4 Methods to Make Money on Betting Exchanges Smartly
We cover 4 effective ways to make profits from Laying at a Betting Exchange like Betfair (suggest the use of Betfair Alternatives), which ranges from matched betting to Betfair trading.
Betting Exchange is Essential for Advantage Play
You may wonder how to make money from the betting exchange. Allow us to share a bit about our betting principle. We are not a gambler. We don’t count on luck but rely on mathematical logic & edge to beat the bookies.
How? We use Advantage Plays which is the ONLY surest way for ordinary people to consistently win short & long-term.
When it comes to Sports Betting, we use Matched Betting, Sports Arbitrage & Value Bet On Proven Software / Systems / Tipsters to extract profits from various opportunities provided by the bookmakers.
We employ many customized tactics to get a maximum return at every chance. Betting Exchange is essential in the process of matched betting while expanding its profit to a sports arbitrage. In both methods, we use a betting exchange to hedge each bet.
Besides, Bet Exchanges provide you with far better odds than conventional bookmakers, which can improve profits from value betting using proven software/systems/tipsters as well as sports betting & Betfair trading (BTW, if you’re “Sharp”, go to List of Sharp Sportsbooks. In this guide, we suggest the best option which is actually a bet broker covering a betting exchange, Must See for professionals).
Thus, this guide focuses on comprehensive instruction on how to make the best use of Betting Exchanges, namely Betfair, Smarkets, Matchbook & Betdaq to earn extra income reliably via advantage plays (for opening their accounts, see 4 Best Betting Exchange Sign-Up Offers & How To Monetize Bonuses).
BTW, when you use the betting exchange, you need to pay a commission, thus it’s important to know the techniques to reduce such costs. Suggest you take a look at How Lay Betting Works – Minimize Exchange Commission & Liability.
Let me briefly discuss how a betting exchange works in each advantage play;
1) Matched Betting
Matched Betting is the easiest way to make money on Betfair.
Just in case you’re not familiar with it, suggest taking a look at Matched Betting For Dummies, where you will learn A-Z of matched betting.
In case you want to use cryptocurrencies, the Bitcoin Matched Betting guide must help you and for specific crypto sportsbook choices, you may want to check the List of 30 Best Bitcoin Sports Betting Bookmakers 2023.
Anyhow, I will briefly show you how it works by using William Hill’s (bookmaker) offer. Remember, in matched betting, we make the best use of bookmaker’s offers / free bets to lock in profit. William Hill’s sign-up offer to new customers is Bet £10 Get 30 Free Bet;
What we do are;
- 2 transactions of Back (bet on win) £10 on a player/team at William Hill & Lay (bet on NOT win) on the same player/team (select the sports event from Free Oddsmatcher) with an appropriate stake £ (use Free Matched Betting Calculator select “Qualifier” mode) at Bet Exchange so that you cover all outcomes.
- Regardless of the outcome, your losing & winning will cancel out each other. In real practice, usually, 2 bets are not perfectly offset due to the odds difference & exchange commission. Therefore you make a small loss called Qualifying Loss. However, you get £30 for Free Bets.
- Now, you repeat the exact same process but use the free bet for the back bet at William Hill. For lay bet amount, decide the appropriate stake £ by using Free Matched Betting Calculator – but for this free bet, you need to select “Stake Not Returned” mode)
- Then, this time free bet value (minus a little loss) will become your net profit.
- For a specific guide on how to do it, please go to Free Matched Bet Starting Guide (2) – How To Sign-Up & Place Qualifying Bet & (3) Extract Profit, where I use this William Hill sign-up offer as an example for step-by-step instruction.
- Remember, the key success factor is how to minimize this qualifying loss during this process.
This is how we use bet exchange in matched betting and get guaranteed profit from the bookies’ offers.
For specific guidance to make money from matched betting, choose from the below selections;
- Free guide: go to our Matched Betting instruction index
- Premium subscription: go to Comparison among 3 best services
- Outside UK/Ireland: go to Software that can be used by almost everyone in the world
2) Sports Arbitrage
If you don’t know what sports arbitrage is, please take a look at Is Sports Arbitrage 100% Risk-Free Surebet? In short, the main advantage of bet exchange for sports arbitrage is that the odds at a betting exchange are on average 10 – 20% better than they would be at a traditional bookmaker (see the next section).
This means, that even deducting the commission, their odds could be still better. Actually, using a betting exchange is an integral part of the Sports Arbitrage Sure Bet strategy. I’m talking about Backing in the Exchange Not Laying Off in this case.
However, you can also make the best use of a Lay bet at the betting exchange for sports arbitrage. For this particular strategy, see Arbitrage Betting – Use Exchange & Extend Matched Betting Profits.
For specific guidance to make money from sports arbitrage, see below;
- Paid software: go the world’s best arbing software – we strongly suggest not doing sports arbing manually because it will not be worth your time
3) Value Bet by Proven Software / Systems / Tipsters
For those who are not sure about this method, please go through Value Bet By Proven Tipsters / System / Software Guide.
Why is bet exchange useful for this? Allow me to reiterate, that the back odds at the exchange are theoretically (practically almost without exception) higher than conventional bookmakers because;
- Generally speaking, punters at betting exchange work at a low margin because they compete with each other, especially on the lay bet side. You can observe it in the over-round % displayed at each back & lay odds in each market. On the lay side, it’s often less than 100% that is under-round. Considering the fact that the bookmaker’s overround of 10% < is not unusual, the odds at the exchange are much better than the bookmakers even deducting 2 – 5% exchange commission.
- In bet exchange, back & lay adds are determined by market demand, and these 2 odds are displayed side by side. Needless to say, back odds are always lower than lay odds. It is not necessarily for the gap between these 2 odds to be very narrow but reasonably close. Then, when the bookmaker’s odds become higher than the betting exchange back odds, an arbitrage condition may be created. Therefore, betting exchange back odds can’t be lower than the bookmaker’s odds.
- See the below snapshot of horse racing in the odds checker table. The best odds are dominated by the bet exchanges of 4 columns at the right end;
The bottom line here is for those who bet on top-rated tipsters/systems, may find even better odds at exchange than the tipster’s suggested price of conventional bookmakers.
For specific guidance to make money from value betting, choose from the below selections;
- System: go the model producing $1,500 Every Month
- Software: go best 2 value bet finder
- Tipster: go to the best proofing & tipster rating service
4) Betfair Trading
The last one is sports trading, which is backing and laying sports betting odds for a profit before the event comes to an end. It’s basically Betfair scalping.
The proven Betfair Trading System is what Caan Berry produced. Caan is the most reputable Betfair Trading expert and produced the article “6 Full-Time Betfair Traders Answer 3 Questions Exclusively…”
, which will give you some good insight into how real pros trade Betfair for a living.
You may want to visit the Betfair Trading system prepared by Caan Berry who produces Best Selling Betfair Training Systems including Betfair Scalping technique etc.
The 3 Simple Horse Racing Trading Strategies (for Betfair) are also very useful for you to understand how Betting Trading works. See also the list of Caan Berry’s products.
Betting Exchange for Dummies
Just for those who are not familiar with a betting exchange, we briefly summarized what the betting exchanges are & how the betting exchange work, just skip it if you already know it.
How do Betting Exchanges Work?
A betting exchange provides a marketplace for customers to bet on the result of specific events. In other words, a betting exchange allows customers to bet against each other rather than a bookmaker. Customers can offer odds to or request odds from, fellow bettors.
In short, a betting exchange enables you to take the role of a traditional bookmaker, namely you can back a selection to lose, which enables you to hedge your bet (we will explain the details later in advantage plays).
Summary Comparison between Betting Exchange and Bookmaker
Explaining the betting exchange in comparison to the bookmaker must be the easiest way to understand how betting exchanges work, thus let me show it as follows;
- In the Conventional Bookmakers, we bet “Win” on a player/runner/team, etc, which we usually describe as “Back“. We compete with a bookmaker so if we win, the bookmaker loses. The bookmaker makes money from a profit margin built in the odds, a.k.an Over-round. You may find how it exactly works in Beat The Bookies By Knowing How Your Enemy Makes Money – Secret Of Odds.
