Matched betting is one of the fastest ways to earn extra cash from home. But if you are like me, who has never made a bet in my life, and has very limited knowledge of sports, you probably wonder if this is even possible? Well, I managed to make over £500 in the first month of Matched Betting. YOU CAN TOO! Everything is possible, you just need a little help =)
This is part of the Matched Betting Starter Guide, to help you with 20 must know terminology for beginners.
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When I say, it is one of the fastest ways to earn extra cash from home, I really mean it… You can try it today for FREE, and make £45 in just a couple of hours! – No experience, no commitment required.
In this blog, I will cover the following:
- Is matched betting legal?
- How does matched betting work?
- 20 must know terminology and my personal tips for beginners.
For a more detailed Overview on Matched Betting – one of the fastest way to earn extra cash from home.
Is Matched Betting Legal?
So let me address the big elephant in the room first…
Whenever I hear the word “betting”, 2 questions come to my mind. 
- Is it legal?
- Is it risky?
Yes, it is LEGAL.
In the UK, matched betting is not gambling. Not only it is legal, it is one of the fastest ways to earn extra cash from home for people who are residents in the UK and Ireland and over age of 18.
The best part is, the profit you make is tax-free. Because it is classed as gambling winnings, which are tax-free. This means you don’t have to file any annual tax self-assessment. What you make is what you keep! If you want to read more about it yourself, here’s the link to HMRC official site.
No, it is RISK FREE.
If you do matched betting correctly, it is considered risk free – ie you will not lose money. More on this in “How it works” section.
A good tool and service for matched betting, will navigate you through step by step, one offer at a time. The one I use is Profit Accumulator. I made my first £45 in a couple of hours not knowing a thing about what I was doing, just following the video tutorial!
Try Matched Betting with Profit Accumulator for FREE, one of the best ways to earn extra cash from home!
If you already know how Matched Betting works, please feel free to skip straight to the Terminology section.
How Does Matched Betting Work?
One of the most effective ways for bookies to attract business is by offering free bets when signing up. Do you remember those “Free bet” ads popping up during football games on TV, or large prints outside of the betting shops? Matched betting is a way to take advantage of those “free bet” offers.
Here are some examples:
How to take advantage of the Free Bets?
First you need to qualify for the free bet offer by laying a bet to win, and a bet not-to-win. This way you cover all the possible outcomes. This is the part that is risk free. You are not really betting money on one or the other, instead you put down the same amount of money for both. So no matter what the outcome is, you will win one, and lose one, therefore, you break it even. So when do you make a profit?
Although, no money is made on the qualifying bet, you have just qualified yourself for the “Free Bet” (ie free money). You then repeat the process. Use the “Free bet” money to bet on one outcome, and bet the same amount of your own money on the other outcome. Whichever the outcome is, your profit is the money made from that outcome minus your own money that you put in.
OK, I’ve just thrown a few new phrases at you… To get you started, let’s get to the lingo of the game.
20 Must Know Matched Betting Terminology and Tips for Beginners
1. Bookie/Bookmaker:
Bookie is short for bookmaker. It is a company that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at an agreed odds. Traditionally they have physical shops that people can go to place bets, but these days they all have websites where people can place bets online. A few well-known ones are William Hill, Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power etc.
2. Exchange/Betting Exchange:
Betting Exchange is usually shortened to Exchange. This is a type of site that you can bet against other people rather than the bookmakers. The difference between Betting Exchanges and Bookmakers is that, Exchange allows you to bet against the outcome, not for it. This is a crucial part of matched betting because the Exchange is where you lay a bet to cover all possible outcomes.
For instance, you place a bet on a team to win a game with a bookmaker. You then place a lay bet with exchange on the same team “to not” win. This means, if your team wins, you win at the bookmaker, and lose at the exchange. If your team draw or lose, you lose at the bookmaker, and win at the exchange. Regardless the outcome, you break even (almost, more on this QL later) and get qualified for the “Free bet” where you will make a profit. This is where the risk free comes in.
Smarkets, Betfair and MatchBook are the popular Exchanges.
Keep in mind, they usually charge a 2-5% commission on winning bets, but they usually run a 0% commission offer that you can take advantage of as well.
Tip:
Smarkets is my personal favourite exchange site. I found it easier to navigate, and had an app that was very handy when you are on the go. They also run 0% commission every now and then, so you can take advantage of that too.
