To make money from matched betting, you need to have accounts with a number of bookies. This will allow you to take advantage of lots of offers. You can’t simply use one or two bookie sites all the time. When it comes to your accounts, the more the merrier.

Therefore, it is bad news when a bookmaker closes one of your accounts. If you are going to successfully make money, you need to know why this happens. Even more importantly, what can you do to stop it from happening?

By understanding a few of the basic points, you can carry on making money for longer. Let’s start by understanding the basics. We can then look at some of the ways of avoiding problems from now on.

Why Do Bookmakers Close Accounts?

This is such an important matter that there was a debate in the House of Lords about it. On the side of the bookies was Richard Flint, chief executive of SkyBet. He said that they need to restrict certain customers. These are people who “we believe will be unprofitable for us in the longer term”.

So, the bookies look out for people who have found ways of beating them regularly. This is no surprise, as they want to make as much money as they possibly can. What does this mean for you if you use matched betting techniques or other strategies?

For a start, they will close your account if too many value bets are made on it. This is one of the easiest things for them to spot. Because of this, it is really tough to make money from value betting over time. Using this as your main or only strategy won’t work for long.

Another thing that they look out for is someone who takes too many bonuses. This is another warning sign for them. So, you need to be extremely careful when matched betting.

We can easily find stories online about bookie accounts being closed or restricted. For example, Ian Sharpe was reduced to putting on maximum bets of 25p. This was due to him placing his bets early and winning consistently. The same article states that around 50,000 British gamblers have restricted accounts. I believe the number to be much higher!

Look around and you will see lots of online complaints about. People get their accounts closed or restricted all the time. It is one of the biggest issues in the betting industry just now. A lot of punters get very angry about how the bookies basically weed out the winners.

The betting company will usually not give a reason for the account being restricted or closed. At most, they might make some vague statement about your betting habits.

So what can you do to stop this being a problem? There is no simple answer but we can look at the main issues. By doing this, it will be a lot clearer what you need to do.

Be Realistic

The first point to bear in mind is that you are in this to make money. So is the bookie. One of you is going to be successful and the other isn’t. You can’t both win in the long term.

If it is the bookmaker that comes out ahead then your account will be safe. They aren’t going to risk losing a punter that makes them money. However, your plan is to make some cash off them, isn’t it? In this case, you will eventually end up getting the old heave-ho.

Strange at it may seem, it is probably just a matter of time. The bookies don’t want to lose money. You know how to make money off them. Something is going to have to give sooner or later. So, your accounts aren’t going to be around forever.

Things aren’t quite as bleak as they may seem, though. The idea of this guide is to help you prolong your accounts to the maximum. You might get them closed eventually but you can make money in the mean-time. By being smart you can keep on winning for more time.

A good starting point is to use the bonuses first. This means grabbing the welcome bonuses first of all. They give you a fantastic way to start racking up profits.

You can take advantage of them until you are bonus banned. After that, you can move on to other strategies to keep you going. So, make the bonuses a priority but be ready to try other things too.

Best Ways to Stop bookmaker accounts being limited and restricted

The good news is that there are some neat tips to learn about. These are moves that will help you to keep your account running for longer. Stick to them and you can keep on picking up profits by without any problems.

They don’t guarantee that the bookmaker won’t restrict your account. As we saw earlier, this will almost certainly happen eventually. Yet, they are smart ways of going as unnoticed as possible.

We can divide these ideas into three categories. First of all, there are the things that you should definitely do. These are the tried and testing strategies that I have seen work.

You can keep a working, fully functional account when you do these. You should definitely bear them in mind. They aren’t difficult to stick to or time-consuming.

Next, are the things to definitely avoid doing. I have seen that these moves will end in tears. Expect your accounts to be closed or restricted realty quickly if you give these actions a try.

Finally, there are the areas that might or might not work. You might want to give them a try. I’m just not at all sure whether they work like some people say they do.

