Perhaps one of the best, if not the best reload offers in matched betting today is the 2up offer which is available across a range of sports from both Bet365 and Paddy Power. This post is going to take a look at how to reap healthy profits from this offer, and cover the different approaches you can take.
If you’re new here you may want to have a quick read of my explainer page on Matched Betting so you can get up to speed.
How to set up the 2up offer?
Setting up the 2up offer at either bookmaker is very simple. Taking football as an example (we’ll tackle the other sports later in this article), all you are looking to do is back and lay one team and hope that they go 2 goals up.
When they go 2 goals up you can cash out on the exchange for a small profit, or wait and hope for the other team to either score, draw level or go on and win the game for much larger profits.
Obviously you want to look for the best possible matches and really you should never be taking anything less than a 97% match. If you start taking 96% and below, you will start to rack up some pretty serious qualifying losses, denting your profits when you do get an early payout. Use the Oddsmatcher from Oddsmonkey with the 2up filter on to find the highest-rated matches.
Remember there are a plethora of football matches in which a team never goes 2 goes up. The aim of completing this offer on a regular basis is to minimise qualifying losses and then reap large rewards when the results go your way.
I remember reading a statistic recently which blew my mind in relation to this matched betting offer. I can’t find where it came from so I am paraphrasing here but it went something like as follows: “Since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, teams that have gone 2 goals up have gone on to win the game at a rate of 92%.”
Perhaps that isn’t surprising to you, most teams that go 2 goals up would then be firm favourites to go on to win the game. But considering the aim of this offer is to cash out when the other team either pull a goal back, draw level or even go on to the win the game it just shows where to set your expectations of how often this will happen. 8% is not a large figure by any stretch of the imagination.
Of course most people tend to just wait and hope for a goal to be scored as the small payout for going two goals up is rarely worth it. Although 8% is a low figure for complete comebacks, I’m sure the figure for pulling one goal back is much higher.
What are the Different Approaches to the 2up Offer?
As I’ve eluded to above there are several different strategies when approaching this offer. The first of which is perhaps the most obvious.
Back the Favourite
The obvious choice for many, but I’m my opinion the wrong one. With this approach you simply back the favourite against a side that isn’t likely to stand a chance (think top of the table versus the bottom team).
When they inevitably go 2 goals to the good you can cash out your lay position on the exchange for a small profit and move on. However, let’s say you backed a favourite at 1.7 pre-match. What do you think their odds will be after they go 2 goals up?
Yeah, exactly.
You’d be lucky to cash out at 1.05 for a pitiful £2 or £3.
For this reason, there is no point completing the offer this way, unless you are happy continually racking up the small profits mentioned above.
Back the Underdog
By far the best way to attack this offer is by backing the underdog. I know what you are thinking, surely they won’t go 2 goals up? Well it happens more often than you might think, particularly in leagues that are more open than the Premier League.
However, just this past week Manchester United went 2 goals down to Newcastle and came back to win 3-2. As we know that is rare, but you still would have made a tasty profit if United had only pulled one goal back, or none at all.
This is because Man United were heavy favourites. Newcastle’s odds would probably have only dropped to the 1.5 mark even with a two goal advantage, one goal back for Man United and they would have been pushed to just outside 2.
Bearing this in mind league and/or competition selection can be crucial to your success with this offer.
Which Leagues and Competitions Should I Focus On?
As previously stated perhaps the Premier League shouldn’t be your only focus for this offer. These type of results happen much more frequently across the continent and in the lower leagues of English football.
With Bet365’s version of the offer you have the ability to complete it on the following leagues and competitions:
- English Premier League
- English Championship
- English FA Cup
- English EFL Cup
- Spanish Primera Liga
- Italian Serie A
- German Bundesliga
- Group Stage matches from the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League
Paddy Power’s version only gives you Premier League, La Liga and Champions League, so as you can see your Bet365 account is worth a lot more to you, so do your best to hang onto it for as long as you can!
My top tip is to go for the matches in the Championship where any team can beat any team on a weekly basis, they also play every Tuesday and Saturday (barring international breaks) which gives you plenty of fixtures to get on.
