In this guide, I’ll briefly explain what matched betting is, how it works, and walk you through making £15 profit from Coral’s new customer offer, step by step. There’s no rush to complete this guide and I recommend taking the time to fully understand each part. Once complete, you’ll be able to apply the same process to any similar offer and make a guaranteed profit, so it’s well worth the rewards at the end! Without further ado, let’s get going…
What is matched betting?
Put simply, matched betting is the process of covering all outcomes of an event in order to qualify for free bets and bonuses for next to nothing. Once you have your free bet, you repeat the process to make a fixed profit.
I’ll emphasise now that matched betting is not about taking risks or punts. It’s about using simple maths (no manual calculations needed!), to make a consistent profit from each offer you claim. For this reason, matched betting is generally accepted as being risk-free. My ’What is matched betting?’ overview will clear up some of the common questions about matched betting if you’re completely new to the idea.
A simple example
Let’s consider that a bookmaker is running a promotion where you get a free £10 bet if you place a bet of £10 on any event.
For the sake of simplicity, the event I’ll use in this example is a coin toss. There are two possible outcomes, heads or tails, with an equal chance of both happening.
If you place a £10 bet on heads as well as a £10 bet on tails, you won’t win any money, but you won’t lose any either. The two bets will cancel each other out, but you will have met the requirements to claim your £10 free bet without taking any risks. You can see this illustrated in the table below.
As you can see, if heads wins, you both win and lose £10. If tails wins, you also win and lose £10. Either way, your overall profit is zero, but you will have met the conditions needed to qualify for your free bet (by having placed a £10 bet).
Now, you could just place your free bet on anything and hope it wins, but you’d be relying on luck! Matched betting is all about guaranteeing yourself a profit. To do that, you simply repeat the process again, covering all outcomes on another event, but this time using your free bet. Doing this will give you around 80% of the value of the free bet. So, if your free bet is worth £10, you’ll make around £8 profit, no matter the outcome.
Congrats! You’ve just learned the fundamental principle of matched betting!
In the real world, events can have more than two outcomes (like a football match being a home win, away win or a draw) and each result has a different likelihood of happening (your betting odds). Even so, the basic principle remains the same, but the amount you stake on each outcome will vary.
Because most events have more than two possible outcomes, you can make use of something called a betting exchange. As with normal bookmakers, these allow you to place a bet that something will happen. However, unlike regular bookmakers, they also allow you to bet that something won’t happen.
For example, you can bet at a bookmaker that the home team will win a football match. An exchange then allows you to bet that the home team won’t win – which covers a draw or away win. By doing this, you still only need to place two bets to cover all possible outcomes.
Betting exchanges
Many newbies find betting exchanges a stumbling block to learning matched betting and that’s perfectly natural. Overcome the initial learning curve and they’re actually pretty simple. Take your time and don’t be put off if it’s not clear the first time around.
Betting exchanges are very similar to bookmakers, with one key difference. Instead of betting against a bookmaker, you bet against other people. That’s why it’s called a betting exchange; people are exchanging bets.
Betting exchanges allow a user to propose a bet that they want to place. If another user is happy to take that bet, the bet becomes ‘matched’. The second user here effectively plays the role of the bookmaker.
In matched betting speak, the regular bettor has placed a ‘back’ bet, whereas the user playing the bookmaker has placed a ‘lay’ bet. In matched betting you will almost always be on the ‘lay’ side, but might occasionally play the role of a ‘back’ user, so it’s important that you understand both sides.
If the ‘back’ user’s bet wins, the ‘lay’ user would pay out their winnings, just like a bookmaker would. For example, if the ‘back’ bet was £10 on Man Utd to win at odds of 2/1, and Man Utd did win, the user on the ‘lay’ side pays the ‘back’ user £20. In matched betting speak, that £20 is the ‘lay‘ user’s liability – the amount they stand to lose should the outcome not go their way.
At a bookmaker you will always be on the ‘back’ side of the bet, with the bookmaker obviously playing the role of the bookmaker. When you use the exchange, you will be on the ‘lay’ side, where you play the role of the bookmaker. Doing this allows you to cover all of the outcomes of an event using only two bets, even if there are more than two outcomes.
For example, let’s consider the result of a football match. There are three possible outcomes – home win, away win, or a draw. If you ‘back’ the home team to win at the bookmaker, this covers one outcome.
You can then place a ‘lay’ bet on the home team at the exchange (remember you’re playing the role of the bookmaker on the lay side). This means you’re effectively betting that the home team won’t win, which covers the draw and away win outcomes.
At this point, you may be wondering how betting exchanges make money if it’s just users betting against each other. Well, the exchange takes a small commission from the user who wins the bet, usually 0-5% of the winnings.
This covers the fundamentals of betting exchanges and how they’re useful when matched betting. You’re now ready to walk through a real offer, where you’ll see how all of these basic principles work in the real world. If you feel you need to go in depth on betting exchanges, take a look at my ‘What is a betting exchange?’ guide.