Do

• Try and always bet on the big games. This means sticking to competitions like the Premier League and Champions League. These games attract a massive amount of money every single time. Because of this, your bets have a better chance of slipping by unnoticed. On the other hand, if you bet on small matches such as Afghanistan Division 3 football league, this could make you stand out. Look for the week’s most important games first of all. If lots of people are going to bet on it then you should be in there too.
• Use free bets on correct score markets. Stick to large football games as mentioned above. You can usually extract 80% of the free bet value because of the high odds. There is usually a gap between the bookmakers back odds and Betfair lay odds, meaning they would be classed as poor value bets. This is another simple way of blending in more.It is what regular gamblers tend to do, so you won’t look too noticeable. Just remember to do this for all of your free bet offers were possible.
• Look at betting on the draw. If we look at the example of Premier League football, the odds are often similar between bookies and exchanges. This means that you can back and lay some games to end in draws. You might want to consider a double with two matches at different times. You want to bet that both will finish in draws. Say the draw with SkyBet is 3.60 and it is 3.60/3.65 on the exchange. In this case, the trader will not bat an eyelid. You won’t attract any unwanted attention for your betting habits by doing this.

Don’t 

In the same way, there are also some good pieces of advice to remember on what not to do. These are some of the things that you need to avoid so that you don’t stick out like a sore thumb. They are easy mistakes to make, so it pays to be aware of them.

• Don’t bet on horse racing whilst you have bonuses privileges. This is a sure-fire way to get noticed. You should stick to football betting instead. As mentioned above, this should mean bets on big, popular matches. This is one exception to this rule, though. You will be fine to use your bonus bets on races at the Cheltenham Festival. Otherwise, steer clear of the nags until your bonuses are all over.
• Don’t place arbitrage bets. These bets are account killers. You might be tempted to make some cash in this way. However, you can expect your account to get noticed pretty quickly in this way.
• Avoid the small, obscure games. Minor leagues and youth games are among the bets that get noticed. If you start betting on leagues all over the world it will also attract attention. Avoid this kind of transaction that will stand out if there’s a trader watching. With so many high-profile games around, there is no reason to do this anyway.

Possibly Do

What about the grey areas between the ‘do’s’ and the ‘don’ts’? These are the things that some people swear by and others say aren’t a good idea. They are ideas that I haven’t been able to confirm 100%. Is it worth trying them? Let’s look at the main issue you will come across.

• The main point to cover here is that of limiting your withdrawals. Some people will tell you that it is a great idea. Others will say that it makes no difference. Certainly, it shouldn’t do any harm to give it a try. However, I have been unable to establish whether it truly works.

Avoid Bad Advice

So far, we have looked at some good pieces of advice. These are things that I have seen work or not work over time. Yet, the advice you receive won’t always be as sensible as this.

In fact, there are a few sites out there offering awful advice. They say that they will help you to keep your bookmaker accounts open. However, they will end up doing you far more harm than good.

A common theme on these sites is that you can fool the bookies. How do they say that you can do this? The tip usually given is to carry out mug bets. So, you place the sort of wager that ordinary punters do.

What is the end result of this? You lose lots of money in qualifying bet losses and still end up getting restricted. Unless you are going to place hundreds of them per week, it won’t make any difference.

How do you spot these sites in order to avoid them? It is pretty to do, to be honest. These are the exact same websites that have affiliate links going to the bookmakers. Well, you won’t fool anybody by doing that.

Stop bookmaker accounts being limited and restricted Conclusion

There is no doubt that your accounts are at risk of being closed. In fact, you can expect this to happen at some point. Yet, you shouldn’t just give up and accept this fate.

By being clever, you can keep your accounts running for longer. Some simple tactics can easily help you to wring more value out of them. Overall, just avoid being too noticeable and you will be fine for longer. That concludes my guide on how to stop bookmaker accounts being limited and restricted.

The post Stop bookmaker accounts being limited and restricted appeared first on Mike Cruickshank.

We all know that the bookies don’t like losing money. A lot of them actually take action against profitable players in a number of ways. They could delete accounts or limit the maximum wager to peanuts. Lets talk about how to make money with gubbed accounts.

If you receive an email from the sportsbook stating that your limits have decreased, your account has been gubbed. This really sucks, as you usually you can’t bet more than a couple of pounds. As a result, you won’t be able to take advantage of many profitable opportunities. If you are among the people who suffered such a fate, you’re probably wondering what to do next.

Don’t worry, it’s not completely game over. There are certain matched betting strategies that work with gubbed accounts. I will explain how to use them in this post.