- However, in a Bet Exchange, we can bet “Not Win” on a player/runner/team, etc, which we call “Lay” (Back it To Lose). We don’t bet directly with the betting exchange. Bet exchange is just a marketplace (similar to the stock market), where punters with opposing views on the outcome of a sporting event are connected. This means we compete with other punters. So, how do betting exchanges make money? Bet exchange makes a role as an intermediate and thus makes money from the Commission.
4 Betting Exchanges
There are following 4 established Betting Exchanges;
- Betfair – Market Leader / Broadest Market Offer / Largest Liquidity / Highest Commission of 5%, thus we strongly suggest considering Betfair White Label (see Betfair Alternatives)
Betfair Availability In The World Update
- Smarkets – Rising Star / Good Market Coverage / Modest Liquidity / Competitive 2% Commission
SMarkets Restricted Countries – See Account Rules 2.2
- Matchbook – Niche / Modest Market Coverage / Modest Liquidity / 2% Commission
Matchbook Restricted Countries – See F&Q
- Betdaq – Deleted from our list – see the reasons later
The best way to use betting exchanges for matched betting
The key element to assessing betting exchange is Liquidity means market coverage & availability of punters who will meet your specific back or lay needs. From this perspective, Betfair is the world’s number 1 betting exchange.
However, from the matched betting perspective (since it’s the easiest & safest method, I discuss based on matched betting), we always explore the best lay odds, therefore, we want a wide choice of lay odds all across the betting exchanges.
Besides, we want to rake cash from every promotional offer. Same as the bookmakers, all the above 4 betting exchanges provide you with sign-up offers. Therefore, there are no reasons to be picky but you should sign up & open accounts in all betting exchanges to exploit their welcome bonuses.
So, what I will explain next is a few tactics on sign-up orders, daily use & a bit of caution.
Betfair vs Smarkets – Core Bet Exchange
Smarkets; Given the competitive 2% commission, you may want to use it as a core exchange for your daily matched betting.
Stand-By Bet Exchange
Betfair: Given its vast market coverage & liquidity, you always want to keep Betfair stand-by whenever you can’t find the appropriate market such as Greyhound in Smarkets.
Besides, note that Betfair also provides a conventional bookmaker service called Betfair Sportsbook in addition to a betting Exchange. Since Betfair is famous for bet Exchange, many newbies are initially confused. Importantly Betfair Sportsbook offers a lot of juicy promotions for matched bettors.
Warning
While you’re using Betfair Sportsbook, suggest don’t be obvious at Exchange. What does it mean by obvious? Find out more about account restrictions. Never ever lay off at Betfair Exchange while backing the same event at Betfair Sportsbook.
It’s exactly demonstrating that you’re a matched bettor. Then your Sportsbook account could be quickly gubbed. So, ensure you use Smarkets when you do matched betting at Betfair Sportsbook.
Anyhow, once your Betfair sportsbook is gubbed, it’s high time to start using the exchange function aggressively together with Smarkets. Don’t worry, Betfair will gubb your Sportsbook but Never Gub Your Exchange.
Unlike bookmakers, historically, the betting exchange is not aggressive in providing promotions. However, both Betdaq & Matchbook periodically provides juicy promotion that can apply to both the Back & Lay market, such as 0% commission or Risk-Free Bet regularly.
Matchbook – Matchbook announced
Matchbook charges the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man residents a 2% commission only on net profit on a market. Customers residing outside of these regions will be charged a 4% commission only on net profit on a market. Matchbook does not charge a commission on losing bets.
The real benefit is that they run promotions applying also to Back Bet like this Cheltenham Offer 2022. It’s like Betfair Sportsbook. However unlike Betfair Sportsbook, Matchbook clearly declares No Account Restriction;
Of course, they basically don’t allow you to make matched betting, which means back & lay on the same event within their exchange though it’s a Must Exchange you can enjoy offers without being bothered by gubbing.
BTW, the Betfair exchange also gives you the choice of a 2% Commission. See the details in 4 Ways to Reduce Betfair commission;
It proves that the competitiveness among bet exchanges is getting fierce, which is encouraging news for us. Just FYI.
Betdaq Caution
We have heard several complaints about Betdaq from our members including some cheating related to even its welcome bonus. We quickly updated the Betdaq review. The most popular review site Trustpilot shows such a poor score below;
Honestly, I have never seen such a terrible review for an established betting site. In fact, very few Excellent comments seem to have been posted by Betdaq employees or cheerleaders.