First offer walkthrough
The offer I’m going to walk you through is a new customer offer from Coral. From this, you can make a guaranteed £15. This isn’t the largest offer out there, but it is a good one to start with. The amounts you need to stake are small, so it’s a great one to build up your confidence before tackling larger offers.
Don’t worry if this sounds daunting; I’ll guide you through the process of placing each bet step by step.
1. Open a Betfair account
Before you can place any bets, you’ll need to open a betting exchange account. I’ll be using Betfair in this guide as I think they’re the best option for newbies. They’re the largest of all the betting exchanges, which makes it easier to match bets with other users.
2. Open a Coral account
Coral are offering new customers £20 in free bets when you place a bet of £5.
This may not be the biggest welcome offer around, but I advise new matched bettors to start small and work their way up. Once you’ve completed your first couple of offers, your confidence will grow and so will your bankroll for completing the larger ones.
3. Switch to decimal odds
Switching to decimal odds is essential for comparing odds at a glance.
To work out your returns with decimal odds, you simply multiply your stake by the odds. For example, a £10 stake at odds of 3.50, gives £35 back. Note, the £35 includes your initial £10 stake, so you’re making £25 profit. You can learn more about decimal odds in my Betting Odds Explained guide.
Exchanges use decimal odds by default, but most bookmakers display traditional fractional odds. You can usually switch to decimal odds at the top of the page, in the sidebar, or failing that in your account settings.


4. Qualifying bet
Now you have your accounts set up, you can claim your offer! The bet you’ll place in order to qualify for your free bets is known as your ‘qualifying bet’.
It’s important to check the terms of each offer, as there may be specific requirements you need to meet. The key terms of your Coral welcome offer state that you can place your qualifying bet on any sport, but it must be placed at odds of 1.50 (1/2) or greater. Every offer I post includes the key requirements you need to meet.
You should place your bets on popular events that regular people will be betting on. This will make it easier for you to match your bets. Football matches are usually the best option.
Qualifying bets should always be placed at low odds. In the case of your Coral offer, that means above and as close to 1.50 as possible.
You also need to look for close odds between your back bet at the bookmaker (Coral) and your lay bet at the exchange (Betfair).
Doing both of these things means you can claim your free bet by losing just a few pence overall. If you feel you need to go in depth on qualifying bets, take a look at my ‘Qualifying Bets Guide’.
Place your back bet
At the time of writing, I’ve found odds of 1.50 for Liverpool to beat Arsenal at Coral. This is your back bet. On Betfair (your exchange), you can lay Liverpool at odds of 1.51. (Remember, ‘laying’ means you’re taking the role of bookmaker and therefore betting on Liverpool NOT to win).




So, your outcomes will be covered as below.
You can now place your qualifying bet at Coral. You know you need to place a bet of £5 to qualify, so you can do that now.
Simply click on the ‘1.50‘ button underneath ‘Liverpool’, enter your stake of £5 and click ‘Place Bet.’


Place your lay bet
What you don’t know yet is how much you need to stake at Betfair to even out your bets. This is where my Matched Betting Calculator comes in!
You simply select the ‘Qualifying Bet’ setting and input the stake and odds from your back bet, plus the odds of your lay bet. The calculator will then tell you how much you need to stake at Betfair to be as close to breaking even as possible. Based on my Liverpool example, that is a stake of £5.14 and results in a tiny overall loss of 12 pence. You can see the calculator populated with my numbers below.
Note, in my example I’ve entered ‘Lay commission’ of 5%, which is Betfair’s default rate. If you were offered 0% commission by Betfair when signing up, I would recommend keeping the calculator set at 5%. That’s because the commission is still charged initially, before being refunded to your account each Wednesday.
Now, you can place your lay bet. Click on the ‘1.51’ lay button at Betfair and enter your stake of £5.14.


It tells you that your liability is £2.62 and it’s good practice to check this figure against the expected exchange loss on the calculator. As you can see, they’re both the same, so you know you have entered the correct lay stake.
You’ll need to deposit enough funds into your Betfair account to cover your £2.62 liability as this is the amount you stand to lose if Liverpool win. Don’t worry though, your winnings at Coral will cover all of this but for a few pence.
Your Betfair screen should now update to display your potential profit or loss for each possible outcome.


Outcomes
Let’s have a look at your overall potential profit/loss for each outcome.
As you can see, regardless of whether Liverpool win, lose or draw, you’ll incur a small loss of £0.12. This loss is worth it though, as you’ve just qualified for £20 in free bets!
5. Using your free bets
Nice work! You’ve just completed your first matched bet!
Now, you could just place your free bets on anything you like and see if they win or lose, but you’d be relying on luck! With matched betting, you want to know for sure that you’ll make a profit from those free bets. How do you do that? You simply repeat the process you’ve just done.
Your £20 in free bets (4 x £5) at Coral should be credited as soon as your qualifying bet is placed. Again, it’s important to check the free bet terms for any specific requirements.
As with the vast majority of free bets, your Coral free bets are ‘stake not returned’. This means that each of your £5 stakes will not be returned to you with any winnings. You only get back what would have been your profit on a normal bet. The free bets are valid for 7 days.
