MN Matched Betting society - all the profit, none of the gubbings!

[MissFitton]

Previous thread here

All welcome. Matched Betters old and new for oddsmatching chat, top tips and tales of ballsed up qualifying bets....

I'm new to matched betting. I started in January this year and thought I was doing quite well at it (just over £800 profit, most of it from this month thanks to the Cheltenham festival)

But I am clearly not doing as well as I'd thought looking at the HUGE figure some of you are making!

Looking at what you high earners are saying, I think I need to get going on the Casino offers but I have no clue what I am doing with anything other than roulette (and that is only from watching a video on Team Profit) If you can't lay a casino bet, how is it low risk?

I'm not one of the huge earners. I've only been matched better for 5 months but I've amazingly hit £2k for this month which I'm chuffed to bits with.

Casino offers can be no risk so free spins, of money back on all losses or a free bonus. Or low risk so wager £5 for 10 free spins or wager £10 for £5 bonus. You decide on an amount you are happy to risk. My personal amount is £50. You only do offers that are positive expected value. So if an offer is wager £10 for 10 free spins on a slot with an rtp (return to player) percentage of 96.5, you would expect to walk away with £96.50 if you wagered £100 on that slot. The variance affects it so low varies is over £100 and high variance is close to £1000+. So the value is in the bonus or free spins. That what brings the expected value into profit. There are calculators for working out if an offer is positive expected value.

Low risk means they have no wagering requirements or a small amount, say under 5x. So you would have to wager your winnings from the free spins 5x before it was cash. And are for a small amount of money. £5-£20.

You can't lay casino bets. You can lose your entire £10 four times in a row. And then the next offer you win £44. The EV always plays out, but you have to have the bankroll and the stomach to not take losses as loss.

There are plenty of no risk offers out there. William Hill have free spins most weeks. Betfair arcade, bwin, grovesnor, skyvegas do free spins and also money back on all losses on roulette up to £10. So you do 10x £1 spins on roulette on one number. If it wins, you win £36, if you lose all 10 spins, they refund you £10.

Roulette isn't great for wagering as red and black is less than 50% chance and I have seen 18 blacks in one go.

£800 Profit is amazing. I am trying to expand into each way and extra places on horses as I dont think my record month is going to be doable next month with less casino offers around.

A good rule for casino offers is either chose a percentage of your bank roll as you maximum riskable stake. 10% is a good starting place. Or a percentage of your month profit. So 10% of your £800 Profit and day 'I will only do £80 worth of low risk casino offers in April' and carry on doing it like that.

Thanks mamahanji. I'm not surprised you're chuffed with your £2K earnings! That's one hell of an income for a month's 'work'

I hve dabbled with the extra place races and have decided to steer clear for a while. I had a couple of decent wins, but the qualifying losses are quite high, so if you back 3 horses in a race and none of them get into the extra place it can make a fair dent in the day's profits.

I had a lucky Acca with Boylesports, but I am leaving those alone for a while too unless they are enhanced prices and layable at Betfair or Matchbook.

Upthread someone asked about sharing that you're matched betting with family and friends. I have, but no one else has given it a go yet. I feel slightly embarassed when I start talking about it as people think it is gambling and don't really understand.

I will also say that I made some silly errors in the early weeks, one which cost me over £100. But then I had a lucky break which clawed that back, so I suppose it evens out in the end.

Hi, I started matched betting yesterday. I’ve signed up to PA.

I’m looking for some advice as I’m just not getting this offer.

Bet365 - £100 free bet when you deposit and bet £100.

For example I’m going to bet £100 qualifying bet the odds need to be 1.2 or greater for the offer.

For example I’ve picked Spartak Moscow v Tonso and backing S.Moscow. Back odds: 1.33 Lay 1.47
Lay stake - £103.91
Liability - £34.29
Bookmaker / exchange loss of £1.29

For my free £100 bet example I’m betting on Boca Jrs V Talleres backing Talleres. Back odds: 4.50 Lay: 5.40
Lay stake - £65.42
Liability - £287.85
Bookmaker / Exchange profit £62.15

It says on the offer you should make £70-£80 on this bet.