Casino And Bingo Bonuses

While your sports betting account might be limited, this usually doesn’t apply to the other gambling products of the operator. You often will be able to take full advantage of casino and bingo bonuses. You might wonder why would one even try, as we all know the casino and bingo rooms have a huge house edge?

The simple answer is promotions. The desire to attract customers ahead of the competition leads to lots of welcome offers with exceptional terms. In fact, some of them have a positive expected value in the long run. The best part is that no skill is required, your strategy will be based on pure math.

Still, there is some risk involved because unlike sports betting arbitrages, variance plays a role in casino and bingo bonuses. On the positive note, the profits are often much higher too, so it’s worth it.

In order to recognize profitable opportunities, you must learn how to calculate the value of the bonus first. There are a couple of variables involved in the whole equation:

Wagering requirements

Obviously, the casino and bingo rooms can’t simply give you cash or they will go bankrupt in a heartbeat. This is why you receive bonuses that come with the so-called “wagering requirements”. As the name suggests, you will have to wager the bonus and sometimes the deposit a fixed amount of times before making a withdrawal.

It’s always crucial to understand if you have to wager only the bonus or the deposit as well. For example, if you get a 100% bonus and deposit £100 you will get another £100. If the casino/bingo room requires you to wager the bonus only 30 times, that’s £3,000 in bets. If you need to wager both, the amount rises to £6,000. As you could imagine, quite the difference.

Return to player of the games available

The next thing you need to know is the theoretical return to player of the games you will be using. For example, an RTP of 96% means roughly every £96 out of £100 placed will be coming back in the shape of prizes. Check out and see what is the best game available.

Most casinos show the RTP of each game on their website. Even when that’s not the case, you will often find this information after a quick Google search.

Final calculation

After you know the variables, it’s time to see how the final calculation works. Simply put, you have to figure out what would be your end balance after completing the wagering requirements. If it’s positive, there’s obviously positive expected value.

Let’s continue the example above and assume you get a £100 bonus with an investment of £100, so your bankroll is £200. You have to wager the bonus only 20 times and the best game you found has an RTP of 97.5%. After placing £2,000, your expected return would be £50.

Bankroll management

Obviously, the result above is not guaranteed. It’s what you are expected to return. This means the results will vary. You could end up losing money or winning much more than you expected.

Since your main goal would be to complete the wagering requirements, make sure to provide enough runway. You need to have a proper bankroll management and not place more than a couple of percentage of your capital on a single bet. This way, there’s no risk of busting before reaching your target.

If you want to know more details about casino and bingo bonuses, check out this post.

Sports Betting Opportunities

If you insist on strategies that work on gubbed accounts that are related to sports betting, there is hope. The bookies will rarely ban you completely. Most of the time, you will be limited to something like a £5-10 max bet. This is actually enough for some matched betting strategies:

Each Way arbing

One of my favorite matched betting strategies is Each Way arbing and it works with gubbed accounts most of the time. The main point of this one is that the each way market works in a different way in the bookies and on Betfair.

While the sportsbooks merge the two markets into one, they are separated on the betting exchange. This means you will have to place one wager on a horse winning and another one on a horse placing in the top positions.

As a result, the odds for the second option often have a vast difference that creates an opportunity for an arbitrage, hence the name “Each Way arbing”. You can cover all options and guarantee a profit no matter how the race ends.

Selecting a suitable race

You must find suitable races first. Start by identifying events with one or two heavy favorites. Once you find them, discover the best possible odds using comparison sites like oddschecker.com to get the best possible price.

If you find one that is similar to the odds in Betfair for one of the underdogs, you got yourself a winner since the odds for the place market usually are high enough to get the arbitrage.

Still, you have to calculate the bookie’s place price, as it is not directly available. Here’s the formula you should use:

((Bookmaker “Win” odds – 1) * Bookmaker “Place” Payout) + 1 = Place odds

Once you get the final value, you can compare it to the Betfair price and see if the each way arbing opportunity is there for the taking. To learn more about the strategy, check out my detailed guide.

Each Way arbing value system

There’s another way to make money from the each way horse betting market. It also works with gubbed accounts to an extent, as it doesn’t require large bets. However, this strategy is not risk-free. Instead, it relies on finding bets with a positive expected value in the long run.

Essentially, you will be checking the lay odds on Betfair and comparing them with the each way odds provide by the bookies. If there is a large difference, this indicates that the price of the bookies is good value. This is why you will place a bet on it, but without laying the same market on Betfair.

