Sep 02, 2020 Paid matched betting services cost you far less time than free sites, and well, time is money after all! You can rest assured that you have the most up to date information with a paid site. If you decide to follow the offers on a free site – be prepared to read the terms and conditions of every offer you complete as they may not be up to date. Matched bet #1 1. You visit the bookmaker’s site to deposit and stake £10 on England to win at odds of 2.0. Because this unlocks the £30 free bets deal, this is known as the qualifying bet. Is matched betting legal? It is 100% legal. This question is a natural reaction when something sounds too good to be true, but this is something that has been enjoyed by over 200,000 people in the UK so far and has had national coverage in both The Guar.

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The internet is full of get rich quick schemes and step-by-step programs to ‘make free money online.’

Spoiler alert: there’s no such thing as free money, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either delusional or actively trying to steal yours.

Matched betting is widely toted as one such golden ticket to the riches you’ve always dreamed of. So, is it a total scam?

The answer is no. Matched betting is a real way to make money online using the free bet promotions offered at sportsbooks. But it takes patience, strict attention to detail, and a major time investment to be successful.

Read on for a detailed breakdown of how matched betting works and why it’s not the ‘free money miracle’ the internet tells you it is (but might still be worth your time).

What Is Matched Betting?

Matched betting is a risk-free betting strategy that allows you to profit from the free bet offers at online sportsbooks by hedging against them at an online betting exchange. It’s not gambling, and it’s not betting on sports in the traditional sense – you’ve removed chance from the equation and know the outcome with complete certainty.

You don’t need to know anything about sports or handicapping to take advantage of matched betting, because you will always wager the same amount of money on both possible outcomes. The goal is not to ‘win’ a bet in the traditional sense, but to guarantee your free bet offer ends up a winner.

Matched betting is a hedging strategy, but you’re only using your money to wager on one of the two possible outcomes. You use the sportsbook’s money (in the form of a free bet) to hedge against your own.

Matched Betting Step-by-Step

Here’s a very high-level overview of how you can get started with matched betting. Because most sportsbooks make free bet offers contingent on rollover, you need to put down your own money on a qualifying bet before you’ll be able to use theirs. Remember, there is no risk of losing the money you put down. You simply need to have the cash on-hand to ‘unlock’ or ‘qualify’ the free bet.

Place a Qualifying Bet to Unlock Your Free Bet

1. Find a free bet offer at an online sportsbook and register with the site to access the promotional offer.
2. Select a bet that you can use to ‘unlock’ your free bet by meeting the rollover requirements at the sportsbook. If the book requires you to bet $100 to unlock a $100 free bet, bet $100 on any line with only two possible outcomes. Stay away from championship futures, horse racing, three-way moneylines, etc.
3. Find the same event at a betting exchange and ‘lay’ your original bet at the same odds – i.e. bet the same amount of money on the exact opposite result you wagered on at the sportsbook.
4. Following the sporting event, one bet will be graded a winner and the other a loser.
5. At this juncture, you have a ledger balance of $100 (or the value of your free bet offer) minus the juice and any commission charged by the betting exchange. You’re technically going to lose a very small amount of your money placing qualifying bets, but you’ve essentially taken the sportsbook’s money in the form of a free bet that’s worth far more than the amount you’ve lost.

Place a Matched Bet for Guaranteed Profit

Repeat steps 2 – 4 using the free bet you’ve unlocked to the wager at the sportsbook (you’ll still need to use your own cash to lay against it at the betting exchange, but there’s no risk of losing this money). No matter what happens in the game, you will win the bet and withdraw the winnings.

Matched Betting Online

Since there’s no chance of losing your money, matched betting can be a good time to wager on long odds that would otherwise be too risky.

Matched Betting vs. Arbitrage Betting

Matched betting is just like arbitrage betting in the sense that you are placing equal wagers on every possible outcome of an event. The difference is in your method – arbitrage betting exploits significant discrepancies in the odds at different sportsbooks, requiring bettors to engage in extensive line shopping to find opportunities.

