Can't Swing a Cat

Matched Betting Explained: Is It Worth It In 2021? Scam Or Legit Side Hustle?

· Making Money, Matched Betting

matched betting guide

Matched betting is a hot topic of conversation in the money blog world and it’s something I’ve been suspicious of for a long time. Since everyone keeps banging on about how much money you can make from home with this clever hack, I wanted to know if it’s genuinely legit. Is it really possible to make a decent matched betting income? Does it not take up loads of your time? Does it affect your credit score?! Read on for my matched betting blog.

Please note that this matched betting blog includes affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase after clicking one of the links on this website, I may make a commission at no extra cost to you

This matched betting review is a long read so please click on the headings below if you’d like to jump to a particular section. I first wrote this back in 2017 but I’ve updated it in 2021 to answer some of your biggest matched betting questions.

Matched Betting Explained: What is matched betting?

If you’ve not got the first idea of what matched betting is, don’t worry because you’re certainly not alone! Here’s a simple explanation.

It’s basically a money-making strategy that involves placing two bets on the same game to cover all possible outcomes. For example, you might place a bet on Aston Villa to win and another bet for them not to win (protecting you in the event of a draw). If you follow the process correctly and don’t make any mistakes, you’re guaranteed a win – no matter what the result.

I know what you’re thinking – “but surely you’re guaranteed a loss too? And that loss will cancel out the win!” This is correct and that’s why we make use of FREE bets in order to make a profit.

How do free bets work

From Coral to William Hill, most bookies offer free bets to new and existing customers. They want to lure people in and encourage them to gamble. Free bets can vary in value from £5 to £100. No matter their value, we can use them to our advantage. With the help of matched betting, we can turn most of a free bet’s value into cash – no matter the result.

Click here to get started and earn up to £45 from Profit Accumulator’s free trial

Step-by-step guide to matched betting:

Usually, in order to access a free bet, you’ll have to place a regular bet with your own money first. For example, a bookmaker might promise you a free £20 bet if you bet £20 of your own.

I’ll explain the process really quickly and then I’ll go into more detail:

Qualifying back bet: In order to qualify for a free bet, first you’ll place a bet at the bookies for a certain team to win. This is known as a ‘back bet‘ as you’re backing that team.

Lay bet: Then you’ll place a bet at a betting exchange for that team not to win. This is known as a ‘lay bet‘. A lay bet’s purpose is to help you cover all possible outcomes and prevent you losing money

Free back bet: Once the game you bet on is over, you’ll qualify for a FREE BET! Yay! This is where money can be made. You’ll use this free bet on another game, backing a team to win.

Lay bet: You now need to place another lay bet just like you did earlier. Again, this will protect you from all possible outcomes and ensure you make a profit from your free bet!

Now I’ll go into a little more detail and offer an example for anyone who wants it…

Qualifying bet explained

Your qualifying bet is the bet you place so that you’re rewarded a free bet.

Example: Let’s imagine Coral is offering a free £20 bet to new customers who bet £5 of their own money.

Since you’re only placing the £5 bet to qualify for the free £20 bet, this is what we call a qualifying bet.

Step One: You create an account with Coral and bet £5 for, say, Everton to win.

Step Two: Little does Coral know that you’re not a typical gambler. Instead, you’re a matched bettor! So, behind Coral’s back, you’ll also place what we call a ‘lay bet’ at a betting exchange for Everton not to win. To be clear, you aren’t betting for them to lose. By betting for them not to win, you’re protecting yourself in the event of a loss and a draw.

Step Three: The Everton match goes ahead and (assuming you’re not an Everton fan) the result doesn’t matter to you because you’re protected no matter what. Once the match is over, whether Everton win or lose you get your money back. If your bet loses at Coral, you’ll win at the betting exchange. If you lose at the betting exchange, you’ll win at Coral.

You won’t have made a profit yet but that’s okay because…

Step 4: 🥳. 🎉Coral will award you your free bet.🥳 🎉 Now it’s time to actually make some money instead of breaking even like you did with your qualifying bet!

