What is Matched Betting? 2025 Beginners Guide

If you are planning to apply for a loan or mortgage then having tons of gambling activity might not work in your favour. You’ll need to use a bank account, or other eligible deposit method. There’s nothing illegal about placing promotional free bets, or Lay bets. This largely depends on what free bets are on offer, and how many you claim. Here’s how to calculate the profit for each of the two possible outcomes of the Free Bet. Mathematically it doesn’t matter what sport or market you choose provided the Bookmaker & exchange odds are of a similar value.

What is matched betting? Your comprehensive guide

• Of course, whether it’s worth it to you depends on your personal circumstances.
• It is extremely unlikely that matched betting will go wrong, but it is possible for you to make a mistake during the process.
• In this guide, we’re breaking down one particular area of the industry, and with it, you’ll see matched betting explained in full.
• I am one for being very organised so I think I’m going to track my betting in a spreadsheet and make small bets here and there to make it look genuine.
• Some are poor value as they have all kinds of strings attached (like having to play through your winnings 20x plus) and aren’t worth doing.

All of the money you make from matched betting is 100% tax-free, and you do not have to declare your earnings to HMRC. Over the years, we have helped thousands of people earn a second income with matched betting. Below the liability figure on the calculator, you’ll see the profit you’re locking in from this free bet. In the above example, you’ll make at least £15.50 profit regardless of the outcome. Pay attention to your liability and your overall position, or profit. In this example your liability is £74.50, this indicates that you’ll need at least £74.50 in your Matchbook balance to place this lay bet.

The aim is for the odds to be similar so regardless of the score you will only lose pennies, but the point is that you unlock the free cash bonuses. Remember that matched betting entirely within the confines of the sportsbooks won’t yield a significant profit due to how the odds are set up. Back your bets on the sports betting site using free bets and lay the bet via the exchange. With most online sportsbooks, welcome bonuses are offered to brand new bettors—they are designed to help newcomers get their footing with a sports betting site. A nice boost of extra cash can give bettors a decent shot at holding their own as they navigate a new platform as a new user, especially if their gambling budget is tight.

Later on, we will discuss the steps that you need to make in order to get you started with Matched Betting. At first, you will be aiming to just get your hands on free cash bonuses which the bookie will offer to you. Majority of the time you will need to spend a certain amount of your own money first however in order to unlock this. With matched betting, you will spend £5 of your own money, however it will be risk free and you will gain the free cash bonus.

Common Misconceptions About Matched Betting

The process is the same, and I have a detailed walkthrough for each one. Check out my Matched Betting Academy to see which bookmaker you should tackle next. You’ll also be able to make another £300-£500 monthly from recurring bookmaker offers. It’s good practice to check this figure against the expected betting exchange loss on the calculator. As you can see, they’re both the same, so you know you have entered the correct lay stake. At the time of writing, I’ve found odds of 2.20 for Spain to beat Italy (in a Euro 2024 football match) at Betfred, which is your back bet.

To make sure that these £10 are not at risk, you will need to place a lay bet as well. You decide to place your wager on Liverpool to win at odds 2/1 (2.0). To answer simply, yes, existing users can still receive matched betting offers from specific bookmakers. All of the money that you make from matched betting is 100% tax-free and, with the right tools and resources at your disposal, the process is quick and easy.

So don’t kid yourself that Matched Betting is highly detrimental to the Bookmakers’ bottom line. It doesn’t really impact their profits unless players fraudulently claim bonuses that they aren’t entitled to. Without being too mathsy, the reason for it being more profitable is that high odds win at the exchange more frequently than at low odds. The benefit to this is that you reduce the frequency of winning free bets at the Bookmaker where your stake is not returned. Before placing your free bet you need to, once again, find a suitable upcoming event with matching odds on the Betting Exchange.

The process becomes a lot easier from here onwards, because it’s mainly repetition. The obvious option is Betfair because it has the most liquidity (available money to take for a bet). This means you’re less likely to ever encounter a scenario where you have to queue your stake in order to get matched on your (opposing) Lay bets. However, there’s other exchanges that charge lower commission for using their service. Repeat the process from step 3 and lay against your new free bet.

I had to take a lot of notes and review them to understand some of these things. I’m grateful I can learn this for free so thank you for putting in the time to create this matched betting guide. Will have to re-read this a few more times to get a better idea of things. They offer these promotions to get new customers, after all. Feel free to withdraw those earnings from whatever account(s) have the money.

A larger bankroll means you can do more offers at once without having to wait for your money to transfer between bank, bookmaker and 1xbet casino betting exchange accounts. However, you should make a decision based on your own financial circumstances, as you should not place bets that you can’t afford. To minimise the amount of money you need to start matched betting, you can take advantage of a no-risk matched betting offer that doesn’t require a qualifying stake.

It’s much like arbitrage betting, but some key differences make it a unique betting strategy. Matched betting takes advantage of free bets and other promos offered by online sportsbooks, so it’s an excellent approach for bettors who don’t have a lot of capital starting off. This is why checking terms and conditions before using online sports betting sites is essential.