Other Matched Betting

No, I understand it.

Every bet you make has an expected value of less than what you paid so the more bets you place the more money you'll lose on average. The best way to make money is to take only the bets with offers. All betting the other way does is add a little bit of security (with the associated cost of placing a bet), but if you can absorb a reasonable drawdown and are taking advantage of enough offers then that gets mitigated anyway.

 

basically your just moving money around between a bookie and a betting exchange so that you can cash out the "free bet" money you get for signing up

 

http://www.gambleaware.co.uk/

 

Surely bookies could prevent this from happening if they wanted. Given that it only happens when their offer is redeemed and would follow a predictable betting pattern, I don't think it would be difficult to detect and prevent it from happening. I'm sure they are aware of the number of match betters that are operating on their offers. So why don't they prevent it from happening? I can only assume it's because they still convert enough match betters to gamblers to make allowing it worth while. The house always wins.

 

Always worth remembering that bookies can refuse to take bets from you, and can refuse to pay out on a bet that they have accepted (subject to refunding your original stake).

 

< --- Never refused to take a bet and never refused a payout.

This comes into play when dealing with ambiguity bets.

 

Are you a bookie?

 

Yup

 

Yep, as soon as it starts to be a net money drain the loophole will close.
Remember when it was all the rage to 'cash out' free matched bets via near-break-even (~0.5% house advantage) blackjack using a 'perfect strategy' lookup table? This is just a new spin on that method.

 

What's your take on Matched Betting then?

 

Lol, it's not gambling, i only do maths. On occasion i weight a bet when i think the horse looks promising. It can get a bit boring sitting in front of channel 4 racing all day, this may happen once a fortnight. If i want to lose money i play some Blackjack at a real casino table after ten pints on a night out.

I'm sure you're completely right but I've been doing it since 2011, hasn't showed any sign of slowing down, I have had numerous accounts closed, even on the first day of opening some, sometimes i dont get an email why, sometimes i get on livechat and plead stupid so they open them again. They make enough money out of punters who are addicted and spend their lives in the bookies or on the casino tables online. The house doesn't win at this, they just close the accounts after losing, damage already done.

Yes, but it's just not signups, I still get quite a few free bets everyday from bookies. Unfortunately, the biggest earnings are from signups. For example, i made £250 just signing up with betfred on ten races so in one afternoon. But now i make a lot on free bets if the horse comes either second, or loses by a furlong type bet. If i don't use an account for a couple of weeks i'll get an email with a free bet etc. I had seven emails with free bets on Saturday.

But yes, I'm down to about a core four bookies now that haven't closed my accounts.

I honestly don't see why anyone has anything bad to say about it, just try it and see. It's only doing maths at the end of the day and balancing bets. If you don't like it, trust it, or feel safe with it, then don't do it. There's no reason to diss it, as it works, simple. If they stop it, so what? I've added to my income quite happily, and so has many people. I can't do it in Aus anyhow, proxies and my net connection out here are just too slow to be safe on the fast moving exchanges.

 

I hate to say this but, those look like the words of someone with a gambling problem.

 

lol i actually laughed out loud at that. Go read the forums like this: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=41

There's 24 thousand posts about matched betting. Reckon everyone on there has a gambling problem too? Top of the forum

Please do some research before saying someone has a gambling problem. I'm only standing up for myself here as I don't understand why someone wouldn't want some extra cash each week! I honestly don't care what you think of me, but believe me i'm quite happy with what i do.

I've bought a car doing this, I've gone on holidays, i bought my wife's Saphire engagement ring by doing it. Gamblers lose money. I only do it at weekends and have a 9-5 day job the rest of the week. This is purely supplemental income that is tax free.

I'm gonna throw an edit in here.