Free bet explained

Now you’ll repeat the process but with the use of your £20 free bet from Coral.

  1. You’ll place a bet for, say, Arsenal to win at Coral.
  2. You’ll place a bet for Arsenal not to win at the betting exchange.
  3. No matter what the result, you’re guaranteed a win. This time, since you didn’t bet your own money, you’ll come away with a profit. With a £20 free bet, you should expect to come away with around a £15-£18 profit.

I know this might not make sense right now but this is where matched betting tools like Profit Accumulator comes in useful. Read my Profit Accumulator review to learn more.

Is matched betting legal?

Matched betting is completely legal and you can’t get into any trouble with the law for using it to make money.

Is matched betting gambling?

Technically, no. Gambling requires an element of risk and when you gamble in the traditional sense, there’s always a chance you might lose. However, if you follow the rules and matched bet carefully without making any mistakes, there is no risk. The matched betting process is designed to protect you from losses and guarantee you a win every time!

Does matched betting affect credit score?

Since matched betting isn’t a line of credit, it shouldn’t affect your credit score. After all, you’re not taking out a loan from the bookies! I’ve explained this in more detail in my matched betting and mortgages post. 

Are bookies okay with matched betting?

Bookmakers know that matched betting goes on but in many cases, they’re just glad to get people visiting their websites and gambling.

However, if the same bookmaker keeps having to pay you money and they suspect you’re matched betting, there’s a risk they might block your account. This isn’t really the end of the world because you can just use other bookies instead.

When your account is blocked or deleted by a bookmaker, this is known as being ‘gubbed’. You can often avoid being gubbed by placing ‘mug bets’. Mug bets are small bets that aren’t connected to an offer. They’re designed to make you look like an ordinary better who isn’t afraid to gamble traditionally. What the bookies don’t know is that you’re still laying these bets off at a betting exchange to prevent losses.

Is matched betting tax-free?

Yep! You don’t have to pay tax on gambling winnings, so everything you earn is completely yours.

Matched Betting Day 1

Creating my matched betting account

I’ve been meaning to start match betting for months but I’ve repeatedly put it on the back burner due to a fear it’d be a lot of work. Today, that all changed. As I sat at my desk eating a curry, I felt the urge to just get started.

I asked a few of my fellow money bloggers for advice and guidance. These experts in matched betting explained the best place to start would be creating a free Profit Accumulator account. Apparently, Profit Accumulator is a tool that guides you through the entire matched betting process, holding your hand and telling you exactly what to bet on and how much to place on each bet.

This matched betting tool’s main features include:

*  An ‘Offers’ page that lists offers from hundreds of bookies

*  An ‘Oddsmatching’ tool that shows you all the games that are on in the coming days

*  A calculator where you input the odds for your chosen game. This calculator then tells you how much money you should bet and how much profit you’ll make

*  Video tutorials that walk you through each bet step by step

How much does Profit Accumulator cost?

I decided to start off signing up for a free trial to see what all the fuss is about. According to Profit Accumulator, this free a trial will teach me how to matched bet while also pointing me in the direction of two offers which should earn me up to £45.

Once I’ve completed these free offers, I can either carry on matched betting independently (this means I have to find betting offers myself and do all the complicated maths myself) or I can sign up for Profit Accumulator’s premium account at £24.99 a month and continue following their advice and using their tools.

Watching the matched betting tutorial videos

Once I’d created my free PA account, I started watching the tutorials talking me through the process. At this stage, it all seemed very confusing but I figured I’d get the hang of it once I’d begun to put the lessons into practice.

Setting up a fresh email account

The pros tend to advise that you set up a fresh email account especially for matched betting. This is because bookmakers send offers to you on an almost daily basis and you can quickly become overwhelmed.

Click here to earn up to £45 from Profit Accumulator’s free trial

Do I need a separate bank account?

The real matched betting geeks recommend using a separate bank account too. This is by no means essential, but it can help to keep things organised. Having a separate account helps you keep track of your profits and saves you running up a massive bank statement on the account you use for regular stuff. After all, you’ll have to deposit money into each betting account you open. This could be as little as £5 or as much as a few hundred, depending on your budget and chosen bets. Having a separate account also prevents your regular bank statement from becoming cluttered with bets.

