The Death of Matched Betting is a topic that comes up quite frequently. And the more often it comes up, the more likely you are to believe it. Thankfully, and to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of matched betting are greatly exaggerated. There is still plenty of money to be made by the man, or woman, on the street, and nothing to stop you getting started right now. |
As an avid reader and fan of The Gambling Times I've been in awe of the stories of the 'good old days', where online bookmakers and casinos were a licence to print money. It would appear, on the face of it, that those days are now consigned to the past...........but are they really?
The old warhorses might have some issues keeping up with their former rates of return, but there are a number of factors in that. Sure there might be a few less reloads and offers around, but that's as much to do with their accounts being gubbed over a number of years as there being a dearth of offers.
Of course there are changes to UK Gambling Commission regulation coming at the end of the year, and that will require all bookmakers and casinos accepting UK customers to also be UK regulated. Already Trapezia Palace have closed their doors to UK customers, and others may as well if they don't believe there's sufficient benefit in signing up for UK regulation. The majority of sites will remain in the UK market as it's so profitable, but just in case there's never been a better time to sign up to bookmakers and casinos and take advantage of their bonus offers.
However, a quick scan of the Diary pages on TGT show that now and old users are still turning over decent sums of money and each run down confirms there is no shortage of offers to go around.
Don't forget that the majority of the people reporting the death of matched betting aren't really talking about matched betting either, they're more interested in advantage play betting as they've got through the hundreds of bookmaker sign up offers and are looking for value elsewhere.
In short, matched betting is alive and well. I'd be delighted to be in a position where I had could start from scratch again and go through all of the bookmaker sign up offers, bonuses and reloads. There's plenty of money to be made.
As for advantage play? Well given there are people still making a living at it, and a decent living at that, then I think we can agree that although the market has changed in the last 10 years, it's certainly not without it's; arbs, sharbs, risk free bets, bonuses and value bets now.
A consistant gambling income is still achievable, but you have to put some effort in to achieve it, it's not going to fall into your lap. In the last week alone I've had reloads, free spins, value bets and risk free bets from BGO, BetFair, William Hill, Bet365, Hippodrome, Tote Sport and a half dozen others.
Seek and yee shall find.