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.

  • New to matched betting?

    My Matched Betting Academy is the best place to get started. Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.

    Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.

    dangerzone14 16

    Good post, Mark. You’re clearly an intelligent fellow and my guess is that you have a background in statistics or actuarial science.

    You mention about the investment of labour involved in Matched Betting. I’m just wondering how many hours every day you spend looking for these market inefficiencies? Is it time-consuming? I imagine it would be. Although if you’re able to hit 13k in a month, it might be worth dedicating a month over the summer to make money and get fully banned from the bookies. I’m kind of bored of MB anyway!

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    Pavlon 3

    Mark – thanks for this post. I’ve found you quite patronising previously, but this was very helpful indeed.

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    CashedUp
    Blocked
    49

    Where do I even find the place markets on the BetBright site? I’m not seeing any

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    MarkCorrigan 17

    BetBright only create their place markets closer to the time of the race. Check the “More markets” tab. In general, I’d say there were more opportunities at the weekend and when there is a sudden dynamic to the market (i.e. a horse’s odds steam in the final 5 minutes before the race, a late withdrawal etc.).

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    CashedUp
    Blocked
    49

    Thanks. I’ve been told similar opportunities are available at Bet365, but I’ve not once found any

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    Blue 3

    Another great post Mark. I don’t know what this forum would do without you!

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    Ice Magic 5

    I’ve been doing arbs on Stan James……….lasted a couple of weeks and they have shut my account down.

    I only made £50……….

    I admit the largest bet I did was £75 but I was just testing and was hoping smaller bets would mean I lasted longer.
    I think using oddsmonkey to do arbs is a disaster really. Much better to watch the markets move before a race and be quick

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    wottsy 4

    Mark,
    Thanks for this. I have received a lot of veiled references to ‘inefficiencies in the market’ on forums in the past – i usually imagine them coming with a knowing wink. Until now i wasn’t entirely sure what kind of thing to look for but this is a really helpful nudge in the right direction.

    If you don’t mind, could you elaborate a bit on how you came across these inefficiencies? Is it just a case of watching a lot of markets on a particular bookmaker site and noticing trends or are there analytical tools available anywhere. I guess Oddschecker’s market reports are a useful place to start. Just sounds like it would be a very time consuming task.

    Perhaps you should consider writing a book on your strategies; I know this publisher called Greg…

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    dangerzone14 16

    I think it’d be very time-consuming too, so I’m interested in Mark’s thoughts on time vs money made. MB itself doesnt give a great ROI when you factor in time lost to do the offers.

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    78naD 4

    Mark, hats off to you for adding some much needed credit back to this forum!
    Fair play and respect to you.

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    CashedUp
    Blocked
    49

    I do MBing part time. I have a full time job in addition. I take anything from £100 to £400 in a week, depending on how much effort I’ve put in and how much luck I’ve had. This does eat into my spare time, especially my Saturday afternoons, but if I wasn’t doing this I’d likely be out socialising and spending money. I’d rather be making the extra cash and saving up.

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    ThadCastle 0

    I enjoy this thread the most because of the title. As strong as the info is, the title is perfect

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    MarkCorrigan 17

    Haha. I must admit the title made me want to write the thread!

    A few question regarding time taken to find inefficiencies… I would say you notice these things when browsing markets from time to time. It’s quite hard to estimate the time taken. The same applies to finding profitable strategies in general – you can spend hours data mining and backtesting, yet find no profitable strategies.

    I thought for the next one, I’d give quite a different inefficiency. I hope that these examples will help with imagining more possibilities in other markets!

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    MarkCorrigan 17

    5. Finding conflicting lines/spreads. During the ICC World Twenty20, I noticed that bookmakers were posting conflicting lines for the number of sixes in matches. This created numerous profitable chances. A specific example is as follows:
    Zimbabwe vs. Afghanistan. Stan James set their line at 8.5 sixes (1.9 for the over/under) and William Hill set their line at 10.5 sixes (1.83 for the under).
    Hence, I bet on over with SJ and the under with WH. If the number of sixes was 9 or 10, I would win both bets. The key factor to consider is the effective odds and the probability of this event occurring. If you bet £49.06 on o8.5 at 1.9 and £50.94 on u10.5 at 1.83, you are effectively risking £6.78 to make £86.43. Our effective odds are roughly 13.75. In a nutshell, this will be profitable in the long run (the number of sixes is roughly normally distributed and 9-10 sixes will happen (way!) more than 7.3% of the time).
    As it happens, 9 sixes in the match meant that both bets won – but the outcome is not important.

    Anyway, another sport where finding line discrepancies can be profitable is basketball. Bookmakers that offer lines on Pts scored by players, for example, frequently have differences which are big enough to be profitable. There are many possibilities for other sports!

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    FoG_BLoG 61

    Haha. I skipped reading this thread because of the title. I thought it was some Casino game offer!

    Thanks for the tips.

    I find it risky though. So you are backing the slow moving odds and laying on the exchange? Or do you even lay or just take long term value? And how slow are you talking minutes or seconds to put in your bets? I can see if you don’t get both bets on fast enough and they move again you could have 100 £’s at risk.

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