To make money out of spread betting while on benefits

[Calamariss]

So far in two months I've made 600 from spread betting on cfd. Legally am I right in thinking that it is not counted as income for benefits?

I don't want to mention it to them as they might turn it into a big deal and give me lots of paperwork to do.

Am I OK to just stay quiet?

Ok so I get the notion of putting alternate bets on (presumably with two different sites? But where does the promotional bet come into it?

When you sign up to a betting company (there are various ones to choose) you will no doubt get a "bet £10, get £10 if your bet loses" so you deposit £10 and then back (for eg.) Chelsea to win. Then you put in £10 in a different site- assuming they all have similar offers and put your £10 'risk free money' on man Utd to win. Obviously you would also need a third site in this scenario to cover the draw. Then whichever result comes in you will win (and receive your losing stakes back as free bets to have another go with on the other two sites)

Other than that you can effectively match bets on a site called betfair. Which allows you to give 'odds' to another person. This is a bit trickier because you have to know something about the markets you are giving prices for or you could be grossly undercutting or overpricing, but there are a lot of how-to guides out there if you google.

the easiest way is having two markets (such as yes it will snow tomorrow at 5/1 and no it won't for 3/1) on one site and another saying (yes it will snow 3/1 and no it won't 5/1) so you can cover both markets (yes and no) at 5/1 and definitely make money. But they have stopped this competition on most things now because a lot of the betting companies are parent companies of each other now :(

OK point taken ill let them know.

Re changing to a different country - I may do this if I ever earn over the 11k tax free. But surely this is a difficult thing to do?

I think you're asking in the wrong place. There must be forums out there dedicated to the subject?

Re benefits, they can see your accounts and any income (particularly large amounts I.e I'm the 100's) is triggered , trust me I know. :-/ it isn't worth the risk. If you're making an income doing this you shouldn't be claiming benefits.

Really, Followyourart? Do you mean to say that banks have all accounts of benefit claimants tagged and report any deposits over a set amount to the DWP? Or do you mean jobcentre staff have direct access to claimants bank accounts and monitor them regularly?

What nonsense!

As far as I am aware, the benefit fraud department either have to have a claimants written permission to access bank account information, or have enough evidence to request court ordered access.

BetsyM00

It's not technically nonsense. There was a woman last year who had her Tax Credits stopped because HRMC thought she had a new boyfriend, turned out that actually it was because she was drawing her benefits from a "Martin MCcolls"
HMRC thought she had a new boyfriend when they saw it repeated on her bank account.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/single-mum-benefits-stopped-after-6543039

So yes, they have access and even small amounts will be noticed.

Just as an aside, we did a lot of match betting through Betfair some years ago, using the free sign up promotional cash offered by online betting firms. After a while each and every one of the U.K. Firms close our accounts as they were clearly onto what we were doing. I've tried to sign up again using different email accounts but they clearly shock the IP as the new accounts have been declined. Good while it lasted though.

I remember the McColls story. I suspect the woman in question may have provided bank statements on HRMC's request for a tax credits review. They, whoever they may be, are still not permitted to flout data protection laws and have direct or continual access to claimants bank accounts.

Sprong - most bookies now require copies of photo ID before any funds will be released, so it's nigh on impossible to open second accounts.

One way to maximise your matched betting is to open your various bookmaker accounts through cashback websites such as TopCashBack or Quidco :)

A lot of confusion caused by the OP. Spread betting and trading CFDs are similar, but legally different.

If you're spread betting (and you aren't a professional gambler) then profits are free of Capital Gains Tax (CGT), and don't count as income. So they're tax free, but you can't offset any losses against CGT.

If you're trading CFDs, any profits are subject to CGT, although £600 is well under your annual CGT allowance.

Either way, I wouldn't do it - the vast majority of spread betters and CFD traders lose money. Think 90%. You may be up £600 now, but you will likely give it all back to the bookie before long.

I thought CFDs were classed as gambling so not taxable income - it does show how risky such activities are considered that even the tax man can't take a cut!

Profits from CFDs are taxable, but you need to have capital gains over over £10k to actually have to pay anything. Profits from spread betting are generally not subject to tax.

The reason the tax man doesn't tax gambling profits is simply that most punters lose. If based in the UK, the bookie pays corporation tax plus a gambling levy of 10% net winnings for sports spread bets or 3% for financial. If he taxed the bettor, it would be a net cost to the taxman as they would have to let you offset losses against other income.