Matched betting is much simpler – you can use the strategy to guarantee profit by betting both sides of any wager that is eligible for a free bet and offered at an online betting exchange.

Is Matched Betting a Scam?

Matched betting isn’t a scam, pyramid scheme, or nefarious attempt to steal your identity and drain the bank accounts you wanted to supplement in the first place.

That said, it’s been widely advertised on precisely the type of internet blogs we’d urge you to be wary of, with personal finance bloggers (who typically have ZERO qualifications to dispense financial advice) leading the charge.

Matched betting isn’t a scam, pyramid scheme or nefarious attempt to steal your identity and drain the bank accounts you wanted to supplement in the first place…but remember that it is not a way to make a living,

If you decide to pursue matched betting, just remember that you can figure it out on your own, and that it is not a way to make a living.

You’re unlikely to make more than a few thousand dollars per year, at the absolute maximum. Do not pay someone to tell you how to do this. It’s not worth paying for advice on something with such low returns – save your pennies and take them to a real financial adviser rather than a ‘matched betting expert.’

Are these Strategies Legal?

Matched betting is legal everywhere it is legal to bet on sports online. This includes the United States.

Betfair Exchange

The only caveat is that you need access to a betting exchange in order to efficiently take advantage of matched betting. Betfair is the best-known exchange on the web, and it’s only available in three states that have explicitly sanctioned its operation: Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware.

At least for the time being, matched betting remains out of reach for most American bettors, despite its legality at the federal level.

Is It Worthwhile?

Matched betting is not the most efficient way to supplement your income, nor is it particularly entertaining, especially compared to traditional sports betting. Unless you are incredibly efficient, matched betting pays less than minimum wage. Even if you took advantage of every single introductory free bet, you’d likely walk away with a couple thousand dollars following hundreds of hours of effort.

Matched betting is a risk-free way to make money online. If you have extra time on your hands and enjoy working with numbers, it can be a lucrative hobby.

That said, matched betting truly is a risk-free way to make money online. If you have the extra time on your hands and enjoy working with numbers, it can be a lucrative hobby.

The bottom line: matched betting can net you some extra cash, but it’s no way to make a living.

Can You Be Banned From Sportsbooks?

Sportsbooks are always looking for bettors who take too much value, and those who engage in matched betting can fall into this category. Online betting sites cooperate via shared security servers, which means they’ll eventually identify anyone making lots of money with risk-free betting strategies.

Virtually all sportsbooks specify that they are for ‘recreational bettors only,’ and there’s nothing recreational about manipulating a free promotion to make guaranteed money at a gambling website.

That said, some executives in the industry have suggested that online sportsbooks really aren’t concerned with matched betting. They know people are taking advantage of free bet offers in this manner, but the offers are ultimately worth too much in terms of new customer acquisition for the books to overly restrict them.

Review the tips in our guide to avoid restriction when arbitrage betting to find strategies that also apply to matched bets.

Looking to Make Real Money Betting on Sports?

Matched betting offers some monetary value, but it offers zero entertainment value. Luckily, more traditional sports betting methods are increasingly gaining traction as investment opportunities.

Read up on sports betting and investing to see how the brightest minds in finance are applying their skills to make a tidy profit and change the way people think about betting on sports.

The next best thing to guaranteed profits is a strategy that provides reliable returns over the long run. Visit our sports betting strategy section to pick up on the tips and tricks the sharps have been using for years, and enjoy the action!

Matched betting is one of my absolute favourite ways to make extra money online. Once you get to grips with how it works, it’s quick to do, and guarantees you a profit every single time. In the matched betting world, Bet365 is a pretty firm favourite. They have some fantastic offers regularly that bag matched bettors sometimes hundreds of pounds in a matter of minutes. Whilst this article focuses on Bet365, there are lots of other sports betting sites with profitable offers too!