The only real difference in the process this time around is that your free bets should be placed at high odds in order to maximise your profit. As always, the closer the back and lay odds, the better. If you feel you need to go in depth on free bets, take a look at my ‘Free Bets Guide’.
Place your back bet
At the time of writing this guide, the following odds are available for a Premier League match between Tottenham and Newcastle.




The odds for Newcastle are pretty high and back odds of 8.00 and lay odds of 8.40 are nice and close.
You can go ahead and place your 4 x £5 free bets at Coral. You’ll need to select them using the dropdown on your betslip.
Place your lay bet
Again, you need to calculate how much you need for your lay stake at Betfair. This time on my Matched Betting Calculator, you simply select the ‘Free Bet’ setting and input your odds and total stake. You can leave the ‘Stake returned’ box unchecked as your free bet stakes are not returned for this offer.
As you can see, the calculator tells you that your lay stake should be £16.77. So, just as before, you click on the ‘8.40’ lay button at Betfair and enter your stake of £16.77.


It tells you that your liability on this bet is £124.10 and again it’s good practice to check this figure against the expected exchange loss on the calculator. As you can see, they’re both the same but for a penny (due to rounding), so you know you have entered the correct lay stake.
If you feel the liability is too high or you’re starting with limited funds, you can simply place the free bets one at a time, waiting for each one to settle before placing the next. That should reduce your liability to around £30 per bet. It’ll just take you a little longer to work through them all.
If you’re happy to place them all at once, you’ll need to deposit enough funds into your Betfair account to cover your £124.10 liability as this is the amount you stand to lose at Betfair if Newcastle win. Don’t worry though, your winnings at Coral will more than cover it. Once done, just as before, you’ll see your potential profit or loss at Betfair for each possible outcome.


Outcomes
Let’s have a look at your overall profit for the possible outcomes.
So, regardless of whether Newcastle win, lose or draw, you’ll make a minimum of £15.90 cash from your £20 in free bets! Given that your qualifying loss was just £0.12, you’ve made at least £15.78 profit overall from Coral’s welcome offer.
Summary and next steps
This might seem like a long process, but once you’re into the swing of it you’ll be able to go from selecting your offer to placing your free bets in no time at all.
If you need help with anything, hit me up in the comments below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can (usually within 24 hours).
When you’re ready, I’ve got two more offers lined up for you to complete for a combined total of £38 profit. Exactly the same process, step-by-step walkthroughs and a bit more profit with each one! See you there!
Craig
Guest userCan i ask am I missing some logic here. Does the betting always have to be on gains from free bets… Let’s say theoretically. I bet 1000 on arsenal to beat man utd at 2.30 with Ladbrokes. That’s returns of 2300. Profit of 1300 minus the liability. Which is… odds of 2.42 against which is a lay stake of 541.67. And a liability of 769.24. A return of 1310.91. So if Ladbrokes bet comes in. 1300 minus 769.24 is still a profit of 530.76. And if Ladbrokes loses 1310.91 minus 1000 is a profit of 310.91. This all being your own money. Is that correct?
On smarkets. Betting say against arsenal.. does that mean if arsenal lose or draw your bet wins?
Matt
412You’re misunderstanding the lay bet Craig. When placing a lay bet, you are effectively the bookmaker. If you lay £541.67 at odds of 2.42, your liability will be £769.24. This means someone will place £541.67 on Arsenal and you are offering odds of 2.42. If Arsenal fail to win, you get to keep the backer’s stake of £541.67. If Arsenal win, you need to pay them their winnings of £769.24. So, to summarise, the lay stake is the amount you stand to win and your liability is the amount you stand to lose.
Yes, if you lay Arsenal, you need them draw or lose to win your bet.
Andy
Guest userHi Matt
I really should know this already but I’m just checking! I’m about to take the Unibet risk free first bet up to £30. Am I right in saying to work out my lay stake and liability I calculate this as stake returned? i.e if the bet wins that’s it done, if it loses I’m onto a SNR free bet?
Thanks
Andy
Matt
412Have a read of my Risk-Free Bet Strategy page Andy. We can just use the ‘Risk-Free Bet’ setting on the calculator and enter the amount of ‘cashback’ we expect to extract from the free bet refund should our initial bet lose.
Andy R
Guest userHi Matt just want to say your blog and new roll over bonus guide is the dogs just wondered if you could explain the red 32 100 % profit boost not sure how to extract the profit if you only get boost if your selection wins cheers in advance keep up the great work £££££££
Matt
412Thanks Andy! Have a look at the following blog post for an idea of how profit boosts should be done…
https://matchedbettingblog.com/football/leovegas-offer-premier-league-201617-double-winnings/
KATARZYNA GEARON
Guest userThanks Andy.
Neb_Stark
0Hi Matt, love the blog – very clear! I’m new to this, and had a conceptual question. bet365 have a new customer offer where they match your first deposit in ‘bet credits’ up to £100, as long as you place bets up to the value of that deposit.
Would the best way to extract profit from this offer be to place £100 in bets laid at low odds on the exchange, and then use the £100 credits to place at high odds?
Cheers.
Matt
412Yes that would be my preference, qualifying bets placed at low odds and then just treat the bet credits the same way as you would free bets.
BoJacobs
0Hey Matt,
Awesome blog, so useful. I am currently waiting for qualifying bet with coral to come in. After this I go onto making profit from the 4 x £5 free bets given by coral. Betfair which will be the lay bet offer £20 refund if your bet loses so is there a way to combine the two? Would the best idea be to lay on something that is unlikely as if it loses I get the £20 back and if I win on coral it’s free profit as I have used the £5 free bets. Or do I do both separately and if so can I avoid using the betfair £20 refund on a lost bet so i can profit later?
Matt
412It’s great to have you on board! Have you not already placed your first lay bet for the qualifying bet?
BoJacobs
0Yes i’m waiting for it to come in , the lay bet is on Man city today and the back bet on Coral on the same with a loss of about 12p. Once the qualifying bet comes in what do you think my next course of action should be? I have the 4 x £5 free bets on Coral and also have the signup deal on Betfair where if I bet £20 on the exchange and doesn’t come in I get the £20 back (I assume in bets but i’m not sure). Thanks a lot for quick reply it is much appreciated.
Matt
412What I mean is, haven’t you already placed you first lay bet on Man City, so any potential refund will depend on that outcome rather than your free bets? Or have you placed the Man City lay bet with another exchange?
BoJacobs
0Hey Matt,
All went well just got my first £15, thanks for the awesome blog!
Matt
412You’re welcome!
Steve
Guest userHi Matt
I appreciate your efforts for putting this piece of wonderful tutorial for the newbie.
I am still very new in this Matched Betting field I have not placed any bet yet but wants to get hold of every facts in it.
My question is, is it a must that when you placed a qualifying bet with a particular team, that in your free bet you must still use that same team.
Just like you did in your qualifying bet you selected the sport bet Man U and Watford, then in your free bet you selected thesame Man U and another team.
Why must it be Man U in both bets. Is it a rule why not use another two different sports bet.
Matt
412Hi Steve,
You’re very welcome. Pleased to hear you’re finding it useful.
No you don’t have to select the same team for your free bet. In this guide I placed the qualifying bet on Man Utd to beat Watford and the free bet on Leicester to beat Man City.
I hope that helps.
Dave
Guest userHi Matt, I don’t understand the risk – free cashback bit – I am looking at the SkyBet £10 on World Cup winner money back as a free bet if they don’t win.
Matt
412Hi Dave. Take a look at my dedicated blog post for that particular offer > https://matchedbettingblog.com/football/world-cup-2018-offer-sky-bet/
Tanis
Guest userHi Matt, great stuff. I have one question. I have earned a £100 free bet on betfair. How can I used them as I have seen that the free bets are use on the other ones (eg. Coral) not on betfair. Could I match bet within the sportbook of betfair and it´s exchange?
Thanks
Matt
412Hi Tanis. No that wouldn’t be advisable. Is the free bet for use on their Sportsbook or Exchange? Either way, you can place a back bet with them and lay it off at Smarkets.
Marie
Guest userHi Matt, thanks for the great step-by-step guide. I’m completely new to this and have yet to understand how all of this works, so your guide is mega helpful!
So when I sign up on Betfair and on Coral is it necessary to add money on both websites? Or is it just necessary for one? I know I can’t lose money really, but still feel a bit cautious where my money is going.
Would appreciate your help, thank you!
Matt
412You’re welcome Marie! Yes you need to deposit £5.00 into your Coral account which you’ll need to place your £5.00 qualifying bet. You’ll then need some funds in your Betfair account to cover the liability of your lay bets. You shouldn’t need much in Betfair at all for the qualifying bet, but you’ll need a little more for the free bets as we place those at higher odds in order to extract as much profit as we can. I hope that helps.
Neil F
Guest userMorning sorry to but in
I’m new to this and not started yet so if the bet wins on coral we lose the liability on betfair so example you win £30 bet on coral but lose £26 on betfair = 4 pound profit
Is this correct
Thanks
Matt
412Yes that’s correct Neil.
We either win at the bookie and lose at the exchange or lose at the bookie and win at the exchange. Either way we make a profit.
Chris
Guest userHi Matt
As an avid better prior to this I may have wasted my opportunity as I have accounts with near all bookmakers.
Is it possible I can do this solely with a Betfair And Coral account and just repeatedly use those two exclusively, backing on coral and laying on betfair
Chris
Matt
412Hi Chris,
The welcome offers are just a starting point really. The big earning potential comes from the reload offers for existing customers. You’ll find them on the homepage or under the ‘Offers’ tab on the main menu.
When you talk about using just one bookmaker account and one exchange account, it’s possible to do something called arbitrage betting. That’s where you back at high odds and then lay at lower odds, but it’s not really a viable option long-term as the bookmaker would probably restrict your account after a period of time.
Hope that helps.
