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EIGHT EASY STEPS TO MATCHED BETTING

STEP 1: DO YOUR RESEARCH

In order to make money from matched betting you must be prepared to do enough research before starting. If you do not fully understand what you are doing before you start, mistakes can be made and you will not make the free money you deserve.

Firstly, the key betting advice we suggest you read through this guide at least twice. We then suggest you look at the DO's and DONT's section, read through my betting diary, FAQ's section and the Jargon Buster, if you still have a question do not hesitate to contact us for further betting advice.

STEP 2: OPEN THE FOLLWOING ACCOUNTS:-

(a) separate email address
We suggest setting up a separate hotmail or gmail account. When you sign up to a new bookmaker they ask for your email. Bookmakers like to send you confirmation that you account has been opened, verification codes, confirmation of deposits and further lucrative free bet proposals. The reason we suggest a separate email account is, you will receive a large amount of emails, which from experience, can be annoying when muddled in with your personal emails. Opening a separate account allows you to manage you matched betting like a separate business.

(b) Moneybookers account
This is a must for any serious matched bettor. Moneybookers is a moneywallet like paypal or neteller. They are particularly strong in the gaming world, and allow you to deposit and withdraw within 0-24 hours of placing a transaction. Although you can deposit instantly with your switch card or Visa/Mastercards to a bookmaker, it normally takes 3 days to clear unlike moneybookers.
Moneybookers are compatible with nearly all bookmakers, casinos and poker rooms.

(c) a separate bank account (optional)
This is not essential, particularly if you are using moneybookers, however, best betting advice is you do. Like in any business, it is much easier to manage your matched betting activities if the sole purpose of the account is for matched betting. This allows you to monitor exactly how much you have made. What is more banks such as Alliance and Leicester or Nationwide offer up to £100 cashback on opening a new account, a perfect way to start your matched betting career.

With most of the organisational element of our betting advice out of the way, which should not be dismissed, we can now get into the nitty gritty of matched betting. The phenomenon that has allowed matched betting and arbitrage betting to take place is due to a new type of bookmaker set up in the late 1990's, the betting exchange. The original, most liquid and best is betfair, however there are others and a good backup is betdaq.

A betting exchange is essentially a medium for two people with opposing views to bet against each other. The exchange essentially puts these two opposing views together and takes a small commission from the winner between 2-5% of his/her winnings.

The important difference to realise from a traditional bookmaker, such as Ladbrokes, is with a traditional bookmaker one bets against the bookmaker and you back something to win or draw and the bookmaker sets the odds. With betfair you can either 'back' something to win or 'lay' something to lose, i.e. you can make money out of something losing. It is the lay side that allows you to match bet and arbitrage bet.

STEP 4: CHOSING YOUR FREE BET

Almost every bookmaker and exchange offer free bets and there are hundreds of them based in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. A large number of these are listed on this website under the free-bets section.

We suggest to start with choosing a small deposit and free bet offer such as corals, £10 deposit £10 free bet. The betting advice we suggest is by choosing the smaller offers to begin with, allows you to get a handle of what you are doing and so any mistakes have small consequences. Once matched betting becomes second nature we suggest moving onto bigger offers such as boylesports, bet365 and VC bet bet are more lucrative with up to £200 each in free bets.

It is important to stick to the rules of matched betting to make guaranteed returns without risk, rather than falling foul of the lure of gambling when returns are higher but the potential to lose is also great.

In order to extract the free money you must make two bets, firstly the Qualifying bet, in order to get your original stake back and then the free bet, in order to make FREE MONEY.

It is important to have a look at the terms and conditions of the free bet. As I have said free bets range generally from £10 to £200. Some free bets offer a free bet up to 100% of your initial deposit and some only 50%. It is important to note whether your bets are stake returned (SR) or Stake Not Returned. Please see the jargon buster section to understand the difference.


STEP 5: FINDING THE BEST ODDS:

If you are familiar with betting in any way or have had a flutter on the grand national, you will be used to odds being viewed fractionally. i.e. Red Rum to win the Grand National at 6/1. This means that should Red Rum win and you put £10 on, you will receive £60 for winning plus your original £10 stake equaling £70.

(a) Decimal oddsBetting exchanges use decimal odds. i.e. 6/1 will be shown as 7.00. So if Red Rum wins you and you have put on £10 you will receive £10 x 7.0 £70 your stake plus your winnings. I suggest when you sign up to new accounts you convert them all to decimal odds, they will usually give you an option of fractional or decimal. This makes everything consistent and is easier to manage.

(b) Finding a close match Your next task is to try and find a back and a lay with as close a match as possible. One very useful way of quickly doing this is going onto the website oddschecker which quickly compares different odds between websites very quickly. Our very own bet calculator: The oddsmatcher software has over 30 bookmakers on it. Simply go to www.ifreebet.co.uk/betcalculator and have a try. This software takes all the hassle out of searching through various bookmakers yourself. The other advantage of the oddsmatcher, is that it throws up abitradge betting offers from time to time, allowing you to profit from both the matched bet and the arbitrage bet.

STEP 6: PLACE A QUALIFYING BET

The matched better should first place a qualifying bet before receiving his/her free bet.
Qualifying bets are put in place by bookmakers/exchanges to ensure that the bettor is a genuine punter. It is the first test of a matched bettors patience, but as long as you follow the terms and conditions of the free bet offer, your free bet will follow.

