Let’s go over this summary:

What happens if Manchester United win?

Well at the bookmaker we win the back bet so we get our £10 stake back plus our £10 winnings from the bookmaker. So we are now +£10.00 up at the bookmaker.

At the exchange we lost our lay bet, so we had to pay someone who backed Man United at the exchange their £10.10 winnings. So we are now -£10.10 down at the exchange.

So overall this works out to +£10.00 – £10.10 = -£0.10.

What happens if Manchester United lose or draw?

Well at the bookmaker we lose the back bet so we lose our £10 back stake to the bookmaker. We are then -£10.00 down at the bookmaker.

At the exchange we win our lay bet, so the exchange gives us a random person’s £10.10 back stake that they put on at the exchange and then take their 2% commission from this. This means we get back £9.90 instead. So we are now +£9.90 up at the exchange.

So overall this works out to -£10.00 +£9.90 = -£0.10.

IMPORTANT! So by using the Qualifying Bet Matched Betting Calculator to do our matched betting with we have successfully BALANCED out our bets, and taken account of the exchanges commission.  Now, no matter what the outcome of the Man United game is we will have a very tiny loss of -£0.10. So hours before the game even happens we know we are going to have a tiny loss of -10p for these bets, regardless of what happens in the game. 

As the exchange takes a commission we can never get our fully cancelled out bet where we achieve £0.00 (i.e. no tiny loss) no matter what. We always have to incur this tiny loss. This loss is called the Qualifying Loss. The Qualifying Loss is always be the same no matter the outcome of the event.

So we know right now you are thinking “Loss!?! You said I’d make guaranteed profit!”

All we can say is please bare with us remember that the KEY point of doing the Qualifying Bet and taking this very minimal Qualifying Loss is to UNLOCK A FREE BET from which you will make a guaranteed profit from. Normal mug punters would have risked £10 doing a bet to qualify to get their free bet.

As matched bettors we don’t risk anything and we know before the game even starts that we are taking a temporary 10 pence loss and that this will be our loss no matter the outcome of the game.

So that was the first thing you need to know regarding the Qualifying Bet – the exchange commission and how we account for it using our Qualifying Bet Matched Betting Calculator. If you are interested you can see the Qualifying Bet Matched Betting Calculator by clicking here.

The second thing you need to know regarding a Qualifying Bet is that it is not always easy to find an exact match between the back odds at the bookmaker and the lay odds at the exchange.

In our Man United example so far we’ve been backing at 2.0 at the bookmaker and laying at 2.0 at the exchange. Although we can sometimes find a perfect match like this, most of the time the lay odds at the exchange can be a little different from those at the bookmaker.

IMPORTANT! As a matched bettor what we are looking for is the closest match we can find between the bookmaker and the exchange.

So 2.0 at the bookmaker and 2.0 at the exchange are the perfect match.

Then you could have 2.0 at the bookmaker and 2.05 at the exchange – just off from the perfect match.

Then 2.0 and 2.10 – still quite close.

Then 2.0 and 2.15 – and so on.

Sometimes you can have something like 2.0 and 2.5.

So what does this mean for us as matched bettors?

Well the first issue is that because the odds are different and higher on the exchange it means this causes a problem for us.

In the above example we did a lay bet against Man United winning for £10 at odds of 2.0. This meant our liability was £10.

If we have to lay Man United at odds of 2.5 instead this increases our liability to £15 – IF we still use the same £10 lay stake. That’s no good because if we lose at the exchange we have to pay someone on the exchange £15 – but we will only be winning £10 at the bookmakers, so we will be £5 down. How can we solve this problem??

With our Qualifying Bet Matched Betting Calculator again! (#thank you maths!)

Let’s take a look, this time we are placing a £10 back bet at the bookmaker at odds of 2.0 for Man United to win and laying Man United at the exchange (who are taking a 2% commission) at the odds available which are 2.50.

By reducing our lay stake to £7.50 (following what the Profit Bet Matched Betting Calculator told us) we have made sure that if Chelsea win we make £7.50, if Chelsea lose or draw we make £7.50.

No matter what happens in the game our profit will be £7.50.

By reducing our lay stake and subsequently liability at the exchange we have been able to achieve this balance of profit across all outcomes.

In this example we sacrifice a bit of the POSSIBLE profit we could have made through mug betting to ensure we make a GUARANTEED PROFIT no matter the outcome of the event.

This is the basics of how we take advantage of a free bet as matched bettors to guarantee ourselves a profit and make the entire process risk-free.

As matched bettors we never take the risk that we might lose out. We ALWAYS cover every outcome and ensure we get our profit from a free bet.

Now the PROFIT (FREE) BET we’ve just discussed above is also influenced, just like the Qualifying Bet was, by the commission charged at the exchange for their services and how perfect a match we can get between the odds at the bookmaker and the odds at the exchange.

Fortunately our Profit Bet Matched Betting Calculator can also take account of both these issues for us and tell us what we are best to use for our lay stake at the exchange.

Let’s look at the example again:

This time we can back Chelsea at the bookmaker to win at odds of 4.0 using our £10 FREE bet.

We can lay Chelsea at an exchange which charges 2% commission at odds of 4.1.

We put all this information into our Profit Bet Matched Betting Calculator, as shown below: