Introduction to Risk Free Matched Betting

From now on, EVERY TIME you see a free bet or bonus offer from a bookmaker, just think one thing, RISK FREE PROFIT.  

 

I know what people say when they first hear this, “Risk Free Profit, yeah right”, “You can’t get something for nothing”, “There is no such thing as a free lunch”.  Well actually there is, as you can now grow your betting bank risk free for as long as you want, at whatever rate you want to do it, and it is within your grasp just by reading this article.  So now you can have a free lunch, breakfast and dinner anytime you like!

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As online bookmakers vie for each others share of punters, nearly all of them, at some stage, offer free bets and bonuses as an incentive for new customers to sign up, or for existing customers just to have another bet with them.  You know the sort of thing "bet £25, receive a free £25 bet" when opening a new account.  This is great news for us, the punter, as using a technique called “matched betting”; it is possible to convert ANY such offer into risk free profit, regardless of the outcome.

 

This is a simple three stage process:-

 

Step One:              

Obtain the free bet for the lowest possible cost by BACKing a selection with the bookmaker and LAYing the same selection on a Betting Exchange.  This makes the bet risk free.

 

Step Two:              

Now repeat step one, but now using the free bet or bonus as your stake money to back one selection with, and again LAY the same selection on the Betting Exchange to make the bet risk free. But, as you are not staking with your own money at the bookmaker, you have now generated some risk free profit. 

 

Step Three:               

Withdraw your cash from the accounts, move onto the next offer, and go back to Step One.

 

Not only will you cover the cost of this entire e-book from just a few bets, once you start looking, you will find that the sky for your betting bank is, quite literally, the limit.

 

We have personally tested and can recommend over £2000 in risk free bets offers currently advertised with approved online bookmakers, and with the average risk free return on a free bet being 60% (a very conservative average we must say), that is over £1200 that can be made to start off with, and all risk free.

 

So, let’s look at steps one and two in a little more detail to see how it is actually done.

 

We have selected the bookmaker Victor Chandler (VCBet), who currently offer a free £50 bet for new customers.

 

Once signed up to VCBET, and of course a betting exchange to lay the bets off with, in our case Betfair, we have a look at the up and coming games and select the following Premiership matches from the 2007/08 season.


Reading v Newcastle to obtain our free bet (which is actually not credited until after the first bet has settled). So, we select the Derby v Everton game the next day, to cash it out for risk free profit.

 

Step One – Obtaining a free bet risk free

               

Place a bet at VCBET to obtain a FREE bet or bonus, and LAY this selection on a betting exchange to make your liability as small as possible, thereby obtaining the free bet for the lowest cost.

 

Here is the selected bet (see figure one to see how this was calculated)

 

BACK Newcastle at VCBET with £50 at odds of 2.90

 

LAY Newcastle at BETFAIR with £50.52 at odds of 2.92 (you will need £97 in your BETFAIR account to cover this bets liability).

 

If Newcastle win, we win £95 at VCBET and lose £97 at BETFAIR for an £2 loss (so far!).

 

If Newcastle don’t win (draw/lose), we lose £50 at VCBET and win (after commission) at BETFAIR £48 for a £2 loss.

 

A small loss is perfectly ok, as, if you think about it, we have now gained a £50 bet or £50 of  free stake money to play with and it has cost us only  £2.

 

Note: ALWAYS read the site’s Terms & Conditions (T&C’s) regarding the free bet bonus and then read them again! 

 

For example, you can only gain a free bet from VCBET if your first bet selection is 1/1 (evens) or above.  On other offers, some will require the bonus bet to be wagered a certain number of times before withdrawal.  Naturally, there are different strategies depending on whatever the wagering requirements are, but if you read the rules and follow the system, it really is all risk free.