Anyhow, given the overwhelmingly negative feedback, suggest Keep Away in the meantime. 3 betting exchanges of Betfair, Smarkets & Matchbook are quite enough for you to pursue advantage plays.
BTW, people often ask for Ladbrokes betting exchange. Ladbrokes Exchange bought Betdaq for €30 in 2013. And, your bet in Ladbrokes exchange is actually fed into the BetDaq platform.
So, the Ladbrokes betting exchange is just a clone of Nasdaq. And when it comes to the reputation of Ladbrokes, see the SBC survey (SBC is the most renowned tipster rating service in Europe) as below; 
So, these pairs are the lowest-rated bet exchange and bookmaker, just FYI.
Betfair, Smarkets, Matchbook & Betdaq Latest Offers
We have created 4 Best Betting Exchange Sign-Up Offers & How To Monetize Bonuses, where you find all the bet exchange latest offers and step-by-step instructions on how to extract the cash from each offer risk-free.
For Those Who Can’t Access Betfair, Smarkets, Betdaq & Matchbook
Advantage Play from Everywhere in the World
As our name Global Extra Money implies, we would like ordinary people from all over the world to make the best use of our advantage play tools.
Therefore, we have issued How To Make Money From Offshore Sports Betting With 3 Advantage Plays coupled with the List of Best Bitcoin Sports Betting, you will find the specific methods that enable people from almost all countries to make the best use of the lucrative offshore advantage gambling opportunities you may have overlooked.
Bet Brokers for Almost Everyone in the World
Finally, for those who can’t access the 4 betting exchanges because they live in a country where the Betting Exchanges set geographical restrictions, which means you are not allowed to open their account, the solution is to use Bet Brokers.
However, unlike well-established big bookies or betting exchanges, most of the bet brokers are Small & Medium-sized Businesses (MSBs), therefore you have to do your DD (Due Diligence).
We have already issued the following 3 special guides for you;
In these documents, you will find how to access the bet exchanges from the countries that betting exchanges don’t permit and the specific methods that enable people from almost all countries to make the best use of the lucrative advantage gambling opportunities.
Appendix – Smarkets Matched Betting Practice to Grab £30+ in Profits
Best Betting Exchange Sign-Up Process
I’ll show you how to sign-up for a betting exchange by using Smarkets as an example. Actually, the process is more or less the same among the 4 bet exchange, the important thing is to carefully check each T&C.
Click the below “+” which opens the step-by-step process with the screenshots;
Update & Confirm T&C (Terms & Conditions)
- Firstly, Go To Smarkets Welcome Offer Page and see the latest offer. Currently, you can choose either 0% Commission for 60 days or a £20 Cash Refund Sign-Up Promotion (or if you’re lucky you may find a better offer they periodically run via that link)
- Read welcome bonus T&C. I know it’s boring stuff but never try to save time by skipping it to avoid any unpleasant future surprise;
Simple Sign-Up By Filling Information
- After reading the T&C, click the “Claim Bonus” button;
- Fill in the required information related to your Account, Personal Information, and Never Forget to enter Promotion Code, namely 0% Commission for 60 days (code COMMFREE) or £20 Cash Refund (code SMK20) & Deposit;
A Few Key Points
- For the deposit method, Skrill & Neteller deposits are not eligible for the £20 Cash Refund.
- You need to deposit at least £10 in a single amount to qualify for the £20 Cash Refund.
- You need to spend the full £20 Cash Refund within 7 days after you get credited, otherwise, any unused cash refund balance will be removed.
- Account Verification. You will receive the below e-mail to verify your account. Suggest you do it as quickly as possible to prevent any future transaction delay;
Click To Enlarge
- That’s it. You’re now ready to place lay bets to construct matched betting once you sign-up the bookmakers.
- If you are not familiar with how to start matched betting, see how to place a qualifying bet.
How To Extract Cash From The Offer?
As said, the Smarkets signup offer is probably the easiest one. Because you don’t have to do anything. Smarkets will refund your first £20 loss. Yes, even if you win thousands of £ before you lose £20, Smarkets will refund your first £10 loss.
