How much can you make Matched Betting?

Matched betting is a very profitable side hustle. The first question I answer when talking about it is this: How much can I realistically make matched betting?

TL;DR: You can make £500-600 per month doing matched betting for 4 hours per week. However, the profit you make depends on the time you spend doing it. Josh, who I interviewed in the past, makes £2,000 per month matched betting for a living.

Let the numbers do the talking

The table above shows my monthly profits since October 2016 and the total profits until March 2020. As you can see, I make an average of £540 per month doing matched betting. I spend about 3-4 hours per week, usually during the weekend and I find all the offers on OddsMonkey, the matched betting service I use.

Can I make more? Yes, I can. It’s worth noting that I don’t do ANY casino offers, acca offers or any extra place offers. All three of them are considered to be quite profitable.

I only stick to the high-value offers, like Betfred bet 3 x £10 get £10 or bet365 bet £50 get a £50 free bet in-play. By doing this, I am missing out on potential profit but I only want to spend up to 4 hours per week doing matched betting, or I won’t be writing to you anymore!

I have also stopped signing up to new bookmakers. About every month a new bookmaker joins offering lucrative free bets to attract customers. This is gold for matched bettors and perhaps I should spend more time on new bookmakers too!

How to increase your matched betting profits

Perhaps you’re stuck in making £100-200 per month and you want a way to increase your income. Or you want some confirmation that matched betting can last long and that you’ll be making a solid part-time income for many years to come.

Whatever your goal is, the rules to sustainably increase your matched betting profits are quite simple. Here are my 3 steps.

1. Do all the standard offers
2. Step outside your comfort zone
3. Avoid gubbing – restricted accounts do not make money!

Tools used:

• OddsMonkey for finding offers
• Betfair (5% commission) or Smarkets (2% commission) for laying

And now let’s dive into each step.

1. Do all the standard offers

At a bare minimum, you should lock in a £115 fixed income every week. That’s £460 every month and it’s your base.

There is a long list of OddsMonkey daily offers. But I find some of them are quite tedious for the time you need to spend. The goal here is to maximize value for the time we spend. I don’t want to place five £10 in-play bets to get a £10. Always go for the highest value offers first. If you’re starting out I suggest you finish all the sign-up offers first, starting with the Easy ones.

Here is my standard list of ongoing offers. As you will see, not everything is clearly a loyalty offer but they all happen quite frequently.

My Favourite bookies / Ongoing offers

• Bet365 ITV 4/1: if your horse wins, get the same stake up to £50 for the next ITV race. In general, racing bets are very profitable and you can find a Racing Matcher on OddsMonkey for all offers. My horse usually wins one every 4-5 bets and I place one bet every few days.
  Expected profit per week: £30
  
• Bet365 Risk-free in play: Another bet365 offer I do is the occasional football bet £50 get £50 bonus in-play. This is my favourite as it’s so easy to do and one of the most profitable offers. It happens once every month on big CL games, for a monthly profit of £35.
  Expected profit per week £9
  

