Step by Step Guide

Here are the 7 simple steps to getting your matched betting career up and running today! We’ve tried to provide clear and comprehensive instructions.

If you haven’t already got your head around how matched betting works, and what all the jargon stands for, click here to read How it Works.

Step 1: Choose your Betting Exchange

Create an account with your chosen Betting Exchange – Betfair or BetDAQ. They will usually offer a free bet as an incentive to get started.

Step 2: Find a Free Bet Bookie

Identify your first ‘free bet’ bookie. Use our list to locate a free bet. Read the terms and conditions pertaining to the free bet. It is important to understand any ‘strings attached’ such as minimum odds, any additional amount that you will need to invest in order to qualify for the free bet, restrictions on the sports you can bet on, and to check whether your free stake will be returned to you if you win. If the initial free stake is substracted from your winnings (ie stake not returned), this will affect the potential profit you can make (refer to the MBHQ Stake Calculator for more on this). When you have located a good free bet, sign up with the bookies – but don’t place the bet yet…

Step 3: Find a Matched Bet

Browse the odds for upcoming sporting events simultaneously on both the bookie’s website and your betting exchange. You need to find a bet to ‘back’ that a) meets the conditions laid down by your free bet bookie, and b) has the closest ‘lay’ odds at your betting exchange. Always choose to display the odds in decimal format, as this makes it easy to compare ‘back’ and ‘lay’ odds without any complicated brainwork…

Use the tried and tested Matched Betting HQ Stake Calculator to check out the vital stats for your potential bets. By entering key information about your free bet, the back odds and the lay odds, you can quickly work out the potential profit you can make, the costs associated with the bet, and the required stake to match your free bet.

Download the Free MBHQ Stake Calculator

Click here to get your free copy of our handy Matched Betting Stake Calculator.

Open up your free MBHQ Stake Calculator to work out how much to ‘lay’ when placing your matched bet. You will need to enter key information, including:

About your free bet

Free Bet - value of the free bet
Stake Not Returned – check the T&Cs of the free bet to find out whether your initial free stake will be returned to you along with your winning if you win. If not, enter the value of the stake that will not be returned to you (usually the value of the free bet). Ideally, if the terms state that the stake will be returned to you if you win, along with your winnings, enter £0.00 here.
Back Odds – the odds to win, in decimal form. Most bookies will enable you to toggle between displaying the odds as fractions (eg 11:1) or decimals (eg 12.0)).
Back Commission – any commission charged on your winnings – this is usually 0%

About your lay bet

Lay Odds – the odds that your Betting Exchange is offering. You want this to be as close as possible to the Back Odds – the bigger the gap, the more you’ll lose from your eventual winnings.
Lay Commission – betting exchanges such as Betfair usually charge commission on every bet placed, and you can check this in their Terms & Conditions – it’s usually 5%.

The Calculations

Having entered all the above information about your bet and your lay, the calculator will display the following calculations:

Costs – the Profit / (Loss) of doing business. Taking into account any difference between the back and lay odds, plus any commission charged by your betting exchange, this amount will be subtracted from your winnings either way.
Lay Risk Liability – the amount you are risking in making this bet – i.e. the real value of the bet, taking Costs into account.

Back Return – the amount you would win, if your ‘free bet’ worked out. Remember, this is not the desired outcome, it would be preferable to lose this side of the matched bet. But should you win, this will be your return.
Back Profit – this is the profit you will make if you ‘win’ the bet.
Lay Profit – this is the profit you will make if you ‘lose’ the bet. Note how it matches the profit you make if you lose? That’s a matched bet!

Lay Stake – this is the stake you need to place to ‘lose’ the bet – your lay bet.

Step 5: Deposit Funds

Now that you’ve found a qualifying matched bet, the next step is to put some money into your accounts at the betting exchange and the free bet bookie. The amount you will need to deposit at the betting exchange will need to be more than the value of the Lay Risk Liability shown in the Stake Calculator spreadsheet.

Note: If you accidentally ’win’ the bet with your free bet bookie, this amount (your Lay Risk Liability) will be lost from your betting exchange account and will show up in your bookie’s account. It’s not lost at this point, but you probably won’t be able to withdraw it. Instead, you’ll have to bet it again (in small amounts or in one large bet), and lay against it with new cash deposited into your betting exchange account, with the aim of losing it from the free bets bookie and watching it show up again in your betting exchange account…

How much you’ll need to invest

It is up to you how much you deposit with the betting exchange. We would suggest that you’ll want to invest at least £100 to start matching a few bets. Of course, the more cash you invest, the more free bets you’ll be able to ‘lay against’ at a time. If your investment is small, you’ll just have to take things more slowly. There’s no need to commit all your cash straight away – give the process a try with a small amount till you fully understand how it all works.

You’ll want to put just the minimum amount possible into your free bet bookie’s account in order to qualify for your free bet. As we discussed above, free bets come with strings attached, and often these require you to ‘risk’ a portion of your own money to qualify for the free bet – for example, you might need to bet £20 to receive a further £20 free bet, raising your overall stake to £40. Remember, you’ll be matching this bet and covering the entire £40 stake with a lay bet via your betting exchange, so the money will never actually be ‘risked’.

Step 6: Place your Bets, Please!

With money in both sides of the equation – the free bet bookie and the betting exchange, it’s time to place your bets. If you’re not totally confident with online betting, take your time and read through all the instructions, to reduce the chances of making a costly mistake. We recommend placing your ‘back bet’ first, with the free bet bookie, double checking that you’ve entered the correct Back Odds into the Stake Calculator.

Then place your ‘lay bet’ via the betting exchange, entering the amount shown in the Stake Calculator’s ”Lay Stake” cell. Double check that your spreadsheet has been updated to show the actual Lay Odds at the time of placing the lay.

Hint: Have browser windows for both betting sites open at the same time, and try to place both the ‘back’ and ‘lay’ bets as close together as possible. This is to avoid any fluctuations in the bookie’s odds affecting your calculations at the last minute…

Congratulations! You’ve placed your first Matched Bet!

Step 7: Await the Outcome

Hopefully you won’t have too long to wait before finding out the result of your first matched bet.

The desired outcome is to lose the bet with the free bet bookie, and win your lay bet with the betting exchange. This way, all the winnings are transferred into your betting exchange account ready to be laid against new free bets or withdrawn and spent on other things. If this happens, congratulations. Repeat steps 2-7 until you’ve made enough money!

The less desirable (but not disastrous) outcome is to win the bet with the free bet bookie, and lose your stake from the betting exchange. This means that although the money is still yours, it is effectively ‘trapped’ with the free bet bookie, whose terms probably dictate that you have to risk it again and again before you’re allowed to withdraw it. If this happens, repeat steps 3-7 with this same bookie until you have ‘lost’ all your funds and transferred the value back into your betting exchange account.