1. No-risk
matched betting
Hands down the quickest way to make a
lot
of money (well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made
£100s from this technique. It’s completely legal, risk free, tax free, and
anyone can do it.
It works by taking advantage of free bets regularly
offered by betting sites through ‘matching’ them at a betting exchange. Matched
betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for and against
a certain outcome).
This leaves you being able to squeeze out the free
bet, which can be as much as £200! Multiply this by how many betting sites
there are and you can quite easily come away with a profit of a few hundred
pounds.
Owen walks you through how to make your first £15
profit (using a real life example) in this gem of a
guide
to matched betting. If you know of any better way to make
£30/hr sitting at home, please let us know!
What is Matched Betting
Matched betting is a way of squeezing out the many free bets offered
by bookmakers. All the bookies promote these offers (especially during
big sporting events) to entice new gamblers to place bets with them.
For example, "bet £25 with us and we'll give you a £25 free bet!".
How does it work?
Firstly, you don't need to know all the betting terminology if you
follow the steps below, but it's important that you know two types of
bet which allow matched betting to work:
A 'back' bet
Betting
for a certain outcome to come true. Eg. "I bet
England will win" is a backing bet. If it comes true, you win the bet
and the winnings. If England lose or draw, you lose your stake. You can
place a back bet at any bookmaker, such as Paddy Power, William Hill,
Ladbrokes etc.
A 'lay' bet
Betting
against a certain outcome to come true. Eg. "I bet
England will not win" is a lay bet. If they lose or draw, you win the
bet. You can only place a lay bet at a betting exchange such as Betfair.
Matched betting works by cancelling out the risk on the 'back' bet at
the online bookies by betting against yourself at the same odds (know
as 'laying' a bet) which you can do at a betting exchange. In other
words, you are 'matching' your bet.
Following your first or 'qualifying' bet, you will then be awarded the free bet by the bookmaker.
This is where the profit is made.
Quite simply, you repeat the process: bet using the free bet and then
lay the bet. Whatever the result you are guaranteed to make a profit
(which I'll be demonstrating below).
How much profit can I make?
For each matched bet, you will be left with up to 95% of the free bet
amount as profit. This is because betting exchanges usually charge a
commission of 5% on winnings. You may also make a very small loss on the
qualifying bet due to the minor difference in odds on each website.
This is normal, and you will recoup this when you use the free bet.
In
the steps below I'll show you how to profit from a £30 free bet using a
real life example. Replicate the same steps across the hundreds of free
bet offers each year and you can quickly be looking at £1,000s.
Personally I have made just over £1,200 in 18 months from matched
betting alone.
And it's worth pointing out, earnings from the gambling industry are currently
tax-free.
What's the risk?
Anyone
can learn how to do matched betting and, in theory, there is no risk
involved because you are covering yourself by betting for and against
the same event.
However the risk comes when mistakes are made so, once again, you
need to double-check everything and follow the steps exactly. On rare
occasions free bets do not always come through right away, so just be
patient.
Once you've understood the process and been successful by following
the steps below, you can then continue matched betting at many other
online bookies with free bet offers (see my table at end) which can
quite quickly land you a lot of money without risk.
It's also worth knowing that depositing at gambling websites does
not affect your credit rating.
I make no apologies for the length of this
guide! You'll need some patience and about 30 minutes to spare. Bookmark
it if you want to come back later.
Your First Profit in 7 steps
Note: This is literally a step-by-step,
hold-your-hand kind of guide. There's lots of fragmented information out
there on forums etc, which can often result in costly mistakes for
novices. Below I outline exactly the steps I follow, using the practical
example of one PaddyPower free bet. So long as you follow word for
word, you can't go wrong. I strongly suggest reading through all the
steps first before making any bets. Join my free mailing list and leave a comment at the bottom if you need any help.
Betfair is a
betting exchange where you can 'lay' bets to cancel out your risk at the bookmakers.
Unlike traditional bookmakers, Betfair is a place where you bet against other people.
They sometimes even offer free bets for new customers too (if you're lucky).
Register on Betfair.com
