How to take advantage of Offers and their Expected Value
Now that you have the foundational knowledge that is necessary to start matched betting, lets discuss how one actually takes advantage of these offers and profits of them in a no risk fashion.
Before I continue in this section I HIGHLY recommend signing up for the website darkhorseodds. In order to be a profitable matched bettor you will need a computer software that shows the optimal games to bet on. Darkhorse has the best software on the market, and the screenshots you will see below are all from their website. They have a 1 week free trial, and $9 first month option. They are a necessity to this method and it would not be possible to efficiently do it with out them.
Their software finds optimal lines depending on what type of promotion you have, tells you what to bet, and how much to bet. Again, with out DarkHorse Odds I find matched betting to be near impossible.
Converting Free Bets
Turning your free bets into actual cash is very easy using the dark horse website, and requires only two bets!
The first thing you need to do is to go to darkhorses “free bet” section and change the sportsbook to the book that gave you the free bet, and you change the free bet amount to the accurate amount.
After you have done that, you go to the filters section and play around with it to fit the type of parameters your bet needs to meet. Darkhorse has done a phenomal job at allowing you to play with criteria so that their software only produces certain bets that specifically fit your needs.
Free bets are typically converted at any where between 65-70%. This means that if you have a $100 free bet, you can turn that into a net profit of $70 if you hedge correctly.
So, lets say that Draft Kings gives you a $100 free bet that you want to turn into cash using matched betting. You first log into DH, go to the free bet finder, put in $100 for the bet amount, adjust any additional parameters, and then see what games DH provides with you.
Example Using Dark Horse Odds Free Bet Finder:
The screenshot above is from Darhorse Odds fre bet converter. As you can see if you wanted to match bet your $100 free bet for profit you would put your $100 free bet on the Trailblazers at +440, and you would put $370 on the Pelicans.
If the Trailblazers win, you win $440, but you loose your $370 hedge, giving you a net profit of $70.
If the Pelicans win, you win $70, and loose nothing on the opposite side because it was a free bet, giving you a net profit of $70.
Converting Site Credit
Site credit is probably the easiest of the sportsbook promotions to turn into cash, and it has the highest expected value. Just like free bets, site credit only requires two bets, and the DarkHorseOdds Site credit finder is crucial for converting site credit to cash.
To convert site credit to cash you will use the Site Credit finder on Darkhorse odds and put in your specific criteria. Remember to look for things like minimum odds.
Once you find the game you want to bet on, open the apps or websites and bet the corresponding amounts on each app. It does not matter which side of the line wins, once the game settles you are done!
The expected value of site credit is 95%. So this means if I am given $1000 of site credit, I can reasonably turn it into $950 of withdrawable cash.
Example Using DarkHorse Odds Site Credit Finder
The above is a screenshot from Dark Horse Odds Site Credit Finder. This is an example of converting your site credit to cash using their software. You would put your $100 site credit on the Under, and your $100 hedge on the over.
If the Under hits, you are make $200 (remember with site credit you are returned the wager and the winnings), but loose $100 on your hedge, so you net $100.
If the over hits, you make $100, but loose nothing because you bet site credit on the under, so you net $100.
In both scenarios you are able to garuntee your self a profit of $100!
Converting Risk Free Bets
Risk Free Bets are an extremely common offer, and is the major new player promotion for companies such as Fanduel, BetMGM, BetRivers, Barstool and Ceasers.
Risk free bets are converted to cash in one or two steps.
The first step in converting a Risk Free bet to cash is using the DarkHorse Odds “Risk Free Bet” finder and putting in the proper criteria. Rember to put in the correct amount you are betting, what books you want to hedge with, and always play main lines!
Once the Filters are set up correctly you find a game, and be the corresponding amounts on each book.
If the plus money side of the line hits, the bet that was placed under the promotion, then you are done! You have made your profit and there is no need for step two. You always want this to happen because it saves you time and effort, there is no reason to get refunded and you don’t need to place another round of bets.
If the promotional side of the line loses, you have to convert the refunded free bet or site credit to cash to get your profit. In order to convert the refunded amount to cash, go to the corresponding DarkHorse Odds function and put in your amounts.
Risk Free bets can be a bit of a pain because if your first bet under the promotion looses, you won’t be in the money until you convert your refund. They however are extremely common and are necessary to do if you want to max out your promotional profits through matched betting!
The expected value of a risk free bet refunded as a free bet is 45%. This means that if you have a $1000 risk free bet refunded as a free bet, you can expect to net about $450.
The expected value of a risk free bet refunded as site credit is 65%. This means that if your risk free bet refunded as site credit is $1000, you can expect to net about $650.
Expected Values can vary a bit depending on time of year and what sports are in season, but these numbers should not shit more than 5% +/-
Example: This is a screenshot from the DarkHorse Odds Risk Free Bet finder. In this scenario we are given a risk free bet from of a $100.
In order to profit in a non risk way, we put our $100 risk free bet on POR @ +440.
We then put $395 on NO @ -530 as our hedge.
If Portland wins, we are make $440, but loose $395 on the hedge. This gives us a net profit of $45! There is no need to do any other steps, we take our money and run.
If New Orleans wins, we win $75, but loose $100 on the opposite side, putting us in the hole $25.
However, there is no reason to sweat because we are given a $100 free bet from Fanduel for loosing!
Once we are refunded our $100 free bet, we convert that to cash at about 70%, so we net about $70 off of the $100 free bet.
But remember, we lost $25 on our first two bets, so we are actually only profit $45!
So as you can see you either have to make one or two rounds of bets to profit successfully off a risk free bet, but no matter what happens you will still be making a conversion of $45!
Converting Bet and Gets.
As you know bet and gets are when you bet a certain amount, you get that amount given back to you whether you win or loose. This means there are two steps to bet and gets.
The first step is betting the correct amount to make sure you receive your bonus. When making the bet it is important to look for minimum odds, specific markets, etc… Once you have all the terms and conditions looked over you use the site credit finder on Darkhorse in order to make your first bet. The site credit finder looks for games that are as close to 0% hold as possible. Hold or Juice is the percentage amount that a casino takes on both sides of the lines.
You are trying to find something as close to a 100% as possible, the farther it is from 100%, the more money you loose on your initial bet. For example, if the conversion is 95%, you will loose 5% of your original bet to the juice.
Once you make your first bet, you know must convert the free bet or site credit you were given. We have already gone over that, so there is no need to discuss again how you convert those to cash.
It is very common to loose a couple percent on your original wager, but that is no problem because you are making all your money on the given free bet or site credit!
