How Does Matched Betting Work? A Short Matched Betting Guide
by admin on August 23rd, 2010
filed under Betting Articles
Today all major bookmakers offer generous bonuses and free bets to their new customers. All you have to do is sign up with the bookie, make a deposit and place your first bet, and the bookmaker will credit your account with free money. A savvy gambler would quickly understand the profit potential of such offers. Yet the question of how to use these bonuses without the risk of losing money remains. This is where matched betting comes into play.
Bookmakers will not give you any free bets before you actually place a bet with them. In most cases the amount of free bet given will be equal to your initial bet (up to a certain maximum). That, however, does not mean that you have to risk money when placing the first bet, because matched betting enables you to cancel out this bet in a betting exchange. How is that possible? Let me explain…
Assume that you were to place a bet on Real Madrid to win a football game. This bet will win if Madrid wins, but lose if Madrid loses. However, if you go to a betting exchange and place a lay bet on Real Madrid, the lay bet will win if Madrid loses, but it will lose if Madrid wins. Assuming that the odds at bookmaker and betting exchange are similar, the two bets in effect will nullify each other.
What’s the point of that? I cannot win anything this way…
By placing these seemingly useless bets, you have qualified to receive your free bet without ever risking your funds. At this point, you have basically earned free money in the form of a free bet.
The only problem is that bookmakers will not allow you to withdraw this money right away. You will instead need to place another bet with it. You can place a bet with your free money and hope that this bet wins. That way you cannot lose anything since you are betting with the free bet, but if you get lucky, you can win a lot.
But there is a better alternative. If you do matched betting once again and place bets with both bookie and betting exchange, you can turn the free bet into a guaranteed profit regardless of which team or horse wins! It’s a lot more profitable way to us your bonuses and your winnings are more consistent and more predictable.
Once you’ve done matched betting at one bookmaker, you can simply move on to another one. There are dozens if not hundreds of good free bet offers out there, so the profit potential of matched betting is just enormous.
Matched betting is doubtlessly a highly profitable betting strategy that can make you a decent income from betting. However, matched betting can be a little tricky, especially if you have no previous experience with it. For example, various types of free bet offers require slightly different strategies, and the stakes must be carefully calculated to achieve the best results. To find out more, download my free matched betting guide which covers the subtleties of this betting strategy in more detail.