arpz
11-17-2010, 04:46 PM
I haven't seen anyone mention this before so I figured I'd start a thread explaining the technique and hopefully updating frequently with my current progress. I figure it could also be a place to post tips, but more about that later. Americans, please excuse the liberal use of the £ sign, I believe this method is also valid in the US but you may need to find different sites to play with.
Although this is a pretty surefire way of making free money please be sure you fully understand what I'm saying before you try this out, I will add some further reading links at the bottom of this post so you can avoid making mistakes - they will be costly.
What is matched betting?
You'll often see bookmakers offering free bets and such on their sites, the way it works usually is that they will match your deposit amount upto a certain value, so for example, if you were to fund your account with £10 then they will give you a total of £20 balance. There are usually some hoops to jump through before you can really access that money, though. For example, you may need to place back the £20 in bets before you can withdraw the money. Matched betting is a method for unlocking these bonuses without significant risk to yourself.
How?
When someone normally places a bet, they will place it with certain odds, for example, lets assume England are playing the USA in a world cup football game, it's conceivable that the odds would be set at 2/1 for England to win. In decimal odds this is 3.0. If you bet £20 for England to win and they won then you'd receive your original stake (£20) plus the amount you won from the bookmaker (£40) giving you a total of £60, if you lost, you'd simply lose your original stake.
There are sites known as 'betting exchanges' which allow you to 'lay' a bet, effectively what you're doing there is becoming the bookmaker, offering odds to other betters. If you were to lay the same bet at the betting exchange, with the same odds as the one which you placed at the bookmakers for the same outcome - England winning, then the bets would cancel each other out.
Assume the scenario:
A) England Wins
You win £60 - Your original stake, £20 + £40 Profit, the bookmaker loses £40
If you've also laid the bet at a betting exchange then you are also the bookmaker, so you also lost £40
(£60 - £20) - £40 = £0
B) England Loses
You lose your original stake - £20, the bookmaker gains £20
Since you're both the bookmaker and the better, there is no profit/loss, the two bet/lay cancel each other out again - £20 - £20 = £0
What's the point of this? Well, there's no purpose at all for normal betting, but since we're trying to gain the bonus from the site offering to match your deposit, it allows you to make a risk free 'qualifying bet' which, once you've done, means you have free money to repeat the process and you will make approximately the value of the bet you place (Continuing this example, you repeat the process with another similar odds football match, betting your £20 free bet and laying that same bet at the betting exchange whether you win or lose, you will gain £20 at either the bookmakers or the betting exchange)
You can easily find free bonus offers online from all major bookmakers, as for the betting exchanges look at http://www.betdaq.com and http://www.betfair.com Get an account at once of those and you can begin to 'unlock' these bonuses.
Now you've at least got a taste of this method, It's probably sensible to read some more info, I read quite a few guides to try to understand it, and they'll probably help explain it easier than me, so as promised....
Further Reading
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=325861 - This thread is what I based this guide on, it goes into more detail than I have here and gives some more thorough examples.
http://www.matchedbetting.co.uk/guide.html - Same thing really, some other examples and also a spreadsheet to help you find and calculate odds, how much to bet etc.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=90197 (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=90197)- Really inspirational diary thread, this guy started in 2005 and has made around £60k since then, spending a few hours a week using this method.
It's not crazy automatic money, but it's something you don't have to work too hard at and can earn a few extra pounds for not doing very much.
As for the future of this thread, I'd like to update it in a similar fashion to the diary thread above, I'd also quite like to post 'tips', that is, bets/lays that you can just use straight away to guarantee a profit (I didn't touch on it here, but you need to find bets/lays that offer the same or very similar odds to maximize the amount of the bonus you can 'unlock' - read the other links for more info)
Sorry for the wall of text, I'd love to hear what you all think
Although this is a pretty surefire way of making free money please be sure you fully understand what I'm saying before you try this out, I will add some further reading links at the bottom of this post so you can avoid making mistakes - they will be costly.
What is matched betting?
You'll often see bookmakers offering free bets and such on their sites, the way it works usually is that they will match your deposit amount upto a certain value, so for example, if you were to fund your account with £10 then they will give you a total of £20 balance. There are usually some hoops to jump through before you can really access that money, though. For example, you may need to place back the £20 in bets before you can withdraw the money. Matched betting is a method for unlocking these bonuses without significant risk to yourself.
How?
When someone normally places a bet, they will place it with certain odds, for example, lets assume England are playing the USA in a world cup football game, it's conceivable that the odds would be set at 2/1 for England to win. In decimal odds this is 3.0. If you bet £20 for England to win and they won then you'd receive your original stake (£20) plus the amount you won from the bookmaker (£40) giving you a total of £60, if you lost, you'd simply lose your original stake.
There are sites known as 'betting exchanges' which allow you to 'lay' a bet, effectively what you're doing there is becoming the bookmaker, offering odds to other betters. If you were to lay the same bet at the betting exchange, with the same odds as the one which you placed at the bookmakers for the same outcome - England winning, then the bets would cancel each other out.
Assume the scenario:
A) England Wins
You win £60 - Your original stake, £20 + £40 Profit, the bookmaker loses £40
If you've also laid the bet at a betting exchange then you are also the bookmaker, so you also lost £40
(£60 - £20) - £40 = £0
B) England Loses
You lose your original stake - £20, the bookmaker gains £20
Since you're both the bookmaker and the better, there is no profit/loss, the two bet/lay cancel each other out again - £20 - £20 = £0
What's the point of this? Well, there's no purpose at all for normal betting, but since we're trying to gain the bonus from the site offering to match your deposit, it allows you to make a risk free 'qualifying bet' which, once you've done, means you have free money to repeat the process and you will make approximately the value of the bet you place (Continuing this example, you repeat the process with another similar odds football match, betting your £20 free bet and laying that same bet at the betting exchange whether you win or lose, you will gain £20 at either the bookmakers or the betting exchange)
You can easily find free bonus offers online from all major bookmakers, as for the betting exchanges look at http://www.betdaq.com and http://www.betfair.com Get an account at once of those and you can begin to 'unlock' these bonuses.
Now you've at least got a taste of this method, It's probably sensible to read some more info, I read quite a few guides to try to understand it, and they'll probably help explain it easier than me, so as promised....
Further Reading
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=325861 - This thread is what I based this guide on, it goes into more detail than I have here and gives some more thorough examples.
http://www.matchedbetting.co.uk/guide.html - Same thing really, some other examples and also a spreadsheet to help you find and calculate odds, how much to bet etc.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=90197 (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=90197)- Really inspirational diary thread, this guy started in 2005 and has made around £60k since then, spending a few hours a week using this method.
It's not crazy automatic money, but it's something you don't have to work too hard at and can earn a few extra pounds for not doing very much.
As for the future of this thread, I'd like to update it in a similar fashion to the diary thread above, I'd also quite like to post 'tips', that is, bets/lays that you can just use straight away to guarantee a profit (I didn't touch on it here, but you need to find bets/lays that offer the same or very similar odds to maximize the amount of the bonus you can 'unlock' - read the other links for more info)
Sorry for the wall of text, I'd love to hear what you all think