Newbie, struggling to understand where I'm going wrong.

Hi all,

Very much a newbie here, who’s been giving matched betting a try after reading around and through the guides on this great website – thanks Matt! I still feel a bit of apprehension that I’ve not understood things properly and am not making the right calls. So I apologise in advance if these questions seem utterly stupid, but for my peace of mind (and to avoid potential loss!), I thought I had better ask more experienced people.

My main concerns are:

Keeping track of the money I put in: I use the calculator on this site before I place any bets/lays, to make sure I’m looking at a profit or an acceptable loss, if it’s a qualifying bet. But my brain is unfortunately not very mathematical, so I think I sometimes rely on it a little too heavily. (Edit: apparently I don’t even understand the calculator that well, so that might be part of the problem). I’ve tried using a couple of different spreadsheets I’ve found, but they seem to have problems, and don’t help me keep track of what I’m putting in in real terms.

I’m also not entirely sure how the liability part at the betting exchange works. By which I mean how it’s calculated.

So this is an overview of my first few matched bets … I just stumped up whatever money my Smarkets account told me I needed for lay stakes, liability, so there’s been a fair amount going in, but I’m not convinced anything is coming out yet.

Offer: Deposit £50 at Ladbrokes and get £50 Free Bet.
Qualifier:
Ladbrokes: £50 @ 1.57 Back Zwickau, Viktoria Berlin vs. Zwickau
Smarkets: £49.06 @ 1.62 Lay Zwickau, Viktoria Berlin vs. Zwickau
Result: Smarkets Win Bet @ £48.07 (total loss between bets £1.92).

Free Bet:
Ladbrokes £50 @ 5.0 Back Red Devil Lads (Bangor, 15.15)
Smarkets: £38.61 @ 5.2 Lay Red Devil Lads (Bangor, 15.15)
Result: TBC, but the calculator suggested a guaranteed profit of £38.64

Offer: 888Sport Winnings trebled in free bets

Qualifier:
888Sport: £10 @ 3.25 Back Pirate’s Treasure (Southwell 15.30)
Smarkets: @ 9.76 Lay Pirate’s Treasure (Southwell 15.30)

Result: 888Sport Win @ £22.50 (+returned £10 stake) (+ £97.50 in free bets, if I’ve calculated correctly, though they haven’t turned up yet!)

888Sport: £12.50 @ 2.20 Back Stranraer, Stranraers vs. Airdrieonians
Smarkets £12.73 @ 2.18 Lay Stranraer, Stranraers vs. Airdrieonians
Result: TBC, but calculated guaranteed profit of £6.81

Offer: Marathonbet £20 free bet with code TV20 (though it doesn’t appear to have kicked in yet … is this normal?)

I’ve just realised I messed up these two bets by calculating them as free bets. Damn …

Marathon: £20 @ 3.65 Back Draw, Monaco vs. Bordeaux
Smarkets: £20.39 @ 3.60 Lay Draw, Monaco vs. Bordeaux
Result TBC – just realised I have messed this one up, as I thought it was guaranteed a profit, but it’s looking now like a loss? :/

Marathon: £10 @ 21 Back Benfica, Benfica vs. B Munich
Smarkets: £10.51 @ 20 Lay Benfica, Benfica vs B Munich
Result TBC – same mistake … which means I’ve also been putting the wrong lay stakes into Smarkets, I guess?

This is probably frustrating reading for some of you, but if you can spot where my brain isn’t quite fitting things together I’d be grateful if you have a stab at trying to explain where I’m going wrong.

Thanks!

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colourandlight
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March 31, 2016 at 1:34 pm

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Chris 19 March 31, 2016 at 2:01 pm

You dont really seem to have problems here apart from checking you are using the calculator properly. I dont want to sound condescending but its actually harder to not use it properly given how simple it is. Just make sure you check and double check you’re using the right option (Qualifying Bet, Free Bet, Risk Free Bet) and that you enter everything carefully on smarkets.

In terms of keeping track of your deposits, again its easy. Open a spreadsheet, two columns, one named “Deposits”, the other “Withdrawals”. Enter the amounts in each column whenever you make a deposit or withdrawal. Every Monday, I tend to then auto-sum both columns and deduct total deposits from total withdrawals to give me my weekly profits. Now of course a lot of people think making regular withdrawals from bookies gets you gubbed but I dont buy in to that so I do this on a weekly basis then once my money is back in my account, I shift my profits in to my savings account.

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colourandlight 0 March 31, 2016 at 2:22 pm

Thanks for the reply – much appreciated! And glad to hear I’m not going too far wrong.

