Unless you’re a maths genius then you’re going to need a matched betting calculator whether you are a novice or a pro, to help you figure out your lay stakes, profits and potential under or overlays.

There are a variety of calculators out there ranging from the basic calculators to help you calculate your standard qualifying bets and free bet lays, up until the more advanced matched betting calculators, which cover more advanced techniques like underlaying and ditching.

I’ve picked the best calculator to use for each of the different stages in your matched betting career:

Well, it sounds like hard news for you, but if you’re just starting out I would completely recommend that you make your own calculator! This isn’t Blue Peter, but if you’re getting into matched betting then understanding how to make a spreadsheet and understanding the underlying mathematics involved in matched betting is essential.

Creation your own matched betting calculator will really help you in the long run. It might hurt your head a little bit to start with, but trust me, once you’ve run through the steps and figured out the maths behind this,it will really pay dividends.

And as if by magic, here’s one I prepared earlier to show you the kind of thing I’m talking about: Sample Matched Betting Calculations

You’ll find that pretty much every matched betting service offers a basic free calculator of some sort, and they’re all based on the same underlying calculations, so a lot of this is really finding the calculator that is right for you.

After all you’re going to be using this calculator time after time, so you want to find something that is easy to use.

Save the Student

http://www.savethestudent.org/matched-betting-calculator

I personally started off by using the calculator at Save the Student, as this is really easy to understand what’s happening: Initially if you choose the easy sign up offers it will pull through the different matches available without you needing to go to any odds matching software and this then gives you step by step instructions of where to go and what bets to place:

Once you’ve done the basic offers you’ll need to migrate to finding these matches yourself, but they also have a pretty decent basic matched betting calculator that you can use for qualifying bets and free bets:

Matched Betting Blog

http://matchedbettingblog.com/matched-betting-calculator/

A tiny bit more complex to use but one of my personal favourites due to its simplicity and the fact that it updates without having to click calculate is found on the Matched Betting Blog.

As you can see in the screenshot below, this has 3 modes:

• Qualifying Bet
• Free Bet – Either Stake returned or Stake not returned
• Risk Free Bet – Which comes in useful for some offers like Bet365’s 4/1 horse racing offer, where you get a risk free bet on the next race if your horse wins the race

ODDSMONKEY CALCULATOR

http://www.oddsmonkey.com/oddssearch.aspx

You’ll see this calculator in a lot of places as it’s built by Oddsmonkey, who you now need to create an account with to use.
At the time of writing you can still access the free version on Mbassist site: http://mbassist.co.uk/calculator.aspx

This calculator has 2 modes:

Simple Mode

You can add your normal, free bet (stake returned) and free bet (stake not returned):

Advanced

As you can see from the screenshot we now have a few more options to this calculator:

• Underlay – This is where you don’t put the full value of the lay into the exchange

• Overlay – This is where you put more than the full value of the lay into the exchange

• Custom slider – This helps you adjust your lay stake to a custom value

As you can see from the screenshot, adjusting these values dramatically changes the potential wins at the bookies or exchanges and is a common tactic used by more advanced matched betors to help with things like reducing qualifying losses.

Trickybet

http://www.trickybet.net/lay-calculator

Moving up another notch in complexity is the Trickybet Matched betting calculator, which has a handy odds converter, a standard basic calculator and both a Dutch 2 way and Dutch 3 way option.

I also really like the advanced Lay calculator and the extra options that it provides:

You have the under / overlay options but on top of this if you have a bet that has only been partially matched, and are having a mental meltdown about what to do next, you can use the ‘Part lays already in place’ fields to determine what your lay bet should be.

This can be priceless if an event is starting shortly and you haven’t managed to get a full match.

​SUMMARY

Let us know which is your favourite calculator to use and if there is any calculator we've missed!​