Over the last 10 years, we’ve helped thousands of people make money with matched betting. It’s time for you to meet the members and hear about their OddsMonkey experiences. This is Rick’s story.
Meet the members: Rick
Hi everyone! My name is Rick and I run a small, online business. Unfortunately the covid policies in England decimated my custom. I, therefore, started looking for a side income to top up my main income.
My brother had told me about matched betting 2 years previous and I’d always been too busy to try it. I watched some YouTube videos and I made the mistake of jumping in, head first. I basically manually searched what welcome offers there were and ended up opening some that I later discovered were on OddsMonkey’s ‘avoid’ list.
I’ve now been matched betting for 17 months and have earnt just under £35k. £1000 of that was from when I tried casino offers. I started slowly and it took a while to break £5k, but now I know what I am doing, I set a profit target of 2k per month.
I’ve been really boring so far and have only just made one purchase with my profits; that has been to landscape the back garden. It doesn’t look great at the moment, but we are going to tile it and add in some raised beds, as I love growing fruit and veg. The reason I don’t spend it is because I need the bankroll. Even when you think you have a big bankroll, there will always be a time that you have maxed out the liability on the Exchanges and waiting for games to settle. It’s sickening missing out on a 2up full turnaround because you didn’t have the liability to take it. This can happen during the Grand National when you also want to take 2ups as well.
I started with a bankroll of £10k from my savings but have transferred more of my savings into the Exchanges. I do recommend trying not to spend your profits and re-investing them as your bankroll if possible.
Matched betting schedule
Unfortunately, the weekends are the best days for matched betting. But you also want to spend them with the family, so it’s important to find a balance. As I grew in experience, I decided to take 2Ups in the morning and then not pay them much attention throughout the day. There are apps and Discord groups, and other members will be shouting when a game has had a full turnaround. If it’s one of my games, I can log in on my phone and trade out.
I would say I am pretty much full-time. The more hours I put in, the more profit I make each month. Unfortunately, it’s hard to measure how many as I enjoy it so much and I don’t do it all at once. I just come to my computer many times a day when I have a bit of time. Because I am enjoying it, time flies. I think many people are underestimating how much time it takes them.
Favourite offers to do
When I first started, I tried pretty much all the offers, but now I only really do a few things:
- 2ups,
- Extra Places (on gubbed accounts),
- Each Way No Lay,
- easy ‘bet and gets’ which don’t take much time,
- and a little bit of Betfair trading.
2ups are my best earner. I’ve made £13k profit this season from them. I have found that the easy offers have dried up and that I make good money from the advanced offers that rely on variance, so I don’t really bother with most offers these days. I heard many people make a lot from boosts these days but I do not look at boosts.
About 60% of my profit is from 2ups, 10% from ‘bet and get’s, 30% from horse-related strategies. I have tried casino twice but it really doesn’t like me. I made 1k profit from doing the sign ups and some re-load strategies but I spent 4 months doing casino most nights and never really moving forward. I’d get to £1200 occasionally then lose £300, and I never ended up moving forward. However, I can see from my friends that it is something that can work in the long term. For me, the reason for quitting was just the time it took. I often had to chase my free spins on live chat and I often was not credited with the right bonus etc. It was really demoralising having to go on live chat so frequently.
A word of advice
The best advice I can give anyone is to get into 2Ups and not get bogged down worrying about qualifying losses. If you are taking +EV games, the strategy definitely works long-term.
It is a numbers game and to do well, you really need to take a high volume of games. I have seen people quit after going 40 games without hitting any profit. However, I have gone over 150 games with no profit quite a few times. It’s important to try and take games on bet365, paddy power and star sports so you can get on a lot of games. If you are on less than 15 games on a weekend then unfortunately it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
I used to trade out at 2-0 and I can honestly tell you that although you win more frequently it is the worse strategy for overall profit. More recently I just trade out at 2-2, as soon as there has been a full turn around (FTA). This can be hard for people to do as it’s high variance. Therefore, if not you can trade 50% out at 2-1 and the other 50% at 2-2. Once a game has gone to 2-1 then even if there are only a few minutes left there is always a chance of 2-2. It’s amazing how many times this season I’ve got massive profit from a goal in the last minute of the game.
My other advice is do not worry too much about the qualifying losses. Some weekends I have 130 quid in qualifying losses, but one FTA can be about £400. So you can see that I’d have to be unlucky for 3 or 4 weekends running to not make a profit. With the number of games I take, I expect at least one every weekend, but obviously, that doesn’t always happen. I’ve been on very high losing runs, but then I’ve also had 2 months this season with unbelievably good fortune. I had 8 FTAs in just 10 days. In April I had a very slow start to the month with just one FTA in the first 2 weeks. In the next 14 days I hit 9 FTAs.
My advice is to take any plus EV game that you can see on the 2Up Matcher. If the game is with 2 teams that are known for scoring high amounts of goals and its just slightly higher in qualifying loss than you usually take, then for the sake of an extra 50p or 1 quid loss, take the game. It is sickening when you see an FTA and you did not get on that game for the sake of it being 50p too high in potential qualifying loss. If you have the bank roll then put a decent stake on that is over £50. 2Ups take a lot of time when you take a high volume of games. And you don’t want to be doing all that work for low profits.
Advice for newbies
The best advice I can offer to anyone starting matched betting is to learn the advanced strategies as quickly as possible. And not to lose valuable accounts with low-value offers. It is good to read all the guides from OddsMonkey before starting. But remember: you do not have to do every offer. Do not do low-value offers on important accounts that you may need to do advanced matched betting techniques on later.
If you’re an OddsMonkey member and would like to submit something for our ‘Meet the Members’ series, then please email [email protected]