How much money do you need to start matched betting?

I’ve read stories from people starting matched betting with as little as £50. But the more money you start off with the better because it means you can have several bets on the go at once. For the purpose of this experiment, I’ve decided to set aside around £500 of my own money. This is money I’ve saved towards my first home but I don’t need it just yet. I’ll be careful, don’t worry.

Day 2

Placing my first matched bet

Once I’d completed the training videos, it was time to get started on the first of two offers available with my free account.  The first offer was a free £20 bet with the bookmaker Coral.

Profit Accumulator said: “One of the easiest Matched Betting offers to get started with is Coral. They’re an English bookmaker (you’ve probably seen many of their shops around the country), and they offer a £20 free bet for new online customers. To qualify for that bet, you only need to deposit and bet through £5. You also need to open a Betfair account to lay off your bets.”

Despite watching the training videos, I still felt really nervous about putting my cash on the line. What if I mess up and lose it?! Thankfully, Profit Acc supplied me with another handy video talking me through the whole process step by step.

Until today, I assumed all betting websites were the same, but as it turns out, Coral is a traditional bookmaker where you bet against the bookies, while Betfair is a place where you bet against other people as they sit at home in their pants eating pizza.

For my qualifying bet, I chose a really obscure football match Deportivo Lara v Caracas. I placed a bet on at Coral for Deportivo Lara to win. I then placed a bet on at Betfair for Deportivo Lara not to win.

A few hours later, the results were in. Deportivo Lara lost to Caracas, but it didn’t matter because the bet I placed at Betfair protected me from losing my own money.

I logged into my Coral account and found that I’d been rewarded with my free £20 bet. Hooray!

Now it was time to place my free bet and actually make some money.

This time I bet on a horse called Vanity Queen to win at Salisbury. Using my £20 free credit at Coral, I bet for her to win. Then, I went over to Betfair and bet for her not to win. The poor lass lost… but it didn’t matter to me and I ended up with approximately £12.53 profit.

In hindsight, if I’d been a bit more adventurous and bet on a different horse, I could have made a larger profit from my £20 bet but oh well.

Even though it had taken a lot of research and effort to make this measly £12 profit, I was over the moon. I knew I’d get faster and faster with each bet I put on and would increase my profits over time.

I’m not gonna lie, by the end of the day I was feeling majorly exhausted. There had been a few occasions where I thought I’d messed up and felt like my life was going to crumble around me. Thankfully, after chatting to some more experienced matched betters on Facebook, I realised I hadn’t messed up at all.

Day 3

Creating my geeky matched betting spreadsheet

When I get into a new hobby, I get really into it. I go all in. So it made perfect sense to me to make a matched betting spreadsheet in Google docs. Here’s a sneak peek at what it looked like on the 19th May.

matched betting spreadsheet

A matched betting spreadsheet works for me because it stops me from worrying about things going wrong. When things don’t go wrong, I like to congratulate myself and reflect on how amazing I am. The spreadsheet enabled me to do this too! If you’re not a complete weirdo, don’t let this geekery put you off.

One of my work friends (we’ll call him Steve even though that’s not his name) started matched betting on the same day as me and we bonded over our new hobby together. But as soon as I showed him my spreadsheet, he freaked out and he now avoids me at lunchtime and runs away when he sees me in the corridor. He thinks a spreadsheet is really excessive. He keeps track of his bets in a small notebook and just jots down the name of the match along with the amount he’s put on. He says it’s not let him down yet. Whatever. I like my spreadsheet.

Upgrading my PA account

I decided to upgrade from my free Profit Accumulator account to the Platinum version. Since I’d made a profit off the first two offers (as PA had promised I would), I felt ready to increase my matched betting income by getting stuck into other offers too. Check out my Profit Accumulator review to learn more about the tool itself.

Day 4

By day 4, I’d placed bets with Coral, Betfred, Stan James, Sky Bet, William Hill and Ladbrokes.

