matched betting basics. - shopifythe betting exchange facilitates these transactions between...

© Bet Professor 2016. All rights reserved.

Matched Betting Basics.

www.betprofessor.co.uk [email protected]


Contents.

Introduction.

Part I: Matched Betting Basics: I. What is Matched Betting?

II. Betting Exchanges.

III. The Betting Exchange and Matched Betting.

IV. Part I summary.

Part II: Your first Matched Bet: I. Coral: Bet £5 get £20.

II. Part II summary.

Part III: More Complex Matched Betting Techniques: I. Bet365 £200 deposit bonus.

II. Part III summary.

Part IV: Tips and Tricks: I. Finding sign up Bonuses.

II. Unmatched bets.

III. Arbitrage bets.

IV. Mug betting.

V. How to make over £2,000 a month.


Introduction.

This document is designed to explain the process of Matched Betting in detail, and to show you how

to make over £1,000 in a matter of weeks. If done correctly, Matched Betting is a completely risk

free way to make thousands of pounds, legally and tax free. However it does requires an extreme

amount of caution, and nobody will be able to understand the process after just one read. Jumping

in too early can cost you a lot of money, so please familiarise yourself with all of the concepts in this

document before continuing. Never invest more money into Matched Betting than you can afford to

lose, and never be tempted to gamble your money. Gamblers will always lose, but Matched Bettors

will always win. This is a system based on maths, not luck.

There are thousands of people in the UK who have already profited from Matched Betting, however

most will find it to be a finite venture. After achieving amazing results within the first few months,

profits will inevitably grind to a halt, and most established Matched Bettors will find it hard to top

£100 a week. Once you have reached a certain point, profits become slimmer and slimmer, and

Matched Betting eventually becomes a fairly useless skill to have learned.

Through Bet Professor’s systems you will regularly exceed £2,000 a month through Matched Betting.

We have developed the basic concepts provided for free in this document, into several unique

systems that deliver outstanding returns month after month. Bet Professor specialises in developing

profitable Matched Betting strategies, and you will not find these anywhere else online. Once you

have understood the techniques explained in this document you too can make over £2,000 a month

from as little as 2 hours work a day. Just visit Bet Professor’s website to purchase our first system

‘The One Loss Loophole,’ for just £150. If you have not made your money back within 1 month of

using this system, we will offer you a full refund.

You will not find any of Bet Professor’s Matched Betting strategies on the internet, and as such we

are eager to keep these under the radar of the bookies and too large a population of bettors. There

is a real danger of these loopholes being closed if too many people are ‘in the know’ about these

systems. Consequently we will only sell a maximum of 1,000 copies of each of Bet Professor’s

systems, so that we all can continue to make thousands in risk free profit for many years into the

future.

Now, let’s make some money!


Part I: Matched Betting Basics.

What is Matched Betting?

The UK gambling industry is estimated to be worth around £7.1 billion, and as the industry continues

to grow, competition between the hundreds of registered UK bookmakers is higher than ever.

Attracting new customers and gaining their loyalty has never been more important for the bookies,

so the incentives for new customers to join and to keep betting are extremely generous.

These incentives are usually found in the form of free bets. You may have seen the adverts- ‘bet £25

and receive a £25 free bet’ or ‘risk free £10 for all new customers.’ Almost every UK bookie will have

one of these signup offers, and for the discerning punter these can be extremely profitable.

Matched Betting is the practice of signing up to these bookmakers, and turning their promotional

bonuses into cash, 100% risk free. This document will teach you the basics of Matched Betting, and

walk you through how to make over £1,000 completely legal and tax free profit.

Betting Exchanges.

Integral to the process of Matched Betting, is the betting exchange. As opposed to a regular

bookmaker, where your only option is to ‘back’ a result (a football team, horse, tennis player etc),

the betting exchange allows you to ‘lay’ a bet, that is bet against a football team, horse, tennis

player etc. Instead of just pitting your wits against the bookie, the betting exchange allows you to

bet against other customers. So you can either assume the role of a regular punter and ‘back’ a

result, or you can take on the role of the bookie and ‘lay’ a result.

Let’s start with an easy example. The odds of Team A winning a football match are 2/1 (decimal odds

3.0). If you were to bet £10 on Team A at a normal bookie and the bet won, you would receive £30

back- your £10 stake and the bookie’s £20. However if you lost, the bookie would gain your £10 and

you would receive nothing back. This is how a simple ‘back’ bet works, and you could express it in a

spreadsheet like this:

Now imagine you were the bookie in this example. A punter has come to you and put £10 on Team A

at odds of 3.0. If the game finishes as a draw or Team B wins, you would keep the punter’s £10.

However, if Team A were to win you would have to pay the punter £20 of your own money, and

return his £10 stake, leaving you £20 down. This is a ‘lay’ bet, and the betting exchange allows us the

option of making both types of bet. This particular lay bet would look like this in a spreadsheet:


As you can see, laying Team A is the exact opposite of backing Team A. If you lay a football team and

they win the fixture, you will lose money. If it is a draw or the other team wins you will win money.

The amount of money you could potentially win on a lay bet is your lay stake, the amount you could

lose is called your liability.

The betting exchange facilitates these transactions between thousands of customers, matching back

bets and lay bets all day long. The website hosting the exchange will then take a commission from

the winner of every trade, which ranges from 1% up to 5% of the winnings.

The Betting Exchange and Matched Betting.

As I mentioned earlier, almost every bookie will offer a signup bonus to attract new customers, and

with this knowledge of betting exchanges, we can turn these offers into guaranteed risk free cash.

The most common bookie offer will be something along the lines of: ‘Bet £10, and receive a £10 free

bet. Free bet stake not returned in your winnings.’

For the regular punter this is an offer you could quite easily lose. The qualifying £10 bet could lose,

as could the £10 free bet, leaving you £10 down overall. However, by using the betting exchange, we

can turn this offer into free money, without risking a penny of our own cash. Let’s use the previous

example to illustrate how to profit from this scenario.

The bookmaker is offering odds of 3.0 on Team A, which you decide to place your £10 qualifying bet

on. Should Team A win, the bookie would pay you £20, alongside your initial £10 stake. If the

qualifying bet should lose, you would lose your £10.

The exchange is offering odds of 3.0 to lay Team A. If you enter a lay stake of £10, your liability

would be £20, meaning that if Team A draw or lose you would win £10. If Team A should win

however, you would lose your £20 liability.

Let’s examine the result of each scenario.

Scenario 1- Team A wins.

Your back bet at the bookmaker has won, leaving you £20 in profit.

However your lay bet at the exchange has lost, meaning you have lost your £20 liability.

20-20= 0 so you have neither gained nor lost any money in this scenario.

Scenario 2- Team A doesn’t win (the game is a draw or Team B wins).

Your back bet at the bookmaker has lost, leaving you £10 down.

However your lay bet at the exchange has won, winning your stake of £10.

10-10= 0 so again, no money has been won or lost in this scenario.

Here’s what this particular example would look like in our spreadsheet:


So from the spreadsheet you can see that both bets cancel each other out, and we make no profit

whatever the result. This then leaves us in a great position, as no money has been lost from the

qualifying bet, and we now have a £10 free bet from the bookmaker. We can then repeat the

process with the free £10, and should expect to turn 75-80% of the free bet into cash. That’s around

£8 we have just made, without any risk being involved at all!

Of course, not every example of Matched Betting is as simple of this, and occasionally you may have

to lose a small sum on your qualifying bet. This is still risk free however, as the free bet you receive

will more than make up for the small loss you have suffered. Please continue to part 2 to see a more

detailed, step by step example of your very first matched bet.


Important Points from Part I.

Matched betting is the practice of backing and laying the same bet, in order to capitalise on

bookmaker’s promotional free bets.

A lay bet is the opposite of a back bet. When making a lay bet you decide what stake you

would like to gamble, and if the team you lay does not win you get to keep that stake.

If the team you lay does win, you lose the liability, which is calculated as: stake x lay odds -

stake. So a £10 bet at 3.0 lay odds will be 10 x 3 – 10 = 20, meaning your liability would be

£20. You needn’t perform these calculations by yourself, as the exchange will clearly show

you your liability before you place the bet (see pictures in next section).

