Bookmakers always try to attract new customers with free bets and bonuses. Usually, it’s something like bet £10, get a £10 free bet. As with many marketing campaigns, the bookmaker takes a short-term hit to get people in the door. They aim to get people hooked and make a profit in the long term.

Matched betting is a simple technique that takes advantage of this. By covering all outcomes of an event, you can meet the requirements needed to claim the free bet or bonus without risking large sums of money. It’s not about taking risks or punts, nor do you need to know anything about the event you’re betting on.

Once you’ve completed your first offer, it’s a case of banking your profit and repeating the process with another one. There’s no skill; stick to the process and repeat. Some offers vary slightly in their qualifying requirements, but the fundamentals remain the same. Once you’re comfortable with the standard ‘Bet X, Get Y’ offer, you’ll have no problems picking up the variations.

Finding offers to take advantage of can be very time-consuming if you were to do it yourself. Luckily, that’s where I step in. My Matched Betting Academy lists every new customer offer from UK bookmakers, complete with step-by-step instructions. Any variations in technique are clearly shown and explained. It even teaches you how to profit from existing customer offers to set you up for long-term profits.

In my earlier example, I used a coin toss to demonstrate the basic principle of matched betting. That makes it simple, as there are only two possible outcomes.

In the real world, only a few sports have two outcomes. You’ll need to place bets on things like football matches with three outcomes because the two teams could draw. However, you can still cover all outcomes using only two bets.

You’ll need a small amount of money to place your first bets and qualify for your first free bet – around £100. You’ll get this back, plus your first free bet. If you want to start with a larger amount, you can have multiple offers running alongside each other – so you don’t need the first one to settle before claiming the next.

Matched betting is a simple technique that takes advantage of this. By covering all outcomes of an event, you can meet the requirements needed to claim the free bet or bonus without risking large sums of money. It’s not about taking risks or punts, nor do you need to know anything about the event you’re betting on.