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Welcome to the second installment of matched betting, how to use multi offers to earn some money. These offers are a great way to boost your income from matched betting; however you need to be aware of the volatility and variability. The expected value of these bets is huge but there may be some periods of low returns offset by periods of high returns. Just be aware that sometimes it can take a while for the expected value to some through.
What is a multi?
Firstly, a multi is a bet on multiple events (multis refer to them as legs) all occurring together. A common case being betting on multiple teams to win in a round. Placing a multi bet will give much higher odds (and therefore return) than placing the bets separately. However there is also a greater risk of no payout, as even if one leg fails you get no return. Multis are very profitable for bookies and they know it. But there is a way to take advantage of them.
What is a multi offer?
Enter the multi offer. These are offered by a few bookies, and generally give you your stake back as a bonus bet if one leg fails on your multi. This removes a lot of risk from placing these multi bets as you should be able to get at least 70% conversion of bonus bets using the back/lay method. There is still a chance to lose the multi if more the one fail, however if you are selective with your legs you can greatly reduce this chance. The offers generally come in the form of 4+ leg multi for head to head bets of a sport or a 3+ leg same game multi (SGM) for events in the same game with a max stake of $50. Also the offers generally have minimum multi odds of 2. I have found the 3+ leg SGM offers to be extremely profitable over time.
Three ways to take advantage of multi offers
There are three ways to take advantage of these offers ranging in profitability, ease and variability. They are:
- no lay multi bets,
- lay at the start multi bets, and
- sequential lay multi bets.
No lay betting
No lay multi betting is the quickest, easiest and most profitable method of the three. It just involves making positive expected value (+EV) multi bets and not laying any of the events. No lay betting is the easiest and quickest because you don’t need to spend time laying the bets at Betfair. It is also the most profitable as there is no commission loss for placing bets at Betfair. However this leads to huge volatility and variability in your profits as you can win all your bets one day and lose them all the next. But if you continue making +EV bets eventually the profit will return.
I have only done no lay betting due to the higher returns and also not wanting to spend hours placing bets. I am also comfortable with the risk as am not 100% relying on this income. You need to decide what your risk tolerance is as it is not worth the extra 5-10% profit if you can’t sleep over this type of matched betting.
Lay at the start betting
As the name suggests this method involves laying all legs of the multi at the start. It is the least profitable method, however it requires less time than sequential laying and still offers reduced profit volatility. When putting together your multi you need to spend time to pick legs that have good matches on Betfair. This can take some time, so I would suggest if you want to lay multi bets, sign up to BonusBank as they have a great calculator to find the best legs for each multi.
Sequential lay betting
Sequential lay betting is the most time consuming method, but gives decent profit and reduced profit volatility in return. Basically you lay each leg as it happens in your multi. It allows you to adapt throughout the multi to ensure you are profitable each time. As stated the only concern is you need to be there to make the bets each time. If you are interested in this method, again I would recommend BonusBank as they have a calculator for this method as well. Well worth it to reduce the amount of hours you are putting in to earn this money.
My multi matched betting journey
As mentioned previously I have only done no lay multi betting and have experienced some high volatility especially when I first started. As you can see in the graph below my first 60 days wasn’t anything special but after that my profit has been quite consistent. I mainly attribute this to finding a good set of guidelines for using the SGM bets. Having a minimum of 3 legs rather than 4 makes it easier for them to hit or only lose one leg. Also I found good combinations of events to make it less likely to lose the multi bet.
Examples and recommendations
As mentioned above I would highly recommend SGM offers. They are relatively low risk and provide consistent profit especially due to the amount of games you can place bets on. Both Sportsbet and Beteasy have consistent multi offers, generally on NRL, AFL and NBA. My guidelines for a good SGM bet vary by sport and bookie due to the markets being different. Here are my general guidelines for Sportsbet SGMs:
| Sport\Leg | 1st leg | 2nd leg | 3rd leg |
| NRL/NBA | Handicap bet on favourite team – ~1.90 odds. I might switch this to the underdog is the handicap is extremely large. | Pick your own line on the opposing team – ~1.10. | Total alternative points – usually pick the lowest odds which is 1.005. Sometimes I will up this to the 1.01 or higher for a little boost in profit. |
| AFL | Same as above. | Anytime goal scorer – aim for under 1.05. A benefit if you can find a player from the opposing team of the 1st leg as it will greatly boost the odds. . | 20 or more disposals – aim for under 1.05. Again also a benefit if the player from the opposing team of the 1st leg. |
Using these guidelines should give a multi bet above 2 (minimum odds for the offer) up to around 2.7 in most cases. In general I have found these selections to pay out 40% of the time, pay a bonus bet 40% and fail 20% of the time. All this has added up to a profit of ~$1,250 so far and I’m not stopping yet. To check my final profits from multi promotions, check out my final matched betting experience post.
Hopefully this rundown has been informative and useful. Please look into it and evaluate if the risk is worth it for you. I have definitely found multi matched betting to be worth it. Pleas also check out some of the other methods to earn money from matched betting like sign up offers, racing offers and dutching. Let me know if you have any questions or any experience with this method. I would love to hear it!