 

 

 

Figure One: Calculating the VCBET qualifying bet using the laytheodds.com online calculator 

Step Two – Cashing out a free bet (stake not returned) for risk free profit

 

Generally, the value of the FREE bet stake is NOT included in the return of any winnings, as in the case at VCBET - this is referred to as a “Stake Not Returned (SNR)” free bet (as opposed to a “Stake Returned (SR)” offer where the free bet stake is included in any winnings).  So, here it is no good backing a 1/100 shot to cash out, as that would only return 50p, so we have to aim a little higher with our odds selection to get some value back.  Again, ALWAYS check the site’s T&C’s regarding the free bet or bonus, and again, there are different strategies depending on whatever the wagering requirements are, and whether the free bet stake is returned or not. All these methods are discussed on the website.

 

Place a bet with the selected bookmaker using the FREE bet or bonus as your stake, and LAY this selection on a betting exchange to ensure a risk free profit whatever the outcome.

 

Now we are using “FREE” stake money, and because we have laid the bet off to guarantee a return whatever the outcome, then we have just generated some risk free profit.

 

Here is the selected bet (see Figure Two to see how this was calculated)

 

                BACK Derby at VCBET with the FREE £50 bet at odds of 4.35

 

LAY Derby at BETFAIR with £36.02 at odds of 4.7 (you will need £133.28 in your BETFAIR account to cover this bets liability)

 

If Derby win we win £167.50 at VCBET and loss £133.28 at BETFAIR for a £34.22 profit

 

If Derby don’t win, we lose £0 at VCBET (as the FREE bet was our stake), and win (after commission) £34.22 at BETFAIR

 

That is just over a 68% return from our free £50 bet, and even accounting for the £2 we lost to obtain the free bet, that is £32.22 overall profit, still a over a 64% return on investment! 

 

Best of all, it is all totally risk free.

 

 

 

Figure Two:            Calculating the VCBET free stake not returned bet using the laytheodds.com online calculator

 

 

The screenshots above were taken from the laytheodds.com online matched betting calculator. 

Just enter the stake, back odds, lay odds, and your betting exchange commission rate into the red boxes, hit the calculate button, and all the maths is done for you!

 

There is also a free downloadable spreadsheet (Excel and OpenOffice compatible) with a full step by step guide which is available to do all the calculations for you.

 

When cashing out a free bet we are obviously looking for the very best returns.  This generally means we are looking for two things, close BACK/LAY odds at the bookmakers and betting exchange and, for a standard stake not returned offer, then we need to consider backing at higher odds.

 

As a guide, for stake not returned offers, you can easily aim to recoup 65%+ of your free bet stake in cash, but of course you can set your own profit guidelines.  However, when looking at any desired profit margin, always balance this with the time it takes to find the bets in the first place, and the amount of money you can afford to have tied up for the duration of the bets.  It is always possible to get higher returns using higher, and more closely matched odds, but this will increase your liability at Betfair, and although this money is never at risk, it will be tied up until the bets are settled.

 

In the example above, we needed the following amounts to complete the bets.

 

Qualifying bet = £147          


BACK Newcastle at VCBET with £50 at odds of 2.90

LAY Newcastle at BETFAIR with £50.52 at odds of 2.92 (you will need £97 in your BETFAIR account to cover this bets liability)

 

Cashout bet = £133.28         


BACK Derby at VCBET with the FREE £50 bet at odds of 4.35

LAY Derby at BETFAIR with £36.02 at odds of 4.7 (you will need £133.28 in your BETFAIR account to cover this bets liability)

 

As a guide, with equal back and lay odds, the % return for a Stake Not  Returned offer will be approximately, assuming the back and lay odds are the same…

 

50% at odds of 2

60% at odds of 2.63

70% at odds of 3.7

80% at odds of 6

90% at odds of 20

94% at odds of 100

 

The best way to see this is by using the calculator. Just enter the figures to find out what the overall bets will cost, and what the overall profits will be.  Keep playing with various back/lay prices until you find a combination that you are happy with in terms of outlay and profit margin.

 

For example, by BACKing a selection at 10 and LAYing it at 10.5 using the free £50 stake not returned bet would yield a £40.91 risk free profit, almost an 82% return.  However, whilst the £50 stake is free, you would need £409.09 in your Betfair account to cover the bet, as opposed to the £133.28 needed on the first example, so the choice is yours.

 

  

 

Figure Three: Calculating a higher stake not returned bet using the laytheodds.com online calculator