But I hypothetically have put £100 of my money to make the qualifying bet.
Made £62.15 on the free bet - £1.29 from the qualifying bet. To me that makes a overall loss of £39.14

Is it me completely missing something here?

£62.15 minus your ql of £1.29 gives you profit of £60 not a loss! You've still got the £100 you originally deposited!

Handy tip - put your bets on less obscure events, and you can find odds much closer to the ones you've stated.

Yh those matches are a gub waiting to happen. Stick with europa league, English premier league, champions league, Scottish premier league is fine and main European football like la liga, bundesliga and Italian series a.

Thanks Barbie it was me who asked about telling family. My family have always been very anti gambling so I worry they will see it as gambling. It's just a shame not to be able to share it with people I know it could help, like my brother who is a sports fan anyway so it won't be that hard!

My target for April is £1k. £2k was exhausting and I don't want to put in the hours I did last month. My first extra place came in for a 59p QL and £42 Profit, so I'm pleased with that. Just trying to get on more today, but need to keep my smarkets stocked up as I have £200 on Chelsea to go 2up so need it full for cash out...hopefully 😂 as a Chelsea supporter with the way they have been playing this season I'm not optimistic.

Thanks for the tip of less obscure games. Noted for future reference.

I haven’t placed that bet, I wanted to make sure it was me not understanding it properly then making a loss.

Would the original hypothetical stake of £100 not be lost as I get that stake back? Either from the bookie or exchange depending on the result? I think this is the bit I’m struggling with.

This morning I could not make head nor tail of what I did yesterday as I made multiple deposits but I’ve looked over it all again with a clear head and can see it does work out and I am in profit.

Hold on. I keep trying to type it but it's not coming out right so I'm gonna do a Mumsnet favourite and draw a diagram.

Would the original hypothetical stake of £100 not be lost as I get that stake back? Either from the bookie or exchange depending on the result? I think this is the bit I’m struggling with.

Why would the original £100 be lost when you get it back as you say, at bookie or exchange.

The calculators only show you profit made, not total balances which would of course include your original stake.

The stake is moved from one place to another. Imagine the odds are exactly the same at the bookies and the exchange and you don't pay commission.

£100 on odds of 2.0 at the bookies
£100 lay bet on odds of 2.0 at the exchange

Bookie bet loses.

£-100 from the bookies
£200 at the exchange.

It is just moved from one place to another.

Usually the exchange lay stake is slightly smaller and that is where the QL is

I am really risk averse (even with matched betting), so started with £10 bets and have only just started to go into £15 or £20 bets. I am perhaps overthinking the gubbing potential, but as a newbie I am building my stakes up slowly and hopefully that will make me stay under the radar for longer.

Someone on the OddsMonkey forum had as their tag line 'Don't kill the cow! Milk it gently...' which is the approach that I am taking.

(although someone else had 'Make hay while the sun shines' which is equally valid!)

I definitely think milk the cow slowly. And then once you are up to big stakes, make hay while the sun shines.

It seems they are gubbing for just existing at the moment so caution is probably good. Who knows with bookies. £1500 bets on Korean under 21s tennis is obviously a tad suspect .

I think bookies are more suspicious of new sign ups. People who have had accounts for a good few years seem to be able to do no wrong. It's the new ones they seem to be watching.

I think I could have made far more profit if I had done less mug punts, but as this is my only source of income at the moment I am keen to keep it going. I haven't bet on anything other than FA cup, Championship and Premier League in terms of football yet, but will ease myself into the big European leagues as time goes on. I also tend to place all bets on odds of 3 plus, because (ovethinking again here) I thought it'd look odd to put all real money bets on low odds and then all free bets on high odds.

I think a few days off here and there are a good thing too. And I usually leave money in the bookie accounts, although if I was a true mug punter I suppose I would withdraw winnings as they came in.

