Make A Living From Matched Betting

My aim is to help you by sharing my experience and knowledge gained with different ventures I’ve enrolled throughout. In this case, with matched betting or any side hustles, I want to give the opportunity for making a second income online and learn from my experience.

However, many of of us are going a level higher and asking the “ultimate” questions: How can you make a consistent income via matched betting? Is it possible living only from matched betting? Is matched betting still possible in 2022, 2023, 2024 and so on?

Well, to answer this question is a really tricky task and is really subjective because you need to understand how much income you need to sustain your lifestyle. Also, is about how much time are you willing to put in. However, I will aim to answer this questions from my perspective.

Again, keep in mind, everything is written below is through the perspective of my own experience and before you go ahead ensure you’ve read the disclaimer.

[Disclaimer: Gamble Aware 18+, AD]

First, matched betting can be seen as a lifestyle choice because most of us are becoming matched bettors in their spare time instead of seeking a job to pay off their entire life expenses. Also, matched betting is increasingly popular with stay-at-home mothers/fathers, who need a way to make money online easily whilst managing the difficult task of parenthood.

Now, what all these people have in common when they choose to make a living with matched betting: It’s incredibly easy and can be done by anyone. The income can be great and can be achieve in direct proportion with the time you put in.

If you want to carry on reading this guide, I’m going to make the assumption that you are familiar with the concept of matched betting and that you understand it.

a) What Are the “Income” Expectations?

NOTE: I’m legally required to state that there is no guarantee of specific results each month. The amount of money that you earn can vary dependant on the time and effort that you commit each month.

To answer this question, we need to ask ourselves: How much are you planning to earn from matched betting? You need to be realistic in the figures that you establish as your goal and needs to be based on the hours you put in.

From my experience, I can estimate that an average of £750+ profit (tax-free) each month is achievable for full-time matched bettors, with £1,200 – £1,500 average profit on good months. If you look on Odds Monkey or Outplayed (ex Profit Accumulator) Facebook groups, inevitably you will find people posting their accounts milestones (e.g reaching the 3K, or 5K milestone or having a £1K+ month).

For example, you put in couple of hours each day and you get a healthy £1,200 monthly profit. This result is actually equivalent to a taxed salary of over £16,000/year. Not too bad for a couple of hours at a computer from home each day, right?

Moving to a higher level of profit, if you’re able to break that £2,000 profit margin each month, you’d earn a minimum of £24,000 in a year – which is the same as having a salary of over £30,000 in a regular job! So, depends only on you what are your financial goals from matched betting and how you can achieve them.

b) Is a Matched Betting Bankroll Necessary?

One important thing that is essential for matched betting as a full-time income is your bankroll. A bankroll is the money that you will solely invest in matched betting, not all of the money that is in your bank.

In fact, I’d recommend you actually use a separate bank account for matched betting; this will really help you become more organised and makes your life easier in terms of tracking your profits. However, it isn’t essential. Please read our beginner guide for matched bettors and find out other tricks and tips in matched betting.

Ensuring you have more than enough money set aside to pay your bills is of course a fundamental part of ‘becoming a pro’. If you’re looking to earn a full-time income, you’re going to need an absolute minimum of around £4,500-£5,500 in your bankroll.

Ideally, you’ll need to be on higher limit than that. Naturally, you are going to build your matched betting profit over the course of a few months, before going full-time. With the accumulated profit you should have gained enough experience which is vital in becoming a pro.

NOTE: In most cases, a beginner will need only a £100 or so to start matched betting in the first place. You should easily turn this into thousands of pounds within just a few months if you put the adequate work in.

If you’re fortunate enough, probably you already have a few £1000’s spare. You will be able to make the bigger money instantly, as long as you put the work in and follow instructions carefully. Although I’d still advise getting in slowly rather than diving in head first. It’s important to note that you will rarely need to use all of your bankroll in one go.

However, is important to have a big enough bankroll because in the eventuality of that you ‘win’ all your money out of your betting exchange into bookmaker’s accounts or vice versa, you’re going to need to deposit extra funds when necessary whilst you wait for withdrawals to process. The withdrawal process typically takes 2-5 days with most bookmakers, just as it would for any refund from any shop.

c) Do You Need a Schedule in Matched Betting?

Another important thing in order to make the most amount of money from matched betting, you’ll need to have a pretty good discipline in terms of schedule and time management. Let’s see how a everyday schedule looks like for a full time matched bettor:

NOTE: Trying to replicate someone else’s exact schedule will never work for you, so you’ll need to find a balance of what works for you and what’s not working .

Everyone has a different lifestyle, different commitments, different goals, so figuring out what works for you through trial and error is the essence of you going full-time. However, a common routine will sound something like this:

• Mornings: look at any new offers for the day ahead . I would strongly recommend to exercise even if that means to have a nice long walk. This way you can compensate for the future hours in front of a screen.

• Afternoons: bet on the horses trying to earn refunds or free bets from these. Look into accumulators to place. Tennis is also a good sport that can often be matched bet on during the day. Take advantage of some casino offers and always try to use your free spin offers, no matter how tedious they can be (wagering 20x 30x). On quieter days, you can explore other betting strategies or even more ways, “safer” ways to place your mug bets: a more calculated decision in picking your teams to be backed up as a mug bet.

• Evenings: bet on the football, trying to earn refunds or free bets from these, lay off accumulator matches for the next day. Horse racing and greyhounds are also possibilities on some evenings, along with sports such as darts and snooker. Again, casino is always a possibility, there are also opportunities into bingo, poker tickets & trading.

Looking into a Weekend day: these will be your busiest days by far due to the most bookmakers are running their promotions during the high profile games on the weekends.

This is where it becomes important to map out your day ahead: On Saturday and Sunday mornings, map out the best horse races for hitting refunds, also, plan the football promotions that you’ll definitely want to be betting on.

The more bets you can actually place earlier on in the day, the easier it will become later on. However, it’s not always possible to find profitable matches between the back and lay bets until closer to the event. That’s why, the more organised and disciplined you are, the more efficient you’ll be with finding, placing and tracking bets.

d) How To Keep Account Restriction Away?

Another important aspect of matched betting is to keep your accounts from not being closed or restricted. This is where the technique known as mug betting comes in place.

Mug betting is what makes you look like a regular punter in the eyes of any bookmaker. Bookies are relatively happy for you to do matched betting, as long as you don’t take too much value from them by winning too often to much.

e) What Tools You’ll Need for Going Full Time Bettor?

As mentioned in the matched betting guide, matched betting can’t be done without a betting exchange tool, such as Betfair or Smarkets. It is definitely advisable to consider adding another tool or two to your arsenal, to make your everyday life easier.

Odds Monkey is a good tool and I highly recommend using it, but are other alternative tools also, such as Profit Maximiser. However, from my perspective, Odds Monkey has a solid and really helpful community, is really user friendly and comes with everything in one package.