Matched betting?! Tell me more...

[ExpatMrs]

Just came across a good few MNers talking about it on another thread. I don't even know what it is but from the jist of the convo, there's good money to be made from having a couple of hours a day to do it... I have those hours!!
Can anyone enlighten me please?

I don't think I have the patience for this - I want to start on all the free bet offers but have to wait for my bets to settle this afternoon first .

Hmpf

Sorry, that should say 'Do I...?'

Baby, yes it's a wait. I've got my free bets on mostly weekend Premiership matches so I'm sitting tight also.

I am feeling much more at ease with the whole thing though.

I am being very patient, which is quite uncharacteristic

My first "free bet" comes good tonight. And I have a free bet waiting to be made today, which I'll also stick on the footie tonight. So tomorrow, will have two completed sets and feeling a bit more at ease with the process.

I'm sure the experts can have twenty sets of bets on the go at once, but I'm only three days into this

And I have a free bet waiting to be made today
Scrub that. I only made the qualifying bet yesterday and the free bet credit can take 48 hours.

I've had a eureka moment (well, read it on Betfair) and would like help form those who understand the maths to check this.

So, lay betting.

You lay a stake and a liability. Odds 1.5. The stake is £5, your liability is £2.50.

This is a lay bet. This means there is a Virtual Backer somewhere in the world making the back bet against this.

The stake you are inputting - £5 - is actually the stake you will accept from this Virtual Backer rather than a stake you make yourself in a traditional back bet.

You are the bookmaker in a lay bet. Think of Coral offering the same odds of 1.5 for X event. You bet £5, returns of £7.50. Coral don't take your £5 then put up £5 of their own money plus liability. They give you back the same £5 stake you gave them and add £2.50 from their own pot. Coral only pay the liability - the cost of covering the odds should you win. If you win at Coral backing £5 at odds of 1.5, they are only out of pocket by £2.50.

Thus, when you lay at Betfair and lose, the "stake" is not your money to lose, it's the Virtual Backer's stake returned. You only pay liability.

A little more:

So when you specify a stake on Betfair, you are, in effect, casting around the virtual world and asking someone to back the event at that stake.

Virtual Backer takes you up on the offer and gives you the stake.

You lose/he wins: You return his stake plus the money covering the odds .i.e the liability.

You win/he loses: Like any bookmaker, you keep his stake and don't have to pay out any liability.

The stake in a lay bet is a zero sum for you. You either lose only your liability, or you gain the stake value.

I have to say reading up, I and more and more tempted.

As far as I have found so far the only ways you can lose money are

• mess up when you are backing and/or laying - this looks really easy to do so I would probably subscribe to something like oddsmonkey to simplify it for me.

• if a bookmaker susses you and stops your bet, that way you would still be on the hook for the lay side of things which obviously you could well lose out on

• getting sucked in and beginning to gamble for real.

I still can't understand why everyone is not doing this.

Can someone please tell me how to change the bets to decimal on Coral, thanks.

Done it although they are not showing as decimals on the page.

I still can't understand why everyone is not doing this
What you said upthread - it sounds too much like an "Earn 20k from home doing nothing" scam. And when people hear the word "betting", it turns them away. Also, it's pretty complicated.

My husband has shown a mild interest in my activity but not enough to do it. I suspect he may change his tune when I start turning a profit

Yes I suspect most people turn off because they misunderstand it. Otherwise yeah - why isn't everyone doing it?

I keep worrying that just as I get into it, it'll be banned somehow. That would be just my luck!! 🙄

So when I join Oddsmonkey and get the full lid of offers, can I work my way through them straightaway, one after the other or do I have to wait for the bets to pay up/settle first?

LIST not lid.

I've just put £5 on to a coral account, there is a Dortmund v Monaco match tonight, so if I pt the £5 on say Dortmund to win, then what should I do over in bet fair?

OK, worked example using real numbers (if not real events; I've simplified what my actual bets were) from my first set of bets....