MatchBook is doing a commission FREE offer until the end of Jan. 2020 here.
3. Back Bet:
Back bet is the type of bet people place in betting. For example, if you are betting on a football game between England and Spain, for England to win, you place a back bet for England to win. In other words, you are backing England to win.
4. Lay bet:
Opposite to back bet, when you place a lay bet, you are betting something won’t happen. Use the same England vs. Spain football game, when you place a lay bet for England, you are betting England not to win.
Placing a back bet and a lay bet on the same game to cover all possible outcomes cancels out the risk, this is why it’s called risk free matched betting.
5. Odds:
This is a numerical expression of how much money you will make from the bookie if you win the bet. It comes in forms of either decimal or fraction. Almost all betting sites can convert from one to the other. Profit Accumulator uses decimal for all the calculations.
6. Stake:
The amount of money you placed on a bet.
7. Qualifying Bet (QB): 
This is the type of initial bet to qualify for the Free Bet that bookies offer. For example, one of the popular sign up offers from Coral, is to get £30 in free bets when you bet £10. So the initial £10 bet in real money is the qualifying bet.
8. Free Bet (FB):
Use the Coral example above, the £10 is the Free Bet that Coral uses to get you to sign up with them. This is the part where you can make a profit.
Tip:
There are thousands of Free bets out there, offered by different bookies. Having a good tool to help you with who offers what is essential to your success.
Profit Accumulator, not only it finds the latest Free Bet offers, it has tons of video tutorials to walk you step by step on how to make profit from each offer. It's truly the most dummy proofed way to earn extra cash from home.
9. Qualifying Loss (QL)
This is a small loss (<£1 usually) you make from your qualifying bet, so you can make the profit from the Free Bet. The smaller you make the QL, the better profit you will make at the end. Just make sure you deduct the QL when you calculate your final profit for each offer.
10. Bonus:
Similar to Free Bets, you will see Bookies use the 2 interchangeably. These are the funds added to your account that you can use to place bets.
11. Liability:
This is the amount of money you need to have in your exchange account. When you place a lay bet with exchange, the calculator will tell you how much Liability you need to place that bet. Until the bet is settled, you will not able to use that amount of money for the other lay bet.
If you win with the exchange, the liability is freed up. If you lose with exchange, you lose the amount of liability, however you would have won from the bookie.
12. Stake Returned (SR):
Stake Returned means your initial stake is returned along with your bet winnings.
13. Market/betting market:
A betting market, market in short, is a category for a specific type of bet. Take football games for example, there are many selections of markets you can bet in, such as Match Outright Winner market, Correct Score, and Both Team To Score etc.
14. Matched Bet:
This is used by the Exchange, when all the stake has been accepted.
15. Unmatched Bet:
Again used by the Exchange, when the stake has not been accepted. This very rarely happens. But when it does, it could be the fact that another player’s stake got accepted first, or your stake is only partially matched leaving a portion still to be accepted.
16. Stake Not Returned (SnR):
This is a setting on the odds calculator on free bets. It means the free bet stake is not included with the winnings. It can also be used to lock-in a profit on bets where you only get a refund if your bet loses.
I wouldn’t worry too much on how to use it, and what it means. This is where the step-by-step video guide from Profit Accumulator comes in, it literally tells you exactly when to use SnR.
17. Acca/ Accumulator:
Acca, for short, aka Accumulator. It is several bets rolled into one. The odds of each bet is multiplied by the next, which leads to bigger odds than a single bet.
The most simple acca, is a Double (or 2 folds), which includes 2 different results in 2 different events.
Treble (3 folds) joins together 3 singe bets to form 1. Beyond that, it’s called Multiple.
You need to win ALL the bets in order to win the acca, therefore, the more number of bets rolled in one the harder it is to win the entire acca with the bookie. But if you do win, this leads to a bigger payout.
A tip for beginners though, the acca is slightly more complicated. When starting out, I would prioritize all the straight forward free bet offers first before taking on the acca offers. This will give you practice on the basics, but also help you to build a bigger pot of funds.
18. Wagering Requirement (WR):
Simply another word for betting, with a set of betting requirements you have to meet before you can withdraw the fund. This is commonly used in Casino’s and sometimes by bookmakers on high value offers.
