12 Reasons Matched Betting is a Great Sideline for Over Sixties!

Nick Making Money matched betting 6 Comments

Pounds and Sense aims to cover financial matters from an over 60s perspective. So today I thought I’d talk about one of my favourite moneymaking sidelines (or side hustles in the modern parlance) matched betting, and why I believe it is ideally suited to people in our age group.

I spoke about matched betting in this post a few weeks ago. To recap, it is a way of making risk-free cash by taking advantage of bookmaker special offers and promotions.

I have been matched betting on and off since last September and my total earnings to date stand at around £2000. I know for a fact that there are people making this amount every month using this method!

Here then are 12 reasons why I believe matched betting is something anyone in our age group should at least look into…

1. Older people typically have some time available during the day (as well as evenings and weekends). This is ideal for matched betting, as to take advantage of some opportunities you need to be around during the daytime.

2. Matched betting is tax-free, as it is regarded as a form of gambling (although done properly it isn’t). It won’t therefore generate any additional tax liability for you, or affect your eligibility for means-tested benefits.

3. Matched betting income cannot be taken into account by banks or building societies if you are applying for a mortgage. That can be a problem for younger people, but it won’t typically worry older folk.

4. Most older people are careful with their money and avoid taking needless risks with it. Other things being equal, they are less likely to be tempted from matched betting into gambling. Of course, if you have ever had a gambling problem in the past, it is probably best to avoid this particular activity.

5. Most older people have at least some savings. That is important, as you do need a small amount of capital to start matched betting. This money is not actually at risk, but it is needed to do the offers, and you can withdraw it at any time. If you have no savings at all, however, matched betting will be difficult for you.

6. Online bookmakers typically perform credit checks before allowing you to open an account. As an older person you are likely to have a long credit record, which will reassure them. Younger people sometimes find themselves being asked to jump through various additional hoops before they can open an account.

7. Also, my experience is that bookmakers tend to be less suspicious of older punters. If you are over 60 you will probably not fit the normal profile for someone doing this. That means you are less likely to have your account restricted (or gubbed, as we say) if they suspect you are matched betting. Matched betting is not illegal, incidentally, but bookmakers don’t really like it. They much prefer ‘mug punters’ who bet recreationally and lose money steadily to them!

8. Hopefully as an older person you will have a degree of financial security. That means you won’t be totally stressed out over potentially losing a pound or two if you make a mistake. That’s important, as you need to be focused and relaxed when matched betting. It’s not rocket science, but it does require care and concentration.

9. And likewise, if you will excuse a further generalization, as an older person you will likely be punctilious about following the instructions from matched betting services (if you belong to one). And neither are you likely to be tempted to go ‘off piste’, at least until you have gained more experience.

10. As an older person, you will probably be accustomed to keeping financial records. This again is essential for a matched bettor, to keep track of your profits and where they currently are.

11. You don’t have to do matched betting every day. If you have family commitments, part-time or temporary jobs, holidays, medical procedures or just want to take a break from it for a while, it’s very easy to put it on hold and come back later.

12. And finally,  matched betting is a great (and enjoyable) way of keeping your brain active, with the bonus that you are making money as well 🙂

Getting Started

So how do you get started as a matched bettor? Unless you are already an experienced punter with a good understanding of the mathematics involved, I highly recommend joining a matched betting advisory service. They set out everything you need to know with step-by-step instructions, and also provide software tools with advice on how to use them. You can sign up and use these services even if you have never placed a bet in your life before.

The service I use myself and recommend for beginners is Profit Accumulator. This is a dedicated matched betting advisory service. You can join free initially and they will provide details of two offers you can take advantage of straight away. These should make you around £45 in net profit. If you wish to proceed further, you can then pay to become a Platinum member and get access to their full range of offers and services.

A further advantage of joining Profit Accumulator is that you get access to the members-only forum, where you can get any questions you may have answered by more experienced members and/or the team behind PA.

I will be covering other aspects of matched betting in future posts, so please do sign up in the right-hand column to be notified when the blog is updated (you can also follow PAS on social media and Bloglovin). And if you think matched betting may be for you, do click through to the Profit Accumulator website to see what they offer and sign up for the free trial.

As ever, if you have any questions or comments about matched betting or Profit Accumulator, please do post them below.

Can You Make Money from Matched Betting?

Nick Making Money matched betting 6 Comments

Some of you may know that in my earlier career I wrote quite a lot about gambling, principally for subscription-based newsletters such as Risk Free Betting News and The Winning Report (both now closed). Matched betting is a concept I hadn’t really come across till earlier earlier this year, however, and initially I dismissed it as having limited money-making potential.

It just shows how wrong you can be.

What changed my mind initially was that my blogging colleague Emma Drew was promoting matched betting heavily on her blog. She said it was her favourite side-hustle, and the figures she shared (around £12,000 profit in a year) were certainly compelling. I decided I needed to find out more, so I did some research on it. I’ve set out what I found below.

What is Matched Betting?

Matched betting is a method for making risk-free profits by cleverly taking advantage of offers made by online bookmakers.

The best offers are those made to attract new clients. Here’s an example. Ladbrokes offer a £20 free bet for new online customers. To get this, you have to open an account with them and deposit and bet £5. Once you have done this, Ladbrokes will immediately credit you with £20 worth of free bets.

