have a £20 free bet available! Ladbrokes should now credit you with a £20 voucher.
I’ve always subscribed to services which have walked me through the offers which helps tremendously to make it easy. Once you know what you’re doing it’s easy and can be done whenever is convenient. Can be done from the comfort of your bed. Clearly it’s useful to not have to commute or look smart when making money! I want to quickly address the idea of making money from matched betting.
Firstly I should make it clear that matched betting is not gambling. We’re largely not risking much money and when we are it’s because on average the offer is profitable and worth doing. My aim with this matched betting guide is certainly not to glamorise gambling: an activity you should stay away from. In any case, I want to make it clear again that addiction to gambling is very real and I’m promoting making money by exploiting matched betting offers, not gambling! Remember to always act cautiously and ensure you fully understand an offer before proceeding.
Nevertheless, making money from the same platforms that other people are using to gamble (and largely lose money) makes for an interesting ethical question. Personally I don’t actually support gambling companies and like to think that profiting from these offers is exploiting their ploys to get more people into gambling. Another point to touch on are that there is potential to bet on certain contentious sports such as horse racing. I no longer bet on anything I don’t support, including horse racing. The handy thing with matched betting is that there are such a breadth of offers, beyond even sports, that you can avoid anything you don’t like the look of and still make lots of money! In my experience they’re usually good about helping customers out if you have to contact them for help accessing it. Now, you could just place the bet on anything you fancy at Ladbrokes, but of course there is a chance it could lose. Therefore we employ the same backing and laying techniques to profit from the free bet, no matter what the result is! Follow exactly the same process as for the qualifying bet, adjusting your lay stake (at the exchange) to secure yourself a profit. From your free bet you should be able to retain 70-80% of the value. Therefore for a £20 free bet your profit should be around £16.00.Now including the 50p loss for your qualifying bet, you should end up with a total profit of around £15.50! Your first offer may take a little time to get your head around but you’ll get a lot faster.
An offer like this will eventually take you under 10 minutes from start to finish. The Ladbrokes example was pretty typical: bet a certain amount and you’ll qualify for a free bet of the same value. There are loads of other types of sport betting offers, including: Place a certain number of bets and get a free bet If your first bet loses, you’ll either get a free bet or refund up to the value of the bet Bet a certain amount on accumulator bets and get a free bet Once you’ve completed the new-customer promotional offers, many of the most popular bookmakers will be keen to keep you as a regular customer by offering ongoing offers. These offers include ones of a similar nature to the sign-up offers but in addition there are a load of other types, such as: Getting paid out as a winner if you team goes a certain amount ahead during the match (even if they go on to lose) Some bookies simply give out small free bets every so often to entice you back! Some of offers don’t require you to wager any of your own money, meaning that no matter the outcome you won’t be worse off than you started.
| Bookmaker | Loyalty Scheme | Free Bet Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Betfair | Exchange Points | Weekly free bets |
| Pinnacle | Volume Rewards | Cashback as free bet |
| BetVictor | Victor Club | Birthday free bet |
| 10Bet | Acca Club | Free bet on 5+ leg loss |
| Sportingbet | VIP Program | Personalized offers |
You can certainly stick to just doing these types of offers and still make a good amount of money. Other types of offers do require wagering your own money but offer big incentives for little risk.
*This is an affiliate link, I only promote services I use and believe in. If you choose to start matched betting, please do be careful. We’re not gambling but if you’re not mindful it’s possible to fall into it from matched betting. You can find help on BeGambleAware.org or call the National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133. Let’s dive into why I think matched betting is a great way to make money.
Completely flexible and non committal: Particularly great for students! You can do matched betting whichever hours suit your schedule. No worries, don’t do any for a few months. You can pick up where you left off whenever you have a free half an hour. Unlike other ways of money which require a lot of initial outlay, with matched betting you can start making money right away.
If you started now you could make tangible money over the next hour! You keep all the money you make from matched betting. This is useful both for students, and for if you transition to having a job. It’s easy once you’ve got the hang of it. There is a bit of a learning curve to matched betting. For example Bet365 regularly runs a promotion where you make a qualifying bet of £50 and you’ll get a free in-play bet (on a popular football match) for the same amount: meaning potentially you can regularly make an easy £35 or more! There are some offers though which instead are positive EV (expected value) meaning that although profit is not guaranteed, on average you can expect to finish with a certain amount of profit. If you’re comfortable doing these, you can earn even more money. There are other ways to make money, such as with price boosts, but I think you get the idea: there are lots of ways to make money! As mentioned to be able to match the bets, you need to be able to stake money against an event happening, which is known as laying.
This is somewhere that you can bet against something happening, called “laying”. By effectively making equal and opposite bets against whatever you bet on at Ladbrokes, you offset most of the risk. It is kind of like if you bet on every outcome but much less tedious and more profitable. By both backing and laying a certain outcome of an event, you take away all the unknowns. How the sporting event plays out becomes irrelevant: thankfully to be good at matched betting you don’t need to know anything about sport! Your money is staked against people who are backing a bet for an outcome to win. This may sound confusing at first but you’ll quickly get the hang of it, trust me! Several of these betting exchanges exist to be able to lay bets. On each exchange you’ll find all of the most popular sports with odds displayed for each match. Here for example are the odds for an upcoming match compared between Ladbrokes and the three exchanges I have used: If we wanted to place bets for Leicester in this match, notice how each of the lay odds are slightly different to the odds displayed at Ladbrokes. For this match we’d be best choosing Smarkets since these odds are closest to Ladbrokes. When choosing which exchange to use there are a few factors to consider: As we’ve just seen, the laying odds vary a bit between bookmakers.
