My Matched Betting Journey During Euro 2016 – Summary

The Euros have been and gone now, and my first go at matched betting has come to a close. You wouldn’t think that making money in such an easy way would be fun, but it allowed me to get involved with the football action on a different level as well as keeping myself busy and adding a few extra pounds to my bank account.

I’ve made a video (See above) about my experience so that you’ll be able to see for yourself what I’ve been up to. I’ve counted all the money I’ve made, and after 6 rounds of betting I made £74.90 in profit. I’ve used multiple bookmakers, made dozens of bets and learnt how to properly use a betting calculator. Take a look at my video if you want to know more about how to get started yourself!

Turning a profit: Euros bring easy money

As the Euros come to a close, it’s time for me to review how things have been going. With a matched bet here and there, I’ve been making my way through Online Betting School’s list of bookmakers to get free bets and make a profit. In total I made nearly £50 after using four bookmakers – just imagine what you could be making after using the whole list! The simplicity of matched betting combined with its potential is absolutely fantastic – after all who couldn’t use an extra bit of money on the side.

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I started off this round of matched betting with William Hill, placing my first bets on the Wales vs Northern Ireland game. With the odds for each outcome being pretty close, I played around with the betting calculator to view my options. If I had placed my bet with the bookmaker on Northern Ireland, I would have had to fork out £45.97, but betting on Wales I only had to bet £21.73 in total. Placing the bet on the outcome with the lowest odds will usually mean you have to dish out the least amount of money but you have to be careful it doesn’t dip below 2.0 otherwise you may not qualify for a free bet. Online Betting School’s list of bookmakers will tell you the minimum odds for each one so you don’t need to worry. I won back £20.50, meaning I lost £1.23 but was ready to make a profit with my free bet.

I decided to bet on the England vs Iceland game, where the odds weighed heavily in favour of an England win. It just goes to show that the bookmakers don’t always get it right! I put in £38.56 of my own money, and won £50 back, meaning that with my free bet I was set to make £11.44 in profit. By some miracle Iceland won and I got my money back through Smarkets. With the betting exchange previously I was trying to withdraw my money every time my bets came through. The thing is it takes several days for the money to appear in your account and so you’ll probably be wanting to move on to betting on the next game before you have got your money back. What I have learned by placing several matched bets in a row is that when the money comes through with your betting exchange, there’s absolutely no point withdrawing the money until you’re finished. It’s better to think of that money as invested and ready to grow separately from your ‘everyday money’, rather than to withdraw your winnings after every game.

The next bookmaker I used was Paddy Power who were offering three £10 for a single £10 deposit. My initial bet went on the Poland vs Portugal game. Again as we were in the later stages of the Euros the odds were pretty close with 4.1 for Poland (meaning if you bet £1, you’ll get £4.10 back), 3.0 for the draw and 2.20 for Portugal. Unsurprisingly, Portugal won and I got £22 back from my £22.76 worth of bets. I then used my bet on the Germany vs Italy game, making a £15.27 profit. After Paddy Power I moved on to Betfair with whom I made a profit of £15.13, then with Stan James I made a profit of £11.35.

While it may sound obvious, what I realised in the last few rounds of betting was that the sooner the match is when you bet on it, the sooner you’ll make a profit. You can’t choose when a match will take place and certainly towards the end of the Euros the games were spread further apart. I found it much better to wait until the day the match took place to place my bets – that way when I was spending my own money I wouldn’t have long to wait until that money was back in my account again if I needed it. Another little tip I found useful is that it’s good to keep a list of bookmakers you’ve used and what you’ve bet on. This way you know where you’re expecting to get your money from, and you won’t forget to withdraw it!

Since my last blog I have made £49.16 in profit (including acceptable losses from initial bets). Over four bookmakers this averages at £12.29 from each! Online Betting School has multiple lists of bookmakers – just imagine the profit you could be making! I myself will be continuing with matched betting, and at a much higher frequency, hopefully making a bigger profit in a shorter amount of time.

