Matched betting is a relatively new phenomenon in the world of betting, where you take advantage of ‘free’ bets and bonuses, effectively making the most out of every visit to a betting shop or online site.

It levels the playing field a little, allowing the punter to use all of the available tools to make the most informed and risk-free bets and generate the best return. It’s fair, it’s legal, and it can transform your betting from the occasional flutter into a profitable income with minimal risks.

 

So what exactly is matched betting?

Matched betting is that Holy Grail of placing a wager – a risk-free method of maximising your profit opportunities by using bookies’ free bet offers and other pot-sweeteners. After all, if a free bet offer is available, why not make the most of it?

You incorporate the use of exchanges to bet against bets you’ve already made as part of the free bet offer provided by the bookie. This ‘matched bet’ then ensures you make a profit while minimising your risk. With so many offers on the table to tempt in punters, there are plenty of free bet opportunities out there to make the most of, whether you’re new to betting or are an experienced punter.

 

Matched Betting Packages

Matched betting really came into the mainstream thanks to the excellent packages produced by Mike Cruickshank, the “godfather” of matched betting.

His first product, Bonus Bagging, is a good start to matched betting and provides the best and most straightforward free bets to use – mainly the ones you get when opening a new account with a bookie.

Then the real piece de resistance – Profit Maximiser. This is like Bonus Bagging on steroids – hundreds of offers (most of them ongoing offers) from which you can make up to £20,000 per year.

Others have come along over the years and copied what Mike does – such as Profit Accumulator, but Mike continues to lead the pack when it comes to matched betting.

If you want to do some matched betting, then one of these packages is essential. 

 

Example

Originally, you would have to make a like-for-like contribution to get a free bet offer, so for example to get a £25 free bet you’d have to invest £25 of your own money.

What matched betting does is ensure that you make a profit on these free bets, even if they may not be as generous as a straightforward freebie.

Matched betting lets you, quite literally, ‘play the odds’. So for example, say you open an account with an online bookie, and place a £25 bet on Man U to beat Liverpool at 2/1. You then place another bet with, say, Betfair of £25 on Man U to lose on the same odds. If they then win, you’ll have lost £1.25 (you’ve won £50 with your online bookie, but lost £51.25 with Betfair). So your current net position is -£1.25. However, you still have your £25 ‘free’ bet to play with.

So far, so good.

Now you utilise your £25 free bet from your online bookie to place a new bet on another sporting event (a win) at 5/2, and a second ‘lay’ bet of £17.86 with Betfair at similar odds. If your win bet comes through, you get back £62.50 from the winning bet, and a minus figure of £45.54 on the Betfair wager. You’re still ahead by £16.96, so you’ve guaranteed your winnings on the back of a free bet, with no risk at all.

 

Matched Betting Tips

 

So what about tips to make the most of matched betting and not get caught out by the bookies?

Here are the key things to bear in mind if you doing matched betting:

Learn the Ropes First

Allow yourself plenty of time to learn matched betting. It is not as straightforward as it might seem. The bookies often have complicated offers which take a bit of time to fully understand so that you don’t come a cropper.

The good news is that there are very helpful video guides supplied with Profit Maximiser and Profit Accumulator, so you are taken through the process step by step.

But the main message is not to try and run before you can walk.

Keep Records

It is vital to keep detailed records of your matched betting activity. There are large numbers of offers to keep track of, which ones you have completed and which ones you are part-way through.

Plus don’t forget to keep a record of your login details (although probably best not to write down your exact passwords for security purposes).

Look Closely at the Offers

As mentioned above, the offers are not all as simple as they seem. Bookies will often have wagering requirements (meaning you have to stake a certain amount and/or play through your winnings a certain number of times), minimum odds to qualify for the free bets and certain events they have to be bet on.

Fear not though, all these details are explained for each offer with Profit Maximiser and you are advised to follow an order of the bets, from the most simple to the more complicated.

Do “Mug Bets”

It is vital if you are doing matched betting long term to throw in some “mug bets.” These are basically bets that the bookies tend to like – for example backing England to win at football or betting on big games like Man Utd v Arsenal. You can lay the bets off at Betfair so that there is no risk, but the bookies will like the fact you are placing these bets and will be a lot less likely to close your betting account.

Certainly you should place some additional bets that aren’t just the offers and free bets – if you just do matched betting then the bookies will close you down very quickly.

Give Yourself Time

It does take time to play through some of the offers so you will need to devote a good number of hours if you want to really reap the rewards.

Certainly if you want to make the kind of sums some people are making out of Profit Maximiser – e.g. £20,000 or even £30,000, you would need to devote a substantial amount of time – maybe even look at it like a full-time job.

