Matched Betting Strategy
Ok, I feel I should address the process of matched betting.
Basically, bookmakers often offer sign-up bonuses to new users who join their website. It is possible to make money from these bonuses without losing anything along the way.
Usually, in order to qualify for these bonuses, you need to deposit some of your own money and place a bet with it. In this case I will use £25 as an example.
So, you go to BookmakerA and sign up and deposit £25. Then you look for a bet which has very low odds. If you set your preferences to display decimal odds, it makes things easier because you are then just looking for a small number. Odds less than 2 are ideal.
You are now looking at a betting exchange (Betfair is excellent and the one that most people use) to find the same event to lay the bet you are going to place at BookmakerA.
Laying is where you are betting AGAINST an outcome happening. For example Team A are playing Team B in a football match tonight. At BookmakerA you would bet that Team A are going to win. Then at Betfair you would lay Team A. This means you are betting that Team A DON‘T win (this covers both a loss and a draw).
The crucial point here is that you back and lay at IDENTICAL (or at least very very close) odds. If the odds are identical and small, you will either break even or lose a few pencen through commission by completing these transactions.
"But that doesn‘t make any money!" I hear you cry!
Not it doesn‘t, but it doesn‘t lose you anything (worth worrying about) either. Once you have done this, BookmakerA will then credit your account with a freebet. In this example, I‘ll say £25 (often they match your first deposit).
Ok, now you do the same thing again. Look for some odds at BookmakerA that you can match with a lay at Betfair. This time it‘s better to have higher odds because the higher the odds, the more money you can make. Now for the maths bit.
Say for example you have found another football match at BookmakerA. This time Team C are playing Team D. BookmakerA has Team C to win at odds of 6. At Betfair you have found that you can lay Team C also for odds of 6. So you stick your £25 freebet on Team C at BookmakerA.
£25 @ 6 = £150 minus the £25 freebet (bookies rarely let you keep this as well) = £125
Now you lay a bit less at Betfair. So:
£20 @ 6 here = a LIABILITY of £100. This means you lose £100 here if Team C win. If they don‘t win, you make £20 (your stake) minus a little bit of comission.
So to clarify, if Team C win, you would win £125 at Bookmaker A, but lose £100 at Betfair, resulting in a £25 profit.
If Team C don‘t win (i.e. lose or draw) you would win £20 at Betfair, and lose nothing at Bookmaker A (it was a freebet, remember?), resulting in a £20 profit.
So you would make money whatever the outcome!
I should stress here that it is very important to read the terms and conditions of these offers. Sometimes bookmakers ask that you place your qualifying bet with certain minimum odds, or only deposit with a credit or debit card.
I hope that‘s clear. Please feel free to ask questions on the forum if not! I know it‘s very long winded, and it‘s actually much simpler in practise, but that‘s the theory behind it all.