As already mentioned, this strategy is not risk-free as it’s a value based system. Since the bookmaker odds are higher than the Betfair odds you are getting value bets. To make up for the volatility of the system, you need to follow some rules.

For a start, let’s take a look at bankroll management. You need to place a 1,000 bets or more to make the best out of this strategy and this is one of your main goals. This means that placing more than 0.5-1% of your bankroll would be a stupid idea. You can start with a total of £100 and set your wager at £0.50. This usually is enough to work with gubbed accounts easily.

If you still have any questions about the value approach, check out this post.

Price boosts

A lot of bookies offer the price boosts promotion. Simply put, they increase the odds of a certain betting market or multiple markets in an accumulator. As a result, there are opportunities for an arbitrage by laying the same betting options on Betfair.

Gubbed often can take at least a partial advantage of such promotions, as the price boosts are limited in terms of the money you can place anyway.

So, the whole idea behind price boosters is to stay alert. Check the promotion pages of the bookies, try forums where people share such offers, and find opportunities. When this happens, check the prices of the bookies, once again using an odds comparison website. They are free and will help you find the best odds available.

Once you do, you will often see how there are arbitrage opportunities. This means profits with no risk! Still, don’t forget to check the terms and conditions of the bookie promos, so there are no surprises along the way.

If you want to check the different types of price boosts and more details about getting the maximum value, here is a full guide.

Arbitrage betting

Ok, so this is the bread and butter of matched betting. Arbitrages also known as sure bets are the best way to make money from sports betting. They don’t require complicated data analysis, team news reports, or any kind of work related to predicting the outcome of a certain game.

The reason is simple, arbitrage betting is based on pure math and odds. If you find the right prices, you can cover all outcomes in a certain match in a way that brings you profit whatever happens. This is the beauty of arbitrages and the reason why it’s the best way to make money for the average player.

Since the topic is quite long and there is a lot more to it, I will stop here. However, you can learn everything about arbitrage betting and find additional tips and tricks here.

High-Risk Casino Offers That Don’t Involve Bookies

I already mentioned that the bookies might limit your account, but casinos are less likely. This is the reason some high-risk casino strategies are one of the best ways to make money. As the name suggests, they involve a larger chance of losing money.

This is why I recommend them mostly to people with a large bankroll. The good news is that such offers usually bring a lot of value as well. However, you may be behind and some point, so experience would be vital to stay calm and follow your strategy.

The best example of high-risk casino strategies are the high roller bonuses of some operators. They can bring you a lot of money, but the wagering requirements are big too. Also, there are promotions that work with very volatile games. The expected value there might be exceptional, but there’s also a risk of long losing runs.

Conclusion

As you can see, even if a book decides to limit your account, that’s not the end of the road. You will still find some viable strategies that work with gubbed accounts. Take full advantage and keep making money. At the same time, you should also explore other bookies where you can start from scratch.

The post Which Strategies Work With Gubbed Accounts? appeared first on Mike Cruickshank.

Gambling is something that bookmakers want you to do on their terms. They certainly won’t be happy if you work out a better way of betting. In facted they will give you the gubbing stick at the drop of a hat!

Of course, once you find out about fantastic ideas such as matched betting you will be keen to get started. The odds will now be firmly weighted in your favour.

You will be taking all the risk out of betting in this way. Matched betting is completely legal, so you don’t need to worry about falling foul of the law. However, there are still some issues that you need to be aware of.

The bookies won’t be happy if they see you taking money off them regularly, though. If all of their punters used matched betting techniques then they would soon be out of business. You are basically giving yourself an unfair advantage over the bookies. They don’t like that.

What can they do about it? The truth is that you could happily use matched betting for years. Many people carry on winning time after time without any problems. However, what if you get unlucky and the bookmaker sees what you are doing?

In this case, the risk that you will need to avoid is that of gubbing. In fact, this is one of the few problems that could spoil your gambling fun. You might also see the words gubbed or gubbing use to describe this situation. It is the same thing, really.

So, what is it and how can you steer clear of it? By understanding more about this term you will feel far more confident of it not happening.

What Is Gubbing?

Gubbing is a word used to describe what happens when a bookie limits your account. If you get gubbed then you won’t be able to bet as freely as you did before.