Another good competition is the Champions League and Europa League, where heavy favourites often have difficult away trips to far flung parts of Europe or to difficult away stadiums with intimidating atmospheres.
Often the home team underdog goes two goals up and then (spurred on by their partisan crowds) try and hang on for a famous victory often conceding in the process and sometimes ending the game with a draw or a loss.
How to Cash Out of Your Lay Position?
This is also a very simple process. Pretty much all of the exchanges have a cash out or trade out button on your lay position. Simply click that button and subtract your exchange liability payout from your bookmakers early payout (don’t forget to include your qualifying loss) to figure out your total profit.
If that sounds a bit complicated for you, don’t worry, you can use the Early Payout Calculator from Oddsmonkey. Which will just calculate your required back stake so you can trade out on the exchange manually yourself.
In the example below I have used the Newcastle example they started the game priced at 3.4 and I managed to get a lay in at 3.45.
They’ve now gone two goals up in the game and I fancy them to go on and win so I am trading out at their price of 1.5 before it goes down any further.
As you can see using a £50 stake this trade would see me raking in a very impressive guaranteed £55.93. If I were to complete this particular offer with an initial £100 stake, I would be walking away with an even tastier £111.88!
Now can you see why so many people love this offer?
How to do a Percentage Cash Out?
Oddsmonkey have now added a handy feature to this calculator which helps you leave some skin in the game if you feel the comeback is on but don’t want to risk coming away with nothing.
Let’s just say for argument’s sake that I feel Newcastle, despite going 2 goals up are shaky at the back and I fancy Manchester United to score at least one goal and come back for the draw or win.
By toggling the “Advanced Mode” button to “on” in the bottom right-hand corner of the calculator I can move the percentage slider to whatever I am comfortable with to both guarantee a profit and leave enough in the exchange to increase our profits should be comeback happen.
As you can see I’ve opted to cash out 50% of my position giving me a guaranteed £27.60 profit. But if Manchester United either Draw or Win the game I am up a very handsome £112.61. As we know Manchester United did comeback to win so that would have come off nicely for us!
What About Other Sports?
Whilst these offers are mainly used for football they have a much wider scope. We have this offer available on Rugby (14up), NFL (14up) and Tennis (2up). The NFL 14up offer happens surprisingly often, and there are several teams in the league that are well-renowned slow starters (such as Tom Brady’s New England Patriots).
Going up 14 up in either rugby or American football is nowhere near as big an advantage as going two goals up in football, and these gaps often get closed or overturned completely much more often than in football.
However, you will need to spend considerable time researching the leagues looking for potential matches, and often the odds are further apart and liquidity poor for these games. You also have to contend with the time difference on American sports.
Tennis is a great game for this offer as the favourite will often go down two sets before winning. The only issue is that this offer only tends to appear for the major tournaments which means it’s not one to rely upon.
Whichever sport you choose the tactic is the same, back the outsider and hope they go up by the required amount and then either cash out, cash out a percentage, or ride it out and hope for the comeback.
My advice would be to start with football and branch out later on.
Recap
So just to recap the best strategy for reaping profits from these offers are as follows:
- Back the underdog and find at least a 97%+ match on the exchange.
- Use stakes between £50 and £100 otherwise your qualifying losses will become too large.
- Either cash out your full amount, cash out a percentage, or ride it out and wait for one goal, one try, one touchdown, or one set back before cashing out.
- For maximum profits let it ride completely, however this will happen a lot less frequently.
- Start with football, before getting more comfortable with other sports that require more research.
Conclusion
If you are still reading this, well done for sticking with it! That was a lot to get through in one sitting. This is a great reload offer and probably represents the highest payout on any of the sporting offers.
This is balanced with the fact that comebacks don’t happen that often and you can’t (unless you have unlimited resources) get on every game. So you will have to pick and choose which ones are most likely to end up with your desired result.
The other drawback is you will often have to be sat watching the game either on TV or on your computer, so you can act fast as soon as the result is looking like it’s going your way. Otherwise you could be left with nothing but a qualifying loss.
So good luck, and let me know your success stories in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, you may find some of my other matched betting posts useful: