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What is Bonus Bagging? What is Matched Betting?

Bonus bagging or matched betting is the process of extracting a bonus offered by a bookmaker without risking any of your own hard earned coin.

In the UK there is an array of bookmakers that you are likely to find in many town and city centres. Chains like Ladbrokes, William Hill and Coral dominate the British high street and have built their loyal customer bases on reputation and accessibility within local communities. However, the age of the Internet has forced these companies to adapt and they now face more competition than ever. There are literally hundreds of bookmakers operating online and all of them are fighting for your attention. To entice new customers the majority of bookmakers offer a signup bonus.

To the astute player this is risk free money.

To qualify for a signup bonus it is most usual that you have to place a qualifying bet. In finding an arbitrage bet for this qualifier it is easy to activate this bonus for small or no loss. Once you have the bonus you are now playing with the bookmaker’s money and the road ahead is pure profit. Repeat the arbitrage process once again and it is simple to extract the majority of the bonus and then withdraw.

Consider that even if you only signed up to 10 bookmakers offering a bonus of £50 each then you stand to make close to £500 (10×50).

Rest assured that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many players have been successfully creaming bookmakers for that amount on a month-to-month basis.

Some have even quit their jobs to play the bonus bagging game full time.

While I don’t advise that just yet, you certainly have little to lose in making a tax-free supplement income. Many years ago it got me through university!

If you’ve never attempted bonus bagging before then it can admittedly be a little daunting. If you don’t want to go it alone I recommend taking a look at Mike Cruickshank’s Bonus Bagging service to get you started. Mike will guide you through the bonus bagging process and provide you with support and advice as to the latest bookmaker promotions.

I would say the easiest and most straight forward form of bonus bagging is probably through backing and laying football results however it also possible to bag bonuses through betting on other sports such as tennis and horse racing. For ease of finding good matched bets and working hand in hand with the betting exchanges, whilst bonus bagging we generally work in decimal odds. If you’re from the UK and have been calculating your winnings in fractions all your life, trust me when I say that once you start using decimals you’ll fall in love with them. There’s no turning back!

If you’re still a little sceptical about how it’s possible to harness the power of arbitrage betting to extract bookmaker bonuses for profit then I’d advise you watch the recent video walkthrough I recently recorded.

You will note that in this video I use and recommend the aforementioned Bonus Bagging service by Mike Cruickshank. You do not have to purchase and do it this way. It is perfectly ok to find and research your own bets. I choose to use this service because it is quick and easy.

If you want more information about the service I use in the video, check out full my Bonus Bagging Review.

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  1. Fin says:

    How much of a deposit does one need to start bonus bagging(between Betfair and bookmakers) in order to clear say £1000 in order to move on to profit maximiser in a relatively short period of time.
    Thanks and keep up the good work!

    • Chris says:

      Hi Fin: I’d recommend getting to grips with the system / methodology first rather than racing through trying to hit set goals. Once you feel comfortable and more confident you can pick up the pace.

      But to answer your query: £100 is the recommended starting bank. If you have a bank of £300 or so you could probably take on multiple offers at the same time if you do want to speed things up. But be aware you should always check you have enough liquidity in your Betfair balance to cover any liabilities. When you are placing many bets at the same time this will obviously stretch your Betfair account more.

  2. Rupen says:

    Hi Chris
    This has made it clearer.
    I am just trying to see where i am profit/loss wise after a few bets.
    Just out of interest,would you include initial stake monies as money put in when calculating eg the £10 as above and the £75 at betfair when calculating profit/loss

    Thank
    Rupen

    • Chris says:

      Rupen: Hmmm.. If you’re trying to work out your overall profit loss then you should be including everything in your calculations. It helps to keep a spreadsheet or hand written log of all your bets so you can keep track of things easily.

  3. Rupen says:

    Hi Chris
    i just wanted clarificatins on certain things:
    1) When depositing say £10 to open account, you may get £20 free bet, therefore when we say that our initial stake is not at risk, is that because you are getting the £20 free bet so £10 better off and effectiely gettig that £10 back.
    2)Similarly when you opn a betfair accout with £75 we are saying that is never at risk, but my account has a balance of £15, therefore how is it not at risk because surely i will need to deposit more funds into betfair before i can place anther bet
    3)how does the profit calculation work if taking the above into account
    thanks
    Rupen

    • Chris says:

      Hi Rupen:

      1) If you deposited £10 you would first match that bet off to qualify for the bonus. In matching that bet you would be covering all outcomes and therefore eliminating the risk.. Though technically you might lose anything from a few pence to a couple of pounds between the odds at the bookmaker and the lay at the betting exchange.

      In short – once your qualifying bet settles you will have lost a very minimal amount or broke even. Now you can rinse and repeat with the £20 free bet you’ve been awarded.

      Expect to make about 75% of a £20 free bet so around the £15 mark so if you made a loss on your qualifying bet of a quid or two then I’d expect in total after placing the qualifier and the free bet you will be in PROFIT £12-15.

      2) If you placed a bet at Betfair with a starting balance of £75 then this will reduce in line with the liability of the lay you have placed. Now either of two things will happen:

      a. Your bet will win at the bookmaker.
      b. Your lay will win at Betfair.

      Either way your total bankroll is never at stake because you will win at one or the other. In the event you win at the bookmaker you can withdraw your winnings and then redeposit them into Betfair.

      3) I think I covered this in my question one answer.

      I hope that helps! If you purchased Bonus Bagging through me and still have concerns then feel free to drop me an email. :)