John
Guest userHi Matt,
I read your very helpful blog and I think I got the hang of it. I want to give it a try but should I wait for the football season or I can claim the free bets now and work with whatever events available?
Matt
412Hi John. There are still a few World Cup matches left so you could always try a few offers using those. Just take things at your own pace and then come the start of the football season, you should be raring to go!
Michael J
Guest userHi Matt,
I’m in my second week of following you now, steadily piling up the profits. I finally got stuck today and can’t find a solution. I don’t think there is a guide for this.
I signed up with bwin today. Not being a gambler, I didn’t realise that the qualification bet was required to be in three parts (is that what you call an acca). Having only done a back and lay bet according to the method you explain. So is there a way to lay successfully against a three part bet without it getting really messy and confusing?
Matt
412Hi Michael.
Thanks for following! It’s great to hear that your profits are building up nicely.
Yes that’s correct, anything with multiple selections is usually referred to as an ‘accumulator’. You may also hear the terms ‘double’ and ‘treble’ for 2 selections and 3 selections respectively.
Laying multiples is actually pretty straightforward now that Smarkets allow us to build and lay our own accumulators. You can find a walkthrough of how it should be done in my laying multiples guide.
I hope that helps!
Ellan
Guest userHi Matt,
Thanks for the insightful article, it really helped! Noted that higher odd bets will require higher liability as well. If I currently don’t have enough capital, does repeating the above process allow me to extract the free bet part by part?
Matt
412Hi Ellan. You can’t split a free bet unfortunately. Free bets are usually required to be placed in full. If your bankroll is limited, there is always the option to place your free bets at lower odds, but be aware that this will eat into your profits a lot more than higher odds.
David H
Guest userHi Matt, am I right in assuming that once in have registered with all the bookies, and taken advantage of their free bet welcome offers, that’s game over, or do they offer existing clients offers to retain their business?
Matt
412Hi David. The new customer offers are just a starting point. As you rightly suspect, bookmakers run reload offers to keep their customers betting. You can find the offers for existing customers on the blog Homepage or under Offers > Existing Customer Offers.
Loopy2
Guest userHi Matt
Great blog, so insightful and bless you for sharing your knowledge and allowing others to benefit from these offers! Just a quickie I was looking at my account settings on smarkets and there is an option to alter the backers stake setting to ‘enter your lay stake as liability’ how does this work and how does affect matched betting, can’t get me head around this one…?
Matt
412Thanks for the kind words. That setting allows you to enter the amount you want to risk, rather than the amount you want to win.
Say, for example, you want to lay £5.00 on Chelsea at lay odds of 3.00. That would give you a liability of £10.00.
Settings:
Enter Lay Stake – You would enter £5.00, which is the amount you stand to win if Chelsea don’t win.
Enter Liability – You would enter £10.00, which is the amount you’re willing to lose if Chelsea do win.
Loopy2
Guest userYes that makes sense now I get it! Thanks again you’re a star!!
Matt
412No problem at all, happy to help!
Kevin.L
0Is matched betting applicable for other countries? I’m from the Philippines and I’m interested in doing this. Thanks for your help.
Matt
412Matched betting is available outside the UK, but it depends on your country of residence. You would need to check the terms of each offer to see if they accept customers from the Philippines.
Brian T
Guest userMy Son on a visit (who lives some way away from me) tried to introduce me to matched betting via Smarkets, but whilst he knew what he was doing on the pc, I really do not understand what I’m actually up to? Even your tutorial leaves me bewildered, and I really need the most elementary advice on what to do step by step on a daily basis, like 1. Go to Smarkets page and view options. 2. Search for favourable free-bet offer. 3. Use Smarkets calculator for matched betting odds etc., 4, 5, 6, 7, etc., etc.
Please tell me if there exists a step by step daily procedure to follow, to help me learn what to do.
Matt
412Hi Brian. I’ve tried to walk people through the process as best I can in the tutorials. Matched betting isn’t for everyone, but it might be worth asking your son if he’ll walk you through things again. There’s no substitute for a one-to-one session, so hopefully running through things again might just help the penny drop. Once you’ve grasped the basics, the posts on the homepage include a detailed walk-through of each offer. Good luck.
Matt
Guest userHi Matt.
How many bookmakers do you need to have accounts with to make matched betting work?
Living in the UK which bookmaker?
Thanks
Matt
412You can sign up with as many bookmakers as you like Matt. Obviously, the more you sign up with, the greater the earning potential.
You can find a list of the current sign up offers on my Free Bets page.
Stuart
Guest userHi Matt,
I’ve followed the process and having placed my initial back and lay bets (back on Coral and lay on Betfair) Coral then told me I had a ‘Bet 5 for 20’ offer which seemed to be the £20 free bet offer but I couldn’t activate any of the 4 X £5 in it without placing another £5 in my account.
Is this something different?
I didn’t see a totally free £20 free bet come up anywhere.
Thanks,
Stu.