Qualifying Bet example: Newcastle United v Aston Villa
Using the Newcastle United v Aston Villa match odds, first place a £25 bet at expekt.com accepting odds of 2.5 for Aston Villa to win (i.e. you win £62.50 should Aston Villa win). Use the £25 you deposited at the time of signing up. Second, place a £26.60 lay at Betfair accepting odds of 2.4 on Aston Villa. This equates to risking £37.23 (£26.60 x 1.4) in order to win £26.60 should Aston Villa lose or draw.
All your possible outcomes are now covered:-
1. If Aston Villa win; you win £62.50 with expekt.com (including your stake) and lose £37.23 with Betfair. Leaving you with 27p profit
2. Aston Villa Draw; you lose your £25 stake with expekt.com and win £25.27 (£26.60 - minus 5% betfair commission) at betfair, leaving you with 27p profit.
3. Aston Villa Lose; you lose your £25 stake with expekt.com and win £25.27 (£26.60 - minus 5% betfair commission) at betfair, leaving you with 27p profit.
Congratulations, that's your qualifying bet done. You have just covered all possible outcomes of the Newcastle United vs Aston Villa match. Now you can sit back and relax knowing that whatever the outcome of the match you can not lose.

Outcome
The outcome is a 27p profit from your qualifying bets and are left with £50 in free bets, £25 free bet with expekt.com and £25 free bet with betfair.

STEP 7: PLACE YOUR FREE BETS

You are now in a position to extract your free bet and deposit the risk free money into your bank account to spend as you choose.
The free bet is your reward for the time taken open your new account and placing the qualifying bet. You must continue to stick to the terms and conditions of the free bet and also the rules of matched betting, and calculate you back and lay amounts correctly, although the software on the oddsmatcher takes care of this nicely for you.
For the free bet it is more profitable to use higher odds. This has two advantages, firstly your profits are higher and secondly your money is more likely to end up in your betfair account, as you will discover allows you more flexibility of withdrawing you free money. Some bookmakers T&C's ask you to turn over the free bet amount more than once before you can withdraw.

To achieve this you must update our free MATCHED BETTING SPREADSHEET CALCULATOR to denote whether you are using Stake Returned Free Bets or Stake Not Returned Free Bets. As Expekt.com and betfair are Stake Returned you'll enter £50 in the 'Free bet:' cell on the Calculator (If the Free Bet was Stake Not Returned you would need to enter the appropriate amount in the 'Stake Not Returned:' cell as well).

The £25 free bet at Expekt is classified as a Stake Returned (SR) free bet as per its terms and conditions. You must input the £25 free bet amount into the calculator followed by your back and lay odds respectively. To ensure the highest possible winnings from your free bet you should try to select odds of 5 or higher for both the back bet at expekt.com and the lay bet at Betfair.com.

EXAMPLE: TENNIS NADAL vs FEDERRER
Rafael Nadal is due to play Carlos Ferreira at Wimbeldon. You have decided in advance to find the best odds to match bet your £50 free bet. The odds at expekt.com show Nadal 6/1(7.0) to win 3 sets to 1. You must then find odds at betfair as close as possible or lower than 7.0. In this example I found lay odds of 7.2 for Nadal not to win 3-1.

The free bet
Using the Nadal vs Ferreira match odds, first place your £25 free bet at expekt.com accepting odds of 6/1 (7.0) on Nadal to win 3-1. Second, place a £24.48 lay at Betfair accepting odds of 7.2 on Nadal not winning 3-1. This equates to risking £151.75 (£24.48 * 6) from your Betfair account - £25 of which is free remember! All figures in this paragraph are generated using our free Matched betting calculator.

Congratulations, that's your 1 * £25 free bet and 1 * £25 free bet done. You have just covered all possible outcomes of the Nadal vs Ferreira Wimbeldon Tennis match.

Outcome
1. Nadal wins 3-1 and you win £175 form expekt.com and lose £126.75 (£151.75-£25 free bet) with betfair leaving you with an overall profit of £48.25

2. Nadal does not win 3-1 and you lose your £25 free stake with expekt but win £23.25 with betfair plus your free £25 stake £48.25

Therefore whatever the outcome and a maximum of 30minutes work you have made £48.25. Not bad if you multiply this through the 50 plus free bets of £10 to £200 each advertised on this website at FREE BETS

STEP 8: COLLECT YOUR WINNINGS

Well done on completing your first matched bet and as a result your rewards would be as follows:
1. 27p for a small arb on your qualifying bet
2. £23.25 winnings from your expekt £25 free bet
3. £25 winnings from your betfair free bet
Therefore whatever the outcome and a maximum of 30 minutes work you have made £48.52. Not bad if you multiply this through the 60 plus free bets of £10 to £200 each advertised on this website at FREE BETS.

DON'T DELAY: GET STARTED

Having read through my guide and diary and practiced on the spread sheet and oddsmatcher it is time to start extracting free money. There are literally £1000's of free-bets available through sign-up and reload bonus and well over 50 bookmakers to use.

It is very important to keep a track of all the accounts you open and the offers you take advantage of and I suggest doing this through a spread sheet such as my matched betting spreadsheet.

If you still have any questions having read through the website, take a look at the FAQ or feel free to email: questions@ifreebet.co.uk

We hope you appreciate this arbitrage betting and matched betting advice. Should you need any further betting advice we suggest visiting our iFreeBet Blog