Just another thought in regards to a Gambling addicition. I've been away from this for seven months since I moved to Australia and during my time since 2011 have come and gone from it. I haven't been to a casino nor a bookies since i've been here in Aus, haven't even played the lottery. If i had a gambling problem, wouldn't i be clawing at the walls? Thankfully moving out here i'm earning not far off twice as much as i earned in the UK and have a gorgeous car to drive, so don't require the supplemental income and get to use the weekends on the water or having fun instead of sitting in front of the tv.

 

Betting and gambling are one and the same, you are placing a wager on a future event in the hope of winning. It doesn't matter how you do it or how you lay-off those bets, it's still the same thing.

 

I'm gonna leave it, as if that's what you think that's what you think. But one last time:

It isn't gambling if you match odds, you do the maths to work out how much you need to wager to match the bet on the exchange to the bet on the bookies and take into account the percentage the exchange shall make. This isn't something to take lightly, as if you **** up you can lose a lot on the exchange, which is why i suggested a long way up this thread to understand how to reverse your cock up by laying you matched bet.

I don't care if anything i place money on wins or loses, if it wins on the bookies, i get a free bet. If it loses on the bookies, i get a free bet, I don't lose any money as I've covered my bet with the exchange.

I don't play a game of chance, there is no chance, if you do things correctly, you don't lose anything. There is no luck, i dont' care if i win or i lose as there is no winning or losing, only coming out even and thus being rewarded with a free bet.

I don't take risky action, as i double check all i do, i don't speculate, i don't leave anything to chance.


As i said, my father doesn't understand this either, but he knows i get money from it and doesn't ask questions anylonger, he looked at doing it too, but couldn't grasp it, he's just happy i'm no longer in debt.


I won't post any further, i couldn't care less, i just know that this has changed my life from being an impoverished broke, heavily in debt student to what i am now. I enjoyed doing it, and am thankfull i read the MoneySavingExpert thread all those years ago. Once again, I have never lost money doing this.

 

Matched Betting does work however as a bookie i’m rather concerned about all the people that start using this “free money” idea then move onto actual gambling.

Gambling should be “fun” and not used for “making money” if people use this as a entry into the whole gambling world they're going to have massive problems from the start.

Allot of people lack self control of the great "Puk" I'm afraid

 

Aren't some bookers already cutting their losses on this by requiring the customers using free-money offers to re-bet their winnings to certain amount if they want to cash out (making it statistically possible to get most of the free money back from the customers)?

In the end most of the bookers propably make money with the match betters too, since people get greedy once they get taste of the money and they'll start gamble for real. Good gateway for less disciplined and greedy people to get into financial problems.

I don't see much wrong in this, if you just can find the offers that you can cash out after a single bet and have the time. Seems like it's much like hedging, which usually doesn't work in betting because of the odd structure, but with free credit it is possible of course.

 

You don't get money for nothing. Years ago the thing used to be websites which would post the secrets on cheating betting website software. You used to hear stories about people making a living off them. Truth was you had to play it so much to make a living that you were better off working a 9-5 of skilled labour of some sort, and you could only do it for so long before all the gambling sites would kick you off for cheating.

As an aside, while this is inside the rules, I'm still a little sad that it was shared here. Facebook is full of people hawking their affiliate and direct marketing schemes and I was hoping we'd be able to avoid it. Tis the way of the world these days I guess. This isn't intended as an insult to people who are in favour of the idea, it's just my comment.

 

The thread is "on the cusp" of being unsuitable for the forum. I understand the enthusiasm some have for the process, but the forums are supposed to be safe for under-18's (not a rule that's particularly enforceable or even relevant most of the time), but more importantly the thread could be construed as being in contravention of:

It's been left intact because it's quite rightly become a debate about the process rather then a bunch of people spamming links and success stories, and I think it's right to present opinions from both sides of the coin to the less-informed.

 

Delusions.

Delusions Everywhere!

If you think Matched Betting isn't betting, I bet you don't think that betting is gambling either. I bet you, better yet, i'll match that bet!

Whichever way you cut it, you're playing a mug's game.