Matched betting...could anyone talk me through it?

[TwllBach]

I've seen matched betting as a viable option to earn a little cash but am wondering if anyone can

a) tell me if it's worth the time/effort
b) explain how to get started in one words of one syllable

You understand it perfectly happiness!

Not laying a free bet is a decent strategy. But most MBers would lay in order to guarantee a small profit each time.

Thank you Titchy

So I decided to join in this evening and I’m not quite sure I’ve got it right.

I’ve spent most of the day reading through the previous thread and reading/watching the videos on Profit Accumulator. So I signed up to Profit Accumulator and signed up to both Betfair & Coral. Put my opening bet of £5 on to get my £20 free bets.

Question is -
Choose a match with back odds of 4.75 and lay odds of 5.2. Placed all £20 free bet on this, so if it comes through I ‘win’ £75 but my liability is £84. So I’m theory I’m -£9 down. If it doesn’t come through then Betfair pays out £104, which means I’m £20 or so up. Is this how it should be? I thought I should be winning using the likes of Coral etc?

I've been wanting to try this too for a while. Just after some pocket money. Going to look on Team Profit

Newmum

If I understand it correctly

no Betfair won't pay you £104 they'll pay you £20 and you've lost the free bet so yes you are £20 up in cash.

*Newmum
*
And if your £20 free bet wins then it's £20 x 4.75 = £95 minus £84 laybet so a profit of £11

Happy to be corrected if I've got this wrong

I realised I used the wrong calculator and put the lay down bet as the wrong amount . I was able to cash out the original bet at a 10p loss and correct myself so it matched what came out on the calculator.

Why are you advocating gambling on a MB thread @titchy? Not laying a FB is gambling, the complete opposite of what MB is about. It's not a decent strategy at all, especially for someone starting out.

@happinessischocolate Say you take a loss of £1 on your qualifying bet. You then get a £20 FB. If you place it without laying, you could lose it all, therefore being £1 down. If you lay it, you're around £15 up regardless of th result.

Not advocating gambling at all - I'd NEVER tell anyone to not bother laying their qualifying bet. And I said most MBers would lay the freebie.

NOT laying free money isn't gambling - your own money is not at risk.

But MB is a game of stats, especially if you do volume - do enough free bets of say £5 at odds of 5.0, and statistically one in five will come off making £20 profit. Or you can lay each one and make 5 x £4 profit on each - end result is the same statistically.

Brilliant Titchy thanks I'm getting there now 👍🏻

Yep totally get it now that I could just do the free bet and not lay it, but then if it loses the time spent doing the qualifying bet and the free bet has now been wasted.

Might actually give this a go....

See... all the numbers stuff is precisely what I don’t get and why I don’t think I should do it!

I told DP about it just now and he’s given me £20 and told me to come back to him next Sunday - he wants his £20 back and 10% of the profit 😂😂

Can I make a profit from my own money once I’ve burned through the free bets on coral? Just by using the calculator and the matching tool?

No, the money is made from turning the "free" £20 bets into "free" £20 cash

So you just have to keep finding free bets?

If you just use your own money, then you make a small loss each time. It would be like placing only qualifying bets. You make a small loss on those. The profit comes from the free bet.

You really don’t understand what you’re doing, I suspect the profit you’ve made has been from luck rather than using the system correctly. You won’t always be lucky. You need to learn the system because that will always work.

It really isn’t hard.

You choose a match to place your qualifying bet. You bet on a team on the “betting site” of choice. Then you go to betfair exchange and do the exact same bet using the pink boxes (so the lay bet, which covers all other outcomes). You make a small loss. You get a free bet.

You do the same thing with the free bet. And you will make around 70% of the free bet as profit. It isn’t difficult. Go watch the videos again.

Iam I’ve done that - I made profit!

I can follow the steps religiously which is fine. I understand the concept - essentially I bet on a horse to win then bet on it not to win somewhere else, so if the odds are 4/1 that it wins and I put £1 on to win and it wins I get £4. To balance that, i bet on it not winning too on betfair, so say it’s the same odds of 4/1 and I put £1 on as a lay bet, then either way I make £4 but lose £4 too.

Then, however, I qualify for £20 free bets, so I do the same process as above with £20 but I don’t lose anything because it’s not my £20. Anything I make from these bets is profit.

After I’ve used the £20 though (which I now have) I hit a stumbling block because then I have to look for more free bets don’t I? So profit accumulator suggested BetFred, so I deposit£10 and once that bet has been settled, I qualify for £30 free bets 48 hours later.

Any money I make from those bets is profit.

However, to progress further on profit accumulator I have to subscribe for £17.99 a month, and to access the odds matching tool through team profit I have to do the same, and I don’t really have £18 a month to sign up to something like that, unless I’m making serious money on it!!

You don’t need to subscribe. Find your own free bets, choose your own matches, check the odds are close enough and use the calculator.

The calculator is free without a membership; you just need to find your own matches with close odds.

Oh Ffs. Of course. I’m so frustrated at how dense I’m being. Thank you for being so patient!

Can I ask a question please?

How do you ever make money if you’re always matching your bets? The bet ‘to win’ will always be cancelled out by the bet ‘to lose’

If I have finally understood it correctly,

You make the money using the free bets, so for example Coral give you £20 free bets. You don’t lose money because it wasn’t yours in the first place, so you ‘bet’ £5 of their money and you make £4.85/£6/£7.18/whatever and you haven’t lost that £5.

Because for each bet with your own money (which is cancelled out) is followed by a free bet. You use that to make a profit.

When searching for your own free bets, REAS THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS!!!

They all have different minimum odds, sometimes you need to email them to receive your free bet, sometimes you need to place your first bet on an “in play” match or specific sport. The first few will take ages and you will triple check, but then you will get used to what you’re looking for and read them quickly.

You will be fine yourself for the “bet x get x free” type of offers. When it comes to things like “bet x, get x and play through 10 times” or “bet x and get x if you lose” then you will need to do things a bit differently, or repeatedly so for those you might be better with the membership as they talk you through it.

Have you found the Team Profit guides Twll? They list out all the free bets you need to start with so you don’t have to go off finding them all.

I haaaave MissMalice but I ifnored them because I hadn’t figured out —been told— that I could just look at the bloody odds myself and not rely on the matching software!

The amount you lay on a qualifying bet is pretty much the full stake you placed at the bookie m. The amount you lay on a free bet is less (hence why you use the calculator) - so if the bet wins, the winnings aren't wiped out at the exchange because your liability is less.