If you’re after a fun way to practice match betting with low risk (and admittedly low returns) then try out this match betting tactic using Sportschamp and laying off with Betfair Exchange for a guaranteed profit.

Advantages:

• Easy profit
• Low risk
• Good for practicing backing and laying on races
• Great for beginners with low bank rolls (you’ll only need about $100-$150)

Disadvantages:

• Not much money in it
• Limit of one win per week (for prize pools less than $500)

Discovering Sportschamp?

Sportschamp is a tournament betting site. It’s not a bookmaker. Instead, punters enter a competition, paying $2 through to $100, are granted 10,000 “Champ Cash” (CC) and given a certain amount of time/races/sports to gamble and try to increase their CC.

The top earners at the end of each tournament receive prize money based on their finishing position.

There are a number of different types of tournaments that Sportschamp run, from season long competitions (eg AFL season) to “quickies” (30 minute tournaments) to “Double Ups” (where the top 45% of contestants double their money).  Entry fees range from $2 to $100 with some prize pools in the thousands of dollars.

For a punter, it can be lots of fun and incredibly addictive.

If you’re unfamiliar with Sportschamp I recommend having a bit of a play on the app first to familiarize yourself with how it works. There are free tournaments where you can practice.

You can sign up here: SPORTSCHAMPS

You will also need an account with Betfair Exchange, but you can match bet this with an account balance as low as $50.

So how is there a match betting opportunity?

Sportschamp also run what they call “target” competitions.

These are structured differently to their other tournaments because they’re not player vs player, but player vs Sportschamp. Typically, Sportschamp will offer a prize of just over 5 times the entry fee if you can make 5 times your CC.

For example, you might enter a target tournament that costs $50 enter, and if you can turn your 10,000CC into 50000CC, you’ll win $275.

For the most part, target tournaments are really bad value and should be avoided. You may as well just punt with a bookie – without having a time limit, a requirement to reach 5x your starting cash and getting no reward for winning any more than the target.

However, on occasion, and on every Thursday of late, Sportschamp run “Double Earnings” target tournaments.

These offer great value.

Essentially, Sportschamp will pay 10x your entry fee as prize money if you reach 50,000CC (ie 5x your initial 10,000CC).

When double earnings target competitions are held, the odds are in your favour.

How does it work?

For the last 3 or so Thursdays, Sportschamp have run a $5 tournament to win $50 if you make 50,000CC.  I’ve played a few $10 tournaments too but haven’t seen them for awhile.

We’ll use the $5 game as the example.

After entering the competition, go straight to the markets tab and look for the next to go. Have your Betfair account open in another tab.

In an ideal scenario, there’s a horse (or dog) paying exactly $5 to win (or place).

Check the lay odds on Betfair (note that not all races are on Betfair, so be careful here).

Anything under $9.50 will guarantee a profit but you should be able to find the lay at about $5.50 if you’re within a few minutes of jump. Obviously the closer the match the better the result will be for you. I’d personally never take anything under $7.50.

If an acceptable lay is available, place all your 10,000SCC on that horse.

Assuming you find a lay price of $5.50, lay $7 on the horse for a liability of $31.50 on Betfair.

If the horse wins, you’re going to pocket $50 (less $5 entry) for a $45 profit, less the lay ($31.50), for a net profit of $13.50. If the horse wins, the tournaments over and you can pack up and go home, have dinner, watch TV or whatever.

If the horse loses, you’ll make a net $2 profit ($1.90 after commission) on Betfair but your CC will be at 0.

Then all you do is simply re-buy and go again.

As you progress, up the lay amount bet so that you make $4-5 per race, but only win, say $5 when you finally pick a winner.

Remember, once you’ve turned your 10,000CC into 50,000CC you can’t bet any more. If luck runs well, you’ll ‘lose’ lots and lots of times, generating $2-5 each race.

I average about $30 total winnings per tournament.

But what if there isn’t a horse paying $5?

Most of the time there won’t be a horse paying exactly $5. This is where it gets a little bit trickier and why I think this exercise is great practice for serious match betting.

Look for a horse that pays between $5 and $6 and adjust your bet to hit 50,000 exactly. There are no prizes for getting more than 50,000SCC so don’t waste a single CC (see below for an exception to this).

If the horse pays $6, you would back it with 8334 SCC and try lay it for $7 or less.

If it loses, you’ve made a net $2 AND you’re left with 1666 SCC. Place a mug bet for 251CC less than what you have left – in this case 1415CC.  Pick a horse that will bring your total CC to between 10,000 and 11,000CC if it wins (paying about $7).

Do not lay this bet.

If the mug bet wins you’ll have a total of 10,000CC+ and can now start betting again as if you’d rebought, only this time you’ve already covered your $5 entry.  If your horse loses you’ll win $7-$12 on the lay.

In the more likely scenario that your mug bet loses, you’ll be left with 249CC. Why do we aim for 249? Because you must have a balance of less than 250CC in order to rebuy – and when you do, you’ll have a balance of 10,249CC rather than 10,000CC. This will mean that now you’ll only need to find a horse paying $4.88 to be able to reach 50,000CC.

But what if there are no Horses paying between $5 and $6?

This is much trickier. Generally, you should just look for another race, but there are some other riskier things you can do.

I will often take a bet between $4.60 and $4.90 which, if the horse wins, would leave me 1000CC to 4000CC short of the target.

In this case, you’ll have to mug bet your way to 50,000CC without any laying. Because your horse won, you’ll be down $25-$35 on Betfair without any more room for laying. You’ll need to hit 50,000K to collect the $45 profit.

However, I like the odds of being successful in this scenario. If you’re stuck on 49,000CC, then you’ll have about 5-6 chances to pick a horse paying $2 to get to the target.  Eg your first bet is for 1,000CC at $2. If it loses, then your account will be 48,000CC, so you’ll need to bet 2,000CC at $2 to reach 50k. If that loses, you’ll need to bet 4,000CC and so on. If you’re really unlucky, then you could end up losing $25-$35 but you would have to be really unlucky. If that’s not for you, then just skip the race and find another with a horse above $5.

Good luck!

Any questions, drop a message in the Matched Betting Australia Facebook Group

Victor Alea