Tricks of the trade: How to become a highly profitable Matched Bettor

One of the most well-known and influential books of the last three decades is Stephen Covey’s ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. This book, alongside Tom Corley’s research that identified daily habits that were common to self-made millionaires, inspired the thought that there may also be habits common to our most successful – members too.

The ones repeatedly hitting £1000 and more a month, again and again.

Spending some time following these members in the forum, chatting with them and interviewing them did highlight several traits and habits that they all seem to have in common.

Such a finding is a massive benefit to all our members.

How so?

As knowing their habits means we can adopt them too and then follow in their footsteps to success – and more importantly – to lots more return!

The 8 Habits of our Most Successful Members

1) They read – a lot!

Tom Corley identified reading – and particularly reading for personal development – as a core habit of 85% of the self-made millionaires he studied.

Unsurprisingly – the most common advice our most experienced and successful members frequently give to beginners is to ‘read – and read again!’

These members are saying this as it is what they did before and in many cases are still consistently doing. This is especially the case on key chat threads on the forum.

The experts of the 2up early pay-out offer, the kings and queens of extra places, the masters of casino – all got to where they are now by first spending a good deal of time reading what others had done before them. Not only did they work methodically through all our PA guides, but they then also trawled through forum post after forum post digesting all the information they could.

Arguably if there’s one thing you absolutely must do if you want to be more successful in Matched Betting – reading more would be it.

2) They cultivate the right mindset to do best reload offers

Another habit common to self-made millionaires that Tom Corley identified was patience.

Developing patience when it comes to starting the more advanced, but most consistently highly profitable reload offers is arguably one of the hardest habits to cultivate for any beginner to Matched Betting.

The vast majority of signup offers and more basic reload offers, like the weekly clubs and price boosts, frequently provide really good instant profits and gratification. The more advanced reload offers (horse racing refunds and extra places, football 2ups and casino offers) – although far more profitable – don’t work in the same way. They instead work consistently over the long-term, returning huge profits after varying periods of small losses. Success with these offers requires patience alongside an excellent understanding of value and a full trust in the process.

It’s often the case that new members – seeing the huge profits that experienced members are making - jump into these advanced reload offers too quickly – then get disappointed and give in (far too soon!) because they haven’t got the instant profit hit that they’re used too.

How do successful members avoid doing this and cultivate the mindset and patience to tackle these advanced reloads? Mainly though the key habit we already discussed – reading.

They can then also use smart strategies like ‘paper Matched Betting’ or ‘small initial stakes’ to build up the necessary mindset. Paper Matched Betting is just writing down the bets you would do if you were doing the offer, then seeing what your overall profits would have been after a certain time or number of bets. This strategy allows you to get a feel for the process, how it works and how much it can make you – all without using any money. Alternatively you can consider initially using small stakes (£2, £5 or £10) until you are confident with the process and your profits, and then increase your stakes to the kind of amounts our most profitable members use (£50, £100 and £200+ for some of the offers).

3) They build and then maintain a large bankroll

Self-made millionaires, according to Tom Corley, don’t become wealthy simply by making money, but by strategically investing it too.

This is similar to what highly successful Matched Bettors do too.

Regardless of what their starting bankroll is (£50 or £500+) they actively build it up using profits from the initial signup offers and easier reloads, then re-invest that profit to keep making loads more profits!

Only once they’ve built up a really decent bankroll – that consistently covers the regular offers they prefer to do each week - do they then start taking profits off the top to spend as and when they like. This big bankroll is then just constantly re-cycled to keep making them more profits. Again and again.

In any successful member’s view - a hefty bankroll for reloads is all and absolutely must be maintained.

One member even said “consider the money in your bankroll like money not to be touched in a savings account – except this savings account gives you back a load more in ‘interest’ than any normal savings account does and you can spend the ‘interest’ each time you make it!”

4) They reduce the amount of time they spend on any tasks that aren’t directly related to them making money

Stephen Covey found one of the 7 habits of highly effective people is that they eliminate time-wasting activities. This is exactly what many of our most profitable members do too.

Two of our high-earners, Toby and Alun, provided an excellent example of this when asked about how they track their profits from Matched Betting...

Toby: I started off with a spreadsheet that tracked every little detail about all the bets I placed and where my money was but now I just have a few columns for total deposits/withdrawals and current balance in order to work out my total Profit/Loss.

Alun: For the first year I tracked everything on a spreadsheet I made, I then sacked that off and just make notes on my iphone, takes less time and I really don’t need to know much other than profit. Takes seconds to update my notes after I’ve done an offer.

Others like Katy and William use the PA Profit Tracker as it also records everything they need it too quickly and efficiently.

5) They use and create efficient systems that help them focus on what’s important – making more profits!

As well as eliminating time-wasting tasks Steven Covey found highly effective people also work out how to focus their time on key tasks and make their work as efficient as possible.

Our most successful members are exactly the same.

