Does matched betting work?

Over the last several years, matched betting’s popularity has rapidly risen, to the point that thousands of new players every week are introduced to this revolutionary interpretation of gambling.

One of its main pulls is that it attracts people from all walks of life, from students looking to pay off their loans to stay-at-home parents and professional gamblers. If you thought it was only for sports fans or veteran bettors, you were wrong!

But does matched betting work? The straight answer is yes, it does, but just because any novice can take it up doesn’t mean that it’s always an easy way of earning tax-free income.

Matched betting does indeed work for those who are willing to do one of two things: entrust themselves to a software that can suggest which events to bet on and how to best make money out of them, or go it alone.

For the former, matched betting websites provide odds matching software, matched betting calculator, helpful tutorials and plentiful advice, as well as guaranteeing winnings up to a point.

Alternatively, players can put the hours in themselves and scan both the books and the exchanges to identify the right bets to play. One of the perks of matched betting is that it doesn’t require someone to remain glued to their laptop all day, but can fit it into their daily lives as they want.

The benefits are well known: a countless amount of winners have published their profits over the last several years, detailing exactly how they were able to make thousands by carefully placing the right matched bets.

Then again, the very same websites advise caution, and remind readers that it takes work, dedication and an attention to detail to succeed.

Mistakes can be made: one famous player (who also publishes his earnings) recounts how he lost £1500 in one afternoon because he tried his hand at the in-play tennis market, only to lose when he realised that the odds fluctuate too quickly to correctly lay them.

Earnings can go down over time, too, as bookmakers can get wind that a user is a matched bettor, and limit the amount of offers that are made to their account – with reports that some user profiles are even closed down.

A way to offset this could be to actually gamble some of a player’s hard-earned money, but too much of that would defeat the point of betting risk-free in the first place.

Even then, those particularly willing to spend time matched betting have found a niche: more software has evolved because of the demand, and is tailor-made for those who want to lay larger sums or become increasingly specialised in certain fields, horse racing being a good example.

There is, therefore, little doubt that matched betting can keep generating increasing profits if a player is willing to dedicate him or herself to the activity on a regular basis… and the rewards can be immense.

Far from being a scam or a get rich quick scheme, matched betting works because it’s a method, both grounded in logic and legal in the eyes of the law. All a player has to do is put it into practice.