Use Matched Betting Software

If you are serious about your matched betting and want to make substantial sums, then some matched betting software will be hugely helpful. You might go as far as to say that it is essential.

Either way, matched betting software will save you hours and hours of searching for bets and will make you a lot of extra money in the long term by finding additional value from the matched bets.

It even includes an in-play feature which helps with a lot of the offers you get these days like Bet 365’s free in play £50 and a tool for the Channel 4 racing offers.

So if you want to take your matched betting to the next level, the matched betting software will be of considerable assistance.

Location Location Location

Matched betting is primarily aimed at those in the UK and Ireland as that is where you can get the free bets. In most other countries there are limited offers available from the bookies, so it would not offer the same potential to make money.

If you are in doubt about the situation in your country, then we recommending contacting Mike Cruickshank at Profit Maximiser at support@bonusbagging.co.uk

 

How much can I make from matched bets?

 

Get into a flow with matched betting and you can realistically make around £500 a month. Treat it like a full-time job and really work the free bets on offer and you could make a career out of it, with a liveable wage. However, to get to that level you would need to quite literally treat it as your full-time occupation, and dedicate a lot of time to hunting down the best online free bet offers to take advantage of.

It looks like matched betting is here to stay, particularly as the industry is constantly trying to attract new punters in with some very tempting free offers. If you play smart, you can certainly make the most of these offers, and again because you’re using the freebies to play the odds, you’re minimising the risk.

 

Is there a downside?

If something seems too good to be true then it usually is, but the only real down-side to matched betting is that it can be quite time consuming, especially if you’re only looking to make a small monthly return.

It can also turn you into a ‘gambler’ even if you don’t consider yourself to be one. Remember, when the fun stops, stop. If you think that things are spiralling out of control then seek help, particularly from specialist resources like Gambleaware.

Keep an eye on the small print, too. Some of these freebies come with more strings than a puppet show, so be sure you’re not getting forced to play through your winnings, for example, or run the risk of the account being closed on you for just playing the freebies. Some offers may be geographically restrictive too, so again, check the small print before you sign up.

Here at Honest Betting Reviews we like to look at betting jargon and try to demystify it for you. Today we look at the term “dobbing,” ask what it means and how to do it.

Dobbing is a form of hedging in which you place a win bet and hedge it using in-play betting. The term “dobbing” is derived from the acronym DOB as in “double or bust” betting, though it is better known in some circles as back-to-lay betting. Although usually associated with horse racing, it is an appropriate betting strategy for any betting market where there is an opportunity to bet prior to the event and in-play or in-running. 

Essentially it is a form of arbitrage betting where you rely on making a profit from the difference between betting odds rather than from the result of the event.

 

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How to dob

Taking horse racing as an example, you first place a bet on a horse that has a reasonable chance of winning. Let’s assume that the odds are 10.0 decimal odds (or 9-1 if you prefer to use fractional odds). In other words, if you place a £10 bet on your horse to win and if it wins, you receive £100 from the bookmaker which includes your initial stake. Otherwise you lose your £10 stake.

To hedge this bet using dobbing, typically you would lay the bet at half the original decimal odds, in this example at 5.0 (4:1) for £20, double your initial stake, using in-running betting at a betting exchange such as Betfair. At this stage you won’t know if the lay will be matched, though there are ways to improve your chances of this happening which we will mention shortly. But for now, we will assume that the lay is matched.

Looking at the possible outcomes:

• If your horse wins you will receive £100 from the bookmaker earning you £90. You will, however, lose £80 on the lay, so your actual profit will be £10.
• If you horse should lose, then you will lose your original stake of £10, but you will win the lay of £20; also giving you an actual profit of £10.

So you will win £10 whatever the result of the race. So what could go wrong and why doesn’t everybody do this all the time?

 

The challenge

Dobbing doesn’t always work, as it is critically dependent on your lay being matched. Naturally it is highly unlikely that you lay will be matched if your horse has a bad start or falls at the first fence, but if it is running well and is leading the field at any stage of the race or is right up there with the leading horses and looks as if it has a good chance of winning, the chances of your lay being matched increase substantially.

Thus the real challenge is picking horses that will attract in-running bets. Typically, these are horses that show excellent pace and stamina and, even if they aren’t going to win, they are competitive and the odds are likely to shorten in-race. This way you re betting on a horse to do well, rather than betting on it being an outright winner. It is very much a matter of studying form checking their in-running trading histories.

Variants

Pure dobbing involves laying the bet at double the original stake at half the original decimal betting odds as described, but you can also bet-to-lay at different odds, possibly in order to hedge just some of your original stake. You could also lay the bet at considerably shorter odds for a larger stake, for instance if you laid the original bet at 2.7 for £50, should your horse win you would make £90 – 85 = £5 and if it lost you would make £50 – 10 = £40.

