Matched Betting Guide

The most important tool sports betting bonus hunter needs is matched betting. It is the best way to turn your bonuses into profit with very low risk. All you basically need to do is find good enough matching odds from different sportsbooks. Below is a short mathced betting guide.

The basic idea of matched betting is to bet on every possible outcome of a sport event in different sportsbooks. This way you can complete your wagering requirements without losing much (or any) balance in the process. Better yet if you lose your deposit and bonus balance (you naturally win the equivalent amount or little bit less to another sportsbook) you don’t have to complete you wagering requirements. With matched betting you can make sure that there is hardly any variance.

Backing and Laying Bets

Matched bettor has to understand is the different between a “back bet” and “lay bet”. This is because most of the time matched betting is done by laying and backing the same result.

Back betting is what familiar to almost everybody. Don’t let the terminology to confuse you. It’s just regular betting when you bet for example for a certain winner in a football match. When you think some result will occur, you make a back bet for it.

Lay betting is a term people might not be so familiar with. When laying a bet you take a role of the bookmaker. In other words you sell a bet. When you lay you are betting for a certain result not to occur. Lay betting can be done through a betting exchange (for example Betfair).

Here we have an example of a soccer game between Chelsea and Arsenal at Betfair. As you can see you can both back and lay here. If you would back Arsenal for 100£ and Arsenal would win, your return would be 1.61 x £100 = £161. On the other hand if you would lay the same bet, you’d be betting for Arsenal not to win. In this case for the same bet you would win £100 if the end result was win for Chelsea or a tie. But if Arsenal wins you lose £62. In this situation you sold a £100 bet for Arsenal and if it wins you have to pay the winnings of £62. That £62 is called “lay liability”. You have to have at least that amount in your account in order to make a £100 lay bet on Arsenal. If you would lay Chelsea for £100, you’d have to have £1000.

Betting exchange takes a commission (usually 5%) of lay bets.

How to Match Bets?

When you have deposited money to a sportsbook with a bonus, you start looking for matching odds. The best way to do this is to have betting exchange site and a sportsbook in different windows and look for odds that give you least retention. You need to use the matched betting calculator to calculate, if the odds are good enough. Usual loss when using matched betting is about 1-5% per bet depending on the site. Sometimes you can even find an arbitrage, which means that you gain profit for the bet you make.

Here’s an example of a good match bet:
This is an American football event between SF 49ers and Buffalo Bills. As you can see this particular sportsbook offers a back bet with odds 1.91 for a total points score over 42.5 points. Say we have a 50€ cashable bonus for 50€ deposit on this site. We bet all 100€ for total point score to be over 42.5. If we win, we make a 100€ x 1.91 – 100€ = 91€ profit.

In third picture below picture we have the same event in a betting exchange. Now we need to make a matching bet for the 100€ bet we just made. The betting exchange offers odds 1.87 for laying the same result we just backed for 100€. If we lay the over 42.5 points here, we have covered all the possible outcomes of the event. All we need to do now is calculate how much the lay bet needs to be. We can do this by dividing the back return (191€) with lay odds minus the commission (usually 5%). The lay stake would then be 191€ / (1.87-5/100) = 104,95€. When we lay 104.95€, the actual risk is 104.95€ x 1.87 = 91.3€. This is called the lay liability.

If the game result is under 42.5 points, we lose the 100€ in the sportsbook, but we win 104€ - 5% commission = 99.7€ in the betting exchange. If the ending result is over 42.5 points, we lose the lay liability of 91.3€, but we win 91€ in the sportsbook. In the end no matter what the result will be, we have only lost 0.3€ in the process and gained perhaps a good bonus.

If you have a free bet that doesn’t return your original stake (Free Bet SNR), the lay bet needs to be smaller, because this affects to your back bets return value. So if in the above example the 100€ in the sportsbook would have been a free bet (stakes not returned), the back return value would only be 91€ instead of 191€. Lay stake would have been 91€ / (1.87-5/100) = 50€.

Variations

Variance can also be reduced without making a lay bet. You can back bet all the different outcome possibilities and simultaneously complete the wagering requirement in two (or even more) sportsbook bonuses. This is especially effective if you can find an arbitrage situation from the market.

Risks

Matched betting is not 100% risk free. Bets can be cancelled by the bookmaker, the sporting event can be cancelled or you can lose both bets due to different betting rules. A bookmaker can cancel a bet for example if there has been a mistake with the odds. This is why you shouldn’t bet if the odds seem to be “too good”.

You can lose both your bets if the bookmakers apply different rules. You can prevent this by checking that both bookmakers have similar rules. These situations normally occur only when a match is cancelled or stopped due to injury or weather.

Ten Tips For Matched Betting

1. Take your time when searching for best odds. The more time you use, the bigger your EV will be. This is called “line shopping”, which is crtitical to all profitable sports betting.
2. Make sure that you have covered all the possible outcomes.
3. Always make the bigger bet first (the one with smaller odds). If you encounter any problems at least you have made the bet that is more likely to win.
4. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Avoid odds that are most likely there due to a bookmaker error, because if you bet, it will most likely be cancelled.
5. Check the odds level of the bookmaker before making a deposit. Some places can have surprisingly bad odds, which can make a good looking bonus into a –EV one.
6. Betting exchanges normally have the best odds just before the game starts. Be patient.
7. Bet only events that are due to occur within the next few days. This way you don’t tie your bankroll for a long period of time.
8. Check the T&C for different rules, bet restrictions and betting limits. Also make sure that the individual bet can be made. Some bookmakers only allow a multibet on certain smaller leagues.
9. Make sure your bookmaker accounts are funded. Lay liability can be a lot more than the lay bet, so you need to have a good bankroll in your betting exchange.
10. Keep some kind of record of your winnings and losses. When betting on many bookmakers it is easier to see your profit if you write every bet down.