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Thinking of starting matched betting? You should be!
Matched betting is the easiest and fastest way I’ve found of making money from home. It has the potential to earn you £100s or even £1000s each month!
Oh, and it’s NOT gambling – don’t let the name put you off.
Matched betting uses special calculators to ‘match’ your bets (for and against an outcome) so you should not lose money. The profit comes from the free bet special offers.
If you follow the instructions, carefully, you should make money every time!
I use the training service Outplayed, which has detailed walk-through guides for each offer.
I earned my first £1000 in just under three months. Believe it or not, this is quite slow going in the matched betting community!
You can read more about my experiences with matched betting here and here.
If you’re ready to get started, here are my best tips for beginners:
Need-to-know tips for starting matched betting
- Take it slow. It can be quite confusing in the beginning – especially if you’ve never placed a bet online before. Take as much time as you need with the first few offers. It’s worth investing the time to really understand everything in the beginning. You’ll make money as long as you don’t make any mistakes, and I promise you will get faster the more offers you do.
- Start with football matches. I don’t recommend betting on horses until you are more experienced. This is because the odds can change quite quickly with horses, especially nearer the time of a race. If the odds do change while placing your bets, don’t panic, you can easily fix it – but it’s just easier to avoid the fuss if you’re new.
Don’t choose matches that are in play or just about to start. Again, the closer you are to kick off, the more likely the odds are to change. This is fine once you’re more experienced, but it’s easier to choose matches starting in a day or two if you’re new!- Don’t be put off by all the jargon. Matched betting does have its own lingo which can be quite confusing at first, especially if you’ve never done any sports betting before. I created my own matched betting glossary for that reason. I hope it helps any clueless newbies like me! Anything else you don’t understand can usually be solved by a quick Google, or ask on the Outplayed.com forums.
- Set up a new email address just for matched betting. You will get a LOT of promotional emails when you sign up with the bookies. However, you don’t want to opt out, because you will hear about a lot of good free bet offers there! Best to keep all your matched betting emails in one place which you can just skim through every couple of days to check for new offers.
- Think ahead if you’re planning to apply for a mortgage or anything else where people might examine your bank statements. Matched betting does not directly have an effect on your credit rating. However, most bank staff will not understand matched betting. If they see a lot of bookie transactions on your bank statement, it might look like you’ve got a gambling problem! Some people use a separate bank account just for matched betting, but be warned that some mortgage providers may want to see bank statements from all current accounts, not just your main one. It might be safer just to take a break for a few months.
- Consider using a separate bank account. Regardless of whether you are applying for a mortgage or not, it is a good idea to keep all your matched betting transactions in a separate account. This will keep your earnings separate from your everyday money. It’s easier to keep track of your transactions and will help you work towards a savings goal. It’s also very motivating to see your balance going up and up each month! Update: I used to use PayPal for matched betting but recently many bookies will not offer bonuses if you make a deposit using PayPal or other money transfer services such as Skrill etc, as opposed to an actual bank. Be sure to check the T&Cs of each offer if you’re using a non-traditional banking service.
- Save up your earnings to make a matched betting fund. You only need about £60 to get started with matched betting, but things will be quite slow in the beginning because you’ll have to wait for each bet to settle before you get the cash back to place the next back. The more money you have in your matched betting fund, the more offers you can do – and the quicker you will make money! For this reason, Outplayed recommend that you work up to a matched betting fund of about £1000-£3000. It can be tempting to treat yourself once you see the cash coming in, but then you’ll be back to square one. My plan is to keep a float of around £1500 for matched betting in my PayPal and Betfair accounts, and then ‘pay’ myself anything above that at the end of each month.
- Don’t be scared of matched betting! And don’t panic! Sometimes things go wrong or you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing. Most things are easy to fix. If you’re an Outplayed member, you can contact their customer support or ask on the forums or Facebook group. There’s official customer support 7 days a week, and also a huge community of other matched bettors who like to help each other out.
