Guide: How to Benefit the Most From Enhanced Odds in Matched Betting
To help you understand the use of enhanced odds in matched betting it is best to look at an example.
Example:
Betfair posted an incredible ad around early March of 2016 that looked too good to be true, and it was, to a certain extent.
It was an enhanced odds promotion of 5 to 1 for Manchester United to defeat West Bromwich Albion F.C., if you checked other bookies you would find that the odds for Manchester United to win were at most 1/1 aka evens.
But there was a catch (actually there were several):
- The enhanced odds were only available to new customers.
- You cannot bet with more than £10, or an equivalent amount in other currencies.
- If you are fortunate enough to get winnings, you receive them as free bets.
- But even with the catch, the benefits of such enhanced odds were extraordinary:
- The enhanced odds are more than 5 times the ordinary odds.
- If you lose your bet, you will get your money back in free bets
- The free bets you get from the win or even the loss, are not liable for expiration, the way free bets are.
So you get huge wins or no loss, depending on the outcome of the game.
Although almost all players who practice matched betting, own a Betfair account, the minority of newcomers were extremely fortunate, I personally think it is illogical to ignore such an offer.
How would the matched betting work in such a scenario:
The backing odds where 5/1, and laying odds were 51/50, almost 1/1, so if you would have bet for Man Utd. to win, placing the maximum wager of £10 then placed a lay bet (bet against Man Utd. winning) with a wager of £30, then if:
Man Utd. wins you get £10 x 5/1 = £50 add your original wager
and if they lose or draw you receive £25, plus your original wager makes it also £50, plus your £10 that are returned to you like free bets if your back bet loses that makes it a £60, so you receive £60, whatever the outcomes are.
That’s £60-£35 = £25 of guaranteed profits.
Enhanced Odds – Why do Betting Sites do This?
It looks like Enhanced odds are a promotion that provides a great advantage to bettors only, and the sports bookies are becoming generous (or mad) paying crazy money for punters, but this is a marketing strategy followed by many businesses, for instance, supermarkets, may sell some items in loss hoping, the great offer would attract customers to other items from them, for example by offering frying oil for a greatly reduced price may tempt to buy the rest of your weekly groceries from them. So if you benefit from enhanced odds, you are tempted to place bets in this site later.
There are a certain number of common Enhanced odds terms that are found amongst many, if not most online sports bookies, such terms are common marketing strategies followed by the bookies, to encourage you to sign up, while reducing their losses.
Moderately Enhanced Bets
Moderately Enhanced bets are frequent and useful, they come with the fewest restrictions, and usually, there are almost no constraints to moderately enhanced betting. These bets may not help you make much greater profits, but in the long run, you would notice a difference.
The most noticeable advantage is that moderately enhanced bets are available to all users of the bookie providing those odds.
Higher Enhanced Odds (Given in the Form of Cash)
This is the form of Enhanced bets, that you will need to hunt for when you are looking for a new bookie to sign up to. Unlike moderately Enhanced Odds it is common that these odds can reach up to double or triple the actual odds. This usually means that you may not be able to benefit from these enhanced odds unless you are a newcomer to the site. That being said, there are some sites who will occasionally provide them for existing customers. Other sites may give you a token of Higher Enhanced Odds for their loyal customers if they collect a certain number of points, but this is very rare.
For instance on 3rd of July 2019 there was Copa America 2019 football game between Brazil and Argentina so the odds were 17/20 if you bet on Brazil to win (place a £20 wager and you receive £17 winnings if Brazil wins, so you receive a total of £37 per £20 wager), and the odds for Argentina to win were 7/2 but the odds were enhanced significantly by 888sport, for 9/1 for Brazil to win and 33/1 for Argentina to win. The catch:
Seeing such odds, you would be tempted to place a high wager on Argentina (although you may be tempted because of Lionel Messi), a 33/1 odds often mean £10 could give you £330 and £100 wager means £3300 profits, but in that particular case, you could only bet £1 to make use of those odds, any higher odds, then the original 7/2 odds apply, another problem is that; for obvious reasons, you cannot bet on both teams (usually you can, and professional bettors can make winnings by placing bets on both teams in a process called arbitrage betting, or arb betting for short).
Higher Enhanced Odds (Given in the form of Free Bet)
These are almost the exact same as the Higher Enhanced Odds given in the form of Cash, the only difference is that the winnings are given in the form of free bets, these Enhanced Odds are the most popular amongst online bookies.