For example, a £10 win at a bookie has a 3 times wagering requirement. This means you will need to place a total of £30 (£10×3) worth of bets before you can withdraw the cash. However, this does NOT mean that you have deposit £30 to do this, it just means you will use any winnings to continue the wagering process. The wagering requirement only applies if you are winning. If you lose all the money from the bookie (don’t worry, in matched betting, this means you are winning at the exchange), you don’t have to wager anymore.
19. Gubbed /Gubbing:
If you are gubbed from a bookie, this means you are on the black list with them. Why? it probably means that you are either winning too much, or their algorithm detected that you are only doing Free Bet offers therefore they are not making enough money from you. When you are being gubbed by a bookie, you will no longer able to take part in their offers.
Don’t worry, you are NOT in trouble. In fact, it is quite common to be gubbed as an experienced matched bettor. In Profit Accumulator, they have specific strategies to avoid being gubbed.
Tip:
You can be gubbed for no reason at all. This happened to me the first week of matched betting. I was devastated and confused. After reading about it from other match bettors, I realised this was just a case of bet luck. If that ever happens to you, don't worry about it, just move on to the next offer.
20. Skrill/Neteller:
Similar to PayPal, it is an “internet wallet” that is accepted by all major bookies. It brings all payment details into one place to allow faster transactions compared to using a debit card. It also keeps your matched betting activity separate. Keep in mind though, for most of the sign up offers, a real debit card is required. Sometimes, there is a transaction fee involved with these types of “internet wallet”, so I would consider using this once you’ve done all your sign up offers.
OK, I think that concludes all the basic terminology you need to know before starting Matched Betting. I know it may seem to be overwhelming at the beginning. Don’t expect yourself to remember all of these, you can always come back here to use this post as a reference.
It’s like learning a new language, the more you practice the better you get. The fun part is, you get to make some extra cash while you are practicing =) Matched Betting is one of the fastest ways to earn extra cash from home as a side hustle. Profit Accumulator is one of the most dummy proofed tools that will guide you step by step.
Curious and skeptical?
Try it for FREE to make £45, using one of the fastest ways to earn extra cash from home – no commitment, no experience required.
Enjoy making some cash!
Chloe x
Hello Chloe! Matched Betting eh? I have not heard of that before but I have never put a bet in my life so it makes sense I guess lol. I live in the United States of A. and I was wondering if you know of a similar Matched Betting platform or service here in the good ol’ US of A? Thank you I appreciate it! xoxo
I know.. that’s how I reacted when I first came across Matched Betting…
I believe you can matched betting in the US as well, but it’s fairly new. If you are interested, I recommend you to do your research to find out. Different state has different laws.
Best of luck!
Chloe
Thank’s a lot for summarizing such an amazing ways to earn extra cash.
I was trying to make an online business but i find different websites with fake informations. In this domain i consider myself a beginner and i really need this 20 ways for earn some money. I think with ambition and determination i can follow a few ways from there and have a lots of winnings. The biggest advantage is that i get free bets when i sing up there.
Thank’s and best wishes. Hope to see more posts like this.
I know what you mean… when starting out online, there are ways to make passive income but it takes time. They are times we just needs to earn extra cash fast and Matched Betting is one of the best and quickest ways to do that.
Thanks for stopping by!
Chloe
Hello Chloe, I am very much eager to make use of the free bet that you have given here. I like the fact that you can share this very good strategy to make money from betting. Of all my time of betting, I have never heard of anything like matched betting but now that I do and you have given some terminologies, I will give it a try and see if I can make something from it.
Please do! It is one of the best ways to earn extra cash online. Best of luck!
Wow, this is a very good post that you have shared here about matched betting. I like the fact that you can give such awesome information to how the whole thing works. This should not be called betting because one can easily make some very good free cash from this. I will like to give this a try. Thanks!
It’s a great way to earn extra cash online! Thanks for stopping by John.
Hi Chloe. This is a very interesting post. I’m still a bit skeptical. You’re promoting this rather easy way to make money with these sites. There seems a way to beat the system according to what you have described here. But in that case, there weren’t so many match betting sites. I’m interested in reading about the other half of the equation: how these match bet sites make profit.
Hi Ann,
Thanks for stopping by. I was very skeptical too, but willing to give a go. I did the free trail and made a little over £45, and decided to give the premium member a go with Profit Accumulator, which cost £150/year. I made it back the first 2 weeks after joining.
If you live in the UK or Ireland, feel free to give a go with the free trail.
Chloe