- Get started! I probably sound a bit over-excitable here, but it’s no lie to say that for me, matched betting has been life-changing. I don’t even mean the money. (I’ve made about £1,500 so far, which is a huge amount for me, but not life-changing in itself). The real game-changer for me is that this is the first time I’ve ever made real money through a side hustle. It’s opened my eyes to so many other possibilities, and given me a lot of confidence in my ability to make money and in my future! If you haven’t signed up to Outplayed.com yet, why not?
Don’t choose matches that are in play or just about to start. Again, the closer you are to kick off, the more likely the odds are to change. This is fine once you’re more experienced, but it’s easier to choose matches starting in a day or two if you’re new!Any questions? Ask me below. I really would love to everyone succeed with this! And for anyone already doing matched betting, do you have any more tips to share?
Related post:
See all matched betting content here.
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This is some great advice. I just started and made about £20 using profit accumulator but it’s so hard to keep track of what’s going on so I’ve written everything down so I know where I am and how much I am making.
Thanks Rochelle! Yes, tracking is another must – I should have included it on my list! I use a really simple spreadsheet which I adapted from the free one on Profit Accumulator (if you’re a full member, it’s in the beginner section under ‘keeping track’ I think). Basically I have columns for date, bookie, type of bet (qualifier or free bet), event, profit/loss, and a notes column where I keep track of when the bets settle etc. Then I have another sheet with all the bookies I’ve joined, my username/password, and balance. Congrats on your first £20 – it will be the start of many more!!! 🙂
Hi there 🙂 new match better here…I’m trying to do it from the Netherlands and its a little trickier with the rules and regulations for Dutch betting. Do you know of any resources for match betting outside of the UK?
Hi April! I’m afraid I don’t know of any resources outside the UK and I am a bit hesitant to advise you in case I tell you the wrong thing… I would say that if you use any UK bookies, make sure you read the terms & conditions of each offer very carefully as that will normally say something like ‘this offer is only open to residents of the UK and Ireland…’. Occasionally I have seen bookies with offers open to other countries but I can’t remember which ones. As for Dutch bookies, I’m afraid I don’t know anything. Good luck with your matched betting journey and I hope you can find some resources to make it work for you!
Hi April, I’m aware of this problem that’s why I created a while ago the website matchedbettingeurope.com where I list all the bookies and offers available to Dutch customers. Have a check if you wish 😉
Hi,
I find a website where they learn you step by step how to start with matchedbetting in the Netherlands. The regulations within the Netherlands are abit strange at the moment but next year it will be all legalized. Anyway i started already and made some good profit. The website i find is http://www.matchedbettingnederland.nl
Hiya,
I’m very interested in starting this, but really need more help as I’m not feeling confident with it at all. I’m so scared to do the wrong thing and have NEVER done betting before haha. Tried watching some videos and still feel scared!
Please can you help?! 🙂
Hi Charlotte! Don’t worry, I was so scared to start with but take it slow and it all starts to make sense. I recommend signing up for the free trial at Profit Accumulator, watch the video for the first offer a couple of times before you even do anything, then watch it again while you place your first bet. Pause the video at every step so you literally follow along with the video, and rewatch each section as many times as you need to. The videos help a lot, promise! Also Profit Accumulator has free support even with the trial version. The forums are really helpful too. Good luck!
Can you explain me more about “how do you win if it’s a draw”? Because you place bet for one team or another, but if it’s draw, you lose both bets and you do not receive the money. No? :/
Ok, this is one of the confusing things about matched betting!
With matched betting, you DON’T bet on a win and a lose. Instead, you place something called a ‘lay bet‘, which is basically a bet AGAINST something happening. You can only place a lay bet at a betting exchange like Betfair – not at a normal betting site like Coral etc.
So if I place a bet on Liverpool to win at Coral, I then go to Betfair and place a lay bet on Liverpool winning. This covers any outcome that ISN’T a win – so a loss or a draw.
The important thing is that you match each bet with a lay bet at an exchange! Don’t just bet on opposite outcomes at two different bookies!
Hope this makes sense. I also explained it a bit in this post: https://www.boostmybudget.com/matched-betting-glossary/
And you can find good explanations at Profit Accumulator too.
Good luck!