So how do you turn this into a guaranteed profit? Ah, that’s the clever bit. You make use of a website called an exchange (Smarkets and Betfair are two of the better known). These sites allow anyone to lay a bet (i.e. bet that the outcome in question won’t happen). By backing with a bookmaker and laying the same bet at an exchange you can ensure that however the event pans out, you will only make a small loss or occasionally a tiny profit (depending on the odds available).

So far, so underwhelming. With a normal bet this is obviously of limited value, but when your first bet qualifies you for a second (and in Ladbrokes’ case much larger) free bet, it suddenly becomes a lot more interesting. Here’s an example…

At the time of writing, Hull City are about to play Everton in the Premiership. You can back Hull to win with Ladbrokes at 4.75 (15/4 in the more traditional but less useful fractional style) and lay them with Smarkets at 4.70. If you put £5 on Hull with Ladbrokes and at the same time lay Hull to the appropriate stakes (something I’ll come to shortly) you can ensure that whether Hull do or do not win, your net loss will be just 2p.

But now, because you are a new member, Ladbrokes will give you £20 worth of free bets. You can back and lay these again to generate a guaranteed profit. For the sake of simplicity let’s say you use the same market, Everton v Hull, although you certainly don’t have to. At the odds mentioned, and backing to the correct stakes, you can guarantee yourself a net profit of £15.70 either way. Subtract the 2p loss from your qualifying bet, and once the dust has settled you will have made a risk-free (and tax-free) £15.68. If your bet loses with the bookie, your profit will be in the exchange (remember, this is a free bet so it hasn’t cost you anything). If the bet wins at the bookie, you will lose money at the exchange, but your winnings with the bookie will exceed this, giving you the same net profit either way.

Those are the bare bones of matched betting. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but most matched betting opportunities boil down to this. You place an initial qualifying bet and lay it to ensure (at worst) a small net loss, and then back and lay the free bet you receive to make yourself a guaranteed profit.

So How Do You Find Matches and Calculate Stakes?

You can of course do all this yourself in theory, but that would be very time-consuming and involve a lot of mathematics. Fortunately there are online services that will do all this for you and provide step-by-step instructions. You can apply these even if you have never placed a bet in your life before.

Here’s the service I use and recommend for beginners to matched betting…

Profit Accumulator

Profit Accumulator is a dedicated matched betting site. You can join free initially and they will provide details of two offers you can take advantage of straight away. These should make you around £45 in net profit. If you wish to proceed further, you can then pay to become a Platinum member and get access to their full range of offers and services.

As well as detailed instructions on offers you can profit from, Profit Accumulator also provide online software you can use. Their Oddsmatching tool helps you find markets where the back and lay odds are as close as possible, so you can minimize your qualifying losses and maximize the value of your free bets.

And they also have calculators, where you enter the back and lay odds and how much you want to bet at the bookmaker. The calculator then reveals how much you need to lay at the exchange to guarantee a set profit.

A further advantage of joining Profit Accumulator is that you get access to the members-only forum, where you can get any questions you may have answered by more experienced members and/or the team behind PA.

What Happens When You’ve Exhausted All the Opening Offers?

This was the first thing I wondered, and I know other people do as well. First of all, it will take you quite a long time to work through all the offers on the PA website. In total, they currently list 64. Not all of these are as simple and straightforward as the Ladbrokes offer, but nonetheless if you follow the step-by-step instructions they can all generate a healthy profit for you.

After that, you can move on to reload offers. These are offers made by bookmakers for existing members to encourage them to keep coming back and using their service. Reload offers work in a wide range of ways. Some provide a guaranteed profit if you apply them correctly, while others sometimes make a small qualifying loss but other times produce a much larger profit, generating a good net profit overall. Reload offers are also listed on the PA website and updated every day.

My Own Experience

I joined Profit Accumulator in September 2016, initially as a free member. Once I had completed the opening offers and was convinced of the potential of this money-making approach, I upgraded to Platinum membership.

I paid for a year’s membership straight off as this is more economical, but if you are more cautious you can also pay monthly. At the time of writing this costs £22.99 a month. Your first month will, of course, be more than covered by the profits from the initial (free) offers.

Three months on, my total profits stand at just over £1000. Other people do better, but I have had a busy few months (including launching this blog!) so have only been matched betting now and then. It has already become one of my favourite side hustles, though, and the fact that it is tax-free in the UK (as it is regarded as gambling) is another bonus.

Is Matched Betting for Everyone?

In principle anyone can do matched betting, but it is probably more suitable for some people than others. In particular, it will help if you have a small amount of capital to get started – at least £50, preferably £100 or more.

If you have less you can still do it, but it will take longer to build up your earnings. Remember that you will need money to fund your qualifying bets at the bookmaker sites and also your exchange account. You don’t lose this money – it simply moves between bookie and exchange according to how events pan out – and you can always withdraw it if required. But to operate as a matched bettor you do need to have some ‘working capital’.

The other requirement to make a success of matched betting is that you need to be reasonably well organized and methodical. Matched betting is not difficult once you grasp the basic concept, but if you make a mistake it is possible to lose money doing it. Initially at least it’s important to take it slowly and steadily and follow the instructions on Profit Accumulator (if you have signed up with them) to the letter. It helps to be numerate as well, although the actual calculations are done for you by the Oddsmatching tool and calculators.

I plan to cover other aspects of matched betting in future posts, so please do sign up in the right-hand column to be notified when the blog is updated (you can also follow PAS on social media and Bloglovin). And if you think matched betting may be for you, do click through to the Profit Accumulator website to see what they offer and sign up for the free trial.

As ever, if you have any questions or comments about matched betting or Profit Accumulator, please do post them below.