When searching for bets to match, use odds that are as close together as possible. The

closer the odds, the more of the qualifying bet and bonus you will get to keep.

Always lay the exact same result that you back. A back bet is betting for a result, and a lay

bet is betting against a result. If you do not back and lay the same result there is a chance

you could lose both bets, and therefore lose a lot of money.

When laying a bet you will only lose the liability, not the stake. Imagine you are the

bookmaker; the money coming out of your pocket would only be the punter’s winnings, the

stake is how much you stand to keep if the punter’s bet loses.

It is advisable to start off Matched Betting with football. The exchange covers most sports

(and even TV shows like Xfactor and Big Brother), but football has the most straightforward

betting rules and the most stable odds.


Part II: Your First Matched Bet.

One of the simplest signup bonuses out there is Coral’s ‘Bet £5, get a £20 free bet.’ In this section, I

will take you through step by step how to make your first matched bet, and how to make around

£15 in just a few minutes from this offer. If you already have a Coral account, Skybet offer a similar

‘bet £5, get a £20 free bet,’ which I’d recommend you use instead.

PLEASE NOTE: THESE OFFERS ARE CORRECT AT THE TIME OF WRITING. ALWAYS CHECK AND

DOUBLE CHECK THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF AN OFFER BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO DO THEM

FOR YOURSELF.

The first step is to sign up with a betting exchange. I recommend that beginners sign up to Betfair, as

it has the most user friendly interface, and has the best liquidity (money queued up and ready to be

matched for your lay bets). Betfair charges 5% commission on all winning bets, so once you

understand how betting exchanges work I’d recommend switching to Smarkets, which only charges

2% commission, but has a slightly more complex interface and inferior liquidity.

Once you have signed up for Betfair, deposit around £100. Then click on the ‘Exchange’ tab at the

top of the webpage

Click on the football tab, and you will see a list of upcoming fixtures. The back odds on offer are in

blue, and the lay odds on offer are in pink.

If you click on one of the fixtures, and then the ‘match odds’ tab, you will see how much money is

ready to be matched at those particular lay odds (see below). This is known as a betting market’s

‘liquidity,’ and in the example below there is £525 ready to be matched in lay bets. If you want to

know what your liability will be at a certain stake, you can do this by clicking on the pink lay box next

to the match result, and entering your stake without clicking on ‘place bets’.


In the case above, laying Chelsea for £10 would give you a liability of £7.40. As you can see from the

centre of the screen, should Dinamo Kiev win, or draw, you would win the £10 stake, but if Chelsea

win you would lose £7.40. Under ‘backers odds’ to the right of the screen, you will see that you can

choose which odds you wish to bet at. This can be confusing- why wouldn’t you just bet at really

generous odds if you can choose them for yourself? Remember that the exchange only matches

back bets and lay bets between its customers. If you try and lay too low or back too high, the bet will

go unmatched as the corresponding backer/ layer will choose the better corresponding odds. For

that reason it is normally better to just take the odds available- in this case 1.74.

Once you have familiarised yourself with the layout of the exchange, open a new window, and sign

up to Coral. Fill out your details and deposit £5. In order to qualify for the £20 free bet, you must

wager £5 on a qualifying bet, with odds of at least 1.5 (always double-check this for yourself). Our

aim therefore, is to find a football team with 1.5 odds or over, and which has lay odds that are not

too far apart. There are 2 ways in which you can match up the odds on a bookmaker and the odds on

the exchange. The first is to look for odds manually, and the second is to visit a site called

oddsmonkey.com. Oddsmonkey is a free service which matches odds between a nominated

bookmaker and the exchange.


Click on the ‘filter’ tab on oddsmonkey, and filter the search down to ‘football’ under sports, ‘match

odds’ under markets, ‘Coral’ under bookmakers, ‘Betfair’ under exchange, and edit the back odds to

a minimum 1.5. Once you have done this, click ‘apply filter’ to show you which bets have the best

matches.

Oddsmonkey then finds you the closest exchange and bookie odds matches based on this search

criteria. In this case my search found these results:

I like the look of Derby vs QPR as they are only 0.01 apart, and they are both fairly low odds,

meaning that not too much money will be tied up into my lay bet. Your stake at Coral will be £5 in

order to qualify for the free £20, so I go onto Coral’s website, click on Derby, then enter £5 under

stake, without clicking the ‘place bet’ button. Coral will show how much this bet will return (in this

case £8.50) so to work out your profit from this bet, take that figure and subtract your stake (so

£8.50-£5=£3.50).


