Want more profits? ‘2ups’ are key!

13 min read

Andrea

29 May 2020

If you’re already a Platinum or Diamond Member with us and haven’t tried your hand at profiting from 2ups yet then here’s a really useful list of guides and resources to help you profit from these offers:

If you’re new to matched betting or checking out our free matched betting trial then you can learn more about Matched Betting 2up offers and how we profit from them below :)

What is the 2up or early payout offer?

The 2up offer, which is also known as the early payout offer, is a football offer run exclusively for existing customers of Bet365 and Paddy Power.

For a regular punter, the offer in itself is quite simple: If the team they bet on goes 2 goals ahead of the other team at anytime – Bet365 and Paddy Power pay them out as a winner regardless what the final result of the match is.

This means if a punter bet on Liverpool to win vs. Manchester City and Liverpool were winning 2-0 at half-time, but then went on to lose the game 2-3 at full-time, Bet365 and Paddy Power would still pay the punter out as a winner as Liverpool had gone ahead by 2 goals during the game.

How do we profit from the 2up offer in matched betting?

There are two main strategies that we can use in matched betting to profit from the 2up offers at Bet365 and Paddy Power.

The first strategy is often referred to as the ‘Let it Ride’ (or ‘Wait & Hope’) strategy, the second is the ‘Lock-in Profit’ strategy.

Both strategies start with finding suitable qualifying bets to do. So let’s look at that first, using some examples from the German Bundesliga (May 2020).

Finding and Placing the Best Qualifying Matched Bet(s) for the 2up Offer

Before starting any reload offer such as this we always recommend to double check the offer terms and conditions at the relevant bookmaker and/or in our reload offer guides.

Step 1: For an eligible bet find as close a match as possible between the bookmaker and exchange odds. We recommend when you're starting 2ups for the first time that the match should be a 98% match or higher. Sometimes people do choose to settle for a little less than the ideal match (e.g. 96% or higher). If they do this they tend to lower their stake amount in order to reduce their qualifying loss. For the qualifying bet we’d recommend the bookmaker odds be 1.70 or greater. Analysis suggests the ideal odds tend to be between 2.0 and 5.0 though. If the odds you choose are less than 1.70 then you are unlikely to make much profit unless you’re using huge stakes (£100 and more). If the odds are above 5.0 the chance that the team will go 2 goals up over the other team becomes more and more unlikely. In football of course anything is possible – but it’s always better to go for options that have the best probability of coming in for you. The best place to find these close matches is using our oddsmatcher and the relevant thread on our forum.

Step 2: Once you’ve found a suitable odds match, place your back bet at the bookmaker first, and then lay it off at the betting exchange using our matched betting calculator in normal mode - just as you would for any normal qualifying bet. It’s worth remembering if you are doing the 2up offer on Paddy Power that it’s advisable to lay your bets off at Smarkets rather than at Betfair. The back stake amount you use is up to you – there is no maximum limit (at the time of writing). If you are a beginner to matched betting, have never done 2up offers before and have a relatively small bankroll – start very small with £10 to £20 bets. Over-time you can build up to doing bets of £100, £200 or more.

If you upgrade to our Platinum Membership you can find the best bets to do in seconds with our Oddsmatching Tool. Once on the Oddsmatching Tool just use the preset filter on the left-hand side, scroll down to the bottom and select Bet365 Football 2UP or Paddy Power Football 2UP as you need. You can also set up your own 2up filter on the Oddsmatcher if preferred.

Here’s an example of an upcoming qualifying bet on the German Bundesliga (30th May 2020) that the Oddsmatcher just found within a few seconds.

At 96% it’s not the best odds match possible so we’re going to use a lower stake for this example (£20) than what we would do if we’d found a 98%+ match (£100+).

For a £20 back stake on Werder Bremen at Bet365 the calculator tells us we would need to lay £19.18 at Smarkets. This would incur a small qualifying loss of just -83p (with our Platinum Member 0% commission at Smarkets).

With 2up the more games you can bet on the better – as then your chances of hitting a 2up, or even several 2ups is much better. This can use up a lot of bankroll though – especially if you start using large stakes of £50 to £100 or more. This is one reason why we tend to recommend only starting 2up early payout offers once you’ve built up a decent matched betting bankroll of at least several hundred pounds. We’d also recommend only doing the 2up offers after you’ve completed all available welcome offers and any guaranteed profit reload offers available on the day.

The benefit of both Bet365 and Paddy Power providing this reload offer is that if the odds are suitable you can try betting on one team at Bet365 and the other team at Paddy Power. Thanks to shared liability you can do this even if you don’t have a huge matched betting bankroll as well. Alternatively, you could also double down on one team if you find +98% odds matches that give you a really small qualifying loss.

Once you’ve completed your qualifying bet (or bets) all you have to do then is wait for your team to go 2 goals ahead then choose your profit strategy below.

The ‘Let it Ride’, Or Full Turnaround (FTA), 2up Strategy

This strategy is super easy. You basically do nothing and hope that after the team you bet on go 2 goals up that they then proceed to draw or lose the game! This strategy is perhaps best to do on days when you might not have the time spare to check the games in-play and use the Lock-in Profit strategy.

Using our example from above – if Werder Bremen go two goals up in the first half, then don’t win the game, with it ending 2-2, or 2-3 or similar, we will make £55.18 in profit.

Bet365 will pay us out as a winner for Werder Bremen going 2up – so we get £36 in winnings there.

Smarkets will also pay us out as a winner as our lay bet against Werder Bremen will also win at full-time because they didn’t win the game. We get £19.18 in winnings there.

£36+£19.18 is £55.18.

If Werder Bremen don’t go 2up then we are just down by our small qualifying loss of 83p after the game.

Some recent examples from the German Bundesliga...

The first game was F.C. Koln vs Mainz on the 17th May 2020. Koln went 2 goals up and then the game ended 2-2! If we’d done a £100 qualifying bet on F.C. Koln at odds of 1.86, laying them off at 1.90 for a qualifying loss of £2.10 we would have come away with £183.89 in profit (£86 at the bookmaker, £97.89 at the exchange).

The second game was F.C. Koln vs Fortuna Dussledorf on 24th May 2020. Dussledorf went 2 goals up then the game ended 2-2! If we’d done a £100 qualifying bet on Dussledorf at odds of 4.36, laying them off at 4.50 for a qualifying loss of £3.11 we would have come away with £432.89 in profit (£336 at the bookmaker, £96.89 at the exchange).

The third game was Frankfurt vs Freiburg on 26th May 2020. Freiburg went 2 goals ahead during the game (1-3), and then Frankfurt came back and the game ended 3-3! If we’d done a £100 qualifying bet on Freiburg at odds of 3.60, laying them off at 3.75 for a qualifying loss of £4.00 we would have come away with £356 in profit (£260 at the bookmaker, £96 at the exchange).

Even accounting for qualifying losses from 2up bets we did that didn’t come in on those days, making over £900 profits for placing just 3 sets of matched bets is a pretty awesome turn around and shows off just how much value can be had from doing these early payout offers.

The ‘Lock-In Profit’ 2up Strategy

This strategy is a little bit more complicated – but once you get the hang of it by following our full guides, it can be very profitable.

If you want to use this strategy our Early Pay Out Matched Betting Calculator is an essential tool.

If we use our Werder Bremen example from above, as soon as they go 2 goals ahead in the game, we would need to cash-out (or trade-out) at the exchange (Smarkets in this case) by placing a new back bet there on Werder Bremen to win.

The back stake we would need to use is worked out for us from the back odds on Werder Bremen at the exchange and by our Early Pay Out Calculator. The back odds on Werder Bremen at this point will be very low as being 2 goals up they are now expected to win the game. We’ve used back odds of 1.20 for them here as an example.

The Early Pay Out Calculator then tells us to do the following if we want to ensure to make a guaranteed profit of £8.50 no matter what happens in the game now.

Basically – as soon as Werder Bremen went 2 goals ahead we know Bet365 are going to pay us £36 in winnings. By cashing-out, or trading-out, our lay bet at the exchange once this happens we can ensure we will now make a profit whether Werder Bremen go on to win the game or not.

Doing a cash-out (or trade-out) like this using the full £20 that we original staked is referred to as a 100% cash-out. This tends to be a good option to use when your team goes 2up in the 2nd half of a game because there is limited time left for the other team to come back. It’s better to lock-in as much profit as you can at this point and as quickly as you can after your team go 2up.

What could you look at doing if your team went 2 goals up quite early in the game though?

The ‘Lock-In Profit’ 2up Strategy with Partial Cash-outs

Instead of doing a full 100% cash-out you could instead do a 25% or 50% cash-out so that you either at least cover your qualifying loss or guarantee yourself a bit of profit no matter what then goes on to happen in the game.

How would this work exactly? Well, let’s pretend Werder Bremen went 2 goals ahead just 25 minutes into the game and we want to cash-out just 25% of our lay bet to cover our original qualifying loss, and leave the remaining 75% to see if Schalke can come back.

In the Early Pay Out Calculator we need to switch it to Advanced Mode, input everything as before and then make the 'Early Pay Out Lock-in' section to 25% (which is equivalent to a £5 stake if using the calculator in the standard mode).

Following the results of the calculator we then do a back bet of £11.66 on Werder Bremen to win at the exchange, which will cash out 25% of our lay bet and give us a definite profit of £1.50 if Werder Bremen go on to win the game. If Werder Bremem go on to lose the game we will be up £43.51.

By doing this 25% cash-out we’ve covered our 83p qualifying loss already and put ourselves in profit by a minimum of £1.50.

Alternatively if Schalke get 1 more goal back just before half-time, we could then cash-out more of our lay bet and lock-in more guaranteed profit. Let’s cash out another 50% using the Advanced Calculator mode (which would be £10 of our original £20 stake in the standard calculator). Note the Werder Bremen’s back odds at the exchange would have now risen to 1.40 or thereabouts due to Schalke getting one goal back on them.

Following the results of the calculator we now do another back bet of £20.00 on Werder Bremen to win at the exchange, which will cash out another 50% of our lay bet and give us another £7.17 in profit.

By doing this we’re now definitely a minimum of £1.50 plus £7.17 up – so £8.67 if Werder Bremen win the game. Plus we still have 25% (or £5’s worth) of our lay bet left to cash-out if we want to during the second half of the game.

If Schalke get a 2nd goal during the second-half, we have a decision to make – do we cash-out the rest of our lay bet or leave it and hope the game will end 2-2 rather than 3-2 or similar to Werder Bremen. The choice of what to do is yours! From a matched betting stand-point though we’d recommend to cash-out the remainder of your lay bet as we always prefer guaranteed profit over potential profit when we can have it.

So let’s do this now. The game is 2-2 at 64 minutes and Werder Bremen’s back odds at the exchange have risen to 2.10 now. We use the remaining 25% cash-out we have left...

Following the results of the calculator we now do another back bet of £6.67 on Werder Bremen to win at the exchange, which will cash out our final 25% of our lay bet and give us another £6.51 in profit no matter what happens in the game from this point on.

By doing this we’re now £1.50 plus £7.17 plus £6.51 up – so £15.18 overall guaranteed.

As we've now fully traded out (25% + 50% + 25% = 100%) this is now our overall profit no matter if the game ends 2-2 or not.

With this partial cash-out strategy to lock-in profit there are no hard and fast rules that we can tell you to follow. For example, you might adjust your strategy depending on what’s happening in the game, what the original odds of the team were that you backed, and on how much time you have to follow the game and to keep cashing-out. You will develop your own approaches the more experience you get doing 2up offers.

As an example here’s what one of our staff member’s preferred strategy on 2up i

Both our community forum and Facebook Group are fantastic resources for asking our more experienced members about their personal strategies on 2up as well.

You will see that some members resolutely stick to 98% odds matches for example, others don’t. When teams go 2up some might do a 25% cash-out then always switch to the Let it Ride strategy. Others might always immediately do a full 100% cash out at 2up.

The important thing to know is when you really get the hang of doing 2up offers they can make you a lot of money. There will be losses on the way – and if you’re quite new to matched betting with a small bankroll this is important to bear in mind before tackling 2up offers. Start with just doing 1 or 2 teams with small £20 bets and work your way up to doing lots of teams with £50 to £100 stakes. You will see in the forum some of our really experienced members use very large stakes, even up to a couple of thousand! They are confident in using such stakes because 2ups have been so profitable for them!

Need a helping hand with Matched Betting the 2UP Offer?

JOIN OUR MATCHED BETTING FACEBOOK COMMUNITY

Our Facebook Group, which has over 50,000 members, is a great place to ask for help and ask questions, especially if you are new to Matched Betting.

Alternatively you can also contact us directly for support too.