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

I'm a newbie too but I'd leave the laybet and bet another £6 on the horse instead if you're going to lose it anyway (or work out how much you should bet as a qualifying bet in order to break even on the extra lay)

How has the liability reduced?

That would usually happen if some other horses have been pulled from the race and they compensate for it. Is that what happened?

Just put the figures in and if you bet £4.18 on the horse with the bookie it will equalise your laybet out

Wait.
You won't get £110 from coral. You will get £90. You don't get the £20 free stake back, just the profit.

So, you will win £90. You should have had a liability of £75ish giving you the £15ish profit. Or you'd lose on coral and win the £15ish lay stake.

Instead, you put on a £20 lay stake so would lose around £94 and win £90 on coral (if horse won) so a loss of around £4. If the horse loses you would win the £20 lay stake.

Now the liability has reduced to £81. So you will win £90 and lose £81, making a profit. But if the horses loses, is the lay stake still £20 if they've changed things due to a horse being pulled out?

I’m scratching my head! Okay, I didn’t cash out. Horse was third meaning I lost at Coral but won at exchange. Obviously didnylose liability but did get credited with £19. So, from my £20 free bet, I am up £19 ... utter fluke but happy!

Iam, yes of course with Coral as it was SNR, I just scribbled down what was on screen but it clearly included the stake.

Thanks all for your help.

I’m not having much luck with my free bets being credited to my account - having to chase bookies, verify account and still no Betfair free bet and Totesport simply hasn’t appeared. Signed up to do the R Red Panda offer but they seem to offer very few sports so not sure whether I should bet son something obscure or simply withdraw and close account. Anyone else done that one?

Hi does anyone know how to change to decimal odds on bet Victor on the app. In the settings it only shows uk, us or euro style but this doesn't seem to make a difference.

Sorry, Betfred free bet, Not Betfair

Hi does anyone know how to change to decimal odds on bet Victor on the app. In the settings it only shows uk, us or euro style but this doesn't seem to make a difference.

I don't I'm having that problem with a few so just have another page open with an odds converter on and stick the odds in that and it shows the decimal odd. Google "odds converter"

I’m not having much luck with my free bets being credited to my account - having to chase bookies, verify account and still no Betfair free bet and Totesport simply hasn’t appeared

I've only had that with one so far, sometimes it's not obvious there's a free bet available and you have to start a bet and when you get to Placing the bet it'll be there in a drop down box

Hi everyone
Just stumbled across this thread, I've been thinking about matched betting for a while as could do with a little extra income!
I will watch the videos and guides, and follow the advice that's been offered on here.
Can I check a few assumptions I've made first though please?

For every bet you make at the bookies, you lay the bet at the exchange?
For all bets using your own money (qualifying bets and bets to take them off the MB scent) you still lay the bet to break even with odds as close as you can get?
Bets to take bookies off the scent should often have higher odds to not arouse suspicion?
Lay the free bets as this is where the profit is actually made?
Stake is not returned on free bets?

I think that's it. Hopefully I've got that right and then I can spend some time with the videos and give it a go!
Thank you

@WoogleCone yes that sounds right but take my advice with caution as I'm a total newbie. Hopefully one of the more experienced MBers will be along soon and can advise

Same here, newbie but it sounds right.

Team profit are free and have a fantastic spreadsheet which you can use to go through the whole transaction before you place the bet.

Double check everything and have one bet on at a time to start with. Everyone seems to make one mistake at the beginning and the trick is to keep the risk of any mistake loss low.

Good luck.

Thank you @whereiscaroline and @happinessischocolate. I figured if I had those basic assumptions completely wrong then I shouldn't bother haha but will give it a go, albeit cautiously!
Thanks!

Buggered up today. Was in a hurry to get to a Christmas market and tried to place a free bet in a rush before I left. Accidentally backed it at the exchange instead of laying it. So lost my expected profit of £22 and also lost £23 at the exchange. Nearly £50 down 😭 Lesson learnt - no bets placed for the day is a better scenario than bets placed in a hurry!

I did the same thing today whereis but fortunately it was only a £5 trigger bet with Coral, so lost that plus the £4.98 which I erroneously backed instead of laid at the exchange.

A week in and I’m £114 up with some free bets still to use. Happy with that. Going to do the Bet365 offer later this week as will hopefully have enough back in my bank account by then. If anyone has any tips re the best way to do that, then I’d love to hear them!

whereis.

You won’t be £50 down.
Your pot of your own money will only be -£23

You didn’t actually lose any of your own money from your free bet not winning and your bookie balance should be the same as it was before you placed the free bet. So if your bookie baclance was £50 cash and a free bet, It won’t now be £28 cash in the bookies.

The only money of your own you will have lost is the losing back bet you placed on exchange in error as that was with your own cash.

The free bet stake wasn’t ever yours you’ve missed out on potential profit but as wasn’t ever in your bankroll so you haven’t lost it if that makes sense.

Just mentioning in case you are keeping a track of losses because marking potential profit that you didn’t get as a loss of your own cash is going to make your books not balance.

Thanks @ClartyParty that's a nicer way of looking at it!

Can anyone who understands risk free bets please help?

Smarkets offered a deal - pick a Premier League team, place £10 bet and get the next 5 games risk free (bet up to £10 per game).

So I did my qualifying bet, and laid it at a different exchange.

Now I want to place my risk free bet. Do I just place a £10 with reasonable odds and hope it "comes good", safe in the knowledge that if it doesn't, my £10 stake will be returned? Or should I be laying this somehow? I can't get it straight in my head about how to extract profit from this offer

Where - I’d like someone to talk me through risk free and accas before diving in. However, Odds Monkey have good tutorials on risk free bets. You do lay but they use the calculator in risk free mode which changes things about from the usual calculator.

Whereiscaroline - risk free calculator here:

https://matchedbettingblog.com/matched-betting-calculator/#.W_cL9RanzYU

For the cashback bit if you get the losing stake back as cash then put the full amount (£10 in this case), more likely though you'll get it back as a free £10 bet, from which you should expect to get 80% back as cash, so put £8 as your cash back. Then add odds and go.

Hi, I've just started matched betting tonight and am looking for some help.

I've done step 1 and got my free offer bets. So step 2, I have used my free £20 bet to back one team and then with another website, lay the same team. I now have to wait until Saturday to profit.

My question is, what next after this? Do I continue to use the money I gain to keep placing bets in the same way I have just done? Or do I need to keep using 'new' offers from different websites? If so how do I access them?

Thank you!

@Golden0ldie @titchy thank you! Perhaps I need to sign up for OddsMonkey for a while to get access to the full guides. Just seems a big expense this early on and my free trial is up already.

@asblackasyoursoul yes, you need to work through other sites' sign up offers now. Team Profit is a good place for guidance.

Caroline, I just signed up for the Oddsmonkey 60% off for first month - didn’t like to eat into my profits but the full Oddmaker access is saving me so much time.

asblack, I’ve been working theough the Oddsmonkey sign up offers, just doing acouple a day. Good luck!

The OM daily calendar is brilliant for reload offers.

Thank you for your response! Still a bit confused, do I need to go do the other offers now or do I need to wait until I profit from my first bets, and then use that money?
Or do I need to deposit 'new' money into the new offers? Sorry if this is confusing!

asbalck - it's up to you! If you have the cash spare and want to get on with it asap then do some more deposits into new accounts. If you're broke then wait till your bets have all settled and withdraw.