Matt
412I’m not sure what’s happened there Stuart. The 4 x £5.00 free bets should be credited instantly upon placement of your first qualifying bet of £5.00+, provided it’s placed at odds of 1.50 (1/2) or greater.
leewilliams96
0After you have completed this one with Coral, how do you then find odds that are usable on betfair and say ladbrokes or any other websites?
Matt
412It’s just a case of manually looking for the odds Lee. If you stick to mainstream football, you shouldn’t have any issues finding suitable bets. Just make sure you place your qualifying bets above the minimum odds stated in the terms of each offer.
Neil R
Guest userHi Matt, one question. When placing your free bet, if you place a back bet at 5.6 for example, does the lay bet have to be greater (6.3). What happens if the odds change quick and the lay bet now stands at 5.5 for example?? How does this effect the outcome? All the lay bets seem to be higher??
Matt
412Yes Neil, the lay odds are generally higher than the back odds. Put simply though, the lower the lay odds, the more profit you’ll extract from your free bet. So, if your lay odds are lower than your back odds, you’ve found a very nice matched bet for your free bet.
Vickie
Guest userhello
i have my free 4 bets – value 4 x £5 = £20/
If i put these on 1 match as 4 separate bets as per your example – do i need to add a lay bet 4 times ? or as per our example only once??
Thanks
V
Matt
412Hi Vicky. You can place each free bet separately and lay them separately or you can place all four free bets on one selection and lay it once based on a free bet stake of £20.00 when using the calculator. Hope that helps.
Louise
Guest userHi, I followed your guide and I think I understand the concept behind matched betting now as yesterday I made £30, so I must be doing it right! However, and this might be a stupid question but is there a way or a website in which you can get your money back quicker? You put for example £10 in to qualify for a free bet, but then you put £26 odd in to cover the liability on Betfair, and then you repeat that on whatever other bets you place, but then all that money and your profit takes like 2-5 working days to go into your bank, is that the way everyone else is doing it or is there a quicker way?
Matt
412Hi Louise. I think most people deposit funds via debit/credit card as other methods don’t always qualify you for offers. I always say that you don’t need a huge bankroll to start matched betting, but the smaller your bankroll the more you’ll need to move your money about and unfortunately that does take a bit of time. Once you start to build your pot though, things become a lot easier in that respect.
Joe
Guest userHi Matt,
Great guide. I’ve not started yet but see the logic.
When using the free bet you say high odds are best but is there a limit to this? I.e if I bet at 100/1 providing I have the capital to cover the liability then should I in order to maximise profit?
Thanks
Matt
412Hi Joe.
Occasionally there may be a limit on the odds, but it’s pretty rare to be honest.
When we talk about placing free bets at higher odds to maximise our profits, that only applies if the lay odds are relatively close to the back odds. You’ll often find with rank outsiders that the lay odds are a long way apart from the back odds. Odds anywhere between 5.00 and 15.00 are ideal for free bets, just try and extract around 75-80% cash.
Feel free to take a look at my Free Bet Strategy page for more info.
Brad
Guest userHi Matt,
I went with Bet365’s £100 free bet offer. I have made the qualifying bet, and I am about to make the free bet. Once I have sourced the profit from this free bet (around £73) – should I use this profit to match bet? (i.e. place another stake and lay bet worth £73?). Or is the source of the profit based on the free bets only?
Thanks,
Bradley
Matt
412Hi Brad. With free bet offers, once you’ve extracted your profit from the free bet, you can just move onto the next offer with your increased bankroll.
Ms J
Guest userHi Matt, thank you for your guide on matched betting. I was looking to get started by signing up to betfair so I went on to trust pilot to read the reviews. Betfair gets a 1.2 out of 10 and Smarkets gets a 4.4 out of 10, for both sites reviewer’s are claiming not to have been paid out for winnings. Are these reviews genuine or should I disregard them. Will the exchanges pay when you ask to withdraw your money. Thanks J
Elizabeth
Guest userHi I would like to know where the calculator is on your blog?
Matt
412You’ll find all of my calculators under the TOOLS tab on the main menu Elizabeth.
ANDRAKEZAMANI
Guest userHi Matt.
I’m new to betting and this I think is the best stuff I’ve come across online.
But I don’t really get the matched bet stuff. Terms quite confusing.
I’m quite interested but finding it hard to fathom.
Matt
412It can be a little confusing at first so don’t worry too much. It’s not for everyone.
Is there a particular bit that you’re struggling with?
Sam
Guest userHi Matt,
Firstly can I say what a fountain of knowledge this website is. I’ve been scouring it for a few days now and I am learning so much. A friend of a friend is into matched betting and he’s actually gone part time at work to dedicate more time to it he’s making that much.
A question if I may. What I don’t understand is how to continue to make profit from MB once you have exhausted all of the sign up offers? The friend of a friend has over 250 B365 accounts which he’s obtained by paying friends etc so he takes advantage of the £50 in play offer they do once a month.
Is there a way to make a constant profit without having multiple accounts and once you’ve exhausted all of the sign up offers?
Thanks for your time.
Sam
Matt
412Thanks for the kind words Sam, I’m pleased you’re finding it useful!
