Matched Betting is one of the best ways to make money online in 2022. That’s a fact, even if the old sweats say it’s not as good as it used to be…
One of the first concerns of new Matched Bettors is whether Matched Betting is Legal?
In this article, we’re going to explain precisely why Matched Betting is completely legal, and a superb source of income on the side.
Serious about making money with your matched betting? Check out OddsMonkey Premium here.
What Is Matched Betting?
If you don’t know what Matched Betting is, it’s when people profit from the free bets offered by bookmakers.
You will often see promotions like “Bet £20 Get £20”. Matched Betting is the process used to turn the £10 free bet to profit, at next to no risk…
It only takes a few simple steps to do this, outlined in the example below.
Step 1:
Place your qualifying bet. I.E. The “Bet £20” part of the “Bet £20 Get £20” offer. You can’t just place any old bet though. You have to “find a good match.”
A good match will mean you lose as little money as possible before you get your free bet. To do this you use a Price Matcher and that will give you the best options…
Step 2:
Lay off your qualifying bet. To do this you will need an exchange account, here’s a choice between two low-commission options:
After finding the best bet to place in the Price Matcher, we now need to lay off so we aren’t risking any money – or very little at least!
To find the correct stake to lay on Betfair, we use a Betting Calculator. The calculator will tell us the exact stake to lay at the odds to give us the smallest risk possible. For this step, make sure you use the calculator in NORMAL mode.
Step 3:
Use our free bet.
We have got a free bet from Step 1, now we just need to turn it into withdrawable cash.
Again, we can use the same logic as in Step 1 – using the Price Matcher to find the best possible bet.
Step 4:
Lock in profit!
In Step 4 we can lock in a profit by using the same logic as Step 2, except this time the stakes and odds will be different so we just use the Bet Calculator again.
Remember to select Free Bet Stake Not Returned (SNR) in this step otherwise, your calculations will be wrong.
There’s a huge amount of money available in matched betting. It’s worth taking the time to understand it fully. Most matched betting sites charge money but you can check out OddsMonkey which has step-by-step guides for everything.
You might have a couple of questions about Matched Betting before you start, and we’re going to answer them now!
Is Matched Betting Legal?
The answer to this question is yes. Matched Betting is 100% legal.
When people promise you can make thousands of pounds, the honest and quick reaction is; is this legal? and it’s a completely fair question.
The reality is that there’s nothing wrong with using free bets from bookmakers to make money. It’s just using free bets intelligently!
Not many punters will think of using their free bets this way, laying off on exchanges and locking in profit – they will just gamble them and most likely lose.
If bookmakers didn’t want to offer free bets, they wouldn’t. It’s as simple as that. If they weren’t making money on a promotion they wouldn’t do it – they are a business after all. The reality is for every person who uses matched betting to profit, there will be ten “mug punters” who waste their free bets.
The worst thing that can happen to you when matched betting is that the bookmaker will close your account or restrict it. This is called getting “gubbed“ in the betting industry. There’s nothing illegal about it all, however, the bookmakers don’t like losing money so they will close down the intelligent accounts.
When bookmakers look at an account and see that they won’t make any money from that person; they simply close the account. It’s grossly unfair but it’s very common in the betting industry now, unfortunately. The good news for matched bettors is that there are hundreds of bookmakers to open an account with, so once one closes you down you can simply move on to the next one!
Is Matched Betting A Scam?
This is a question that will make experienced matched bettors roll their eyes, but for someone new, it’s a fair question to ask. You can definitely see the angle of “matched betting scams the bookmakers for their free bets” for someone completely new to betting.
Matched betting isn’t a scam though, that’s a fact.
It’s just a way to profit from the free bets that bookmakers offer. Think about the betting industry like this; every bookmaker is the same.
5/1 at Paddy Power pays the same as 5/1 at Bet365. They are the same. The only way that they can stand out is through their marketing and promotions. That’s where all the free bet offers come from and that’s how matched betting started!
Not everyone will do matched betting, and for that reason, the bookmakers will end up with a large profit on their promotions.
We’ve got a couple more important points to make below, but first, you should check out this short YouTube about the legalities of matched betting and how multi-accounting is viewed by the authorities…
How Much Money Do I Need To Start Matched Betting?
You can start with any amount of money. Obviously the smaller your betting bank is there more limited you are with offers and such. Anywhere between £500 and £1,000 is an excellent starting bank and should give you plenty of opportunities to make profits. There’s a tonne of sign-up offers out there, and when you’ve made your way through them you can move onto existing offers. For more advanced matched bettors then there are excellent offers like 2 Up and Double Delight And Hat-trick Heaven. Sometimes you won’t need to stake the full amount to get a free bet.
Always read the T&Cs on each offer; an offer might say “Bet £50 Get £50” but the min bet might be £5 so you could Bet £5 and Get £5 so small banks can build up quickly.
How Much Money Can You Make With Matched Betting?
A lot.
Some matched bettors are actually doing it as a full-time job, so that’s the amount of money that’s on offer! Realistically the amount of money that you can make will depend on the size of your bank. The bigger your bank, the more offers you can do and thus the more money you make each week. A huge amount of people are making between £500 and £1,000 per month from matched betting and they are just doing it on the side of their normal full-time job.
With all the free tools out there at the moment, it really doesn’t take much of your time to start…
One thought on “Is Matched Betting Legal? A Legitimate Way to Make Money Online”
Because of the pandemic there were a lot of bonuses and in my opinion there were more opportunities to earn on matched bets, do you guys have similar feelings?