How to Make Money from Betting

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With the advent of sites like BetFair, it's possible to be the bookmaker as well as placing bets.  Clearly, if you can place a bet at high odds, then lay the bet off at low odds, you cannot fail to make a profit*.

It is rare for the BetFair Exchange to be at a level which would allow you to do this, and you also have to take into account the commission BetFair charge.  Also, the margins are usually tiny, if you actually stumble across such a glitch.

So what can you do?  Well, most bookmakers will offer free bets.  Not only for new customers, but as frequent enticements to return to their site.  The offer may be bet £10 on Saturday, get a free £10 bet on Sunday.  Now, the odds are genuinely in your favour.

Usually the qualifying bet must be placed on an event at longer odds than evens.  But consider this :-

If you placed a £10 bet at evens with the bookmaker, you may be able to lay a bet off on BetFair at 2.1 decimal odds.  Let's say you took a bet on BetFair of £9.76 (you'd need £20.49 in your account to cover the bet).  You would lose 73p (in nett terms) whatever the outcome.

So why would you do this?  Well you now have a free bet.  Let's say you find a similar event.  You place your free bet at evens with the bookie.  You now lay £4.88 (you'll need £10.24 to cover this) with BetFair.  Whatever the outcome you're now £4.63 up (nett).

So over the two bets, you've netted £3.90, having £10 in your bookie's account and £31 in your BetFair account.

If the odds for the free bet were 6.5 and 6, you'd win £7.36 on the second bet (but would need £50.39 to cover the longer odds)

This intrigued me, so I wrote a calculator to work out the different scenarios.

Free Bet Offset Calculator

Hope you find it useful.  Remember to check terms and conditions for free bets - they can differ widely.

*NB: Check the terms and conditions for unusual occurrences such as a match being abandoned.  One company may pay out, whilst another may void all bets.

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