Overall, dobbing provides you with more betting opportunities and greater control. It doesn’t always work, but it should be an extra tool in your box that you can use when appropriate. 

 

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If you are hoping to make money out of your betting or are even considering becoming a professional gambler, it is crucial in this day and age to have the very best betting tools at your fingertips.

With the internet has come a huge amount of information and stats that can be used to inform the punter’s gambling choices, as well as a range of sophisticated aids such as betting bots.

Things have become very competitive and to make sure you have an edge over your fellow bettors, you need to make sure you have the best tools available.

So here we have a look at the best betting sites. Which sites should you use to help your betting? Which sites will give you an edge? And which sites have proved themselves a cut above the rest in gambling terms?

If you’re looking specifically for the best tipping sites, we recommend checking out our football and horse racing tipster guides respectively.

Below are our top 10 betting sites, starting at no.10 and working our way down to the top one.

 

10.  Oddschecker

It is pretty much compulsory if you are intending to do any gambling at all to make use of an odds comparison site such as Oddschecker. Just like if you were buying car insurance you would want to find the best price and not just lump for the first one you see, so it is with betting.

Remember that a bookmaker generally has at least a 10% edge over you before you even start. This is the “house edge” if you like. To make a profit over time you need to overcome this edge consistently – which is a tall order. So you need to maximise every little bit of value you can and if you are taking bad prices – or not getting the best prices to put it another way – then you may as well give up before you start.

There are a few odds comparison sites that essentially do the same thing – that is bring together all the odds from the major bookmakers in every major sporting event and all the various markets. Easyodds and Bestbetting are two of other popular ones, but as the original and best-known, oddschecker is our odds comparison site of choice.

 

9. Flatstats

If you are looking to bet on horse racing, then a good starting point is undoubtedly to have a look through some statistics. The great thing about the Flatstats website is that it gives you a whole range of different options to look at in terms of stats on racing and an absolute wealth of data.

So for example you may want to look at a particular trainer’s record over the last five years – let’s say Aiden O’Brien. You would enter his details and then receive a massive amount of data on his record – and crucially his profitability – broken down by a whole range of factors such as course, distance, going, class, jockey, handicap/non-handicap, odds range and so on.

So you can break things down in terms of which metric has the best return and focus on that if you wanted to. There are also lots of systems people have devised themselves that you can use in addition to finding your own.

Having a resource like Flatstats is a great way to find a different angle to all the other punters out there and hopefully find yourself an edge. Certainly a very useful betting website for the horse racing punter.

 

8. OLBG

A hugely popular site with punters offering a range of different betting tools, OLBG (which stands for Online Betting Guide) has been around since 2002.

It has grown to be of the biggest online betting communities, with over 100,000 members and a very active betting forum. One of the main features of the site is its tipping section, with free tips offered across a range of sports including horse racing, football, tennis and golf. Another popular aspect of the site are the tipping competitions, which you can join with prizes for the most successful tipsters.

There is also an active blog with regular betting articles and news and plenty of comments too. Plus there are bookmaker reviews, free bet offers and a host of other gambling info. As an overall betting guide and a place to interact with other punters and exchange views, as well as get some free tips or tip yourself, OLBG is a respected and useful betting site deserving of a place on this list.

 

7.  Soccerstats

Whilst not technically a “betting website,” Soccerstats can certainly be used to aid your betting and in our opinion it is well worth doing so.

In much the same way as with Flatstats for horse racing, Soccerstats has a veritable treasure trove of numbers that can be used as a basis for a betting strategy or system. We have already done a full review of Soccerstats here, but in short it has stats on over 100 leagues from around the world. The stats include just about every possible metric you could want for betting on football, from basic stuff like over/under percentages to times of goals, first and second half results, goalscorers and much more besides.

Again, if you are looking to bet on football, then giving yourself a statistical basis to your betting is likely to be of great benefit and gives you the potential to have an edge over other punters, which is ultimately what it is all about.

 

6. Racing Post

No list of top betting sites would be complete without mention of probably the number one resource for UK horse race goers, the Racing Post.

Whilst perhaps better known amongst punters for the daily newspaper version that adorns the walls of betting shops around the country and accompanies punters on their trips to the races, the Racing Post website is also an excellent resource for the punter.

With a great deal of information to draw including cards and results, plus stats on horses, jockeys, trainers and owners and their full records and betting returns listed, the website is the starting point for many people’s research on betting.

There are also paid subscriptions that include their tips from Pricewise Extra and the other top tipsters, plus the option to watch video replays of races and get more in-depth race reports. All in all as a complete UK racing guide, the Racing Post is a useful tool to have on your side.

