Qualifying Bets & Betfair Rewards

  • Hello,

    I am new to matched betting and wanted to say hi. I stumbled upon this site kind of by accident when looking up some other betting related stuff and I have to say it is amazing – thank you Matt for the time you’ve taken to put all of this info out there, I’ve spent much of the last couple of days reading, learning and re-reading a lot of the content and it looks great, and definitely something I’d like to be a part of.

    I was always sort of aware of the concept of matched betting but for some reason, despite being a casual low stakes bettor for many years, had never really looked into it properly. While I already have accounts with most of the major bookies, there are still plenty of sign-up offers that I will be able to take advantage of and it’s brilliant that there are up to date opportunities posted for existing customers.

    I’ve started off with the sign-up offer for Will Hill with the 2 x £15 free bets. I backed Palace to win at the weekend at 1.7 for the qualifying bet and laid them at Betfair at 1.78 which results in a loss of £0.66 or £0.67.

    I’ve then used the first £15 free bet to back Forest vs Chelsea at 15.00 and then used the calculator to lay £13.17 against them on Betfair at 16.00 (though I noticed a small part of my lay stake was at 15.5, is that to do with the market liquidity?).

    Seems that I did it correctly as the profits hit the exchange account.

    A couple of questions:

    When looking for a qualifying bet, I understand that we are looking for relatively low odds where the back/lay prices are close together – is this where it’s a case of spending time to look and compare different odds to minimise your losses? Is it the case that the closer the prices are, the lower your losses should be or is there more to it than that?

    I currently have a pre-existing Betfair account that I have used for this first matched bet (though I will certainly be signing up for Smarkets very soon!). I read about the option to have the basic account with 2% commission – currently I’m on the standard (“middle”) option, would it be advisable to switch if I’m not betting on there enough to receive some of the monthly perks/bonuses?

    Thanks!

  • New to matched betting?

    My Matched Betting Academy is the best place to get started. Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.

    Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.

    Matt
    Keymaster
    1486

    Hi @thebiga,

    No problem at all, please to hear you’re finding the site useful.

    To answer your questions…

    It sounds like there was a small amount of liquidity available at the slightly better lay odds of 15.50.

    Yes where qualifying bets are concerned, the closer your odds, the lower your qualifying loss will be. The more bets you place, the quicker you’ll get at spotting the right opportunities.

    If you’re not using your Betfair Exchange account, then there’s little point in switching Reward plans. Like you say, you may as well benefit from some of the perks and bonuses.

    Hope that helps.

    +0
    TheBigA 22

    Thanks Matt! Funny looking back on this post made back in January at the very start of this journey.

    7 months on I am nearing £5k of profits, mostly from MB with a sprinkling of risk free/low risk casino. 8 gubbings though still have most of the major bookies for now. Just starting to look at extra places and 2ups (finally) to broaden my skills. I finally bit the bullet and signed up for Oddsmonkey premium only a few weeks ago after doing things “manually” for the first 6 months. Although this may have cost me some time I think it’s quite valuable in learning the ropes and understanding what it is you’re doing. Loving having all the bookies on the Oddsmatcher now though and 0% commission on Smarkets makes it well worth signing up for the year.

    I still use the blog page most days and yours is the only calculator I’ve used – I know there are others out there but you can’t put a price on familiarity! Thanks again for the time you put into the blog.

    A

    +0
    Matt
    Keymaster
    1486

    No problem at all @TheBigA and congrats on the profits figure!

    Very nice work indeed.

    +1
    Matt
    Keymaster
    1486

    If anyone else is looking for guidance on qualifying bets and what selections to look out for, please see my new Qualifying Bets Guide.

    +1
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