You may suffer any one of a number of restrictions if this happens. The bookmaker might stop you taking advantage of their promotions. This is a common result for anyone regularly winning on matched betting techniques.

This would obviously pretty much put an end to your matched betting with them. Since you are heavily dependent upon offers and free bets, the lack of them is crippling.

Alternatively, they might just limit the amount of money that you can bet with them. In this case, things aren’t quite so bad. Yet, it is going to severely restrict your chances of making money from them.

If you can only place very small stakes then winning big is almost impossible. The full benefits of matched betting will elude you in either of these cases.

There’s plenty of other bookies

Getting gubbed by one bookie is tough. However, there are plenty of other bookies out, right? At this point, it is worth considering that maybe you are doing something wrong. If you run into problems with one company then it might happen again with others.

If you get gubbed by several bookies then matched betting is going to be extremely difficult to do. It may even get to the stage in which it is virtually impossible. Therefore, you need to avoid this on as many of your accounts as possible.

Keeping all of your accounts in a good operating state is your main challenge with matched betting. Do this, follow the instructions and you simply can’t go wrong.

But what if the worst happens? How will you realise that you have been gubbed? For a start, you should know that the bookmaker won’t use this term. They will use other words but the end result is gubbing any way you look at it.

It is likely that they tell you about this in an email. The gubbing will take place with immediate effect. This is a tough blow to take but it doesn’t automatically mean the end for your betting profits.

First of all, we need to look into the matter a bit further, to see what it is all about.

Why Do Bookmakers Gub Accounts?

You may never find out exactly why your account was gubbed. Was there a certain wager that drew attention you? Or maybe it was the cumulative effect of all of the bets that you have placed and won with?

The bookmaker certainly won’t tell you exactly what they spotted. They keep a close eye on all of their accounts, though. If they spot that a punter is making too much money off them they won’t be shy in gubbing them.

If you have been using matched betting tactics then it is possible that something drew their attention to you. This is an area that the bookies take great care in looking at. After all, matched betting is one sure way of winning every time.

The most common situation is that the company has noticed that you only ever use promotional offers. If you do this then you stand far more chance of being noticed. They want punters to use their offers but they expect them to bet with their own money as well.

Of course, those offers are crucial to your success. Being able to bet for free is a vital part of any matched betting strategy. However, you need to be careful to not draw attention to yourself while doing this.

Another possibility is that you have been making a lot of money off one bookie. Do you win regularly and never lose anything more than the odd small amount? This will mark you out as a fairly unusual punter right away, as most people lose more than they win.

Bookies monitor your accounts

Bookmakers monitor their customer accounts very closely. After all, they need to know who their most profitable customers are. This lets them see who is making them money and who is taking it from them. If you have been winning regularly then this is bad business for the bookie.

You will also be gubbed if they spot you carrying out multi-accounting. This is also known as gnoming and it means running two accounts. You will have two accounts at one time but with slightly different personal details.

This is risky and it could even be deemed as illegal. Therefore, you shouldn’t be trying multi-accounting. If you do then expect to be gubbed. It is usually pretty easy for bookies to spot this, by checking you IP address, for example.

The truth is that you will probably have an idea what it was that made your account stand out. The bookie won’t confirm it but you will most likely have a gut feeling.

Most importantly, you need to learn from this. If you have gone a bit overboard with free bets then you know now what happens. Therefore, you need to avoid this happening with any of your other accounts elsewhere.

It is a horrible feeling to get an account gubbed. Yet, the worst thing you can do is wallow in the misery. Your matched betting career isn’t over provided that you can learn from this and stop it from happening again.

What Is Mug Betting? 

One suggestion that you might see for avoiding gubbing is called mug betting. This is a system that sees you place some bets that aren’t linked to free offers.

The theory is that you place some money on bets that have low odds. 2.0 or less is the commonly given level at which you should be making these bets. You would then lay them off on a betting exchange to make sure that you aren’t going to lose money.

The idea is that the bookie sees you as a normal punter. Rather than winning money all the time you will sometimes lose. Of course, the idea is that you win more in the long term by losing a little in the short term.

Perhaps you will start to place these bets on your favourite team or jockey. Anything that makes you look like the sort of person who bets like everyone else is the general idea here.

