How Long Does Matched Betting Take?

If you’re looking to start a new side hustle, then there are three main questions you need to ask.

How much money can I make?

How much start-up money do I need?

How many hours will it take?

One of the biggest advantages of Matched Betting is that it can take as much or as little time as you want.

Most importantly, though, you can fit it around your other commitments and it doesn’t require a lot of time to be profitable.

Here, we’ll take you through Matched Betting timings, look at some of the most common bets, explore how much time a bet takes, and give you an insight into a day in the life of a Matched Bettor.

Matched Betting Flexibility

There are no set times for Matched Betting.

You can do it early in the morning, late in the evening, over lunchtime, during the day, on weekdays and/or weekends.

Matched Betting opportunities happen all day, every day, so it is highly flexible with timings.

There are, of course, some specific offers that have time restrictions or are linked to specific games or tournaments, but generally you can pick and choose what offers you do and when.

Naturally there are times when it pays to do more matched betting than others.

Big football weekends, major horse racing meets, golf or tennis majors and big sports tournaments all come with increased Matched Betting opportunities. There is obviously no pressure to do more at these times, but it can be highly profitable to do so.

Matched Betting Timings

Many Matched Betting offers take only a few minutes to complete.

More complicated sports offers can take up to fifteen minutes, while some casino offers take longer. However, the more you do, the quicker you get.

It's then up to you to decide how many offers you want to do and what type of offers you want to do to fit around your own schedule.

You will also develop a preference for certain offers over others. You may decide to spend your time on bets that take a bit longer to do but bring the most profit.

Alternatively, you may prefer to do lots of simpler matched bets that are quicker and bring in lots of small wins. The choice is yours.

Matched Betting Tools

Companies such as Outplayed make Matched Betting as time efficient as possible by providing you with all of the tools and guides you need.

There is no need to scroll through all the bookmakers looking for offers. A daily list is provided for you. There is no need to scour the internet for the best odds. Outplayed provide odds matchers, bet finders and match catchers with handy search and filter tools so you can find bets quickly and easily.

There's also no need to spend ages trying to work out what offers are the most profitable, as all the work is done for you. Plus, there are designated calculators for all types of bets to make it as simple and efficient as possible. All you have to do is follow the guides and make use of the tools provided.

Types Of Matched Bets

There are several types of matched bets you can choose from. Some are completely risk-free and give a guaranteed profit. Meanwhile, some matched bets involve a limited risk giving a low qualifying loss if unsuccessful, but potentially good profits if successful.

Below we’ll take a look at a couple of common offers - one risk-free and one limited risk matched bet. We'll look through the process and show how long it takes to complete them.

In these examples, it's assumed that you already have an account with the bookmaker, the exchange and Outplayed.

Bet And Get

An example of a basic sports ‘Bet and Get’ offer can be ‘Bet £10 and receive a £10 Free Bet’.

This requires the following Matched Betting activity to guarantee profit:

1. Find the Qualifying Bet - Go to the Outplayed Oddsmatcher tool and either select the exact offer from the drop-down menu or select the relevant bookmaker and chosen exchange, and then choose a bet from the list provided (2-3 mins)

2. Make the Qualifying Place Bet – go to the bookie site, ensure the odds are the same as the Oddsmatcher and place the bet (1 - 2 min)

3. Make the Qualifying Lay Bet - go to the exchange site, ensure the odds are the same as the Oddsmatcher and place the lay bet (1 - 2 min)

The Free Bet will either be granted immediately or once the qualifying bet has settled. When it does:

4. Find the Free Bet - Go to the Outplayed Oddsmatcher tool and either select the exact free bet offer from the drop-down menu or select the relevant bookmaker and chosen exchange and select SnR. Then choose a bet from the list provided (2 - 3 mins)

5. Make the Free Place Bet – go to the bookie site, ensure the odds are the same as the Oddsmatcher and place the bet (1 - 2 min)

6. Make the Lay Bet - go to the exchange site, ensure the odds are the same as the Oddsmatcher and place the lay bet (1 - 2 min)

A simple Bet and Get offer on average will take between 6 – 12 minutes depending on how much experience you have as a Matched Bettor.

This can be even more efficient by using the direct links on the Oddsmatcher tool. The bookie link will take you straight to the relevant market and if you link your exchange account you can place your lay bet with just one click.

In the example offer above, it should return around £8 in profit which works out at around £1 a minute.

Horse Racing Refunds

This bet gives money back or a free bet if your chosen horse finishes in a specific position in a race. In some cases it can be 2nd place only, some offer 2nd and 3rd place while some offer 2nd, 3rd or 4th place.

With some bookmakers the offer is applicable on a specific race or set of races, while at others it is any race with a minimum number of runners. This process is as follows:

1. Find the Bet – open up the Outplayed Match Catcher tool and use the filters to find the relevant bookmaker, exchange and appropriate race or track. Then just look for an eligible bet with the lowest qualifying loss. (4 mins)

2. Make the Place bet - go to the bookie site, ensure the odds are the same as the Oddsmatcher and place the bet (1 – 2 min)

3. Make the Lay Bet - go to the exchange site, ensure the odds are the same as the Oddsmatcher and place the lay bet (1 - 2 min)

Horse racing refunds should take 5 – 10 minutes depending on your Matched Betting experience. It may take a little longer if you have to source the odds yourself directly with the sites, but this should only add another minute or two.

If your horse doesn’t place where you want it to, then you'll lose the minimal qualifying loss. However, if your horse places as required, you will also receive a refund or free bet in order to lock in profit.

On a £10 horse refund, you would hope to have no more than a 70p qualifying loss but can make up to £8 profit and there are plenty of them to do every week.

Prioritising Offers

Every day bookmakers offer a variety of bonus offers and promotions for customers. While this gives us lots of opportunities to make profits, it also means we can be selective when choosing the most profitable and time efficient ones to do.

Luckily, if you join Outplayed, they do this job for you, so you don’t have to.

Offers are divided into three main types – Sign-Up Offers, Reload Offers and Ongoing Offers.

Sign-Up Offers are usually the easiest to do and can return great profits. In the case of simple Bet and Gets as discussed above, they can be done quickly. However, in the case of casino sign-up offers, they sometimes require some time if they involve large wagering requirements.

Reload Offers are promotions given to existing customers and can include things like Horse Racing Refunds and Extra Places. Because of the useful tools available on Outplayed, these can often be done extremely easily and quickly especially as you become more used to them.

Ongoing Offers are bonuses that are given either daily or weekly like free daily games or bet clubs. These tend to be the bread and butter of a matched bettor and become part of a daily routine, which can be completed in a matter of minutes.

When registered with a company such as Outplayed, they provide you with not only a list of daily bonus offers, but also an expected value for each. This means that if you’re pushed for time you can immediately prioritise the most valuable bonuses and only do the others if you have time.

You can sort offers by profit and filter types of offers to find the best available offers at any time.

It is a really handy way of making Matched Betting as time efficient and effective as possible. It also means that you can make £10 - £20 a day just by doing a small number of offers.

A Day In The Life Of A Matched Bettor

Every Matched Bettor has their own routine, both in terms of what offers they do and when they do them.

The amount of time each person allocates to Matched Betting differs greatly from around 30 minutes to three hours a day, while some prefer to only do Matched Betting on weekends.

It's therefore impossible to give you a standard example of what most Matched Bettors do.

However, as I’ve been doing Matched Betting for around three years, I thought it might be useful to share my daily routine to give you an idea of timings.

My usual day would involve around 30 – 60 minutes of Matched Betting activity in the morning, followed by 15 minutes in the evening. Depending on other commitments or available offers I may add additional time as and when I feel like it is worthwhile.

My Matched Betting routine is as follows:

8.30am - Log into Outplayed and browse both the Sports and Casino Reload Offers to see what’s available and decide my plan of action.

8.35am - If there are any good Price Boost offers I will do them immediately as the odds can worsen on these as the day goes on and it is an easy way to lock in quick guaranteed profit.

8.40am – Log into some of my key accounts (Coral, Ladbrokes, Betfred, Paddy Power, BetVictor etc) and place any available Bet and Get offers, Horse Racing Refunds, play the Daily Games and do ongoing offers such as Ladbrokes Only Spins and Horses and Betfred Mystery Spins.

9.10am – Check out the Lucky 15 Finder Tool and Extra Place Master Tool and place a handful of bets with a valuable positive expected value.

9.20am – Refer back to the reload lists and do the most valuable offers depending on what time I have available.

9.30am – By 9.30am I usually finish Matched Betting for the morning and often for the day. Occasionally if I have time, I will check the Lucky 15 Finder and Extra Place Master sporadically.

Evening – at some point in the evening I will spend 15 minutes checking the results of my bets and totting up my profits for the day.

If there are any good casino offers on, I will normally do them while relaxing on an evening. Also, sometimes there are in-play bets available for live evening matches so I will do them as well.

On average I do between 10 – 20 bets a day which works out at around 3 – 5 minutes per bet, plus I do some daily spins and offers.

Some days I don’t do Matched Betting at all if I don’t have the time, I just fit it around my other commitments.

Matched Betting Trial

The simplest way to find out how long Matched Betting takes is to try it yourself. Outplayed offers a free trial to all new customers to introduce you to the principles of Matched Betting and see if it’s something you enjoy.

The trial gives you access to over 40 signup offers with step-by-step guides to get started. It takes you through creating a bookmaker account and an exchange account, claiming the bonus offers, how to find appropriate betting markets, and then placing and laying the bets.

Detailed step-by-step instructions are given throughout the process to ensure that all customers who take part in the trial make a guaranteed profit providing they follow the instructions correctly.

If you’re anything like me, then the trial will take you a while.

When I did it, I was completely new to Matched Betting and I read and reread everything about ten times to make sure I was doing it correctly.

I also wanted to understand what I was doing and why I was doing it at every stage of the process.

So, while you cannot take the trial as a good example of how long Matched Betting takes, it does give you an insight into the process.

Once you have completed your free trial, you get quicker with each offer.

Soon enough what may have taken you 25 minutes the first time only takes you 5 minutes to complete once you have more experience.

Practice Makes Perfect

The key to efficient Matched Betting is practice.

The more bets you place, the more efficient and easier it becomes. You learn to trust the mathematics and, within a few weeks, placing and laying bets and using the various tools becomes second nature.

Remember, at the start, you also have the added time of creating accounts and making deposits. Once you have established accounts, it all becomes much more streamlined and you can develop your own routine.

Tips For Quick Matched Betting

Here are my top tips to making Matched Betting as time efficient as possible:

1. Make the Outplayed Reload Offer page a ‘favourite’ for easy access

2. Save log-ins to all your most used betting sites for quick log in

3. Link your exchange accounts to your Outplayed account so you can do lay bets directly from the site

4. Get familiar with the tools, study the guides, watch the videos, take notes, use them and practice with them so they become second nature

5. Use the Outplayed forum where other matched bettors post best odds matches which you can sometimes just copy

6. Start with the basics and master them until you can do them quickly and routinely before tackling more detailed bets

7. Use the Outplayed EV guide to find the most profitable offers and focus on them

8. Practice, practice, practice!

Summary

The big benefit that Matched Betting has over other side hustles is that it’s completely your choice how much you do.

You can do it every day, a couple of days a week, only on weekends, only on evenings, and you can fit it around all of your other commitments too.

Another huge positive is that you can prioritise the offers you do based on how valuable they are. If you only have 20 minutes one day, then just do the top five most profitable offers. The information is readily available just by looking at the Outplayed reload page.

One thing is certain though: the more Matched Betting you do, the more proficient you become at it and the quicker you get. It can fit around any lifestyle, which is why it appeals to so many, and you can make daily profits for just a few minutes work.