It’s worth noting that some bookies make you wait a day or two before they put your free bet credit into your account. So let’s imagine it’s a Monday and you’re placing a bet on Tottenham to win on Saturday. You may have to wait until 24 or 48 hours after the Tottenham game has ended before you’ll get your free bet.

Don’t gamble away your matched betting profits

I’ve just remembered something funny that happened to Steve and I think it serves as a valuable lesson to us all. He would probably argue that it wasn’t funny but oh well.

While I’m a complete beginner to the world of betting, Steve has had some betting experience before. He likes betting on the occasional match and putting the odd accumulator on. So, in the run up to the general election, Steve decided to put a regular bet on for Theresa May to be the next PM… without backing it at Betfair. He figured if Corbs lost, at least the Tories would give him some money. So yep. He did a proper gamble. With real money that he might not get back. Steve stuck two fingers up at the matched betting safety net. He went rogue.

So guess what happened when the diabolical election results came in? Since there was so much uncertainty surrounding the winner of the election, the bookies wouldn’t give him his money for several days. He was left with a chunk of cash in limbo and it seems he wasn’t the only one:

Of course, Steve’s bet won in the end and he got his winnings. But this was a huge gamble and one that could see you losing all your hard earned matched betting profits.

Moral of the story: there’s no point in matched betting if you’re only going to put your money on the line by doing proper gambling too.

Day 5

How long does it take to place the bets?

By Day 5 my confidence was really starting to pick up. I was still quite cautious when placing my bets and would double and triple check them before hitting the Place Bet button, but the whole process became much more intuitive and I didn’t have to put too much thought into what I was doing. I was able to place several bets in the space of an hour.

I don’t mean to show off or anything but if someone held a gun to my head and said ‘FIND, CALCULATE AND PLACE YOUR QUALIFYING BETS IN LESS THAN 10 MINUTES WITHOUT MAKING ANY MISTAKES’ I could probably do that. But I imagine by the time I was done I would be very sweaty and my pants would be filled.

How much can you make per hour of matched betting?

The amount you make per hour depends on the amount you’ve been offered as a free bet AND how quickly you can plough through them. You don’t want to go too quickly though because you may make a mistake.

If you get a free £5 bet, you can probably make around £3 from this. This might sound shit but if you place your qualifying bets and free bets all within the space of 20 minutes, and repeat this process 3 times, you could make £9 an hour.

If you get a free £10 bet, you wanna aim for a profit of £7 or more (so that could add up to £21+ an hour). If you get a free £20 bet, you should aim for upwards of £15 (£45+ an hour).

Every now and then you can find free bets of £50 or more. I’d advise taking your time with these ones though. Quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, septuple, or octuple check that shit.

But anyway, I reckon you can make anything from £9 – £80 an hour depending on the quality of the free bets you do and how confident you feel in your ability to not mess up. If you spend as much time as I do gazing at your matched betting spreadsheet, you’ll only waste valuable time.

Day 6

On Day 6 I decided to strengthen my knowledge a little more. I joined a few Facebook groups and started watching matched betting YouTube videos while pedalling away on my exercise bike.

I don’t feel like it’s necessary to treat matched betting like you’re revising for your GCSEs, but when you live a life as empty as mine, why not immerse yourself in a hobby to pass the time?

Is matched betting addictive?

To be completely honest with you, I did feel kinda addicted to matched betting. I began to enjoy the process and loved the thrill of winning money without any risk. Scrolling through the list of sign up offers, I also began to worry what I’d do with myself when the offers dried up.

However, although I got kind of hooked, I can’t imagine ever turning into a regular gambler because the two are very different. The thought of putting my hard earned money on the line just doesn’t appeal to me whatsoever. I can’t even put a couple of quid on the national lottery without spending a whole day fantasising about my life as a millionaire before feeling deeply traumatised when I don’t win.

Some people assume this is some kinda gateway into gambling but I reckon it’s rare for people to make the transition. Obviously my friend Steve does both, but he was a gambler before he started matched betting.

