How to do Matched Betting in America
Hi, my name is Luke and I teach a technique called matched betting.
I’m delighted to be here on MoneyAhoy to talk about this to a wider audience.
I’ve been doing this strategy for myself for 3-4 years now, and I’ve been teaching it full-time for around 2 years via my website Beating Betting, and the YouTube channel under the same name.
However, my main education is aimed at people within the UK. For us here in Britain, we’ve got it easy. I’ll talk about the subtle differences between the two countries — the UK and the US — and the effect it has on betting, shortly.
What is Matched Betting?
Matched betting is a low-risk form of gambling that uses simple maths to turn the odds of a bookmaker, or casino, against them. By using almost any promotion that a bookmaker offers (free bets, odds boosts and more) and combining them with a simple calculator, we’re able to work out our profit on a sporting event before the event even takes place.
I’m more than aware that it sounds incredibly scammy.
Fortunately for me, this has grown to such a level in the UK now that there is enough information out there — on reputable websites — that it’s a lot easier to prove its viability than when I started out a few years ago.
Back in the day, I used to get outright abuse on sites like Reddit for trying to show people this money-printing method.
…And considering I teach people for free, it wouldn’t be the most logical scam in the world even if it wasn’t real!
What I would say is that, if you are the skeptical type, you give this a proper look and go in as open minded as possible.
It’s an opportunity that I’m gifting to you. Why? Firstly, because someone gifted me that same opportunity and I like to pay it forward. Secondly, because I think gambling institutions are crooked and people deserve the opportunity to beat them for as much money as they possibly can.
Why is this Harder in the US?
I said earlier that I’m fortunate to have it easy in the UK.
This is for a few reasons:
The most obvious one of those reasons is that online betting is legal throughout the entire country. This isn’t the case for the US, so to do this you’ll need to be in one of the states that doesn’t have ridiculous legislation (that I’m sure will be reversed in the future).
The less obvious reason is that we have access to a type of betting site known as exchanges. As matched bettors, we use exchanges to ‘lay’ bets; to hedge, or cover all outcomes, in order to remove our risk and guarantee a profit.
In America, you’re going to need to use several bookmaker sites to cover all of the outcomes on a certain sporting event — for example, you could back one team on one bookmaker and the opposing team on another bookmaker on the ‘moneyline’ market in an NFL game.
This adjustment in strategy is known as dutching.
The final reason is that we have numerous websites that:
- Find offers to exploit on a daily basis
- List all of the terms and conditions to follow
- List the steps required to make a profit
To do this in the US, you’re going to need to do all of the above yourself. This means it will require more manual work and you’ll definitely have to use more brain power than we do.
However, because it’s so much more effort to do, it means there may also be more profit in it for those willing to put in the time.
It’s gotten so easy and accessible in this part of the world that bookmakers are reducing and removing their promotions; something that was always an inevitability once the masses figured this out.
The Basics of the Strategy
Think of this as an introduction to matched betting.
Because of the state-by-state laws, differing bookmakers, unique terms and conditions and a whole load of other things, it’s hard for me to give you more than a push in the right direction. But a push I will certainly give you.
Step 1: Find an Offer
The easiest place to start is with a sign-up offer as most bookmakers will offer them.
Let’s say, for the purposes of an example, you’ve found a site offering a free bet up to $50 if you deposit and place a bet of the same amount.
You should check the terms and conditions to make sure there’s nothing alarming (extremely high wagering requirements is one thing to look for) but most of the time they generally tend to include something simple like a rule that you must bet on odds of a certain size, let’s say it’s 1.5 — you should always use decimal odds when doing this, for the purposes of using calculators. You can easily change the odds format on any bookmaker if they aren’t currently showing as decimal.
Assuming everything in the terms looks straightforward, you can move on to the next step.
Step 2: Qualifying Bet
On this first bet, known as the ‘qualifier’, we are attempting to qualify for the free bet. As we already know, the free bet in this example is worth $50.
With this first bet, we will always lose a very small amount of money, known as a qualifying loss.
Find a team to bet on with odds of more than 1.5, as per the terms.
I recommend using the moneyline market in NFL (or other two-outcome sports, i.e. there is no option for the match to be a draw) if you’re based in America, as you’ll only need to use two bookmakers to cover all of the outcomes.
Let’s say you’ve found a team at odds of 1.9.
You now need to find the same event on another bookmaker and check the odds for the other team. Again, for the purposes of this example, let’s say their odds are 2.0.
We then use a dutching calculator (I won’t link one, but you’ll be able to find one on Google) to figure out what our stake will need to be on the second site. We already know our stake is $50 on the first bookmaker, but what stake would generate us an even return?
We input our stake and odds into the dutching calculator, and based on the information provided we learn that our stake on the second bookmaker needs to be $47.50. Our qualifying loss will be $2.50, which is quite high — you should look around to see if you can find betting options that would lose slightly less, if possible — but we’ll still be able make a reasonable amount of profit.
Step 3: Free Bet
Once we have placed our qualifying bet, we should have access to our free bet. These are usually credited instantly or are credited within 48 hours after the bet is settled.
We now need to repeat the process, but use higher odds on than previously with our free bet in order to generate more profit.
Two things to be wary of:
- Ensure you don’t breach any ‘max odds’ terms
- The higher the odds you choose, the more profit you will make, but the more money you’ll need to deposit into the second bookmaker
I recommend choosing odds between 4.0 and 8.0 on your free bet, if permitted.
Let’s say there is a team at odds of 6.0, and the second team — on the second bookmaker — are odds of 1.18.
We need to change our dutching calculator settings as we’re now only betting with our own money on the second site. Again, I won’t link a specific dutching calculator here, but you need to find one which has a ‘free bet (stake not returned)’ option.
Or, if you’re smarter than I am, you could figure out the calculation yourself to give yourself an even return regardless of the result.
The calculation on this specific bet means we use our free $50 on the 6.0 selection, and we then need to bet $211.86 on the second bookmaker selection. This generates an even profit of $38.13 regardless of the outcome of that match.
We then subtract $2.50 (our qualifying loss from the first bet) and we’ve made $35.63 in overall profit.
It’s worth noting, you can find smaller offers than this. You don’t have to go for the full $50 if you can’t afford to dutch the other side, as $200+ is a significant investment for many people.
In the UK, I recommend people start with at least £100. I’d say that you need to start with at least $120 if you’re looking to do this in America.
After the Sign-Up Offers
The sign-up offers, like the one outlined above, are the starting point for all matched bettors. They are typically the most simple offers and generally the most profitable too, but it’s not the end of the road once you’ve used them all up.
Promotions are almost always loss leaders for bookmakers, meaning they actually provide value for bettors as long as they know how to exploit it.
Any time there is a free bet offer, a refund, a significant odds boost, an extra place being offered in horse racing, accumulator (or parlay) insurance…the list goes on, there is theoretically a way you can flip it to make a guaranteed profit.
There are a whole range of questions that people typically have, and I’ve answered many of them on my website and YouTube channel already.
Unfortunately, the standard of advice that I can give to Americans (or anyone outside of the UK, for that matter) is no more detailed than this guide.
As I said earlier, this is just a push for you in the right direction.
I hope you’ve found it interesting and that you can find success with it if you give it a go. Good luck!