I haven't made anywhere near £42 on an extra place race, maybe I should revisit those after the Easter holidays!

Just started today. It’s so hard getting my head around it. I think I’ve made a rookie error in not depositing enough initially, as am just using my bank account and don’t want too much activity on it so don’t want to put more in today. Now haven’t got enough to lay against my free Coral bets! Head is spinning from it all today, so I’ll have a look tomorrow with fresh eyes.

Anyway just placemarking really to join you all.

There are a lot of seasoned matched bettors that don't mug bet. I don't mug bet. A few people know people who works in bookies and are traders. Most people agree that random obscure bets are bad, absolutely caning every possible promotion and offer like clockwork is bad. Everything else seems to be luck of the drawer.

There is some evidence that certain bookies don't like women though...

Lovely thanks mama for the explanation I get it now.

Just opened a account with paddy power and have bet I what I think is a non obscure game with closer odds.

Sevilla v Bayer Back odds: 4 Lay Odds: 4.3

Is that a better choice?

Yes that's a non obscure, main league match.

England league 1, premier league, games cup champions league, Scottish premier league, and cups like Bostik cup and vanarama cup

France league 1

Germany bundesliga

Netherlands Eredevise

Spain la liga

Europa league, champions league, and international friendlies (although boring as hell and rarely any offers for them so I tend not to bet on international friendlies)

All perfectly normal bets for football fans and haven't caused me any gubbings...horses on the other hand...

Hello MBers, oldies and newbies alike. Just popping on the thread as I seem to have fallen off.

Got a bit disillusioned after Cheltemham. Had a couple of gubbings and a run of bad luck on casino offers but I'm going to crack on again this week. MBing is the difference to me of chugging along being conscious of every penny and having the opportunity to do good stuff for me and the dcs. So I'm going to treat it like a job and get on with it!

Wrt telling friends and family - I told my family who were at first horrified but now understand and have had a dabble themselves and a couple of friends who are somewhat nonplussed. I think I read somewhere it's good to tell people you're doing it - you're less likely to start gambling if you're telling people you're absolutely not gambling!

I'm completely new to this... can I join in? I've started by using OddsMonkey and all is very clear. Working my way through the tutorials and now at the point of my Betfred free bet. So far so good! BUT when I try and place my £30 bet in the slip on Betfred, in the estimated return box is says ERR (presumably error?). I can't see anywhere I need to indicate I'm using a free bet. What am I doing wrong?

Is the free bet restricted to particular markets? Has the first bet settled (is the event that triggered the first bet over?) Team Profit make a point of saying you mustn't put your free bet on the same event that triggered the free bet.

If you go onto FAQs on the bookie websites there is often a 'how do I use my free bet' question, have you tried looking there?

(Betfred was where I made my first mistake, by putting on a £5 bet as my first bet before placing a £10 which I thought would trigger the freebie. But didn't, because it wasn't my first bet!)

I am not an experienced having started in January, but those are the first things that I can think of that might help?

Hello all. I've been having a go for a few weeks. Started off with £40 and now have £180 so not too shabby. Am following the tp £25 to £1000. Waiting on everything coming in so I have as much as possible for Ladbrokes!

How long does it usually take money to come back out? I accidentally deposited £20 in Betfred and asked to withdraw £10 immediately and it’s just disappeared. Not in my balance or my bank account . Also tried to withdraw £10 profit I made on some random free spins I was given on Coral and the same thing has happened.

Usually a few days. Can be as little as 24 hours or as long as 10 working days.

I don’t tell anyone apart from close family that I MB. People need to be very careful telling all and sundry. MBing will die an (even quicker because let’s face it, it’s gradually fading out already on the sport side of things compared to years ago when no one really knew about it) death the more people that do it.

If you want MBing to be a long term money earner for you- don’t tell anyone. The more people that do if, the more bookies will start clamping down on the amount of free bets/ offers etc they give out.