Once you’ve completed the sign up offers, you’ll be able to take advantage of the reload offers for existing customers. There are plenty of online bookmakers, including new ones popping up all the time.
You very much get out what you put in. For instance, there are advanced methods you can look into beyond the reload offers and there are also shop offers to consider.
There are also casino offers to consider but those aren’t for everyone.
Connor
Guest userHi Matt,
I really appreciate all the information you’ve put together here – clear, concise and easy to follow. Found out about this today and have just placed the first qualifying/lay bet (thanks to this guide).
My question: do I need to wait for this first bet to settle before placing the free bets or can I just do it as soon as the free bets are available to use?
Thanks again,
Connor
Matt
412Thanks Connor. Great to hear that you’re finding the info useful!
You don’t need to wait, provided you have enough funds available to lay against your free bet.
There’s no rush with this though, so just be sure to take things at your own pace.
Connor J
Guest userHi Matt, quick question.
I want to try a qualifying bet and what I got on Coral was 1.61 odds for inter milan to beat skakhtar. On betfair exchange I got 1.63 to lay against inter milan. So your calculator says the lay stake required is 4.94, and if I bet these numbers and the back bet wins I would get 3.05 at Coral and lose 3.14 at exchange (total -.0.06). Alternatively, if the lay bet wins I will lose 5 with coral but gain 4.94 from betfair (total -0.06).
But when I go to betfair and put 4.94 at those odds, it says the liability is 3.11 and the payout as (3.05) and in coral the estimated profit is 3.07 and the liability is obviously 5.00. So I’m confused.
Matt
412Hi Connor.
You’ll sometimes find that figures can differ by a few pence here and there due to rounding.
The liability of £3.11 at Betfair is the same as shown on the calculator. I think you’ve noted £3.14 in error there.
We use decimal odds at the bookmaker so that we can easily compare our bookmaker back odds with our exchange lay odds. Bookmakers display decimal odds to two decimal places, but the actual values may differ slightly. Your bet on Inter Milan is at fractional odds of 8/13, which is displayed as 1.61 as a decimal, but the actual value is closer to 1.615. That’s why your potential profit at Coral is showing as £3.07.
You’ll see if you enter your back odds as 1.615, your lay stake is adjusted slightly and the figures match up. Rounding is nothing to worry about though. As long as your figures are correct or out by just a penny or two, you’ll be fine.
Hope that helps!
Matt
Richard
Guest userHi Matt. I’m back into matched betting after a while away. Your blog is one of the simplest to understand.
I’m ready to use my free bets from Coral so I’m looking for bets with the highest odds. I can see that that the results of the oddsmatcher are sorted by bet rating but can this be changed to sorted to by the highest odds? Also, I only have a Betfair exchange account, so can I filter out the Smarkets lines?
Thanks.
Matt
412Hi Richard. Thanks for the kind words. It’s great to hear you’re finding the blog useful.
If you’re referring to the sample Oddsmatcher on MBB, you can simply click the top of each column to sort by the values in that column. Alternatively, free bets should generally be placed at odds of 5.00 (4/1) or greater, so you can enter 5.00 at the top of the Back column and select the ‘Greater Than Or Equal To‘ filter.
There’s no option to filter out Smarkets on the sample OddsMatcher but you can do this on the full version.
Hope that helps.
Ted
Guest userThanks for providing this. After many hours of study, I finally decided to have a go – opened accounts with Coral and Betfair, and deposited some money. Having found what I believed to be a good match, I tried to place my bet with Coral, but got a message that my account had been closed.
I then got an email telling me that I had to upload endless documents – passport, credit card (both sides, with some numbers edited out), utility bill, picture of myself holding my passport etc.
It’s going to be a bit of a nightmare doing this with several hundred bookies, to win a few pounds each time 🙁
Best wishes
Ted
Matt
412Hi Ted,
It sounds like you’ve been rather unfortunate here as I’ve not previously heard of anyone having issues with Coral.
Bookmakers have to comply with UK gambling regulations and that means sometimes they will request documentation from you in order to verify your identity. The easiest thing to do is keep a copy of your documents so that you can just fire them off if a bookmaker requests them.
Did you manage to complete the offer okay?
Matt
Gerry
Guest userHi mate
Thanks for guide and calculator, dipped into this for the first time using your guide at the start of the week. Small but steady steps so far, already cleared my Coral offer. I’ve already noticed that to begin with, factoring in my lower overall balance with both the exchange and coral, that I’ve had to top up and transfer money just so that I have enough liability. My question is whether or not you consider it worthwhile making sure I withdraw all funds from a bookies account once I’ve finished hoovering up their free bets? I’m asking this with “returning customer” type offers in mind, as I’ve read on other guides that occasionally betting sites might try to tempt you to return with another free bet offer somewhere down the line. Is this more or less likely to occur if I leave a bit of money in my coral account do you think? Or is it more straightforward to just empty the account and forget about it, thus moving on to the next business?
Many thanks
Matt
412Hi Gerry. Congrats on completing your first offer!
