When attempting to explain matched betting to people you are usually met with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. This is frustrating but at the same time understandable as the words risk-free and betting being associated with each other will naturally raise suspicion.
When people move beyond these initial doubts it becomes very obvious that matched betting is a real thing and many people are making consistent profit from it.
How To Make Money Matched Betting
The first way to make money from matched betting is to take advantage of all the welcome promotions bookmakers offer. The majority of bookmakers will offer customers free bets when they place a qualifying bet. A typical offer of this nature will be something like "Bet £10 and receive a £10 free bet". Matched betting is one way of profiting from betting exchanges. Because you are paying for the lay bet only, you can make twice the stakes you paid for your matched bet.
Customers can take advantage of these offers by setting up an account on an exchange site as well as purchasing matched betting software such as or . Such software is about $30 or £18 a month but is completely worth it.
When you have all these things in place your software can look for bets for you to place. The idea of the initial bet is to more or less break even so we can trigger our free bet without losing any money. This can easily be done by placing a bet on a bookmaker and placing a lay bet against the outcome you backed at the bookmaker. When you have your free bet you will need to repeat the same process only this time locking up profit as whatever happens in the event you will make money. We should look to make around 80% profit from every free bet.
After all of these offers have been completed it is still possible to make a consistent profit from matched betting. There are reload offers, free bet clubs, and other ways in which you can make money when all the initial sign up offers have dried up.
Do People Make Money Matched Betting?
People from all walks of life do matched betting to make money from sports wagering. You don't have to be skilled or even like sports or betting to make money on a consistent basis. Some knowledge of betting will help you at the start but all of this can easily be learned.
There are many students who love matched betting as it's a simple way to make some extra money online without taking their attention away from their studies. While many participate in matched betting in their free time to earn a consistent side income.
On the extreme end of this scale, there are professional betters that claim to make £1,000 plus every month from matched betting. This is really only possible if you dedicate a lot of time to matched betting and take advantage of all the possible ways to make money which we go into in the next section.
Can You Make a Living From No-Risk Matched Betting?
This question is a little tricky to answer as it will be dependent on what individuals consider constitutes "making a living" and we should also consider how much time a person is willing to put into matched betting.
The most productive time to match bet is at the beginning. There are so many offers to take advantage of and if you have the bankroll to support it you can easily make £100 plus a day in the initial stages. For this question though we need to focus on what happens after all the offers dry up.
To make £500 a month is relatively easy and can be achieved by anyone if they have an hour or two free a day. Some bookmakers offer free bet clubs that will reward customers with free bets if they bet a certain amount of money on their site every week. If you take advantage of these you will already be about halfway to this amount.
If you were looking to make the most amount of money available from matched betting here are some things you can do outside of the initial welcome offers:
- price boosts,
- free bet clubs,
- arbitrage betting,
- moneyback specials,
- reload offers, and
- .
Price boosts are where you can get odds boosted a limited amount of times every day with bookmakers like William Hill and Ladbrokes. This way you can lock in profit from your qualifying bets alone, meaning you are not attempting to trigger any promotions. Money-back offers can also be profitable. These don't guarantee a profit but you will make money in the long run.
If you really want to maximize your earnings it is essential you look into casino matched betting. Most of these will offer expected value rather than guaranteed profit but for some of the offers, things will have to go terribly wrong for you not to be in profit. An example of this would be a promotion where you will receive a bonus after you have staked a certain amount of money. If you are able to do the staking on a game like blackjack with an expected return of 49.5% the chances of you making a profit is extremely high.
There are also promotions like 2up available on Paddy Power and Bet365. With this promotion, your bet gets paid when your team goes 2 goals up. Meaning that if you place a matched bet and your team goes 2up and fails to win you will win both bets. You can make lots of money with this type of bet but you will only win this type of bet sporadically. Overall this means professional matched betters can have some months where they win a modest amount and some months where they get lucky and win 5 times as much as they would usually expect.
It's important to remind ourselves that all of this betting is risk-free. So with offers like 2up and money back specials, even when your bet loses you don't lose money.
Making money from matched betting is relatively straightforward. There will always be offers that can be taken advantage of and this can be achieved by anyone on a very casual basis. If you are looking to make a significant amount of money from matched betting though it is advised that you take advantage of every offer available even if it's for minimal profit as this sum will add up over time.
This article was published on February 1, 2021, and last updated on October 26, 2022.