Online Betting Calculators: An even easier way to earn money

I’ve been trying out matched betting for a few weeks now. It’s been great – risk free easy money. Nevertheless I can’t help but feel a little sad when the bookies are right and the underdog doesn’t win. When you use three different bookmakers and you put down random amounts of money to try and get your free bets, you don’t know how much money you’re going to make as it all depends on the outcome of the match.

As it turns out, there is an even easier way to get free money! It’s a little hard to understand at first but once you wrap your head around it you have guaranteed money and you know exactly how much you’re going to make before the match has even started. The way to do this is with an online betting calculator. There’s two different calculators that you use: one on one match to get your free bet, and one to turn that free bet into withdrawable money. Put in the numbers and it’ll tell you what to do.

It starts off with a bookmaker: just one bookmaker this time giving out a reasonable free bet. I chose Sky Bet from Online Betting School’s list of bookmakers as you only had to deposit £5 to get a free £20 bet. The first match I bet on was the Portugal vs Austria match, and although it ended in an uneventful 0-0, with the betting calculator I knew exactly what I was going to get out of it.

The calculator basically tells you how much to bet on each outcome in order to get your free bet without losing any money. You just put in the odds and the amount you’re going to spend in order to get your free bet (in my case, £5) and it tells you what to do to first earn back your money to then use that free bet to make a profit. I put in £18.37 of my own money in total for the first match, and won back £17.50, meaning I had an acceptable loss of just 87p whilst getting a £20 free bet from Sky Bet to use on the next match in order to get withdrawable winnings.

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It may sound complicated, but to make things simple I used a betting exchange, Smarkets, to bet on two out of the three outcomes. The great thing about Smarkets is it tells you exactly how much you’re winning or losing so it’s easy to keep track of your money.

The next match I bet on was the Russia vs Wales game using my free bet. I put the £20 on Wales winning (which they did by a long shot!) and then spent £19.64 of my own money with Smarkets on the other two outcomes. The betting calculator had it so that whatever the outcome I would win £30… and I did! This therefore left me a profit of £10.36.

Free Bet to Money Converter Calculator

If you have a bit of money to spare, it’s worth a try. Online Betting School have a whole list of bookmakers and the amount each one offers in free bets which I will be working my way down for the rest of the Euros. With just five minutes placing bets, ten in total to make a profit, it’s pretty easy money. In that sense I earned a pound a minute – FAR more than I would waitressing! Furthermore this method is not only risk free but it’s far less hassle as well as there’s only one bookmaker you’re aiming to get a free bet from and the rest is kept nearly together in Smarkets.

Hopefully I’ll be making even more money using the betting calculator and Online Betting School’s list of bookmakers – I’ll tell you how it goes in my next blog. With a minimal amount of effort I could possibly be earning hundreds of pounds.

Success with Matched Betting despite Russia’s performance

And so my first week of matched betting comes to a close. If I have one thing to say it’s this: with this method although there’s none of the risk of proper gambling you still have some of the excitement! Of course I was rooting for the result that earned me the most money, but it turns out that the bookies really do know what they’re talking about and Russia never had a chance of winning either game so I could get the big bucks.

Nevertheless, here’s how it went. I started off betting my own money at three separate bookmakers which meant they gave me free bets to use next time around. I bet on two matches in total, the first one with my own money and the second with the free bets. It’s a perfect system: even though you need a bit of money to begin with, you’re guaranteed a win on both matches as you bet on every possible outcome.

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I followed Online Betting School’s example page for my first time betting – they make it so much easier by giving you their method so you don’t have to worry about things going wrong. The first match was the England vs Russia Euro game, and despite the fights that went down between fans at the match, it resulted in a draw. I couldn’t believe that last cheeky goal that Russia slipped in! I would never have guessed that the match would end in a draw if it weren’t for matched betting, but as it was, the 1-1 result meant I won £16.25 on that match. I had placed £10 with Ladbrokes on an England win, giving me one £10 free bet to use later, £5 with Coral on a draw, giving me four £5 free bets to use later, and £10 with Betfair, again giving me three £10 free bets.