How can that be right ? Both bets are on Liverpool winning, so a draw or if they lose you surely lose your money ?
The second bet is a LAY bet, which means ‘I bet on anything EXCEPT this outcome’/’I bet this WON’T happen’. So I place a normal bet at Coral on Liverpool winning. Then I place a LAY bet at Betfair Exchange on Liverpool, which means I’m betting against them winning – so I win if they draw or lose. Lay betting is a weird concept but it’s what makes matched betting possible! More on matched betting here: https://betting.betfair.com/what-is-lay-betting.html
Hi April, I’m looking for a way to earn extra cash and come across your page which I find really motivating to be honest! So even though I don’t bet or gamble at all I’m really keen to give this a go. I’ve just gone on the website you recommended and it says about a free trial, but doesn’t say what the actual cost is to use profit accumulator after the free trial…can you help? Thank you!
Hi Katie! I don’t bet or gamble either and I still know nothing about sports haha. I see matched betting as quite a separate thing – just follow the instructions and make money! Profit Accumulator is £17.99 paid monthly or £150 for a year upfront. You don’t need any credit card info or anything for the free trial so I’d just do that first if you’re wondering about it. It is quite confusing just reading about it but it makes a lot more sense once you watch the videos and go through your first bet. Good luck!
Thanks April. So could I sign up for free for the advice then not continue with the monthly subscription? Or would the subscription be mandatory to go ahead with the matches betting? Thanks for getting back to me so quickly!
The free trial gives you videos and detailed instructions to talk you through the first two offers. There’s no commitment to subscribe when you take the free trial because you don’t need any payment info. You also get to use PA’s calculator and software for these bets to calculate how much to place. To be honest I’m not sure if you still get free access to the software after the first two bets because I signed up straight away once I saw the potential. I guess they wouldn’t know when you’ve finished them so you probably still get access.
But the real value with a paid membership is that it gives you a list and instructions for about 100 more sign up offers, and then for the advanced (reload) offers which are updated daily! Some people do do matched betting themselves with no subscription but you would have to find details of all the offers yourself and it depends how confident you are… for me, I knew I definitely needed instructions and I wanted to be told which offers to do next to save time and save making mistakes. You can make the £18 fee back in just one or two bets so it’s definitely worth it for me, but it depends how you feel. I’d recommend just taking the two offers in the free trial to start with and see how you feel after that!
can i use real money with matched betting
Hi there, yes, matched betting uses real money
Hi
I’ve just started matched betting and have signed up with profit accumulater, following your advice. I place a bet with Coral but haven’t been given a free bet, even though it said I would????
Thanks
Hi Ailsa, sometimes it takes a bit of time for the free bet to be credited to your account. Best thing to do is get on Coral’s live chat and ask them about it!
Hi, I only have my phone to do anything on. I can’t change the bet display from fractional to decimal. Am I still able to do it? Thank you!
Hi, if the site doesn’t let you change the odds there are converters like this one that you can use. It’s a bit more of a faff on mobile but it’s still possible, just take it slow so you don’t make mistakes! Good luck!
Hi
Can I use PayPal for my Profit Accumulator subscription instead of a Credit Card?
Yes, I am pretty certain they take PayPal!
Hi,
I’ve tried one of those trials on Profit Accumulator (the Smarkets one). The team has lost, that was yesterday, but on Betfair it still shows as an open bet and so no payout has been done. Why is that?
Thanks!
Disregard sorry, problem solved!
Glad you got it sorted! The Profit Accumulator team are usually great at helping with these things.
Do you ever mug bet? I’ve started recently but I’m not sure to mug bet yet it seems a lot to keep up with on the side of matched betting
I do mug bet, but only with the bigger bookies that I do a lot of reload offers with. I wouldn’t bother while you are still going through the original signup offers. once you get on to reloads, you will notice that some bookies have recurring weekly offers and you will get to know your favourites, so I would concentrate on those for mug betting. Like you say, it is a lot to keep up with and it would eat into your time/profits too much to mug bet at all the bookies so just focus on the accounts you want to keep healthy. Hope this helps.