Firstly, I’d like to mention that I’ve had to justify matched betting to a few people recently. I’d just like to say once and for all – MATCHED BETTING IS NOT GAMBLING. I do not endorse gambling. Gamblers risk money in the hope of a win, whether for fun or whether they just can’t help themselves – they’re risking cash each time they place a bet. Matched bettors DO NOT RISK THEIR CASH. The whole ethos of matched betting is that you GUARANTEE A PROFIT every single time. There’s no risk involved. Matched bettors simply take advantage of bookmaker promotions in a way that ensures they make money on every single offer.

A lot of this post assumes that you know a bit about matched betting and how it works. If you don’t, then it might be worth signing up for my beginner course here first.

Finding the offers

I strongly recommend signing up to Profit Accumulator – I really wouldn’t make anywhere near as much money as I do without them.

They find the offers daily and write instructions out in such a way that’s really simple to follow and understand. They have a fantastic customer support network too. All of the Bet365 offer details and instructions are written out in much more detail over there, this post just aims to show you just how profitable these can be.

Bet365 Matched Betting

Bet365 are one of the big guns in the matched betting world. They have the most profitable initial signup offer and regular reload offers for existing customers too. They’re an account that everyone wants to keep hold of and take advantage of as they’re so profitable.

Bet365 Signup Offer

When you first register with Bet365, they offer a really profitable welcome promotion. They used to offer a £200 free bet when you placed a qualifying bet of £200. Sadly those times are gone (for now at least). However, they are currently offering a £100 free bet when you place a qualifying bet of £100. By using the clever calculators from Profit Accumulator, and laying off your bets at a betting exchange, you can guarantee a profit of around £70-£80 from this offer. Not bad for a few minutes “work”!

Bet365 £50 in-play free bet

This is probably the offer that most matched bettors look forward to appearing on the Profit Accumulator forums. These days the offer is invite only, meaning that you’ll need to have received an email or a message within your Bet365 account in order to qualify.

Bet365 offer up to £50 free in-play bet on specific football matches when you place a qualifying bet of £50 on the same match. It’s a really simple offer! There are no minimum odds which means that you can place your bet on whatever you can find the lowest qualifying loss for. Then, once the match starts, you simply place your free bet in-play.

I tend to place my qualifying bet on the favourite team to win. I think this gives me the best chance of qualifying for their 2 Up offer (see below) which can be extremely lucrative! I’ve hit it twice now and make hundreds each time.

Not everyone is offered the full £50 for this offer so make sure you check your emails carefully before attempting.

In this example, you’d make a qualifying loss of £1. Note that I always use Smarkets to lay off my bets because of the lower 2% commission.

So, I’ve lost £1 but I know that once the game kicks off, I’ll have a £50 free bet which will guarantee me a profit overall.

Once the game kicks off, the odds will move about VERY quickly. This makes it really difficult to find close odds and it can be pretty risky. Imagine if you placed a bet on 0-0 and then a goal was scored before you could lay it off! The best way to handle in-play bets is to lay them off at half-time. The odds will be much more stable then. I find that correct score markets are usually pretty profitable and I usually look for odds around 5.0.

In this example, I’ve made a profit of £36.43 from the free bet. When you take into consideration the £1 loss from the qualifier, that’s over £35 profit from a few minutes spent online. That’s what makes this offer so popular!

Bet365 Early Payout (2 Up)

This is another invite only offer, but one that most ungubbed accounts seem to be eligible for. Bet365 offer this promotion on a number of sports, but for ease I’ll focus on football. Bet365 will pay out your bet early as a winner if the team you backed goes two goals ahead. So, for example, say you back Manchester United to win against Chelsea. If Manchester United go two goals ahead at any point in the match, then your bet will be paid out as a winner. There are a number of ways to handle your bets once that happens – all of which are discussed on the Profit Accumulator forum. You can always lock in a profit once your team goes two goals ahead though and this is a really lucrative offer.

Bet365 Horse Refunds

Bet365 have a daily horse racing refund where if you back a winner at odds of 5.0 or greater, you’ll receive a risk-free bet on the next eligible race. This is another offer you can lock-in a guaranteed profit every time. Greyhound refunds work in exactly the same way.