• Skybet Sat acca: They offer a boosted acca odds every Saturday on a special treble bet. An acca is simply an accumulator bet. Something like: Man Utd, City and Liverpool all to win 10/1! Betfair offers a hassle-free acca lay which you can lay immediately for a profit. Skybet limits my stake to around £25 and my arbitrage profit is around £6. Lay as Stake Returned.
  Expected profit per week: £6
• Skybet Horses Money Back every Sat/Sun: Although the boosted acca is a sure win, Skybet list a great horse offer every Saturday and Sunday. Get your money back as a free bet (max £20) if your horse comes 2nd every Saturday/Sunday. I usually pick the favourite which finishes 2nd one every 3 times. Expected profit per week: £12
• Skybet weekly loyalty offer: Simply, stake £25 get £5 every Monday.
  Expected profit per week: £3.50
• William Hill Sat acca: Similar to Skybet, W Hill offer a boosted acca every Saturday or an equivalent boost odds offer (Both teams to score high odds etc).
  Expected profit per week: £5
• William Hill occasional e-mail: I get a bet £10 get £10 every month. This is invite-only so always check your e-mails for hidden gems. Most of them are not worth it but occasionally a good offer will show up.
  Expected profit per week: £2
• Betfred Bet three £10 in-play get £10: Primarily in premier league matches, but often found in darts, and other sports.
  Expected profit per week: £7
• Sportingbet Money back (£25) if horse 2nd every Saturday: Sportingbet do this for many races every Saturday. The Racing Matcher from OddsMonkey shows which races run this promo. Get on as many as you can and try to pick a low odds favourite.
  Expected profit per week: £20
• Coral Double winnings (£50) if your team wins both halves: I love and hate this offer. It’s because they try and pick those matches that your team will not win both halves. Coral runs this promo every week, sometimes multiples times. There is a trick explained on OddsMonkey on how to lock in a profit if your team leads at half-time. Expected profit per week: £10
• Coral easy weekly: Bet £25 Mon to Thursday get £5 for the weekend.
  Expected profit per week: £4
• Betway money back if 2nd (£20): They do occasional bonuses but my favourite one is the “money back if your horse comes 2nd” for £20. Again, go for the favourite and you should be getting a £20 free bet once every 3 bets.
  Expected profit per week: £4
• Red bet £2 per goal on selected matches: This may sound silly but it’s a weekly offer for selected matches every Fri-Sun. Can totally make £10-£15 every week.
  Expected profit per week: £10
• Betstars weekly challenges: Happening about once every 2 weeks, BetStars offer £15 if you bet £15 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
  Expected profit per week: £5

Total weekly profit: £115

Some people say “Oh, I don’t want to bother with horse racing if my profits are not guaranteed”.  Or “My luck is bad!”. That’s totally the wrong way to look at it. Horse racing is extremely profitable and this is how you should think:

Odds of 2.00 means that you will win 1 out of 2 times. So if you bet on a 2.00 horse to come 2nd, half the times it will come 2nd. So 5 out of 10 times you will get £20. Therefore, every time you make a bet, it’s as if you get a £10 free bet. This is the world of probabilities and this is how the bookmakers, casinos and every house makes money.

2. Step outside your comfort zone

That applies to really everything in life, but in matched betting, it is so true! It totally defines how much you can make matched betting. Knowledge is power here.

Ok, don’t be like that fish, but you know what I mean. I found the greatest profits by looking around on the OddsMonkey forum, doing offers I’m NOT comfortable with.

Casino offers are very profitable. There are people on OddsMonkey that make their monthly chunk doing only casino offers. As long as the expected value is positive, you should complete the offer.

See my post on how to make money with casino offers and my guide to slots.

To begin with, you can start with the safest ones. Skybet usually offers Bet £10 on roulette get your money back if you lose. That’s fairly easy and 100% risk-free.

Slots are the #1 money maker in casino offers. The bookmakers know that slots are very addictive. So they make sure to offer enough “free spins” for people to continue playing. Be disciplined and just take the free spins. Don’t fool yourself by continue playing without offers (hi Kostas!).

Then there’s Accas – accumulator bets. Almost all bookmakers offer acca insurance. Place a 4-fold bet and get your money back if one leg lets you down. OddsMonkey has a dedicated section on how to make money from accas.

Have you heard of the extra place matcher? Bookmakers offer winnings on place bets if your horse finishes on the extra place. If the place bet offers to pay the first 3 positions, in plenty of races Skybet, Betfred, to name a few, will pay 4 or even 5 positions. So if your horse finishes 4th or 5th you win both at the bookmaker and at the exchange!

An advanced matched betting strategy you can use is the no lay each way betting. You can use OddsMonkey’s Each way Matcher tool to find profitable opportunities. This strategy alone can make more than £300 a month on top of your current profits and the best thing is that it works on gubbed accounts! Read my each way matched betting guide (4,000 words!) to learn more.

And last but not least, sign up to more bookmakers! Guaranteed sign-up profits, more accounts ready for future offers and invite-only e-mails bonuses to name a few advantages.

As you can see, exploring other options can hugely boost your monthly matched betting profits. Not everything is a Bet £X Get £X free bet. Just try!

3. Avoid getting gubbed – restricted accounts do not make money!

Related:

• Matched betting full-time: £2,000 per Month
• OddsMonkey vs Profit Accumulator – Best Matched Betting Software
• The Best Matched Betting sites: Which one to use and why
• Matched betting for 3-years: Income report and future profits