Your account is less likely to get looked at if it looks all the rest. Lots of punters play and lose, so anyone who always wins stands out from the crowd.

According to the people who use mug betting, the secret is in finding the right balance. You still want to come out ahead but you want to look normal at the same time. This is tricky to do but is it even worth it?

Mug Betting Is a Waste of Time

Everyone has different experiences when it comes to gubbing. You might carry out matched betting on an account for year on end without running into any problems. On the other hand, you could find that your account is gubbed almost right away.

One thing that does seem certain is that mug betting is a waste of time. The time, money and effort you put into this would be better used on something else. Mug betting to try and lower the risk gubbing simply isn’t worth it.

Some people say that it helped them. But, overall the benefits don’t seem to justify the effort. You would be better pouring your efforts into making more money.

Naturally, if you aren’t going to use mug betting then you will want some other way of avoiding gubbing. This is one of the biggest challenges in the long-term, and mug betting simply hasn’t been proven to be successful enough.

So, what else should you be looking to do to be able to carry on betting freely? I’ve written a full piece on why mug betting is a waste of time.

How Can You Avoid Getting Gubbed?

If mug betting can’t help you to avoid getting gubbed then what can? After all, this is the key to carrying on profiting day after day. If you don’t get gubbed then matched betting will give you a steady, reliable income for the future.

The worst thing that could happen is it gets to the stage in which you don’t have enough accounts to place bets on. Getting gubbed is annoying when it is one account but it gets worse with each account that is affected.

Ideally, you will make smart decisions from day one on your accounts. Try and look at your account from the bookie’s point of view. Are they likely to get suspicious because you are regularly taking money off them?

The best approach is to switch between different bookmakers regularly. Make some money off each of them instead of trying to win off just one. This will give you more chances of your winning bets going un-noticed.

You might also want to stick to the same kind of bets. For example, are you going to bet on English football and the big European leagues? If you are then suddenly wagering on obscure tennis matches and foreign golf events can raise suspicions.

It is generally best to stick to big, high profile events that lots of punters are tempted by. Big horse races like the Grand National and Champion’s League matches get a huge number of bets placed on them. You are unlikely to stand out in this way.

Try and avoid betting with weird amounts of stakes. Sometimes, the matched betting software will tell you that the ideal bet is something like £10.23 or £16.87. This is fine, but it doesn’t mean that you need to make that exact bet.

Just round up the suggested bet to the nearest whole pound. Most punters don’t put on stakes with pennies at the end of it. Neither should you.

Timing is one of the most important elements of matched betting. In some cases the offers are extremely time-limited. This means that you need to place the wager at a certain time or risk losing the opportunity.

However, if you always bet well in advance of events it might trigger a bookmaker investigation into your account. They could see that you are basically working through a list of offers at certain times of day or days of the week.

So, what do regular betters do? This is what you want to emulate, after all. Well, a normal punter will often impulsively bet in the run-up to the game or race. Maybe they place their bet just as it is about to start on the TV.

Mix it up

Try and mix up your betting habits. If you always place a pile of bets on Sunday evenings for the upcoming week then this might draw attention to you. Just try and act like the sort of punter who loves having a flutter from time to time.

You might also want to see if the bookie has slots, tables or other types of betting. By sampling a bit of everything that they offer you can look more like a regular sort of customer. Of course, the ideal approach is to find offers that let you do this without losing money.

Finally, try not to take out all of your winnings right away every single time. If you don’t urgently need the cash then try leaving some there for a while. This is what a lot of regular punters do. They know that they are going to be placing more bets and aren’t sure whether they will win or lose. So they might need those some of the winnings to carry on betting.

With matched betting you are sure that you will win every time. Yet by taking out the winnings right away you might make this too obvious.

Is It Possible to Get Ungubbed?

What if your account gets gubbed eventually? Is there a way of reversing this so that you can get back to betting freely again?

If you have enjoyed tremendous success with matched betting then you won’t want to give this up easily. The good news is that this is something that isn’t necessarily permanent. There is no need to think that you are gubbed for life, although that is a possibility.

Yet, there is also some bad news. This is that there is no real way of knowing how to get ungubbed. There is no magic formula that will lead to the bookmaker lifting the restrictions on your account.