So, just keep doing the matched betting, and whenever you lose £20 for the first time in Smarkets, you will be refunded, and as you’re aware it’s your profit. But beware that the Cash refund will expire in 7 days, therefore make sure you use up all the refunds within 7 days.
Some Good News
- Very simple, isn’t it? Smarkets & all other bet exchanges I list in the betting exchange guide are fully licensed & regulated by the UK gambling commission. And they all register in IBAS – Independent Betting Adjudication Service, thus you can let IBAS resolve when you face any problem with them.
- Remember, any income from matched betting is Tax-Free in the UK / Ireland even if you are treated as a professional gambler, which means you make living in gambling with the gambling profits as your main income source – see further in the Tax section in this report.
Matched Betting between Smarkets & William Hills Practice
Then, I will quickly show you how to make the 1st matched betting between Smarkets & William Hill (for further details related to the William Hill process, check Qualifying Process). Click the below “+” which opens the step-by-step process with the screenshots;
T&C, T&C, T&C —
- Firstly, read both bet exchanges (again to ensure you follow everything required) & the bookmaker welcomes bonus T&C. Allow me to reiterate that it’s boring stuff but never try to save time by skipping it to avoid any unpleasant future surprise. They can change & update T&C anytime, therefore it’s essential to follow their latest guideline. Some of the key points are; Minimum Odds (William Hill set 1.5 for the offer as you see later), Device (via PC, Mobile, etc), Deadline (by when such as within 7 days after deposit), and as said in the Sign-Up process, Deposit Method (often Skrill / Neteller deposit is not eligible for the sign-up offer), etc.
- Go Smarkets Welcome Offer T&C carefully check;
Click To Enlarge
- William Hill’s offer is “Bet £10 Get £30 in Free Bets”;
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- Read William Hill Welcome Bonus T&C as well;
Click To Enlarge
Find Sports Events & Calculate
- Go Free Odds Matcher to look for the appropriate sports event. You chose William Hill as a bookmaker. You can always find a list of the candidates as shown below. The best one (which means the narrowest odds between William hill & Smarkets) is IK Frej v Atvidabergs FF Sweden / Superettan shown at the top. But, lay market liquidity is small (which means, this opportunity may go quickly) & preferably chose a bigger league, let’s select English Premier League Leicester City vs Chelsea. This opportunity is back Chelsea at 1.8 odds in William Hill & Lay Chelsea at 1.82 in Smarkets;
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- Since William Hill’s welcome bonus is Bet £10 Get £30 Free Bets, we need to know how much lay stake we should place in Smarkets when we back £10 at William Hill. Click the “i” icon at the right end, which will navigate to the calculator as below;
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- We can instantly know, that we should lay £10 in Smarkets at 1.82. Then our final qualifying loss is £0.20. This means, that regardless of the final outcome of the match (Chelsea win or lose or draw), we will lose £0.20. However, we will get £30 (£10 x 3) Free Bets after the settlement of the match.
Place Bets
- Now, we will construct this matched betting by placing the bets both in William Hill 7 Smarkets. Firstly William Hill, remember, you should place the bookmaker’s bet first, this is an important theory (don’t think too much at this stage just follow this principle, you will know why in due course). So, go to William Hill and place £10 on Chelsea by confirming if 1.8 odds are still available. If it already changes, you may have to recalculate the updated loss (or possibly profit);
Click The Image To Enlarge
- Then go to Smarkets, and confirm the odds if it’s still 1.82. In Smarkets (basically more or less the same among all betting exchanges), there are 2 parts of Blue Colour (right side) & Green Colour (left side). You need to Chose Blue Colour for Lay. The green colour is the Backing. In bet exchange, you can also back, but at this stage, I don’t want to confuse you, so just remember you chose Blue to lay;
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- That’s it. Just wait for the outcome, and repeat the same thing 3 times to extract William Hill’s £10 x 3 Free Bets. You need to select long odds for the free bet, therefore suggest you follow the guideline to extract free bets.
Hope the information here will be useful for you to start matched betting for extra income every month risk-free. If you need any assistance from our side, never hesitate to contact us.
Good Luck!!
Joshua Walker (bio)
Editor – Global Extra Money (GEM)