Now go on the Betfair Exchange and lay the same result, in this case we have backed Derby at Coral,

so will lay Derby on Betfair. You will lose a small amount on this qualifying bet, so enter a stake

below £5 until you lose an even amount no matter what happens in the game. In this case a lay stake

of £4.97 creates a liability of £3.53, so overall this bet will lose us 3 pence no matter what the result

is. This small loss will be recuperated when you receive your free bet.

Once I am satisfied with the odds match and have chosen the appropriate stakes, I will fill in my

spreadsheet before placing my bets:


From the spreadsheet we can see that if Derby win, we will win £3.50 at Coral, but lose the £3.53

liability at Betfair. If QPR win or it is a draw we will lose our £5 stake at Coral, but win the £4.97 lay

stake at Betfair. The overall scenario then is a 3 pence loss regardless of the result, with our £20 free

bet to come.

Once the bet has settled, document the result in your spreadsheet. In this case Derby won, so I

would colour the cell red to indicate my 3 pence loss.

I now have a £20 free bet waiting in my Coral account, so I will log back in to check it’s there, and

then go back to oddsmonkey to find any further good matches I can use my free bet on. When using

a free bet it is a good idea to find close matches at higher odds, as this generates more profit. I

normally look for odds over 4.0, and in this case oddsmonkey have told me that Arsenal to draw is a

match at 5.0 and 5.4, which isn’t too big a difference at such high odds.

Now I personally have already used my sign up bonus from Coral, but for new accounts there would

be the option to use your £20 free bet. The free bet stake is not included in your returns in this offer,

so the profit if it is a draw would be £80 (£100 returns minus the £20 free bet stake). Enter this into

your spreadsheet.

As with the qualifying bet, go on Betfair and lay the same result to lock in a profit. With free bets, it

is normally necessary to underlay (that is enter a lay stake smaller than the bookie stake) in order to

make a profit regardless of the result.


In this case I have underlayed the draw by £5.20 to give me around £14.80 no matter what the

result, as the spreadsheet below shows.

Because my stake is a free bet, I will lose nothing if Bayern or Arsenal win at Coral (C7), but I will win

my lay stake of £14.80 (D7) at Betfair. If the game finishes as a draw, my free bet will win me £80

(C6), but my lay bet will lose £65.12 (D6), leaving me with a profit of £14.88.

Arsenal got hammered by Bayern, meaning the bet at Coral lost and the bet at the exchange won. I

have now finished this signup offer, making close to £15 in about 10 minutes!

Remember, all winning bets at Betfair will incur a 5% commission, however you should only really

start to factor this in when Matched Betting with higher stakes as this can confuse the process when

you are starting out.


Important Points from Part II.

When researching sign up bonuses, always make sure you are absolutely certain of the

offer’s terms and conditions before you participate.

Once signed up, enter all the information you need into into oddsmonkey.com. This includes

the bookmaker, which sport and market you wish to bet on, which betting exchange you will

be using and the the minimum odds requirements of both the qualifying bet and the bonus.

For qualifying bets, try to find an event with the closest odds match possible, and enter the

profit and loss from both the bookmaker bet and the exchange bet into your spreadsheet.

Try and keep your losses down to an absolute minimum on qualifying bets.

Once your qualifying bet has settled, and you have received your free bet, go through the

exact same process, but try to bet on selections with higher odds in order to maximise

profit.

Sometimes the odds may have changed before you have placed your bet. If so, either modify

the profit and loss into your spreadsheet, or choose a closer matched selection to bet on. It

is advisable to always place the back bet at the bookie before the lay bet at the exchange.

Once you have made a few matched bets and are starting to feel more comfortable, move

from the Betfair Exchange to Smarkets (another betting exchange). Smarkets charges only

2% commission, so will save you a lot of money when you come to make bets with higher

stakes.


Part III: More Complex Matched Betting Techniques.

If you have come this far, and have managed to digest all of the information in this guide, then

congratulations! You will now know how to profit from the majority of bookmaker sign up bonuses,

and their ‘reload’ promotions. By following this formula you will be well on your way to making your

initial £1000 from all the bookmaker sign up bonuses, which are listed on Bet Professor’s site.

When you are browsing through the terms and conditions of the many sign up bonuses out there,

you may encounter some bonuses which differ from the ones I have shown you so far. The example

in section 2 is a ‘stake not returned’ free bet (SNR for short), meaning that the bonus stake is not

returned in your winnings. However, some bonuses out there are SR, meaning ‘stake returned’. This

simply means that any bonus funds will be included in the returns you make from the offer. Profiting

from these bonuses is a slightly different discipline to SNR bonuses, but you can still make a great

deal of money from them.

An SR bonus normally comes with a ‘wagering requirement’ or WR for short. A WR basically means

that you have to bet your stake and bonus a certain amount of times at specific minimum odds

before the bookie will let you withdraw. One of the most popular SR bonuses out there is Bet365’s

£200 signup bonus, which I will quickly walk you through now. Bet365’s £200 deposit bonus carries a

WR of 3x deposit and bonus, and only bets at odds of 1.5 will count towards the wagering. That

means that if you go for the full £200 bonus, you will have to make £1,200 of bets before you are

able to withdraw. You can expect to make around £160-£180 from this offer alone, which basically

pays for Bet Professor’s first system, ‘The One Loss Loophole’ by itself!

After having signed up for Bet365, opted in for the signup bonus, and deposited your initial £200,

you will have to find a few football games with close odds matches above 1.5. Be careful to ensure

that you have enough money in the exchange to cover all the wagering requirements, as you will be

unable to withdraw any winnings until you have completed the WR. If your bank is not big enough to

cover all your potential Bet365 winnings, come back to this offer once you have built up your betting

funds. Depending on how many good matches you have found, you can either make a few big bets,

or several smaller bets in order to complete the wagering.

Oddschecker have found me some good matches, with Liverpool 1.6 to back at Bet365 and 1.6 to lay

at Smarkets, and Napoli are also a good match at 1.55 to back and 1.56 to lay. Like a regular

qualifying bet, I would then back and lay these selections to lose as little money as possible:

As you can see, I lose very little money from both of these matched bets, and I have just knocked

£200 off my £1,200 wagering. You would then continue to back and lay more closely matched

selections until you have either transferred your bonus and deposit into your exchange account, or

competed the £1,200 wagering at Bet365 and are able to withdraw.


Basically all bonuses with a WR follow this dynamic. The most important thing is to find close

matches in order to retain as much of your bonus funds as possible.

Up until this point I have not factored the exchange commission charge into any of my calculations.

This is mainly for the purposes of clarity, however when making bigger bets you may want to start

thinking about this. As you can see from the spreadsheet, I tend to use Smarkets instead of Betfair,

as you only have to pay 2% rather than 5% commission. So for every £100 lay bet I make, I must be

prepared to lose £2 should the lay bet win. This may not seem like a lot, but when met with large

WR’s this can diminish the value of the offer. Depending on the odds matches you find, you may

want to set a higher lay stake in order to make even losses between both you back and lay bets.


Important Points from Part III.

SR bets normally carry a wagering requirement, meaning that you cannot withdraw your

funds until you have bet your deposit and bonus a certain amount of times.

Profiting from these offers is similar to SNR bonuses, however it is advisable to back and lay

good odds matches, close to the minimum odds requirement. Keep backing and laying until

you have either bust out at the bookie and have all the funds transferred to you exchange

account, or you have completed the WR at the bookie and are able to withdraw.

Make sure you calculate how much money you will need in order to complete the wagering.

For example, if the WR is x3, and your deposit and bonus total £20, you would have to bet a

total £60 before you can withdraw. Make sure you know what the minimum odds for

wagering are, and as always make sure you are certain on the offer’s terms and conditions

before proceeding.

Some bookmakers will hand out large bonuses but with huge wagering requirements. Before

embarking on one of these offers, make sure you are comfortable with how much money

you may potentially have in your bookie account, and be unable to withdraw.


Part IV: Tips and Tricks.

Finding Signup Bonuses.

Bookmaker signup bonuses are constantly changing. Some months, like the beginning of a new

Premier League season or before a big horse racing festival, you will find some massive sign up

bonuses from several different bookies. Other months are quieter. There is no certain way of telling

when the most opportune time to find a bonus is, but it normally helps if you search around a bit

before diving in. Bet Professor’s website hosts a regularly updated list of every bookmaker signup

bonus worth doing, however you may also benefit from doing a bit of searching around for yourself.

Sometimes you can find more generous offers if you google a rival betting firm, or go through sites

like oddschecker, punter’s lounge or OLBG.

Unmatched Bets.

Occasionally if there is not enough liquidity in the exchange, your lay bet may go fully or partially

unmatched. Overcoming this obstacle is fairly easy; just cancel the bet and then modify your lay

stake at the new odds before laying again. Always double check to see that your original unmatched

bet has been cancelled, or you could place two lay bets instead of one, which could potentially lose

you money.

Arbitrage Bets.

An arbitrage bet is a situation that allows you to make risk free money without any offer being

attached. This occurs when the price of laying a team is smaller than the price to back a team. For

example, if the price to back Team A was 4.0 at the bookie, and 3.0 to lay at the exchange, you could

make money simply by backing and laying the same result. Take a look at the spreadsheet for this

example:

As you can see, your lay liability is smaller than your bookie winnings, so you would win £10 if Team

A were to win, and break even if Team A didn’t win. It is also possible to guarantee a profit

regardless of the outcome in this scenario, by overlaying at the exchange (setting a lay stake higher

than your bookie back stake). This would make your liabilities higher at the exchange, but secure a

profit regardless of outcome.

While it is possible to make good money from arbitrage betting, it is not advisable for any Matched

Bettors to do this. Doing even one arbitrage bet can see your online account being shut down by the

bookmaker, and in the long run this is bad news. Try not to place any arbitrage bets if it can be

helped, and your accounts should last a lot longer.


Mug Betting.

On a similar note, it is also essential for all Matched Bettors to place two or three ‘mug’ bets for

every offer you do. A mug punter is your regular customer who gambles regardless of offers or

bonuses, and who will always lose in the long run. Bookies only want this type of punter betting with

them, and if they detect that a punter is only chasing their offers and promotions they will shut that

account down fairly quickly. Consequently it is vital that you give all your accounts the appearance of

belonging to a mug punter’s, and place more mug bets than bets that are attached to an offer or

promotion.

When placing mug bets, try to find a few high profile football fixtures with the best odds match

possible, and back and lay to lose as little money as possible. Mix up your stakes and try to bet on

favourites, as this will align your account with the profile of a mug punter. On my most valued

accounts I will place around 5 mug bets per offer to ensure that my accounts are not shut. This will

lose me maybe around £2 a week, but it is more than worth it as my other betting systems easily

make up for these losses.

Try to place more mug bets in the first few months of your accounts, as new accounts are generally

watched more closely. The more you can mimic the behaviour of a regular bettor, the better shape

your account will be in, and the more money you will be able to make from Bet Professor’s systems.

Buy Bet Professor’s Betting Systems!

Signup bonuses are a great way of making a quick bit of cash, but it is very hard to continue profiting

from Matched Betting beyond these initial offers. Very few Matched Bettors have the ability to make

more than £100 a week, and you will soon find that your money making opportunities dry up

completely. If you want to continue to make money from Matched Betting, you need to evolve your

own more sophisticated techniques to beat the bookies, which is far easier said than done.

Bet Professor specialises in developing profitable long term Matched Betting strategies, and each of

our systems deliver outstanding profits on a consistent basis. Many of you will be satisfied with the

money you have made from the signup bonuses and want to end it there, in which case Bet

Professor is glad to have helped and we hope you enjoy your money.

For those of you who wish to go to the next level and make over £2,000 tax free every month, Bet

Professor’s first system ‘The One Loss Loophole’ is available for £150 from our website. Once we

have sold 1,000 copies of this system it will no longer be available to buy. We are keen to manage

our growth so as not to affect yours and our ongoing profits.

If you haven’t made your £150 back within a month Bet Professor will offer all customers a full

refund, so there really is nothing to lose.

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