The betting industry is continuing to grow and flourish although the regulators are increasing taxation and compliance rules. For this reason, there are lots of betting sites out there offering great deals. The question we asked today to the expert is: 'Is it really possible to make some money out of those betting offers without becoming a full-time gambler?'
'I have been working in the industry for more than 15 years' said John Pentin editor in chief of a popular UK best betting sites comparison platform. 'I have tried many different ways of making a profit from bookmakers with a various grade of success'.
The way it works with betting offers is that you get some free credits when you sign up as a new customer. In addition to that, you also get some less valuable ongoing promotions as the brands are rewarding loyalty.
'Let's face it, most people are terrible at betting' said John Pentin. 'Even if betting companies are bracing themselves with the government continuing to add taxes and regulation, Britain's bookmakers are raking it in.
There are basically three ways you can try to get an advantage over them. The first one is by doing your homework. You have to be fully knowledgeable about the sport you are betting on. More knowledgeable than a bunch of experts sitting on the bookmaker trading team. In this way, over time you might be able to bet on valuable odds and cancel or even revert in your favour the margin that betting sites are building into their odds. Difficult but not impossible and it will require lots of discipline.'
The second way to make money is by taking advantage of betting offers. 'You jump from a bookmaker to a bookmaker and take advantage of every single free bet and loyalty promotion. Again, if you do that consistently and with a proper plan (you shouldn't be on everything just because there is an offer for it) you will stand a chance and at least you will be level field with the bookmaker as the offer value will cancel their margin.'
The third way is something rather new called 'matched betting'. We have decided to give it a go even though we were a bit sceptical. With matched betting, you should be able to extract risk-free profit from bookies offers. Some people even claiming they are making it a full-time job of it.
In recent times even some newspaper like Financial Times and The Guardian have been covering it. The idea is simple: you sign up to a betting site and take advantage of their free bet offer. You then stake the qualifying bet and you use a betting exchange like Betfair to bet against (or 'lay') your bookmaker bet.
Since you are betting for and against the end result is nearly zero, but you have unlocked the bookmaker free bet. You repeat the same thing with the free bet and you get some cashable profit. Since 70 or so bookmakers are offering free bets, this is an interesting concept and surely can deliver some short term gains. The flow with this method though is that once you have run out of the generous sign up offers, you will struggle a lot more to make a profit that is worthy of your time with the existing customers' offers. This is the reason why I think it is mostly for beginners or for non- bettors looking to raise a bit of money (£500 up to £1,000). If you are serious about betting, you would have to find a more long-term strategy, which is one of the first two I have mentioned above. Also, you need to consider that matched betting is a tedious process and it is a manual one. Before or later, you will make mistakes that will reduce your income significantly or even bring you into the red.'
The question is: why do bookmakers are still offering generous offers if they know that it could dent their profits?
'Well, the reality is that betting sites really need free bets and offers for their marketing. They might have different colours and sponsor different teams, but the truth is that there isn't much difference between them. As you have seen even if you are terrible at betting, there is no reason why you shouldn't consider taking advantage of bookies offers at least in the short term. It is a quick way to raise some money and also have some fun along the way without having to risk your home' continued Pentin.
'The important thing to remember is to only look for the best betting sites that are licensed. Never risk it with online bookmakers that are not clearly regulated regardless of their betting offers. Remember they could disappear with all your money and you won't be able to do anything against it. This is why in our site we only list and review betting sites that have a full UK Gambling Commission license'.