Matched betting is by far my most successful way of making money online, especially within my first month, which earned me an amazing £936. You don’t even need to know anything about betting or sports to do it, therefore, I highly recommend you give it a go, even if it’s to try a few offers out. You can do as much or as little as you choose.

Also check out Three Methods For Making Money From Cheltenham Festival

Why Should You Join Outplayed (Formerly Profit Accumulator)?

When first reading about matched betting, it sounded daunting, so I put off trying it for a while. However, after signing up for free with Outplayed, I realised it was much easier then I had expected. Outplayed are an amazing company that gives you all the tools and information to get started, including training videos and various calculators.

By joining Outplayed, most of the hard work becomes simplified and easy, via the use of  handy software and calculators. They also have an amazing forum and support network. You can even sign up for a 7 day free trial just to get a taster of how matched betting works; however, I highly recommend upgrading to a Platinum account, which only costs £39.99 a month. I think it is worth having a Platinum account, because there are lots more offers to choose from, more benefits, and it shouldn’t take you long to make the money back. Besides, even if you only make £100 a month, that’s still a profit of £70.01 per month. For a chance of making even money, there is the option of upgrading to the Pro Membership, which costs £150 monthly or £995 annually and includes £1000s worth of Casino offers and bonuses too. Nonetheless, if you are a bit sceptical, you could try the free trial offers only, which should make you around £40-£60. Click on the banner below to sign up for the Profit Accumulator free trial.

What is Matched Betting?

Matched Betting is a technique used to extract profits from free bet offers issued out by bookmakers, such as Coral and William Hill. In order to make a profit on a basic free bet offer, we place a back bet and a lay bet. The back bet is betting that an outcome (e.g. a specified horse) will win. This bet is placed on a bookmaker site such as Coral. The lay bet is betting that the same horse will not win the race. This bet is placed on an exchange site, such as Smarkets or Betfair Exchange. As we have bet on both outcomes for the specified horse, we make money whether the horse wins or loses :). When the free bet is “stake not returned”, which is the most common offer, you can typically make 70%+ of the free bet offer amount.

Matched betting gives you a chance to make tax free money and it is 100% legal.  I couldn’t believe it when I made £936 within my first month of trying it (see the image below). You can start matched betting with next to no money, but the more money you have, the quicker you will make money. It’s a good idea to start a matched betting pot, in which any profit made, can be put back in and accumulate to a bigger amount. This in turn will help to boost your profits quicker. I use a separate bank account for my matched betting pot, so that it doesn’t get mixed in with my other finances and complicate things.

Below is a spreadsheet showing how I made £936 within my first month of matched betting by doing the offers on Profit Accumulator. It’s also worth doing the risk free casino offers because as you can see, I made £135 from a £10 no deposit bonus. I will be honest in the fact that I did make a few mistakes, which resulted in some negative results, therefore I would have made even more if I made sure to double check my bets.

Skrill (Moneybookers)

For a more convenient place to hold your matched betting money, I recommend an online wallet company called Skrill. Skrill allows you to move money around online in a fast, efficient way, which is perfect for withdrawing your balance quickly from bookmakers for free. I pretty much guarantee you will want to open a Skrill account when you realise how frustrating it is waiting days for funds to come back to you from bookmakers. Most bookmaker sign up offers may require card deposits but most reload offers allow for Skrill deposits, therefore just check terms of the offers first. Skrill also provide other benefits, such as a VIP club (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond) and host regular promotions and member deals. Click here for more information.

Smarkets

There a few exchange sites you can use to place your lay bets, including Betfair exchange, Betdaq and Matchbook. I love the exchange site Smarkets and use it for laying 95% of my bets. It’s such a simplistic, stylish site that is very easy to navigate, unlike some of their rivals. They also boast a very low commission rate of 2%, compared to Betfair’s 5% commission rate. People have their different preferences, but I like to use Smarkets when possible. Also if you sign up using the code yovu17 and bet a minimum of £20, you will receive a £10 bonus :). Click here to join for free.

Example Bet

Below will be a step by step guide on how I made £30 from one offer within 5 minutes. The offer was a £50 Free Bet from William Hill, which I received in an email shown below. William Hill also have a £30 sign-up offer, which can be completed using Profit Accumulator to make a guaranteed profit of around £20-£25.

Step One

So after claiming this offer via the link in the email, the first step was placing the £50 qualifying bet on William Hill. I used the oddsmatching software on Profit Accumulator to find a a closely matched event to bet on. I chose to place my qualifying bet on the Stoke v Brighton game, which is highlighted in the image.

By clicking on the calculator icon on the left, the calculator tool popped up (see below). I set the bookmaker stake to £50. The liability was the amount of money I needed in my Smarkets account (sign up to Smarkets using the code yovu17 and bet a minimum of £20, to receive a £10 bonus) and the lay amount is what I typed into the stake box on Smarkets. The qualifying loss is shown in red (-£1.40 if the bet won & -£1.41 if the bet lost).

Step Two

I then placed the £50 qualifying bet on the correct market and event on William Hill via clicking on ‘Visit Bookie Website’ on the calculator tool. Next, I placed my lay bet on Smarkets via clicking on ‘Visit Exchange Website’. Note: If the odds change before placing your bets, make sure to adjust the odds on the calculator accordingly.

Back Bet on William Hill

Lay Bet on Smarkets

Step Three

After placing my qualifying bet on William Hill, my £50 Free Bet became available on William Hill. I then used the oddsmatching tool again to find a new closely matched bet for the free bet. The difference this time, was selecting ‘Free Bet (SNR)’ instead of ‘Normal’ in the calculator tool, which showed how much I would make from the free bet (£31.82), whether the free bet wins or loses, thus making the profits guaranteed, as shown by the green in the image below.

Step Four

In the same way as the qualifying bet, I placed the free back bet on William Hill and the lay bet on Smarkets. After all bets settled, I made £31.82 from the £50 free bet, and a loss of -£1.40 from the qualifying bet, which equates to an overall profit of £30.42. Not bad for 5 minutes of work hey.

Top Tip (Cashback)

When signing up to bookmakers in order to do their sign-up offers, it’s a good idea to go through the cashback sites TopCashback or Quidco first. This is so that you can make some extra profit alongside the sign-up free bet. Always check the terms and conditions of the sign-up offers first though as they may not allow this. At the time of doing the sign up offers, I got £25 cashback from Betway (TC), £30 from Ladbrokes (TC), £20 from Betfair Casino, and £10 from 188Bet.

I hope this information inspires you to begin your matched betting journey. Click here to start your Outplayed 7 day trial or to find out more information.

Page Last Updated: 14/04/2020