I think maybe the problem is that I’m not sure which part of the calculator to use when I’m just plain matched betting (so not a qualifying bet and not a free bet offer and not a risk-free offer). Or is this something I shouldn’t be doing? I saw what I thought were some good odds yesterday and thought I’d go for it. (e.g. the Monaco/Bordeau, Benfica/Munich)

And yeah, I’ll try that spreadsheet method. At the moment it seems like I’m putting A LOT into it, especially to make up for liability on the Smarkets website, and not yet a lot coming back. And I guess it’s spread across a few places instead of sitting in my bank – just feels a bit disconcerting.

Trying to remind myself that this is not really gambling because it certainly feels like it sometimes! 🙂

Thanks again.

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Chris 19 March 31, 2016 at 2:39 pm

No problem. Well if you read Matt’s guides, they are a lot easier to understand than me explaining here. I remember sitting down for a good two hours reading over everything before I popped my matched betting cherry. Basically the “qualifying bet” is the bet where you are qualifying (or trying to) for a free bet/offer and you want the loss to be as small as possible, and the other two functions should only be used when you have a free/risk-free bet credited. Why not have a go at the Sky Bet first race special this Saturday? I’ll take you through it.

Looking at what you’ve done so far though, you seem to be ok.

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iammonst3r 1 March 31, 2016 at 6:54 pm

Hi,

Just FYI you should get £45 in free bets for the 888 offer. Treble the odds of 3.25 is 7.75. This makes more sense fractionally 3.25 = 9/4 treble the odds = 27/4 (7.75). 888 only pay out the extra winnings as free bets so £32.50 returns from the normal winnings and £45 for the extra.

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RyanB 11 March 31, 2016 at 7:31 pm

Sounds like you are doing great, ALOT better than many other new people. Keep it up!

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colourandlight 0 April 1, 2016 at 9:11 am

Thanks a lot for the responses and encouragement, guys! I’m starting to feel a bit more at ease with it! 🙂

And you were totally right, iammonst3r. Just one example of my innumerate brain. I’ll get the hang of it eventually!

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deathstar 25 April 1, 2016 at 10:01 am

just a quick heads up : for this bet above

“Free Bet:
Ladbrokes £50 @ 5.0 Back Red Devil Lads (Bangor, 15.15)
Smarkets: £38.61 @ 5.2 Lay Red Devil Lads (Bangor, 15.15)
Result: TBC, but the calculator suggested a guaranteed profit of £38.64”

you are correct that the lay is £38.61, but due to the 2% commission on smarkets, guaranteed profit should be £37.84.
Hope this helps with the maths a bit.
Good luck.

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tavbet 0 April 5, 2016 at 12:10 am

Hi – Another thing you need to be careful of when using the calculator is to make sure you have the commission set correctly. If you are only using Smarkets then its fine to just leave it at 2% but you will need to change it to 5% if you lay at Betfair.

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Ryze 0 April 10, 2016 at 10:13 pm

Just out of curiosity, if betfair charges more commission, why do people use it over smarkets?

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deathstar 25 April 11, 2016 at 6:27 am

Betfair has many more markets (goalscorer, both teams to score, accas etc along with other sports like darts, golf or F1) so they are useful for different types of offers. they also have a much bigger customer base which means in basic terms they have more liquidity. Smarkets are good for the basic markets like win/draw/win and correct score but can sometimes be very light on liquidity. their odds are usually the same, but not always, so sometimes its actually more profitable to get the better odds and pay the extra comms.

In practice, I find I use smarkets most of the time but have some money in betfair for the offers above.

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Tony 12 April 13, 2016 at 12:09 pm

@colourandlight said “I think maybe the problem is that I’m not sure which part of the calculator to use when I’m just plain matched betting (so not a qualifying bet and not a free bet offer and not a risk-free offer). Or is this something I shouldn’t be doing? I saw what I thought were some good odds yesterday and thought I’d go for it. (e.g. the Monaco/Bordeau, Benfica/Munich)”

What you are referring to here is ‘arbing’, which is where you spot better back odds than lay odds. This can yield profit, but usually requires significant stakes to make a small % return (so you might have to back for £100 and lay according to make a few quid). People will have different views on this, but many would say not to bother arbing as can severely shorten the lifespan of your bookie account and it is frankly not worth the investment for the small reward and the lost opportunities it will cost you if you get gubbed by the bookie.

Aside from that, you seem to be doing rather well and clearly have good record-keeping abilities given the tidiness of your initial post in this thread 🙂

Only thing I would add is to watch what you are betting on. From the looks of it you opened a Laddies account and lumped £50 on some lower league German footy match? That could look a bit suspicious to the bookie, unless you then continue to place similar bets on similarly vague events. No doubt you used this match because Oddsmonkey showed it to be the best match at the time, but you should sometimes try to stick to more mainstream sports and leagues to try and keep you accounts open as long as possible.

Once you have been at this for a few months and lost a few bookies, you will realise that the key is account longevity and doing all you can to blend in with the mug punters rather than sticking out like the sore thumb of a bonus/offer whore that we all are!

Good luck 🙂

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