How I make €50 per hour as a student

Hello Steemit,

In this post I want to introduce you to the concept of matched betting. If you’re reside in the US I’m sorry to say that this article won’t give you any helpful information. This works best for European countries, especially UK and Scandinavia.

The headline says €50 per hour, which of course can fluctuate and be either more or less than this. But personally, this is a rough estimate of what I’m making atm. But before you think I’m making thousands of euros every month on this, I have to disclose that I’m only working around 10 hours a month on this because this method has a bottleneck and the best people in this field maybe make around €1500 at most. So truth be told, this is not a way to get rich. However it gives you some extra financial freedom and ability to repay your student loans faster.

Before we start, check out the FAQs:

Who is this for?
US residents will, to my knowledge, not be able to take advantage of this form of betting due to lack of bookmaker presence (probably regulatory problem).
This method will work great from residents of EU/EEA countries, and especially the UK and Scandinavia as there are a lot of bookmaker offers available here.
You’ll need to be 18+ to be able to open accounts.
And finally, if you’re addicted to gambling or prone to become addicted, this is not for you.

What do I need to get started
You’ll need some cash to get started, the more the better. If you’re paranoid like me, you could start with around €200, but this will take longer time to build up and take advantage of the best offers. You’ll need a account at a betting exchange. You need a credit card to make deposits. You should have a Skrill/Neteller account for easy transfers between bookmakers. You should also have access to a document that proofs your identity (e.g. passport, drivers license) and address (e.g. utility bill, any bill issued to your address). This is something both bookmakers and betting exchanges often require you to send as part of a standard procedure.

If you meet the requirements above, consider yourself lucky. Through this short article I’ll give you a introduction to matched betting.

Bookmakers and bonuses

If you’ve been watching TV commercials lately you have probably noticed that there’s a huge amount of advertising for online betting and casino websites. The reason for that is because they make a shitload amount of money. Getting people addicted to spinning the wheels and betting on bullshit is a truly lucrative business. To get new customers these websites offers people a hefty deposit bonus once they sign up. To be able to withdraw this you’ll need to play through what they call wagering requirements. This is where we have to use betting exchanges to play the system. And when you’re finished with this offer you’ll also get a lot of other offers, like free bets and risk free bets.

Deposit bonuses
The deposit bonus is my favorite kind of bonus because it can be very big. And here I’m talking about deposit bonus for sports betting, never opt-in for a casino bonus (unless you really know what you’re doing).

These kind of bonuses typically range from around €75-€200. Betsafe even offers a deposit bonus over €1000 for Norwegian customers. (yes, these offers vary based on your residence). The way it works is that you deposit an amount, let’s say €100. Then the bookmaker matches that amount in bonus funds. Obviously, you can’t withdraw the bonus funds at once, you’ll need to meet the wagering requirement. This is something you should always check before signing up for a bonus. Typically it’s in the range of 6-8 times the bonus amount at an odds of more than 1.8 (decimal odds). So if the requirements of this website was 6 times the bonus amount at 1.8 odds, you would have to wager a total of €600 to be able to withdraw the money. Enter betting exchanges

Betting exchanges
Betting exchanges is a form of decentralized betting platform where you’re able to bet against other people rather than bookmakers. They offer you a possibility to offer a lay bet, which basically means a bet against something to happen. On the other side you have the back bet, which is the bet you typically place with the bookmaker betting for something to happen. The way these betting exchanges make money is through commission, which is usually around 2-5 %. Personally I use Smarkets because they have a low commission and offer me to have an account in my local currency (Norwegian kroner).

Wagering
So let’s say we’ve deposited €100 to a website and gotten €100 in bonus funds with a wagering requirement of 6x the bonus amount at a minimum of 1.80 in odds per bet. Now the way we want to play through this requirement without the risk of losing we want to place both a back bet and a lay bet. For example a back bet of €200 that Liverpool will win against Man United and a lay bet that Liverpool will not win against Man United (it can be both a draw and a loss). This way we have placed bet for all possible outcomes. Do this three times (unless you empty you’re account on the first bet already), and you’ve completed the wagering requirement.

When wagering you will most often take some very small loses (1-5 % of the bet) because the bookmakers/betting website usually offers worse odds than the betting exchanges. Typically you will lose around 5 % of the total wagering amount, in our example €30 (€600 * 5%). In our example we would then have a profit of €70 (the bonus amount – wagering loss).

Calculating the lay bet
Calculating the lay bet is fairly easy, but to make it simpler you should use a matched betting calculator. You can find this on google or on my website betcheats.com. In this calculator you can also log your bets and track your profits.

Hopefully this article has given you an insight on how to take advantage of this oppurtunity. This was just a brief explaination on how it works. There's still more to learn about other bet types and things you should be aware of. If you want to learn more there's a lot of information online, not only on my website. Also feel free to ask questions here.

And I'm curious, are there any fellow matched bettors on here? If so, where are you from and how much have you made?

RESOURCES:
My own website, not finished
Great matched betting website, posts lot of offers to UK residents
Oddsmonkey.com - Paid matched betting service
No affiliate links. I'm not making any money from this article other than on Steemit, so be sure to give an upvote if you found this useful