In brief, it works - it's not a scam like it might sound. But the devil is in the details. Read on if you are serious about making money with Matched Betting.
The Best Things About Matched Betting
I started Matched Betting (MBing) on the 4th July it's now the 20th I'm nearly £200 in profit which sounds pretty great and it's pretty exciting to know I beet the bookies. However, I've reached the end of my personal tether with it. I'm currently in the process of withdrawing all my money and packing it in. I should write a disclaimer to this post, I'm not a gambler, I'm not into sports and learning the basics about betting was a bit of a hurdle for me.
So there are people claiming to make £1000 a month from this and it is probably do-able. However! making that kind of money would take some serious expanded knowledge, time and opportunities to come up. The more realistic MBers on the support forums claim they make £100-300 a month from placing a few bets and having a bank roll built up that's more like £1000 to move around exchanges etc.
Don't know where to start? Don't waste time searching I did that for you:
I won't tell scare you with the complexities of MBing because Oddsmonkey teaches matched betting with easy to understand videos and it holds your hand through the first £500-600. If you're a learner-by-doing like me, you'll get on well with it too. If you're going to start then I recommend Oddsmonkey and it was exactly what I needed to get started. They charge £25 a month but I made more than that from the intro tasks. Take caution! Read the guides carefully.
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| Oddsmonkey tip: Some exchanges like Smarkets and Betfair have api interfaces so you can kind of auto place the lay bet without having to make sure you got it all right. |
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| My Profits Tracker, you can add in your own profits and expenses too. |
Tools like the Profits Tracker are very handy too. I added in expenses like the subscription fee of £25 and I deducted the £20 that the dodgy bookie (Boylesports) took back off me. So you could say I made 235 in my first c20 days.
Now for the problems you will encounter:
Exchanges, for me it was Smarkets, pretty quickly shut me down asked for ID and refused me to continue working with them. Betfair was my favourite exchange after that.
Dodgy bookie practices, I don't know how common this is but I had a problem with Boylesports. They let me make an account, place my qualifying bet and following free bets and I 'won' £120.00. When it came to withdrawal I had to contact support and spend some time uploading proof of ID, bank account, proof of address, both sides of my debit card, passport etc. It felt invasive and I wondered if I was going to see that £120 again. I did get the money back but it's times like this that you will have to stay cool and be prepared to sink extra time in proving you are who you are.
You will also make occasional mistakes. It's easy to do. Just take your time, look closely at the details.
You wont always know if you are going to get the offer that you're hoping to get. I only had one time where I didn't seem to get the 'free bet' but just expect that this can happen. If it does, it's only a loss of about max £1-2 for your qualifying bets, and some time spent placing it.
What you need to get started
To get started you will need around £200.00 cash as you starter bank roll. If you are lucky enough to have £1000 knocking around you can do it a lot faster. Your money will be tied up in exchanges a £10 lay bet will need you to put anything from £70-120.00 up as a liability for it. That can scare people, understadably but you're matched betting, follow the calculator's instructions carefully and log your bets and you'll be ok.
Make sure you have documents proving your address, citizenship, income, photo ID etc all ready because you need them more often for exchanges but sometimes bookies ask.
It's kinda fun making money this way but the reality of MBing is that it can take time, patience and you do have to keep your eyes open. Oddsmonkey makes it as easy as it can do but you will still make mistakes. As for me, I'm unsure if I'm going to carry on - though I have to admit, writing about this left me feeling pretty pleased with the experience. Maybe i'll pick it up again next month.
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