Matched betting is undoubtedly exciting. It’s difficult to pinpoint which part is the most fun but I assume it’s a combination of ‘working’ from home and the smug satisfaction of knowing you’ve beaten the bookmakers before an event even begins.
Sarpsborg vs. Valerenga was a thriller and ended a 3-3 draw! I didn’t watch it online. It sounded like a good game but essentially the result didn’t matter to me. Let’s look at what it did to our account balances:
PaddyPower Balance: £21 (Free bet matched for Hoffenheim game on Thursday)
Skybet Balance: £22.50 – READY TO WITHDRAW
Betfair Balance: £8.52 (£38.64 tied up in liability for Hoffenheim game)
Now as you can see my Betfair balance is looking pretty precarious and I’m going to struggle to get another bet on. Note to the newcomers: I have not lost this money. It has simply been moved to a bookmaker account through the process of arbitrage betting – the Betfair bet lost but the bookmaker bet won. So.. What can I do now? Well, you could wait for your Skybet withdrawal to process, then wait for the Hoffenheim vs. Kaiserslautern game to conclude if you like. You’d then just withdraw your PaddyPower balance and redeposit into Betfair.
But, to keep things ticking over here though for sake of this matched betting demonstrating using the Bonus Bagging service, let’s assume I deposit another £50.
Betfair Balance: £58.52
Ok – let the bagging begin! I login to the Bonus Bagging portal and ‘Request New Bet’.
So this is an interesting bet. It is in fact a free bet each week for the next 3 weeks totally £30 total from Ladbrokes. To ensure you qualify for a bonus, make sure you use the promo code Mike sends in the email. This is very important!
After signing up, we can place our bet:
We navigate to the correct game and selection.
Once the bet is in the bet slip, we check it’s correct and place it.
So in having just putting £10 on Sevilla at odds of 2.90 as the email told us to, it’s time to head over to Betfair and bet against Sevilla.
Laying Sevilla for £9.97 at 2.96 exposes us to a £19.54 liability.
This bet will lose 53p but I have £30 worth of free bets on their way. The most observant amongst you will have noticed that this match does not kick off till Sunday and we therefore must emember we have £29.54 (£10 Ladbrokes, £19.54 Betfair) tied up until then. This isn’t particularly a problem because the Ladbrokes offer takes place over 3 weeks (3 x £10 free bets). We will need to keep some money in there anyway to keep playing and make the maximum £30 or so profit.
Let’s now dawdle. Let’s ‘Request a New Bet’ and crack on:
I get an email with another offer. This time for William Hill.
Ok. Now we’re talking. After building our cash pot with smaller offers we’re starting to see some bigger ones now. After signing up to Will Hill with the correct promo code we will get a £25 free bet after staking a £25 qualifier. I head on over to the site to get started:
The email instructs to head on over to Greek Super League where I can bet on Giannina to win at 2.5.
I put my £25 down into the bet slip and place the bet.
Even if you’re a gambler, placing a £25 bet can seem scary. We know though we’ll be covering the other outcomes. We can’t lose.
As instructed I lay Giannina for £24.9 at odds of 2.56.
All done. Through matching this bet I will lose £1.34 but I will receive a £25 free bet of which I can place tomorrow. This is where I’ll end today.
Profit Total: £20.03 – £0.53 – £1.34 = £18.16
“Huh!?” you might be thinking. You’ve lost money today? Yes. That’s right. Technically, TODAY I have lost £1.90. But! And it’s a HUGE BUT…
I’ve secured 3 x £10 free bets and a £25 free bet that I will profit from over the forthcoming days. This service isn’t going to make you a millionaire. But it does guarantee a steady, substantial income from week to week. Will I double my profit on day four of using bonus bagging as my matched betting guide?
Hi Chris, congrats on a really great right up on this whole bonus bagging idea!
But call me suspicious but…what happens if you don’t use the links Mike sends you out in the emails? What I mean is if you could click the links and sign up to the offers are you signing up through him as an affiliate?
And does the affiliate (in this case Mike) get a percentage of your losses from the bookmaker? So if you decide to stop bonus-bagging and return to ‘regular’ gambling then you are basically giving a percentage of your wins/losses (or sign-up fee) to that particular affiliate?
I dont have a problem with affiliates at all, its just I like knowing beforehand for transparency purposes. Could you check the links Mike sends you (that take you to the bets), but then decide to manually find them yourself on the websites instead?
Sorry for the lengthy post!
PS: I should mention that I’ve never heard a bad word mentioned about Mike. Its just something I’ve been wondering as to why someone would offer such a great product at such a low price.
Hi James: Just check the offer and terms are identical so you don’t come unstuck with the bets that are emailed to you. Other than that, I don’t see a problem with signing up to any offer yourself independently. That’s up to you. :)
Hi again James, and thanks very much for the quick reply.
I’ve just gone to bonus-bagging website and was about to sign up but came to the PayPal payment page and saw this:
“By clicking the ‘Agree and Continue’ button, you agree and consent to use PayPal for future payments to ClickBank and that these payments will be made in accordance with the terms of the User Agreement applicable to “pre-approved payments””
This “pre-approved payments” bit caught me off-guard a bit.
What are these pre-approved payments?
Is there a recurring charge for the service?
I thought it was a once-off £27 payment.
Or can you or someone else enlighten me further? Thanks again.
Hi James: The cost of Bonus Bagging is £27 + VAT. It’s a one-off payment.
I can’t comment on the Clickbank small print. I guess they probably use the same wording for all products available on their platform, of which some follow a subscription model or staggered payments.
Sorry, Chris, i just realised i called you James as well. Old age will do that to you :)
Hi Chris, my only question is… now that we have to play a bonus through 3/4 times then won’t say a £30 pound bonus end up at much less than that, I appreciate you lose a little of your free bet but if you lose a little 3 or 4 times then you end up with significantly less, am I missing something?
Hi Stuart: Not all bonuses are born equal so this really depends on the offer you’re playing with.
In the case of a £30 free bet – if you were to assume that you would profit 75% we could expect a £22.50 return. In the case you were required to wager winnings 3x then you might expect to lose £1-2 profit per bet (these would be similar to how we play qualifying bets. Let’s say 3 x £1.50 = £4.50 + £1.50 we lost on the qualifier.
So come the end of the qualifier, bonus and wagering you’d make around £22.50 – £6 = £16.50 which is pretty good going I think for relatively little work. Probably less than an hour in total of actual ‘worked’ hours.
Small bonuses are all about volume – doing as many as you can to build the pot. Then once in a while you’ll get a monster bonus (£200 bet basket for instance) which you’ll potentially make a lot more out of.
Matched betting is what you make of it. If you sneer at potential on smaller free bets and can’t be bothered with them you’ll never make any money. If you take what’s available and just keep building on it you can make a lot of money. This is the way it goes. :)
hello, intelligent system, although what happens when you have signed up for every possible bookie there is, and redeemed their ‘free bet’?
back to the drawing board?
im looking for a system i can make money off and replace it with my current job. although effective, frankly, i dont see how this will benefit in the long term.
thanks, daniel.
It’s a valid point but the point of Bonus Bagging isn’t to replace your regular income. It’s more to make a bit extra on the side.
Though as I’ve stated previously I’ve continued to make money from matched betting for nearly a decade. There are endless opportunities with bookmaker reloads, casino and bingo offers as those using Profit Maximiser can testify. But it’s not something I personally would ever give up everyday work for.