They enhance their profits by optimizing all the PA tools they need and by picking up tips other members provide on the forum.

For example...

• They don’t just use the Oddsmatcher ‘as is’. They create their own filters for the offers they want to focus on and how they specifically like to approach them.
• They set up notifications either on their mobile or desktop so they don’t miss any opportunity to profit that’s posted on the forum in regard to their preferred reload offers.

• They learn from others on the forum when the best times are to look for close odds matches on the offers they are doing. Early morning? When teams are announced? Just before a race goes?

Establishing a routine in their Matched Betting also appears to be a common feature among our most successful members.

6) They do every offer they can – no matter how small

Tom Corley identified that many self-made millionaires “don’t leave money on the table”. They account for every penny and don’t waste money.

Similarly our most successful members never miss an opportunity to profit – no matter how small the profit is.

Neither do they over-think about which offers to do or sit wasting time browsing and being choosey. If they can do the offer, they do it!

Toby: I do all the offers that my accounts let me

Alun: My biggest tip here is to not underestimate the small offers, yes we all love a huge boom, but all those small offers add up.

A couple of quid from a quick price boost here and £3-£4 from a £5 free bet there all quickly turn into very good profits and can frequently completely cover the periods of small losses from the more advanced reload offers too.

You wouldn’t turn down a special offer for a couple of quid off your weekly supermarket shop would you? £2 every week makes £104 saved by the end of the year.

That’s exactly how these ‘small’ profit offers in Matched Betting work too – except there are loads of them – which means when put altogether they can seriously add up.

7) They figure out what works best for them and stick to it

Our very successful members who do Matched Betting around their full-time jobs or similar commitments have worked out which reload offers and strategies suit their particular lifestyle best and stick to them – pretty much like glue.

Although they take useful tips and advice from others they don’t worry about exactly what others are doing (or making) because they understand everyone is different.

They appreciate that some members may have more time free throughout the day, or at certain times of the day, than what they do. Or that some members still have access to certain bookmaker accounts that they longer have access to. Or that some members prefer tackling casino offers to sports offers and that they may therefore hit an exceptional win every now and again.

A great example of variation in strategies among members can be found among those who all do very well from the 2up early-payout offers...

There are some members who strictly do 100% cash-out as soon as a team goes 2up. They likely choose to use this approach as all they have to do is click to ‘trade-out’ on the exchange and they’re done. It’s fast and simple to do.

Others use more complex strategies like a 25% cash-out at 2 goals up, then 50% at 2-1 and the remaining 25% at 2-2. This strategy – although over time can be more profitable - requires more time, the use of the early-payout calculator and a keen eye on every game that 2up bets are placed on.

Finally others don’t do any cash-out at all, spend no time tracking the games and just wait for what are called ‘Full Turn Arounds’ or ‘FTAs’ – which are when their team go 2 goals ahead and then proceed to draw or lose the game. This strategy – requires minimal effort but also a strong mindset as it can involve long periods of small losses before the huge ‘booms’ in profit occur.

Follow the Bet365 2up thread in the forum and you’ll see all these strategies in use among the members and the frequent advice to 2up newbies of – “pick your strategy and stick to it!”

8) They don't let gubbings stop them from making money with Matched Betting

Our most profitable members find all sorts of ways round getting gubbed. Many, like ‘Mr T’ and ‘Kokokoi’ even end up making more money than they did before they got gubbed.

To find ways round they utilise all the habits we’ve already mentioned above. They certainly bring the key reading habit back into play – but they also frequently switch back to ‘Paper Matched Betting’ or ‘Smaller Initial Stakes’ as they figure out which ‘after gubbing profit strategies’ work best for them.

How to become a really profitable Matched Bettor

The answer to that is simple – start acting as our most successful members do – which means picking up all the habits we’ve mentioned above.

At the very least habits 1 – 3 (reading more, cultivating the right mindset for reloads, and building/maintaining a decent bankroll) will propel you forward hugely, so we’d certainly recommend focusing on establishing those first.

Reading (or listening to) Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Tom Corley’s ‘Change Your Habits, Change Your Life’ could also be a good call – as lots of the advice in these books is very applicable to being highly successful in Matched Betting too.

Want to know more about Matched Betting?

Why not ask our members yourself?

[hubspot type=cta portal=6550634 id=cc101d21-7f66-4b6b-abb7-ac4aa63d10a8]

Our Facebook Group, which currently has over 29,000 members is a great place to get answers and ask for help, especially if you are completely new to Matched Betting.

Interested in Getting Started Matched Betting?

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

[hubspot type=cta portal=6550634 id=b3f22c27-f77a-46f2-891d-bea1df4326fc]

Alternatively, upgrade to our Platinum Membership here. You can easily make the cost of your membership back within an hour or so once you get the hang of things. Talk about value for money!

[hubspot type=cta portal=6550634 id=7cbe011a-2be3-4e40-949b-6d99d0d98230]