With regards to bankroll management as a newbie, my advice would be to do what you need to in the early days. If you need to withdraw all of your funds from a bookmaker, that’s fine. As you grow your bankroll, you can start leaving a bit in each account if that’s what you want to do.
Withdrawing all funds shouldn’t affect your chances of receiving further offers anyway. If anything, it might increase your chances. They’re known as ‘reload offers’ as the bookmaker is attempting to get you to reload your account with funds.
Hope that helps!
Gerry
Guest userNice one. I’ll drain it for now then, if I keep leaving small amounts of cash littered in tens of accounts it’ll make it harder to keep track of my overall gaming balance as well I think. Thanks again.
Matt
412No problem Gerry. I would certainly recommend keeping a log of your deposits/withdrawals/balances, either on paper or on a spreadsheet.
Gerry
Guest userHi there. Another quick question to follow up my last, then I promise I’ll leave you be 🙂
I’ve realised in my haste to sign up to multiple betting sites at once that I’ve placed bets on the same game twice. The back bets are with two separate betting websites (free bets not qualifiers) however it means that in my Betfair exchange I now have two separate lays on the two different teams in the same game (in this case a lay against Burnley and a lay against Brighton). Is there any obvious reason why this should be avoided other than to minimise confusion? The two separate sets of calculations still look good on the calculator and with the two different betting websites, but I’m just wondering if having a lay against both teams in a match via Betfair will set off a dreadful chain of events. Thanks.
Matt
412No not at all Gerry, it’s absolutely fine to cover different teams at the exchanges. Betting exchanges make their money by charging us a small commission on winning bets, so it makes no odds to them what you’re betting on.
Covering two different teams in the same market actually reduces your overall liability, meaning less funds are required to place your bets.
Your liability for a market is always the maximum amount you stand to lose. Taking your Brighton/Burnley example, it was impossible for you to lose both lay bets as only one team is able to win a football match. That means your overall liability would have been limited to whichever team had the largest individual liability. I hope that helps.
owen
Guest userHi there mate. One or two bookies are offering generous signup offers for pool bets. The colossus bets offer for example will match up to £100 in deposits but the bonus funds must be put into the “colossus pool”. I’m not familiar with pool/tote bets, are they a different kettle of fish entirely or can the calculator be used in much the same way on the free bets setting?
Matt
412It’s a decent enough offer Owen, but like you say it’s a different kettle of fish to matched betting.
With pools betting, all bets are placed into the same pot. Once the result is in, the pot is then split between all bettors who predicted the correct outcome. There are no odds involved, which makes it difficult to place lay bets and cover all outcomes.
Dave S.
Guest userHi,
Total newbie… Just joined Coral and there is absolutely nowhere on the site that I can see a button or a link to take me to where I can change the odds to decimal, any ideas… its not on the header and its not in my account settings either.
Matt
412Try the following Dave…
My Account > Settings > Betting Settings
rmwilkinson
0Hi Matt, I’ve been using your site as my go-to reference for matched betting for a while. However I noticed something this morning when placing a regular bet (I have learned the hard way that I need to do this from time to time to avoid being gubbed). I used your calculator to help me lay the bet to minimise my losses as follows:
Backed Spurs with Betfred to win their FA Cup tie at Marine:
Back Stake – £1
Back Odds – 1.02
Back Commission – 0%
Layed the back bet with Smarkets:
Lay Odds – 1.06
Lay commission – 2%
Lay Stake Required – £0.98 (as indicated by the calculator)
The calculator is showing that if my Back bet wins then my loss on the exchange will be -£0.05. However, when I look at my open bet on Smarkets, it’s showing my exposure as being -£0.06.
It’s only a penny but is this an expected margin of error in the calculator or have I done something wrong?
Matt
412Hi there. First of all, I’m pleased to hear you’re finding the blog useful. It’s good to have you onboard!
That can happen with the calculator. Sometimes the numbers you’re seeing at the exchanges will differ by a penny or two to those being displayed on the calculator and it’s due to rounding. The lay odds at the exchanges are rounded to two decimal places. So, although you might be seeing the lay odds displayed as 1.06 at Smarkets, the actual odds might be 1.0623556, for example. As long as your numbers only differ by a penny or two, you’re fine.
You might want to consider placing your mug bets at odds that are bit higher though. Regular punters are unlikely to stake £1.00 at odds as low as 1.02, so doing so might not help your account.
Julie
Guest userI think it’s possible that Betfair or Coral May close your account? I think the term is gubbed? Is there anything to do or not do in order for accounts to not be closed?
Matt
412Hi Julie,
It’s unlikely a bookmaker will close your account, but they may restrict your account from being eligible for their promotions. It can happen from time to time and you’re right, it’s commonly referred to as being ‘gubbed’. There are plenty of theories out there in terms of what may or may not help your accounts. Take a look at my ‘How to Avoid Being Gubbed‘ article for some basic tips.
You don’t need to worry about betting exchanges like Betfair and Smarkets. They make their money by charging us a small commission on winning bets so they love matched bettors.
I hope that helps!