An insightful review of the risks of matched betting

[Diamondgeezer]

And yet SPOOKY was top drawer with his offers and Kid Poker has posted up good offers too. Plus a lot of guys have made great contributions on the US Bookies thread.

What I would like to see with the ratings system is more guidance regarding a sensible percentage of bankroll in these less solid 'big bonus' type books. My rule of thumb would be to have no more than 5% bankroll MAX in these books. I know that may seem a overly cautious amount to some but if say you have a bankroll of about £10K you shouldn't be getting involved in books like this for proper money in the first place. There are plenty of good books you could be in albeit at a lower earnings rate.

In the Bet911 thread I read one or two stories of people losing like £2K and 25% of their bankroll. I mean this just shouldn't be happening. IMO you really need about £20K before you should even think about these type of bookies. People look at the reward too much and at the risk not enough. It's very different if you have say a £100k bankroll because the risk/reward ratio is a lot different. When you are at that level if you really have to you can earn a £2K loss back but if you bankroll has got chopped from £8K to £6K it is going to take a lot longer to earn that money back.

I am not blaming TGT for this but maybe there is not enough questioning going on? I have seen it in the Casino section too when people I suspect were not bankrolled for it were taking on cashback offers too aggressively. It's easy to get sucked in to the latest offer or trend without perhaps realising that other players may have a bankroll many times bigger than yours.

Not many people like to talk about it but bankroll and risk/reward ratios are so important once you drop down from the A list bookies.

[MITK]

No, I think its plain wrong to advertise/promote their books here.

If it is about a pending problem, like payout, identification, bet settlement, etc. it is OK to have a rep. posting, but not for advertising/promoting.

[MITK]

Haven't heard the name Mark Roberts lately! He took care of me quite well all the way back in the Bet Atlas days when he used to run that book. Where is Mark now? Working customer service at Bookmaker now?

How long did you wait to get paid at Atlas then?

[MITK]

And yet SPOOKY was top drawer with his offers and Kid Poker has posted up good offers too. Plus a lot of guys have made great contributions on the US Bookies thread.

There you come to a whole different ball game really. There was no Bookmaker group rep coming here to enlist players, nor it was any Justbet/Betjam/betus one. Kidpoker and Spooky had affiliate deals and they had their interest on earning money from affiliates and the book is not directly involved here. This affiliate deals are OK with me.
Besides, the book here reacts is he dislikes the customers he has gotten from his affiliate agent, like Bookmaker did with Spooky shutting down all Europeans, and Betjamaica did the same with Kidpoker for his forum clientele.

[musicbox]

No, I think its plain wrong to advertise/promote their books here.

If it is about a pending problem, like payout, identification, bet settlement, etc. it is OK to have a rep. posting, but not for advertising/promoting.

On the Bet911 and Bethorizon threads where it was/has been a mix of of CS and promotion then my impression was that people, including yourself (Bethorizon /Bet911) were ok using it in that (<) kind of fashion, taking bonuses on offer and didn't have an issue with their presence.

Those threads were created after the kind of other negative experiences you've mentioned and people were advised back on Nov 1st about company reps being present. Whether reps post or what they post is not my decision but if people do feel a particular way on that or anything then really it has to be stated because as someone who obviously uses the forum a lot, that feeling really hasn't been apparent or mentioned to me.

[musicbox]

What I would like to see with the ratings system is more guidance regarding a sensible percentage of bankroll in these less solid 'big bonus' type books. My rule of thumb would be to have no more than 5% bankroll MAX in these books. I know that may seem a overly cautious amount to some but if say you have a bankroll of about £10K you shouldn't be getting involved in books like this for proper money in the first place. There are plenty of good books you could be in albeit at a lower earnings rate.

In the Bet911 thread I read one or two stories of people losing like £2K and 25% of their bankroll. I mean this just shouldn't be happening. IMO you really need about £20K before you should even think about these type of bookies. People look at the reward too much and at the risk not enough. It's very different if you have say a £100k bankroll because the risk/reward ratio is a lot different. When you are at that level if you really have to you can earn a £2K loss back but if you bankroll has got chopped from £8K to £6K it is going to take a lot longer to earn that money back.

I am not blaming TGT for this but maybe there is not enough questioning going on? I have seen it in the Casino section too when people I suspect were not bankrolled for it were taking on cashback offers too aggressively. It's easy to get sucked in to the latest offer or trend without perhaps realising that other players may have a bankroll many times bigger than yours.

Not many people like to talk about it but bankroll and risk/reward ratios are so important once you drop down from the A list bookies.

http://www.thegamblingtimes.com/boar...anagement.html is a pretty decent thread which talks about risk (I also talked about the risk of losing sense of reality too!) - perhaps drawing upon threads like that we could put together a general article.

But, as it stands, if we have a book rated 7* which goes bust then for some it will be a case of "what the hell were you thinking?" (even if review sites elsewhere rated similarly). If we have a guided % of bankroll and a book went bust and 5% of bankroll is lost by 20 people in-line with what TGT had said the max % bankroll committed in that book should be then the loss will see 10 people take it in their stride whilst 10 other characters will be badly affected.

On any given day you may see someone in the chatbox say "I lost £20" and be really gutted even though it's not even 1% of their bankroll and someone else posts that they've lost £3k in a book going bust but says "overall I'm up and I'll continue" as if it's just a small setback... and maybe they only had £10k of bankroll. So the inherent problem with things like percentages is that it's not just to do with bankroll or to do with a perceived stability of a book, it's to do with your perceived stability of the book AND just how much that % matters to you.

However, I do think a general article, if there isn't already one, might be a good idea so thanks for that.

[armyvet]

Sorry I missed your question MITK. Bet Atlas is no longer around. I can't quite remember but they got bought out by somebody bigger I am assuming. I played with these guys back in the neteller days and got paid in less than 2 days. I milked this place for quite a few reloads back in the day!

How long did you wait to get paid at Atlas then?