Nevertheless, if you’re someone who has struggled with gambling before, it might be worth giving this a miss.

Day 7

Now it’s time for the big question! How much money did I make? According to my calculations, I made approximately £156 profit in my first seven days. I then went on to make £101 profit in my second week.

Hardly a full time matched betting income but I’m pleased with it. Some people earn a lot more than this by treating it like a part-time (or even full time) job, but considering I did most of my betting on my lunch break and the odd evening here and there, I’m pleased with the outcome.

I definitely spent far too much time researching the process and reading up about matched betting tips and tricks, but I guess I can keep using this knowledge going forward. I have several matched betting blog posts in the pipeline, but I’m undecided whether to publish them on Can’t Swing a Cat or a separate blog completely.

Is matched betting worth it?

So, is matched betting worth it? Unlike Swagbucks, which I wouldn’t recommend even to my worst enemy, I do think matched betting is worth it, you know. I think it’s a smart way to make money and, at the very least, it’s worth signing up for a free trial and seeing how you get on.

It’s often applauded for being ‘risk-free’ and I suppose there is some truth to this providing you do a bit of research, double-check your bets and don’t make any mistakes. The actual process is based on maths and if you follow Profit Accumulator’s guidance without doing anything silly, you won’t lose money. I haven’t lost a penny!

While some people manage to make a profitable matched betting income, I’m not sure if it’s a worthwhile way to make money if you already earn a high salary. £50 free bets are hard to come by and if you’re on a high income, you’re probably better off focusing on your job and existing skills. 

Is matched betting still worth it in 2021?

Is matched betting still worth it in 2021? It’s true that it isn’t quite as profitable as it once was, but there’s still decent money to be made. If you ask me, it’s definitely still worth.

There once was a time when people were making £2,000 to £3,000 a month from it. I’m seeing fewer people reporting such figures and it seems like £800-£1,500 is much more common now. However, these certainly aren’t figures to turn your nose up at – especially considering matched betting income is tax-free so all that money is yours to keep.

Matched betting will be more profitable for those with a bit of money to start with. If you only have £20 in your bank account right now, it’ll take you a lot longer than someone who can set £250 of their income aside for matched betting. This is because you’ll need to put your own money into your betting accounts to begin with. Once you’ve had a few wins and have been able to withdraw this money, you can start betting your matched betting profits instead of cash you’ve earned in your day job, for example.

Eager to get started with matched betting? Create your free Profit Accumulator account and you could make up to £45 from your first two free bets. If you enjoy the process and you’re happy with your winnings, upgrade to a paid account to continue making money.

How to avoid getting ‘gubbed’

While many gambling companies turn the other way and invest hardly any time into identifying matched betters, others are cracking down on accounts they suspect have only been created to make the most of free bets.

If a gambling company has reason to suspect you’re a matched bettor (if you’re only placing bets to either qualify for a free bet or place a free bet) they may ‘gub’ you. If you get ‘gubbed’ this means your account is blocked and you can no longer place bets with this particular company.

Thankfully, there are ways to prevent your account getting gubbed. One of the most popular is to place the occasional mug bet. A mug bet is a bet you place at a bookmaker that’s sole purpose is to make you look like an ordinary gambler. This means the bet is neither a free bet or a bet that’ll earn you a free bet.

How long will matched betting last?

If you’re wondering how long will matched bettors be able to make a ‘good level’ of income via the bookies, I’m afraid it’s difficult to say.

Many matched betting experts believe that the only way it’ll ever end is if free bets and other promotions were made illegal or if all bookmakers stopped offering them.

It’s extremely unlikely that bookies will stop free bets themselves because free bets often lure new customers in. However, I’m not ruling out the idea that free bets might one day become illegal.

I hope I’ve explained matched betting in a way that’s easy to understand. Let me know what you think! If you found this matched betting blog helpful or have any questions, please give me a shout on Twitter or Instagram @CantSwingACat or drop me an email to jennisarahhill@gmail.com.

Click here to earn up to £45 from Profit Accumulator’s free trial