The next game was Russia vs Slovakia, and I was at work when the game was on so had to keep slipping out of the office to check up on what was happening with the canteen staff. I told them I had money on the game and that I was hoping for Russia to win (so that I’d get the most money!), and they simply scoffed in my face. And rightly so. Slovakia was the clear winner even though Russia again managed to slip in a sneaky solitary goal. No wonder the bookies had the odds so stacked against them. I had put down £30 on Russia winning, £20 on a draw and £10 on Slovakia winning – all with my free bets. Since Slovakia won, I made £25! Added with the £16.25 I made in the first place this gave me a total of £41.25 in winnings.

When you take into account the money I put in in the beginning, I only made £16.25 profit. This was a little annoying as it could have been a lot better if Russia had only stepped up their game, but with minimal effort I made the same amount of money as I would in 2.5 hours of waitressing! If you go to Online Betting School and take a look at the examples they have for matched betting I guarantee you too could be making very easy money. It’s simple, risk-free and completely legal and I’d thoroughly recommend it.

One thing that Online Betting School say you should do at the same time as matched betting is to use some kind of cashback site to maximise your profit. I tried to use topcashback to click through to Labrokes and earn around £15, however I’m not sure if it works because of my ad blocker. This is a really easy way to add to the amount of money you’re earning so I’d say if you’re going to do this make sure you temporarily disable your ad blocker and get that extra cash.

I’ll be placing a few more bets on the Euros, so hopefully I should be making a bit more money. I’ll be continuing to write about it so you can see how easy it is.

Matched betting: Taking the challenge

I’m a complete virgin when it comes to gambling and betting. I’ve watched horse racing, but have never had the guts to actually put money down. I live right by a betting shop but I’ve never been inside. The whole thing about gambling it that there is a risk of losing your money. Just look at what happened in the Premier League when the bookies didn’t even come close to predicting Leicester City’s win. Betting can lead to a big win, but it could also lead to losing everything you put into it. Or could it?

Betting is a lot easier than you’d first imagine, especially with the right help. I’m a student and I could really use the extra money. That’s why Online Betting School seems like a great place to start. They have everything you need to know about placing a bet, whether it’s on football, formula one, poker or even the lottery. They can teach you how odds work, how to bet tactically and to your advantage. To make money you have to know what you’re doing rather than just placing bets willy-nilly based on whose team colours you like the best, or which horse has the best name.

There’s one method they mention on their website: matched betting. From what I’ve read it seems too good to be true. It’s a method which takes advantage of the free bets offered by bookmakers in order to make a profit.

Online Betting School explain it like this: “It’s like a coin flip where instead of betting on heads or tails, you’re betting on heads AND tails.” Seems like great odds to me!

Say there were 3 bookies each offering a free £10 bet when you sign up, you would put one bet on a team to win, one on the other team to win, and one on a draw outcome. This way you would be guaranteed a win, at the same time minimising the amount of money you’re spending yourself. Usually it takes a little time to arrange where you’re going to put your bets, but Online Betting School have sorted it all out for you so you can easily be making hundreds of pounds all tax free!

Like I said, it seems too good to be true. It seems that not everyone is doing this because of this simple fact. Matched betting has been written about online, such as in The Guardian and I’m not the only person blogging about it, but still there are only a handful of people who take the challenge. Granted it’s only short-term solution as it is dependent on the free bets you are able to get, but for a student like myself and with the help of Online Betting School, it’s a quick way to make an easy buck.

Matched betting seems like it’s the perfect starting point for a novice gambler, hence why I’ve decided to give it a go! I’ll be using this blog to mark my journey through betting, giving details of how I make bets and why. I’ll be starting with the 2016 UEFA European Championship to show you how much you could be earning with the help of Online Betting School completely tax-free. They tell you exactly where to sign up to get free bets, how to place your money, and how much you stand to make depending on the outcome of the match.

There’s also plenty of information about betting of all different kinds and a matched betting calculator I’ll be taking a look at in a later blog. Follow me (Maria Mellor) in my journey through betting to see how you could be making some easy money.