You need to keep checking to see if your account gets put back to normal. This could take time. Yet, in the meantime you can carry on betting with other bookies instead. The real problems arise when you get several accounts gubbed. You don’t want to run out of places to bet.

If you do get some restrictions lifted then you need to be more careful than ever before. For example, if you can bet any size of stake but can’t use free bets. In this case, you might decide to place a few mug bets to look as innocent as possible. I’ve made a list of strategies that work on gubbed accounts here.

Summary

Having your account gubbed is a serious setback. But it isn’t the end of the world. If this happen then stay cool and get back in the bookie’s good books over time if you can.

Having said that, the best approach is to be smart from the very start. Avoid drawing attention to yourself and this might be something that you never have to worry about.

You’ll want to properly use your matched betting resources. And, secondly, you will want to structure your matched betting time so you’ll obtain the most profit for the time you spend. One way to do this is to sign up for a trial of Profit Maximiser. You’ll save time because you’ll be provided with all the bookmaker and casino offers that you’ll need. You’ll also be given the proper strategy needed in order to best use your bonuses.

The post What Does Gubbing Mean and Can You Avoid It? appeared first on Mike Cruickshank.

What is mug betting?

Simply put, mug betting involves placing bets with online bookmakers that don’t have any bonuses attached to them. Anyone who places bets online is aware of the huge competition between bookmakers – which prompts them to offer bonuses. With the bonuses offered, you can get free bets as well as other perks – if you strictly follow the ‘rules’ that are given. Mug betting falls outside of these situations. With mug betting, your bets are simply just that – bets that don’t have the advantage of a bonus attached to them. This is ‘true’ betting and not to be confused with “matched betting”, which is completely different and considered “risk free”. Therefore, matched bettors are not to be considered “gamblers” in any sense of the word.

Why do bookmakers limit accounts?

Still, there are matched bettors who are fearful of having their bookie accounts restricted by not being given any bonuses that are offered to other players. This is known as “gubbing”. This can happen when a bookmaker senses that a player is using matched betting in order to profit. At that point, a bookie may limit an account with the goal of protecting themselves from loss. An account may even be closed because of this. Therefore, some matched bettors will periodically revert to mug betting in order to appear as regular bettors and avoid being gubbed.

As one increases their matched betting activity, the chances of gubbing (or having your account closed) will increase. Because of the money that’s involved, when it comes to dealing with a large number of players, a bookmaker will take measures to ensure that none of their clients are using matched betting. This is definitely within their interest.

They do this by closely monitoring their customer’s behaviour. While doing this, they search for customers who don’t look like they’re using mug betting and are using matched betting instead. At that point, they simply limit or close the account, usually without giving any warning. In less harsh situations, they might just prevent those customers from receiving any free bets.

Why is mug betting a waste of time?

To many matched bettors, mug betting might seem to be a reasonable way to prevent this from happening. But, in reality, it’s a waste of time. You need to be aware that if you are involved in matched betting, you will experience having an account closed at some point. That’s just a fact of life. You can either stress out over it – or you can work with this assumption. It makes far more sense to do the latter.

Now, you will also encounter quite a number of online myths that will try to advise you on how to “keep your accounts open”. Most of them involve resorting to mug betting. However, the best way to proceed involves not stressing out and focus on continuing to earn as much money as you can. This is the opposite of scrambling in order to keep your accounts open. And it’s also the best way to proceed.

In reality, you can come across a number of people who will actually lose the opportunity to make quite a bit of money. This happens when they ignore the advantage of hundreds of pounds worth of free bets while trying to keep an account open a bit longer. But here’s something that you may not know. When you see a service that recommends that you do this, it’s because the site has a bookmaker affiliation! These bookmakers get paid more when you engage in mug betting.

Be careful of dodgy advise

You might find certain Matched Betting websites that advise depositing and placing a larger bet than the bonus amount. For example, if the free bet is; bet £25 get £25 free – they’ll suggest that you deposit £50. That happens, because they have bookmaker affiliations. A bookmaker will pay them when you bet more.

Another so called Matched Betting website advises you place mug bets after every offer. The reason they do this is they have bookmaker affiliate links on their website. They get paid the more you bet.

When you see poor advice like this, you should avoid using that service. Trust me, these folks definitely don’t care about your interests.