Starting account balance
Coral £5
Betfair £100
(Total £105)

Qualifying bet Teams A v B.
Part 1: Coral
Back A to win/odds 1.5/£5 stake.
Part 2: Betfair
Lay A to win/odds 1.55/£5 stake specified, £2.75 liability (plus future 5% commission on stake if this bet wins).

Account balance after qualifying bet
Coral £0
Betfair £97.25 (100 – 2.75)

Qualifying bet result Team A wins.
Part 1 result: Coral
£5 stake at odds of 1.5 returns £7.50.
Part 2 result: Betfair
£2.75 liability lost. No commission to be paid as no net winnings.

Account balance after qualifying bet result
Coral £7.50
Betfair £97.25
(Total £104.75, -£0.25 from start)

Free bet Teams C v D.
Part 3: Coral
Back C to win/odds 4/£20 free stake.
Part 4: Betfair
Lay C to win/odds 4.1/£14.81 stake specified, £45.91 liability (plus future 5% commission on stake if this bet wins).

Account balance after free bet
Coral £7.50
Betfair £51.34 (97.25 – 45.91)

Free bet result Team C wins.
Part 3 result: Coral
£20 stake at odds of 4 returns £60 (decimal 4 is the equivalent of fractional 3/1; in a normal bet, you’d get three times your stake plus your stake £80, but Coral aren’t returning the stake for the free bet).
Part 4 result: Betfair
£45.91 liability lost. No commission to be paid as no net winnings.

Account balance after free bet result
Coral £67.50
Betfair £51.34
(Total £118.84, +£13.84 from start)

can I work my way through them straightaway, one after the other
Yes, if you have enough of a float to lay each of the bets off. And if you have sufficient organisational skills to keep track of what you're doing.

I've just put £5 on to a coral account, there is a Dortmund v Monaco match tonight, so if I pt the £5 on say Dortmund to win, then what should I do over in bet fair?
Is this fixture one that is suggested by Oddsmatcher as an appropriate bet to use as a qualifying bet?

But you don't have to put that much into bet fair to start with do you? If I'm just doing small bets?

I haven't signed up to odd matcher yet

CalmItKermitt It will depend on how much of your own money you are using to start with. If you've got £300-£500 you will be able to do a lot more offers.

But you don't have to put that much into bet fair to start with do you? If I'm just doing small bets?

Your qualifying bet is short odds, around 1.5. That means you only need, say £2.50 liability at Betfair to cover a £5 stake.

Your free bet is at longer odds, 4 upwards. And the stake amount is higher. And so is the liability if you have to pay out at Betfair.

See my calculation post above:

For my £5 bet at Coral, odds 1.5, I needed £2.75 in Betfair as liability.

For my £20 free bet at Coral, odds 4, I needed £45.91 in Betfair to cover the lay bet.

If you have multiples of free bets at around the £20 mark, you are going to need a far bigger float than I started with (£100 in Betfair).

I haven't signed up to odd matcher yet
OK, you need to find a matched betting calculator - there are free ones on Oddsmonkey and on Profit Accumulator.

For matched betting to work, you need the odds on your back and lay bet to be as close as possible. The lay bet is usually slightly longer odds, but the closer it is to the back bet odds, the better.

You can't just pick what you fancy betting on, and go for it.

Trying to cross compare between a bookies and an exchange for umpteen events that are happening in the next week is impossible.

The calculator will do the work for you. It will scan all odds at Coral, and all odds at Betfair, and identify the events that would be good for matched betting purposes.

Oh wow this is confusing - I really want to understand it though and I think if i can do a couple of bets then it'll click.
The odds look better on the Athletico Leicester match as Athletico is 1/5 to qualify. So if i put the £5 on that, then go and put £7.50 in the bet fair account and do a lay bet on the match, does that sound right? Then I'll qualify for the free bets at coral

Ah that helps, I couldn't get the calculator on odds monkey to work, i thought it was because I hadn't signed up