Is Matched Betting a Con?
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If you’ve heard of matched betting, you may have your doubts. Is it a legitimate way to make money, or is matched betting a con? Is it even legal?
Considering that online sports betting (non-gambling in our case) can be a bit of a grey area, your questions are valid and understandable. We’ll help clear them up so you can get out there and start earning today.
Is Matched Betting a Betting a Scam?
Matched betting is not a scam. It’s a legitimate and legal way to make money, and it’s not gambling. By investing a small sum of start-up money, you unlock multiple free bets that we use to offset risk and score a guaranteed profit each time. However, you have to know what you’re doing.
This brief guide will walk you through the basics of matched betting, explain why it’s not a ‘con’ or a ‘scam’, and cover the legalities. By the end of this overview, you, too, could be on the path to winning a guaranteed profit from your online bets through matched betting.
Is matched betting a con? We don’t think so; find out why it’s perfectly safe and a fantastic way to earn extra income in 2022.
How Does Matched Betting Work?
Let’s look at how matched betting works to show no scam involved! When you sign up and deposit money into particular bookmakers, you’ll unlock a free bonus (as part of their ‘welcome offer’, usually in the form of a risk-free bet. We use these free bets to offset risk, and what’s more, to score a guaranteed profit.
The strategy is ‘guaranteed’ because we follow mathematical equations rather than pure chance. After investing a small amount of money into your bankroll and registering at popular bookmakers, we deposit the funds required to complete their promotional offers.
You will not lose the money you start with; it’s just that you need a balance for multiple account sign-ups, and the more you have, the quicker you can do all of the offers.
We repeat the process with multiple sign-up offers. These offers often sound like, “Bet £10 to receive £20 in free bets”.
Each time we make a matched bet, we place two bets – a back bet on one team, a standard bet that they will win, and a lay bet on the same team not to win (lose or draw).
Matched betting sites find us the offers, and matched betting calculators tell us the exact stakes we need to place. After this process for qualifying bets, we repeat it with the unlocked bonuses; when the money you are betting with is free, you walk away with a profit.
Sites such as OddsMonkey and Profit Accumulator provide detailed guidance for every offer, step-by-step making it far less likely you will go wrong.
See our guide to the best matched betting sites if you want to compare every paid and free service currently on offer. And don’t forget to sign up for a betting exchange such as Smarkets.
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Free Bet Profit Explained
Let’s briefly explore how you earn profit from free bets.
When you match your bets using the free bet you received from a promotion, say, for example, your £30 in free bets from Betfred (click here for a free step-by-step guide to this offer).
- You’ll use a matched betting calculator to work out the correct stakes to place.
- You’ll place a bet for, say, Liverpool to win at Betfred (with your free bet/s).
- You’ll place a bet for Liverpool not to win at the betting exchange.
No matter the game’s outcome, you are guaranteed to earn a profit since this time, and you should expect to come away with approximately £20-£24 profit.
Is Matched Betting Legal?
As fishy as guaranteed free money might sound, matched betting is entirely legal. As long as you are over 18 and using correct details, you legally place bets at a bookmaker and a betting exchange.
Nothing stops you from using free betting bonuses to win a bit of guaranteed cash. After all, sportsbooks offer these bonuses to get you betting.
Repeatedly running profit from offers can sometimes get you banned from a bookmaker, not because it’s against the rules or illegal but because they would rather you don’t win at their expense.
We exploit these offers by ensuring that we do not lose anything significant in the qualifying bet and make a tidy profit each time with our free bets.
Matched betting isn’t gambling because we achieve profit through mathematical equations after placing relevant bets. The game or horse race outcome is inconsequential, as we already know what profit we will achieve.
Is Matched Betting a Scam?
There is no reason to think that matched betting is a scam, every part of the process is legal in the UK, and there is nothing ‘shady’ or ‘dodgy’ about it.
The ‘problem’ is that the multiple welcome offers you complete usually bring about £1,000 of profit when you start. So many simply think that Matched betting seems too good to be true.
A level of cynicism is perfectly understandable about profit potential, especially given the age of false gurus online and wild claims of profit from unsavoury sources.
Matched betting is legitimate, and the profit is real; the reality, though, is that it still takes time to go through the offers like anything with a positive outcome; you need to put in the effort. Nothing of value comes without effort. However, they are simple to complete and once you get used to it, and with only a few hours each week or over the weekend, you can start to make a decent profit.
Is Matched Betting a Con? - Final Thoughts
As we have seen, matched betting might sound too good to be true, but it isn’t. You can mathematically ensure a guaranteed profit by offsetting your bets and using calculators.
It takes a little bit of know-how to master matched betting, but you can quickly learn the ropes and earn big with patience and a small upfront investment.