How To Do Matched Betting With Outplayed

You might have heard of Matched Betting but you might not know how it actually works, and how you can start doing Matched Betting.

If so, you've come to the right place. In this post, you will learn exactly how to do Matched Betting.

How To Do Matched Betting

Let's consider a football match between England and Germany. There are three possible outcomes:

You decide to place a normal bet (i.e. gamble) on England to win. You would be covering only ONE outcome.

The bookie would be covering the other two possible outcomes (the draw and Germany to win).

The two outcomes the bookie is covering (the draw and Germany to win) can actually be merged together into ONE single outcome – England NOT to win.

So YOU have a bet on England to win.

The BOOKMAKER has a bet on England NOT to win.

You only have one possible outcome covered. This means you would make money if England won, but lose money if they didn't win.

You will now learn how to do Matched Betting to cover ALL the outcomes.

To do this, we use a website called Smarkets Betting Exchange. This is a special kind of betting website that allows us to bet on outcomes NOT to happen. We call a bet on something NOT to happen a lay bet.

What Is A Lay Bet?

As previously mentioned, a lay bet is when you bet on an outcome NOT to happen. So if you were to place a lay bet on England, you are essentially saying: “I bet that England will NOT WIN this game”

You would win a lay bet on England if the match was to end as a draw or if Germany won.

Using our previous example, where we placed a bet at a bookmaker on England to win, we would now also place a lay bet on England at Smarkets Betting Exchange.

You would win your lay bet if England didn’t win and lose the lay bet if you do.

So now we have a bookmaker bet on England to win and a lay bet on England not to win.

You Have Just Learnt The Basics of How To Do Matched Betting!

You’ve covered all outcomes!

If you lose at the bookmaker, you’ll win at the exchange.

If you win at the bookmaker you’ll lose at the exchange.

You won’t win any money, nor will you lose any money.

What Was The Point In All This Then?

This is where the profitable part comes in.

The bookmaker – as part of a promotional offer – gives us a free bet to use.

The bookies often give out free bets to try and encourage people to bet with them. However, as Matched Bettors, by placing bets that cover all outcomes, we can take the free bet offers and turn them into profit.

The best thing is that there are loads of different bookmakers giving you the potential to make lots of legal, tax-free profit!

So you've placed your initial bookmaker bet and lay bet and have now received your free bet, what comes next?

You could at this point just gamble the free bet at the bookie and hope it will win.

Or you could choose a different way...

You could follow our guides on how to do Matched Betting and extract a profit from the free bet - no matter what happens in the game you're betting on.

For every free bet you receive from a bookmaker you can use Matched Betting to extract yourself around 75-80% of the total free bet amount. So £100 worth of free bets could be worth about £75-£80 of real, tax-free cash.

You might be thinking, how do I know what to bet on? How do I turn the free bet into profit?

Don’t worry, we've got you covered!

We’ll go through a real example and show you how to do Matched Betting.

How To Do Matched Betting - A Real Example

Now that you know the basics of how to do Matched Betting we will look at a real example.

Step 1 - Find A New Customer Signup Offer

We make this bit very easy for you. As an Outplyed member, you have access to a long list of different bookmaker signup offers with full instructions on how to use them to make a profit.

For this example, we will look at Coral. Coral has a signup offer for new customers of £20 in free bets when you place a £5 bet with them (at odds of 1.5 or greater).

Step 2 - Unlock The £20 Free Bet By Doing A Qualifying Bet

First, you'll register with Coral and deposit £5. Then, you'll bet £5 at Coral (at odds over 1.5) to unlock the free bets, but immediately after that you will need to place a matching lay bet at Smarkets.

You will start this process by finding a suitable bet using our Oddsmatching Tool (This brilliant tool is available to try with our free trial).

You will be able to choose a preset filter to make finding a bet super quick and easy. For this part of the offer, you can select “Coral Qualifying Bet” in the dropdown filter.

In this example, the Oddsmatching Tool has found a suitable bet to use on the Udinese v Inter football match. The tool is recommending we do our £5 bet on “Inter to win” at Coral at odds of 1.57.

What do you need to bet on at Smarkets Exchange?

Well, you need to bet on the exact opposite bet - “Inter NOT to win”. (This is the equivalent of Inter losing OR drawing the game). This is the lay bet.

To find out how much your lay bet needs to be, you need to click the little calculator icon on your selected bet on the Oddsmatching Tool:

Our Matched Betting Calculator then appears and shows you what stake amount you need to use for your lay bet at Smarkets Exchange. This amount is known as your lay stake.

The calculator tells you that you will need to use a lay stake of £4.91 on “Inter NOT to win” at Smarkets Exchange.

Now, all you need to do is place BOTH your bets. One at the bookmaker, then one immediately after this at a betting exchange.

You will see that you always place two bets in Matched Betting. The betting exchange bet is always on the exact opposite outcome that you bet on at the bookmaker. This is how you cover all outcomes of an event.

In this example, the first is a £5 bet at odds of 1.57 on Inter to win at Coral. The second is a £4.91 lay bet at lay odds of 1.60 on Inter NOT to win at Smarkets Exchange.

The possible outcomes of these bets will be:

Inter win - a 10p loss.

Udinese win - a 9p loss.

If they draw - a 9p loss.

No matter what happens in the Udinese v Inter game you will be down 10p as a worst-case scenario. Instead of wasting £5 to unlock £20 in free bets from Coral, you have instead opted to take a predetermined small loss of up to 10p to unlock them. Now you cash in on your free bets.

Step 3 - Use The Free Bets To Make A Profit - No Matter What

You are going to repeat a similar process, but this time you are going to use your £20 in free bets at Coral to bet with - rather than your own cash. You start this process by first finding a suitable bet to do using our Oddsmatching Tool (again - this brilliant tool is available via our free trial).

This time, select “Coral Free Bet” in the dropdown filter.

The Oddsmatching Tool has found a suitable bet for you to use on the Man Utd v Brentford game. The tool is recommending that you use your £20 free bets on “Brentford to win” at Coral at odds of 4.75.

At Smarkets, you will then bet on the exact opposite bet - "Brentford not to win" - this is the equivalent of Man Utd winning or it being a draw.

Again you will then click the calculator icon on the Oddsmatching Tool to open the Matched Betting calculator. This will tell you what your lay stake should be for the lay bet.

The calculator tells us we will need to use a lay stake of £14.42 on “Brentford NOT to win” at Smarkets Exchange.

Now, all you need to do is place BOTH your bets.

The first is a £20 free bet at odds of 4.75 on the Man Utd v Brentford game on Brentford to win at Coral.

The second is a £14.42 lay bet at lay odds of 5.20 on Brentford NOT to win at Smarkets Exchange.

As soon as you place these bets your situation will be the following:

Bretford win - £14.44 profit.

Man Utd win - £14.42 profit.

If they draw - £14.42 profit.

No matter what happens in the Man Utd v Brentford game you make a profit of at least £14.42. Minus your 10p initial loss from the qualifying bet...

The result...

Just over £14 profit in your back pocket! All tax-free. Stick to the guides, follow the instructions and Matched Betting works well.

After the Sign ups are done...what's next?

Once you know how to do Matched Betting, you can use the process for the 40+ other signup offers that we have listed as part of our Platinum membership.

Get started by signing up to our free trial. Once you've started your free trial, you’ll find videos that go into lots more detail about exactly how to make profits from matched betting.

As part of our free trial, you will find video guides to two bookmaker sign up offers, allowing you to make up to £40 profit before you decide whether to upgrade your membership with us.

Interested in Getting Started Matched Betting?

You can start learning for free with our free trial and make your first profits.