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?

You would think it would come easy to me, I used to be a manager for William hill. If we had a large bet coming in we used to ring our head office so they could lay it at the course.
Never bothered trying to understand what it meant, just did as I eastold.

Screenshot

CORRECTED VERSION (I have asked for the previous post to be removed)

Bet £X, get a free bet of the same value if you lose

A note: The % profit of the free bet value in these offers, at around the 50% mark, is lower than the % profit we can wring from standard “free SNR” bet. This is somewhat traded off by the fact that these bet offers can sometimes be completed in a single bet process, rather than requiring a pair of bets. They are therefore worth doing, IMO.

This post is going to outline how to make money from these bookmaker offers. This type of offer is called a risk free bet. Your initial stake is not at risk, because it’s returned if you lose.

First bet, with real life money
Because our initial stake is not at risk, we can underlay at the exchange i.e. we can lay against a stake far smaller than our back bet.

If we win at the bookies, this offer is completed. You’ve made more at the bookies than you’ve had to pay out in liability, job done. Withdraw your cash from the bookies (or leave it if you want to mug bet in future etc).

Again, if you win the first bet at the bookies, you’ve made your profit and no further action is required

If we lose at the bookies, we win at the exchange. Because we underlayed, the stake we win is smaller than our stake outlay at the bookies. This will have us down overall, and by a little more than we are usually down after a standard qualifying bet. Think of values around the five quid mark for a £25 back bet.

But don’t be put off. Because we lost at the bookies, we now have a free bet to the value of our initial stake.

Second bet, with virtual money
This is turned over as standard free bet, usually SNR. The profit here will be similar to what you’re used to seeing with these bets.

The reason the overall % profit is smaller is because we are allowing a situation where we are down overall after the first bet. Unlike an initial qualifying bet, which we try to make as close to zero sum as possible, we are deliberately creating a bigger gap in our money out/money in. The free bet value covers this, but obviously at greater cost to our profit from it.

The ideal outcome is to win the first back bet at the bookies and take your winnings. We underlay to maximise our profits should this first back bet win, and use the free bet only to cover our arses should this back bet lose. I hope some of you reading this have now jumped to the (correct) conclusion that, in order to further maximise our potential gain on this first back bet, our first back bet is placed at longer odds than those we use for standard qualifying bets. We are looking for odds of 4+ for this first back bet.

How to calculate this first back bet:
Open Oddsmatcher.
Find a good match, odds of 4+.
Open the calculator.
Check the bet type as “risk free bet”.
Fill in your back bet stake.
You will see that a third box has appeared in this calculator interface, asking for free bet award and free bet retention Fill in the values. What free bet value will you get if you lose your first back bet? How much % profit do you predict you will make from this free bet (default is 80% but we might be more like 70% as newbies).

The calculation runs to equalise the profits between

1. winning on your first back bet

versus

1. losing the first back bet and turning over the % profit on the free bet.

That’s why the small writing underneath the “risk free bet” check box says “equal profits”.

Go to your bookies/Betfair and bet/lay what the calculator tells you. Wait for the result.

If you win the first back bet, you’re finished with this offer.
If you lose the first back bet, turn over the free bet as standard.

I will post a screenshot of a typical calculator result so you can follow the above.

Gardening - I think Skrill is brilliant. Also sign up to coupon arbitrage - you can earn money each month just using skrill plus they have great cashback for bingo offers too.

So i have waded through th ethereal and convinced myself that this could be a good idea, will keep in touch with you all and once kids go back will start having a go

I've read the explanation of lay betting on the betfair site and it's explained it all really well.

So I'm waiting for 4 bets to come in and I'll have to tot up, they are coming in over the weekend. I'm £6 down on the Coral free bet because I made a mistake but I think I'll be up after all these come in.

The problem I'm having is that they keep winning so all my money is at the bookies.

How's everyone else getting on?

Great explanation Maid - thanks for putting that there.

Tess, if all goes as expected I'll be £70 up by Monday. I'm away for a few days so the waiting period isn't too bad and i'll be able to check up on it all when I get back. My current account will be up to date by then then I can have a proper sort out of what is where.

I suspect to be successful at this you really need to be super organised!

£20.64 from £30 free bets. £20 of free ones still unsettled.

Eek have put first bets on football being played this afternoon. If I've done it right I should be £15ish up, plus I'll should get £16.80 cashback for signing up to a betting site through a cashback site. Fingers crossed I haven't ballsed it up!

I've set up a simple spreadseet Miss F, balance at each withdrawals and pending withdrawals and money paid in (and a note of the usernames etc) I think it's the only way to keep on top of it.

@MaidOfStars where did you get that spreadsheet and is it worth it?

Can someone help me? I've opened my accounts at Coral and Betfair and I'm trying to place a £5 bet to activate my £20 free bets. No matter what I type into the search bar it cannot find the football team (AS Roma) even though its listed on the odds matched page. Am I being really thick?

Ok, I've taken the plunge. I've made my first £5 bet at Coral and layed it at Betfair (I messed up the lay slightly as the odds moved, but only a tiny bit).

I am now struggling to find something to use my free bets on without doing something which to me seems suspicious. I have filtered to football only, match odds only over 4.00 and am not coming up with anything.

In fact no matter what I type, any of the other team names from the odds matcher, it comes up with no search results. I can find it on Betfair though.

@OkeyDokeyPigAndAPokey - do you mean the Pescara V Roma match (Italian serie A) on the 24th?

In coral, just type Roma into the search box - it picks up some horse names too, but scroll down until you get to the football one that you want.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine How about the draw between Everton and Burnley (4.5 and 4.9 on coral and betfair respectively)

20 free bet, lay 14.43, profit should be 13.71 (you need 56.28 in betfair to cover the lay)

NB - check these figures!!!

Thanks gardening I had just spotted that! Unfortunately I didn't have enough money in the exchange to cover my liabilities, so I went to make another small deposit aaaand my card is now frozen Just hope it is unfrozen before my free bets expire....

The spreadsheet I use is called Ultimatcher. It takes ten mins to set up but straightforward thereafter.

It has loads of tabs but I just hid the ones for complicated bets.

You key in bet details and 'process' them. The spreadsheet then shifts them to a pending tab. You wait for the bet to be settled then go tell the spreadsheet the result. It auto tracks all your balances between bank/bookies/exchanges.

Oh, it was a free download - Google it. A very nice chap on MSE made it.

ItsAll
The Coral free bets are 4 x £5 vouchers. Do you have enough in Betfair to cover a £5 or £10 stake at Coral?

Gardening I've found it!!!! Thanks!

Card unlocked, that was efficient

Ok, have placed £10 of my free bets, laptop battery has died so will spread the next two out.

Does anyone else find this incredibly stressful?