The do’s and don’ts for making your brand new bookmaker account last longer – even as a shrewd bettor.
If you have been paying attention in the space that is profitable betting, you will have come across many articles that claim to understand how bookmakers restrict winning bettors.
The truth is, only the companies themselves know, and often those only in the specific departments whose job it is to restrict winners will know the exact methods for how they operate.
So if you come across an article that has been informed by a bookmaker employee then it is certainly worth paying attention to.
It’s why videos like this from the likes of Caan Berry are valuable. At SBC we don’t advocate taking the value ASAP like Caan mentions (you can see why below) but it’s certainly some of the best info out there in terms of how bookies profile accounts.
It’s also why I sat up and took notice when our inspirational leader Peter Ling put this old blog post in front of me…
The inside story on how one bookmaker restricts the stakes of its customers is a fascinating look at the specifics of how a bookmaker profiles its customers and then limits their betting activity by using stake factoring; sourced from an actual bookmaker employee in the know.
Go check it out. It’s a great read and unique to anything I had come across before.
My New Account Do’s And Don’ts
Such was its impact that I decided to write a new blog piece using some of the nuggets of gold found in the stake factoring article.
I decided to use these bits of info to suggest some do’s and don’ts for brand new betting accounts with the aim of making those accounts last longer.
Essentially we want to represent ourselves as a mug, losing, bad (take your pick) punter with the aim of throwing the bookies off our scent and gaining a favourable stake factor.
I call it ‘Priming’ an account because if you go in straight away with a new account and start betting on shrewd bets, it won’t last 2 minutes. Yet if you take time to make it look like you are a loser and ‘prime’ the account it could very well last a lot longer!
Why Priming Works
This approach is demonstrated perfectly by a story told by a betting associate of mine about the amount of money won on an account that was previously a big losing account.
The account was used over many years by an avid bettor who did not know what they were doing when it came to winning/profitable/value betting meaning the account was showing a huge loss (clearly this guy was not afraid to bet large sums as well).
My associate was able to win significantly more using this account than usual as he was not restricted as quickly either in profit terms or from the amount of shrewd bets placed.
In his estimation he won about 30 to 40 times what he would have been able to in a normal ‘new’ bookmaker account before it got closed down.
Clearly these types of betting accounts are hugely valuable to winning bettors and should be taken advantage of wherever possible.
Anyway…onto the do’s and don’ts for making your brand new betting account last longer – even as a shrewd bettor…
DO
- In general, bet like a loser and how the bookmaker wants you to. So bet on accas, bet on other multiple bets and bet in the casino. This point on taking accas is really key as its one of the most important things you can do early in the life of a new bookmaker account
- Bet in-play on football, especially on the big games. You might also consider the odd bet on a random league like Chile or Brazil where you don’t have a clue and it looks like you are bored watching TV late at night and needing a punt.
- Bet at different stakes as it looks like you don’t have a set strategy. When you have a winner, bet immediately on something else using the funds won as this makes it look like you are just a bad gambler.
- Bet on a wide range of sports and markets. Being completely scattergun will make it look like you don’t know what you are doing.
- Bet late and on favorites in horse racing. Make it look like you are watching the racing and needing a punt.
- Bet on the same football team like a mug punter would do betting on who they support.
- Bet on the overs markets. Mug punters love betting on goals a lot more than no or under goals
- Bet via a mobile phone. Most shrewd punters use laptops or desktops (I know I do)…mugs do it on their mobile as they sit in front of their TV or at the pub.
- Bet when the bookmaker is a mile off best price i.e. if best price is 10/1 and you take 8/1, it is clear you are not value sensitive.
DON’T
- Bet in a sensible, logical manner at the same stakes.
- Bet just on singles.
- Bet on racing into early markets. The bookies hate that.
- Take the max stake allowed on any bet. If for example the max bet a bookmaker will take is £100, don’t take the full amount on that bet. Take no more than 75% of the maximum being offered. (To check this – load up your bet and enter a really high figure – it will likely tell you what the maximum you can bet on it is – Skybet offer this facility for example)
- Take too many ‘boosted’ bets – one or two might be fine but taking too many bets that have boosted odds is not advised.
- Bet on shrewd bets that might beat Betfair SP or closing line odds.
- Take the free bet offers. They are tempting but bookies do log this and it might be used against you. Again is your account worth that £5 free bet? (no is the answer)
- Bet on tips from prominent experts that are known to move markets – the likes of Hugh Taylor or Pricewise.
- Bet into niche markets or sports they know they are vulnerable on.
- Bet using a VPN when priming an account. It flags with some bookies. Use a phone hotspot instead if you have to.
- Take a bet with the bookmaker when they are a stand out best price.
- Click on links from a site like Oddschecker. Your traffic source will be tagged as originating from Oddschecker and you will be tagged as a price sensitive customer (see the stake factoring article).
How to offset your mug bets
Clearly in order to attempt to throw the bookies off our scent, we have to make various bad bets that are not part of our winning strategy.
You may be thinking…this sounds like I’m going to lose a lot of money??
Well yes you are likely to end up losing some and to be honest if you win more than you lose when doing this you may not achieve the stake factoring status you’re after.
We can limit our losses, though, using a couple of methods.
Lay your win stake – thanks to the wonders of betting exchanges, it’s possible to lay the bet you’re taking at the bookmaker. This means you can have every eventuality covered and you’ll only lose what is known in Matched Betting as qualifying loss. This is the difference in odds between the win and lay price. If laying you can use a Matched Betting calculator to calculate your stakes.
Worth losing some? – theoretically speaking, you should only lose the margin that the bookmaker bakes into their odds. Using a casino slot game as an example, a typical RTP (return to player) is around 95%. This means that over the long term expect to lose only 5% of your stakes. So even if you don’t hedge/lay off any of your bets, you’ll expect to win some money rather than lose it all. This % figure applies to sports betting as well
Final thoughts
Inevitably our betting accounts will not last forever and eventually they will be restricted to the point of them being useless. This is due to the fact that, as winning bettors, we will start to profit at the bookmaker and we all know that bookies will react if losing money.
What we hope to achieve here is to prime our accounts so we can get the maximum amount of money out of them as possible.
If we get new accounts tagged as being ones belonging to a ‘losing punter’ then it might be can extract a lot more time and money out of it before it gets closed down or limited in stakes.
What is written here is not an exact science but it is based on years of betting experience coupled with insider knowledge from a real life bookmaker employee.
We think that’s likely to be as good as it gets…
As always, let us know if you’ve got any questions or comments on this subject. You can reach me on alex@smartbettingclub.com
Get More Help Beating The Bookmaker
As a Smart Betting Club member you can access several expert reports dedicated to helping you understand how and why restrictions are applied and how to avoid them as best you can, for as long as you can.
Whether it be through the use of technology, being selective as to the type of bets you place, how you spread your stakes around or the bookies more likely to accept winners – SBC is here to help you. Read more on SBC’s expert assistance.
Another route to profit is provided by betting on exchanges such as Betfair, Betdaq and Smarkets or with Asian bookmakers and/or bet brokers – something else as an SBC member you can explore in full.
In fact for every tipster we review, we explore the suitability of following them either via the exchanges or through Asian bookmaker or brokerage accounts as standard. Learn more on our Exchange Tipster focus