 

5.  Betting Gods

The modestly named Betting Gods is a tipster platform that basically houses a number of different tipsters in one place.

They have some fantastic tipsters who have proved themselves over a number of years, racking up hundreds of points of profit and thousands of pounds for followers of their services. The website is user-friendly and we particularly like the honesty and integrity of Betting Gods. Whilst many tipsters inflate their results by using crazy staking systems of 5 or even 10 point win bets, Betting Gods’s services in the main use 1 or 2 point bets, with the occasional 3 or 4 point bet.

In addition, when talking about how much the tipsters have won, they use realistic £10 stakes, unlike some other services that use £100 or £200 stakes to make their results look good, when in reality betting at that level is well out of range for the majority of punters.

If you are looking to make some money by following a tipster or even a portfolio of tipsters, then you could do much worse than going on the Betting Gods website and checking out what they have to offer.

 

4. Betfair

It seems a little unfair to do a list of the best betting sites without including the website that really changed betting forever – Betfair.

There is a lot of talk these days about “disrupters” in various industries like Uber, Airbnb and so on. Well Betfair surely merits that tag in the world of betting. It changed the game in a whole number of ways: allowing punters to play bookie and lay selections rather than just backing them; not limiting or closing the accounts of winners and creating a whole new genre of trading, in-running betting and “bots.”

Perhaps most significantly of all, however, Betfair forced the bookies to up their game. Previously the bookies had coasted along basically unchallenged, happy to offer their customers poor value, milk them dry and then close their accounts if they became a winner.

But when Betfair came along and started stealing a large portion of their customer base, the bookies become worried. Lots of punters started to ask “why should I bother betting with a bookie again?” So they had to respond and did so by offering improved odds, innovations such as best odds guaranteed and regular free bets for their customers.

The overall effect has been to give punters a better deal and so for that, plus the revolution it has caused in betting, Betfair undoubtedly merits a place on this list.

 

3. Bet 365

On the one hand we were slightly loathe to include a bookmaker on this list, but if there is one that deserves to be recognised as a standout in its field then it is Bet365.

There are a number of reasons why they are regarded as such a top bookie. Generally offering excellent odds, particularly on horse racing, even using an odds comparison site you will often find yourself back at Bet365. Then there is the sheer wealth of betting markets offers, especially on sports like football and tennis and including in-play opportunities. Add to that lots of live sports coverage streamed on the site and you have an all-round great online bookie.

The real piece-de-resistance of Bet365 though is the great offers they make to the punter. Starting off with the free £200 bets you get when joining – which is widely regarded as one of the best value new customer offers of all the bookies – you then have the regular £10 loyalty bonuses you get if you bet with them regularly, plus their Channel 4 races offers. Best of all though are the free £50 in-play offers, which are superb and pretty much unparalleled by any other bookie.

All in all then when you are talking about bookies, Bet365 are as Tina Turner would say, simply the best.

 

2. Profit Maximiser

Quite often here at Honest Betting Reviews we are asked “do any betting systems actually work?”

The frank answer is that they are very few that are actually guaranteed to make you money. Some work well for a while then become overused and lose their edge or the betting markets change and they no longer produce a profit.

One however that continues to work amazingly well and surely always will is Profit Maximiser. It is a matched betting system that brings together all of the bookies free bets and bonuses into one place and shows you how to turn these offers into genuine risk-free opportunities. So you can make literally hundreds of pounds per month risk-free from it.

There is great e-mail support, plus helpful training videos and a huge Facebook group of over 50,000 people who exchange info on the best offers and how to take advantage of them. Bookies offers are probably never going to go away because they need an incentive to bring customers in, so a product like Profit Maximiser is an essential part of your betting portfolio and well worth getting involved with.

 

1. Bettingzone

One of the best-known online tipping sites, the Bettingzone has been around since 2003 and has garnered quite a reputation for itself over the years. Part of the Sporting Life, it has amassed over 3,000 points profit since starting up and is undoubtedly one of the best free resources for betting you can find.

We did a full review of the Bettingzone here, in which we broke down its record by sport. It turns out that a great deal of their profit comes from golf, with their resident tipsters have smashed in numerous 100/1 shots over the years. For many years Dave Tindall was the chief golf tipster and he landed quite a few memorable touches including Matt Gogel at over 100/1. Now the golf team is headed up by Ben Coley who landed a massive win with 175/1 winner Marcus Fraser in the 2016 Malaysian Open.

Respect is also due to Ben Linfoot, whose Value Bet tipping column for the weekend and festival races has made over 300 points profit to date.

If you’d followed all of the Bettingzone’s tips since inception at just £10 per point, you would have made over £30,000 (presuming you could match their advised prices of course). Overall then, we feel it definitely deserves a place on the best betting sites list.