Alternatives to mug betting that actually work

Fortunately, there are legitimate ways that you can keep your accounts open for a longer period of time. Here a few suggestions that you can use to avoid turning to mug betting:

• Avoid the temptation of placing arbitrage bets (a series of bets) with an account that isn’t gubbed. This would usually be done with a lay bet with the exchange and a back bet with the bookie. That’s because you can profit, no matter the outcome, since the back odds are higher than the lay odds. Bookmakers are aware of this tactic and you will be quickly gubbed.While this might seem to be a way to make a large profit, quickly, bookies monitor things like this quite easily. Plus, you will earn substantially more by first using their bonuses. The good news is that you can use this strategy on an account that is still open (but bonus gubbed). That’s because it doesn’t involve using bonuses at all. You can read more about arbitrage here.

• If you are thinking about horse racing, you’ll want to avoid placing bets, unless it’s ITV racing or a big festival. Close back & lay odds matches cost the bookies quite a bit, so they’re closely monitored. Using free bets for close matches may be easy – but you’ll be attracting unnecessary attention.
• Stay away from very close matches when using your free bets. Multiples may be more time consuming, but they’re safer. Even if you sacrifice a bit of your profit with a bit of a larger qualifying bet loss, the upside is that you’ll keep your account open longer.
• Hold off on placing your bets until just before the event time. That’s because a trader measures the value you’re taking by how much you beat the starting price. For example, if you place your bet at odds 13.0 and at starting time, it’s at 3.0, you’ve placed a pretty good bet. Suddenly, you’re on the trader’s radar. Place your bets about one minute before the event starts and you’ll never beat the starting price and you’ll stay “under the radar”.

By using these strategies, you can find yourself avoiding losing literally thousands of pounds practicing mug betting. All in a futile attempt of trying to keep an account open!

How to profit from bonus banned accounts

As was mentioned before, having an account gubbed is a reality associated with matched betting. However, there’s no need to panic or stress out. As a matter of fact, there are ways to actually monetise these accounts! It all boils down to extracting all the money that you can, while the account is still open. Of course, you don’t want to take any unnecessary risks with a non-gubbed account just to make a quick profit. However, if the account has been gubbed, you can still work with it and you’ll have avoided mug betting. I’ve written a more detailed post about profiting from gubbed accounts here.

I’ve already mentioned using arbitrage bets, which don’t involve bonuses.

Some additional ways that avoid mug betting involve:

• Extra Place offers – You’ll find that bookies will often choose selected events to pay an extra place. These can be for a golf tournament or a major horse race. Here, you’ll get the opportunity to risk a small amount for a chance at a big return. These offers will be open to all – even for gubbed accounts. For a horse race, for example, the major strategy would be to find a horse that offers a small qualifying loss with a large potential return.
• Each Way Sniper – This is basically a system that is used to make a guaranteed profit from the bookmaker’s each-way bets. An each-way bet is a (single) back bet that consists of two parts – a bet placed on the horse to win and a bet on the horse to place. It’s actually a form of arbitrage betting in which you’ll find a horse with back odds that are higher than the corresponding Betfair Exchange lay odds. The difference lays in the focus on subtle place-market arbitrage bets. These types of bets can elude a bookmaker more effectively than some other strategies. Read more about Each Way Arbing here.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are two major considerations when it comes to Matched Betting. The first is that gubbed and closed accounts are a reality in this game. And the second thing is that mug betting is not the way to address this issue. It will not only cost you a lot of lost profit potential, but it amps up the stress level, as well. Rather than wasting your time trying to keep your accounts open with mug betting, there are better alternatives.

The real goal is twofold. First, you’ll want to properly use your matched betting resources. And, secondly, you will want to structure your matched betting time so you’ll obtain the most profit for the time you spend. One way to do this is to sign up for a trial of Profit Maximiser. You’ll save time because you’ll be provided with all the bookmaker and casino offers that you’ll need. You’ll also be given the proper strategy needed in order to best use your bonuses. Best of all, you’ll avoid the time consuming waste associated with mug betting.

At that point, you’ll become part of a Matched Betting community with over 7,000 active members who enjoy their risk-free profits. I’m currently offering a 14-day risk free trial. Give it a test and if for any reason you don’t love it, you can cancel your order with no questions asked by emailing support@bonusbagging.co.uk. Most people love it and we even have some members who have made life-changing amounts of money.

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