Matched betting - who's done it and who's good at it? (No Referrals)

The whole point of match betting is taking advantage of offers. Offers that exist for MBS to push the money from the bookie into the exchange in theory. However bets at low odd are probably 4-5% in the bookies favour. You chose these qualifiers and free bets by picking close lay odds. By nature these tend to be giving you extra value because the back and lay is much tighter (hence why you chose them ), when this is with free money at odds higher then the actual bookie cut is bigger because high odds but we are picking value bets where the odds are actually higher than the outcome. So actually the expectation is that more money ends up in the bookie. You aren't looking for low lays, You are looking for high backs, match betting actually uses exchanges to find value back bets.

You could just not lay and save commission, However this is risky as it cat end up like a martingale System on a bad run where the bets lose. But if you follow the same principles for bet selections the expected variance is still positive.

What's your MB total for this year and how many times have you had to top up the exchange ? My exchange is always empty !
 
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Just started with this as a hobby.

I am not a gambler at all, so the whole point of use mathematics to not gamble interests me.

I have made a modest profit so far on a coral free bet, but I have managed to trigger three more free bets, so hopefully in the next couple of days I can reap the rewards.

The only thing I am careful of is having my accounts closed. I have had to purchase a private VPN based in the UK (bearing in mind I spend a lot of my working year in Asia, I did not want to use one of the free ones, bearing in mind other punters might use the same IP) , but I am still trying to read up on punter behaviour that can get your account closed.

Like how to 'mug' bet and when.
 
TBH gubbing seems so random at times. PA suggests 3 mug bets for every offer you do. I have had accounts closed where I have been quite good at mugging yet others remain open where I have been a little cheeky. Personally I think a mix of not using the maximum of your free bet, normal mug bets, your favourite team(s), actual gambling (a few quid on some accas which was the staple of my gambling before matched betting) and good old luck seems to do the trick.
 
Simon said:
However this is risky as it cat end up like a martingale System on a bad run where the bets lose. But if you follow the same principles for bet selections the expected variance is still positive.
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You mean the 'expected value' is still positive, in fact the expected value is higher as you remove the cost of laying/hedging. It has nothing to do with nor is it like the martingale system, but yes there is the rather obvious increased variance as has already been pointed out which you'd need to have the bankroll to tolerate - for example not laying Acca bets generally has a high risk of ruin.

Essentially you can pay to hedge by laying and reducing/removing variance or you can keep a higher EV for each free bet but have to tolerate the variance that comes with that.
 
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Simon said:
What's your MB total for this year and how many times have you had to top up the exchange ? My exchange is always empty !
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£15k this year (since July which is my financial year) and I've never had to top up my exchange account. I've been close to having a free balance of zero few times however (e.g. Cheltenham) due to the amount tied up in lays.
 
I've been doing this for a few months now, I was using profit accumulator and I'v done all the sign up offers but I'm wondering where the long term profit comes from now? People are saying they make £400+ a month from a couple of hours, is that from horse racing or..?
 
Horse racing; bet365 £50 race, up until recently William Hill's 2nd/2nd to SP favourite*, Paddy Power's 2nd to SP favourite, ApolloBet have just started their own 2nd offer and all of the weekend's racing

Football; bet365's £50 in-play offer which has popped up 2 or 3 times this year so far, weekend football refunds (Ladbrokes normally do a good one around once a month), Paddy Power and William Hill's bet £20 for a £10 free bet

Then there are accas which I haven't even started yet but supposedly bring in a good source of money.

*These are obviously harder as you need the favourite to come in and guess the right horse for 2nd but with carefully selected fields, still money to be made.
 
Quite a lot of my profit has come from casino offers but I think that is just me being extremely lucky having seen most of the comments on PA being people complaining they never win. The good thing about them is generally you can leave them running on auto spin in the background
 
helpimcrap said:
Which do people use for betting?

Is there an app or just a case of going to betting shop?
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matched betting concerns online betting - taking advantage of bonus offers available at online bookies by betting with them and offsetting that bet by laying at an exchange like betfair or smarkets

there are various guides online concerning this, you can also take advantage of other online bonuses from spreadbetting firms in a similar way and there are casino offers to take advantage of too.

in terms of actual betting shops there are people who will try to arb between physical shops and the exchanges
 
first acca on today/tomorrow.

simple one with William Hill - 6 matches and laying off each one as they come along. Just testing my understanding of it with £10.

24 Mar 2016 - Estonia v Norway - Match Betting
Norway @ 2.10
24 Mar 2016 - Ukraine v Cyprus - Match Betting
Ukraine @ 1.33
25 Mar 2016 - Cheltenham v Boreham Wood - Match Betting
Cheltenham @ 1.40
25 Mar 2016 - Guinea v Malawi - Match Betting
Tip It
Guinea @ 1.73
25 Mar 2016 - Luxembourg v Bosnia - Match Betting
Bosnia @ 1.40
26 Mar 2016 - Brazil v Uruguay - Match Betting
Brazil @ 1.57
Stake : £10.00
Estimated Returns : £148.96

maximum lose is £1.07 if odd's don't drift.
 
The old way was if 1 leg loses you get your stake back as a free bet, for WH this was a maximum of £50. So you would pick your 6, hope 1 loses and get £50 to bet on something else which is worth around £35. Now there is a different way of doing it in which you can make profit with more than 1 loser, but the profit is less.
 
Well just did my first two bets.
Qualifying Ecuador vs Paraguay £5 either result will be -£0.08

And then Estonia vs Norway £20 free bet, which nets £15.40 or £15.39

So hope I've done it all right.
 
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FeFiDoh said:
The old way was if 1 leg loses you get your stake back as a free bet, for WH this was a maximum of £50. So you would pick your 6, hope 1 loses and get £50 to bet on something else which is worth around £35. Now there is a different way of doing it in which you can make profit with more than 1 loser, but the profit is less.
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also despite reading the new way about 15 times, I still can't get my head round it!! :D:D
 
Glaucus said:
Well just did my first two bets.
Qualifying equator vs Paraguay £5 either result will be -£0.08

And then Estonia vs Norway £20 free bet, which nets £15.40 or £15.39

So hope I've done it all right.
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Nice one, good luck.

I can be immense fun if you get your head round it all and take your time.
 
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