Business Secrets of the Pharaohs
-
I have decided to make this thread for several reasons. Matched betting sites are everywhere, they are all exact replicas of each other and are profiting from showing the basics to newcomers. Of course, the most recent case is Oddsmonkey jumping on the bandwagon – they had a great site and offered a unique odds searching service, but ruined it by relaunching as a matched betting site (offering nothing new). The other main reason is that this noticeboard has become slightly disillusioned with the quantity and speed of restrictions/bans.
My opinion is that you are wasting your time tackling low return offers (and I will show you why below). I think the root of the problem may be that people often see matched betting as an investment of capital: “Oh, you can make £1000s with only a £200 starting bankroll”. That’s not quite true; you are also investing labour, and tackling low return offers results in an extremely low effective wage. Feel free to disagree, but I know that you can make more than Matt’s hypothetical profit of £13k (taking over two years) in as little as one month.
I will attempt to break this thread into parts to make it easier to read over time, by revealing bookmaker weaknesses and inefficiencies.
1. A topical site at the moment is Bet Bright. People are complaining of being restricted after attempting a couple of offers (win or lose). I signed up to Bet Bright several weeks ago and was banned within 3 days. How much did I make from them? £600. Bet Bright are extremely inefficient at pricing place markets for horse racing. They seem to price their place markets close to the off, with odds often being completely different to exchange odds. A few examples: I got several hundred pounds on (5 / 3.9), (3.3 / 2.7), (2.6 / 2.3)… The list goes on. If you pick your timing and don’t rush, you will certainly make a decent profit.
2. Unibet/888/32Red/Stan James. Discussed before, but worth pointing out. These sites are extremely slow to update horse racing odds close to the off… I have no idea how they make a profit on these markets, especially as the odds move so rapidly on horses when the race approaches. A few people found the Unibet inefficiency last month and abused it in a suboptimal manner. They were betting at odds of 7 / 6 etc. and for small amounts. As with every bookmaker and their weakness, don’t rush it. Wait for the optimal moment and go big. There are times when I found 3 / 2.5 on these sites, with max bets of hundreds of pounds.
3. BetFred / Totesport. I see the price boosts/pushes have become quite popular. The max bet is usually £100 on these offers, but depends on the status of your account. Why bet £100 on a great offer once every few days when you can bet hundreds of pounds on one offer? In order to do this, you need to double the boosted selection with other outcomes (e.g. low odds football matches). You can then lay off the second leg as usual – yet you’ve achieved a large exposure on the boost/value. I once effectively got £700 on a BetFred boost, when the odds were 3/2.7.
I will continue to contribute to this thread with more inefficiencies when I have time. Perhaps others could contribute with their findings, but I doubt this will happen. When you find an inefficiency it’s quite tempting to keep it to yourself as you know it will disappear when it becomes public knowledge.
