How To Get Started With Matched Betting
Heard about Matched Betting and want to know more? Here are some quick tips on how you can start matched betting and make some quick profits. There is enough information at Profit From Sports for you to easily make several hundred pounds. You can then potentially move on to create a regular second income.
- Read the FAQs to explain what it’s about before you start Matched Betting
- Check out our Matched Betting DO’s & DON’Ts
- Walk through the WELCOME OFFER EXAMPLES a couple of times until you fully understand the steps involved
- Do a trial ‘no money’ run of one or more of the examples:-
- Go to the Welcome Offers and click on one of the Bookie offers which will open a new window and take you to the bookie’s site.
- Click on one of the exchange links in Welcome Offers and another window will open for that site (I’d suggest starting with Betfair but it’s worth looking at each to get a feel for their layout).
- Open the Free Matched Betting calculator at Smarkets – https://smarkets.com/getting-started/matched-betting-calculator/.
- You’ll now have 3 windows open and you’re ready to start looking for events/selections where the prices with the bookie and the exchange are close.
- You’ll have seen in my examples I would start with UK horse races or matches in the main European football leagues. Depending on the time of year the bookie’s home page will highlight the major events. BUT ensure you ignore any events which are due to start in the next 30 minutes (or even worse any that have already started and are in-play)
- Pick a UK horse racing meeting and a race that is due to start at least 30-40 minutes in the future. Look at the odds available on the bookie’s site plus the exchange.
- Let’s assume you are using the Betfair Exchange as that will have the best liquidity and prices. Find where the odds are closest between the Bookie and the Betfair Lay Price. That’s the lowest one in Pink to the right of the highest Betfair Back price in a Blue box.
- Then enter them into the Smarkets matched betting calculator. Your first real bet will be a ‘Qualifying Bet’, make sure that box is clicked in the calculator.
- Then click the ‘Free Bet SNR’ (Free Bet Stake Not Returned) box as that will apply for your Free Bets after the Qualifying Bet has completed.
- Keep picking different meetings, races, horses etc. You will start to get a feel for what you are doing and to start understanding the relative prices for each horse. In horse races the closest Bookie Back and Betfair Lay prices are typically for the horses with the lower odds.
- As you work down the race card there can be some massive differences such as a Bookie price of 50.0 and the Betfair Lay price may be 100.0 or more. You will always leave these horses alone as the differences mean they just aren’t suitable for Matched Betting.
- While you are doing this you might want to also have a window open showing the WELCOME OFFER EXAMPLES and/or BETTING EXCHANGES EXPLAINED
- Do you understand what you are seeing in your live walk-though compared to the examples? Are there horses on Betfair where there is a gap between the best BACK and LAY prices i.e. BACK = 5.8 but LAY = 6.4? Watch for a minute or 2, see whether the prices change or the amount shown to BACK or LAY changes
- Decide if you want to open a new bank account to manage your Matched Betting. You won’t need to transfer much cash to get you started. It will help you manage your cash transfers between bookies and track your profits. A dedicated Matched Betting account will keep your current account ‘clean’. You might not want current account statements showing betting activity for things like mortgage applications
- Not essential but you might want to set up a new email account for your Matched Betting offers emails etc. It keeps things clean in the same way a separate bank account would
- Make sure you understand the principles of MUG BETS. Do you see Matched Betting as a means to generate consistent long term profits? Place MUG BETS to maintain your accounts and reduce the chance of getting GUBBED
- Pick an offer from the WELCOME OFFERS page and get started. DON’T forget you’ll need to have signed up to a BETTING EXCHANGE as well and BETFAIR makes sense as a starting point . Complete the sign up and your Qualifying Bet. Consider a Mug Bet or 2 whilst you are completing the Free Bets from your sign up.
- Decide how many other WELCOME OFFERS you want to complete. Then before potentially moving on to sign up for one of the MATCHED BETTING SERVICES to take the next level. You don’t have to rush to do this. There are plenty of WELCOME OFFERS with mainstream BOOKIES. Get a feel for each of their websites . Check (and potentially complete) some of their RELOAD offers to help build your experience
I hope you find this helps you make a start with matched betting. Contact Us if you need any help.
