Through matched betting, beating the bookie has never been easier. It’s a sure-fire way of making money on the side by taking advantage of promotions and freebies.

Every single online bookmaker out there is on a mission to recruit new customers and encourage them to gamble. With so many to choose from it’s a highly competitive market and there’s an army of companies vying for your cash.

That’s why there are so many promotions and bonus bets on offer across the market.

Taking Advantage of Free Bet Welcome Offers

These free bets are there to encourage new members to sign up and are known as welcome bets.

For the average punter at the bookies, these are merely an incentive to take out a membership with a certain online bookmaker but for matched betting, they present an excellent opportunity to make some money, totally risk-free.

Welcome offers come in a variety of forms, most often they’re sports bets but can be casino credits or a combination of both.

It’s important to know exactly what you’re entitled to when signing up and how to unlock your bonuses.

The standard procedure for accessing free bets involves a minimum deposit to be placed on a bet. This is known as your qualifying bet and is necessary for accessing your promotional offers.

The minimum deposit amounts are not fixed and change between bookmakers but to qualify, you can expect to invest anything from a fiver to £100.

Increasing Your Profit As You Understand The System…

As I’ve mentioned previously, your margin for profit is going to depend on your bankroll, so the more you put in, the more you’re going to be able to make at the end of the day.

For hobbyists and beginners it’s worth testing the method with a lower stake welcome offer to get your head around things because once you’ve tried, tested, and proved that the system works, you’ll be free to work with larger sums.

Remember, this money isn’t going to be gambled, because your stake is going to get matched on a betting exchange with your lay bet, making it a totally risk-free formula.

For more info on placing lay bets, check out my matched betting guide.

Come Prepared…

As the old saying goes:

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail

And for that reason it’s important you remember the following…

Before signing up to an online bookmaker to get your hands on these free bets, you’ll need to read all of the small print and make sure that you agree with everything there. After all, there’s nothing worse than losing money because of a hidden fee or a hidden catch.

This is a good practice to get used to with matched betting – taking your time and fully examining all aspects of the matched betting method is imperative to eliminating losses through human error.

One way of doing this without sifting through all the TOC’s and everything in between is to use a service like Profit Accumulator or OddsMonkey. 

they’ve done all the hard work for you – all you gotta do is follow the step-by-step instructions already laid out for you within the software. 

Using one of these services not only saves you a HUGE (and I mean HUGE, so much so it would actually be stupid NOT to use them) amount of time but they can also reduce the risk of human error down to almost nothing. 

So, where are these welcome bets? You’ll find them at almost every licensed online bookmaker and they’re ready to be taken advantage of right now. Let’s take a look at the best offers out there to get you started with matched betting.

The Best Matched Betting Welcome Offers Available Now

Keep in mind, that the following 3 Welcome offers are only a tiny selection of the Welcome offers available. 

If you’re a beginner I’d recommend choosing OddsMonkey as your matched betting software of choice. 

With over 70+ Welcome offers alone – once get through all of them you’ll be sitting on a handsome profit of around £1000. 

Here are 3 of the best and most popular Welcome offers…

  • Coral – get £20 in free bets when you bet £5

With this promotion, you’ll be eligible to get £20 worth of free sports bets across the board. This credit comes in the form of four individual £5 bets on any sport with minimum odds of ½ or greater. This is a great opportunity for beginners to matched betting because it provides you with four bets to get your head around matched betting.

  • Grosvenor Sport – £20 in free bets

This offer is exclusively for football markets and requires a £10 bet to qualify. New customers will then be rewarded with two free £10 bets to place on football matches. This one requires a higher stake than other online bookies (the minimum is usually £5), but as I’ve mentioned before, a larger stake means larger profits, so you can expect to make a little bit more from this promotion.

  • William Hill – Bet £10 & get £30 in free bets

William Hill have a great promotion for new customers which offers two £15 free bets for a minimum stake of £10. To qualify for this offer, you’ll need to enter a code when joining the website – the code is P30, so be sure to remember to put it in otherwise you’ll be left empty-handed.

This is offer is also subject to your chosen payment method and some payment methods won’t qualify, so make sure, as always, that you read the terms and conditions before depositing any money.

Don’t forget, these are just a taste of the offers available. If you’re serious about matched betting and want to gain access to more offers, it’s always going to be worth your while to sign up for a matched betting software. If you’re unsure about which matched betting software is the best for you, check out my reviews of OddsMonkey and Profit Accumulator.