Step By Step Guide: Matched Betting For Bookmaker Bonuses, Guaranteed Profits

4. Finding close odds at the bookmaker/exchange

It is important to find odds that are as close as possible as this will determine your overall loss in making the qualifying bet. For example, if you find odds to back an event at 10 and then you find odds at the exchange to lay at odds of 10 then you will not make any loss qualifying for the bet. Say you bet £20 at odds of 10 at the betting site and layed a stake of £20 at odds of 10 at the exchange. If the bet wins, you will have won £200 at the betting site (20x10=200; a profit of £190). However at the exchange you would have lost £200 (20x10=200; a loss of £190). As you can see, each win is mirrored by a loss (as we had matching odds this is a completely equal bet). This is because we made sure that the odds to back were the same as the odds to lay, so that they cancel each other out. Also if the bet had lost you would have lost the £20 at the betting site but will have gained the £20 staked at the exchange - again this leads you with a loss of £0.

However if you had found odds to back at the betting site which were 10 and then could only find odds of 11 at the exchange there would be a different outcome. You would have had to put less money down at the exchange to cover the difference and balance the overall loses. From the same bet above, if you won you would have gained £200 (profit of £180). However you would have paid out £182.65 at the exchange (overall loss of £2.65).

It is important that you remember that the closer the odds, the higher the overall profit. Usually you will only be losing out on around 20p-£3 profit by finding odds that aren't completely equal, but at the end of the day you will still be gaining around £20 profit. So if you are in a rush or can't really be bothered searching for matching odds, then just don't worry about it as you are only losing a few pounds/pence.

To work out the profits/losses and stake needed for bets at the exchange then I really recommend that you download this file here, called Matcher.exe.

A screenshot of the matched betting calculator which it used to work out stakes and profits from bets made