No-risk matched betting

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.

Sign up for Betfair.com

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