Do mug bets get you more reload bonuses from bookmakers? The theory goes that in order to protect your accounts from gubbing, you need to place a few mug bets to make it look like you're not an advantage player or matched betting. As with a lot of theories, it's not always true, and real life can be very different. |
In theory that would work brilliantly (and is why the average person thinks being a bookmaker is a licence to print money), but in practice a bookmaker is unlikely to receive bets of the right value at the right odds on each possible outcome in their book, and therefore their book will not be perfect for each event.
If they're not just gambling themselves then they'll have a book that is balanced (as far as possible) across all of the markets they're offering on any given event or day.
Regardless of how the overall book is put together, there is more money for the bookmaker by people losing than winning. As they are able to pick and choose their customers, to a certain extent, then why continue to accept bets from customers who consistantly win? The more profitably result for the bookmaker is to having losing customers, and even better if you can convert them to casino play.
With all this in mind, and going back to the original question, if you appear to be a mug punter will you receive more reloads and bonuses than someone that appears to be an advantage player? If you are losing money, and appear to be a bad punter, then surely their custom would be worth more to the bookmaker?
Unfortunately it's impossible to test as you can't compare two accounts like for like. Some might get extra bonuses, others might not.
If someone is betting, and losing, then why offer them bonuses to carry on. They're already doing exactly what the bookmaker wants them to do. This situation is one where you might receive a 'welcome back' or 'we haven't seen you in a while' or 'we miss you' type bonus, where a previously good customer stops using a site the operator will try to win them back with a bonus or offer.
However, in general it is impossible to compare to accounts and their usage to see what the perfrect combination was to receive extra bonuses. As an example I know some people that use BetFair a lot, turning over £10,000+ a month, some of them are net loss (obviously still in profit overall from the back and lay system) and others in net profit, yet there seems to be little correllation between those that receive reloads and extra offers and those net profit/loss figures.
Whilst it would be nice to receive extra bonuses, if you have to lose bets to achieve that then you'd need a the gift of foresite to know whether the additional value in the extra bets was worth losing money in the interim.
In short, you might get more bets and bonuses if you look like a mug punter, but as you're not going to be making money it's not really in your best interests, in fact it plays right into the bookmakers' hands.
Protecting an account from gubbing by throwing out the odd mug bet that's not related to a bonus, or playing a few hands of blackjack, might keep your account and limits safe for a bit longer, and that could be considered a viable strategy. Losing to get bigger bonuses? That's the opposite of advantage play and matched betting.