My thoughts and opinions after 3 years

[Gibber]

Heh I just felt like posting my thoughts and opinions after being in this game for a while now.

I very recently bust through 20k profit since I started "full time" in September 2008 a figure I thought I would never achieve. When beginning I was simply hoping to generate a couple of hundred pounds per month to supplement my time at University. Looking back I have made an average of £1,000 a month for 22 months. This is obviously small fry compared to some of you big hitters on here but its a huge supplement to my main income. What follows is just a brain dump of my experiences throughout the past three years.

1) Its all about risk vs reward

When I started this I was very risk averse. In fact I remember a palped bet I had at Ladbrokes going wrong and losing me £40, I was devastated. Joining here introduced me to casino bonuses. I was initially very skeptical about this source of income but did take the plunge in the end. 3 years on I double up pretty much every casino bonus (or at least bet big to a target) before doing any grinding out. When your bankroll gets bigger losses seem to not affect you as much, I don't think twice about sticking £200 on a spin of roulette something I would not have dreamt of doing 2 years ago. Casinos now account for 2/3 of my income (give or take month to month) so I am hugely grateful to this forum for helping me take the leap.

2) Ladbrokes Casino really was a goldmine until several months ago

Which other casino offered daily slots offers of between 4xB and 8xB wagering requirement? Some of us here made thousands over the 'glory years' and when they changed their bonus structure it was a huge blow. I have recently been bonus banned here as well, Ladbrokes you will be sorely missed.

3) US Books are not needed to maintain a steady income

Despite being i this game for a good period of time I am yet to dabble in any US Books at all. I haven't hit anywhere I am confident that if I had to I can maintain my average of £1,000 a month until at least the 30k mark. For some reason I have never hit anything there. It may be because the first time I was going to go in was just as the Heroes debacle was kicking off then the second was when Bet911 went under. Both these incidents made me understandably cautious, I am definitely contemplating diving in now though.

4) Why did I take so long to sign up to Pinnacle!

I only signed up to Pinnacle this year, why did I wait so long! Their industry leading odds are enough of a reason to sign up I use them at least twice a week.

5) Its important to treat yourself once in a while

I am not a particularly materialistic person, in fact I very rarely buy myself anything! However I went to Asia for four weeks after finishing University last year which was absolutely fantastic and would not have been possible if I didn't advantage play. My point is its important to give yourself a treat every now and then so you are doing all this for a reason.

6) Finding a the closest match possible is often not worth the time it takes

For about a year period I pretty much would not take a match poorer than about 0.5%. This would involve trawling through pages and pages of odds to find that 'perfect match'. I had a revelation shortly after that and just decided to take the closest match I could find after a maximum of a 10 minute period (bonus dependent).

7) Arbing is not the be all and end all

I don't go out of my way to arb especially, I spent last Summer arbing horses to good effect but lost a fair few accounts in the process. I have no problems at all finding footie arbs around the 1% - 1.5% mark but never really hit them unless I'm doing a bonus. Every other post I see on MSE seems to be about 'how to find arbs' etc. My point is some people obviously make a huge amount from arbs (bubbles springs to mind) but I don't and still comfortably make 4 figures a month.

8) No real good comes from the MSE forum

Alright a contentious last one but I really do not like that the fact that MSE exists as a public forum. This forum opens advantage play to people who really should not get involved, glancing over there I see the thread 'help - i laid twice on BetFair!' if you can't work out this simple correction yourself in my opinion then you should not be in this game. They also have such a closed attitude to all other forms of advantage play other than straight up matched betting that really makes no sense to me. When you google a bookie and the first result is MSE you know something is up the creak!

Alright said it would be a brain dump and it is just that!

[U4EA]

^^^^ That is almost exactly what I would have written and I have been doing this for about 2 years. Well done.

[Gibber]

Cheers. One think I forgot to add was a big thanks to you lot at TGT I know for a fact I would not have made the amount I have had I not had the support of everyone here!

[wobbler]

Very good post Gibber!

Your last comment about MSE is a very good one although I am a regular MSE visitor. Eventually MSE will be the death of most bookie bonuses, a lot like Beating Bonuses and Casibot managed to finish most of the worthwhile casino bonuses. Thing is in this type of game you have got to make hay while the sun shines as nothing is around forever.

If MSE didn't exist on the massive scale that it does then there would be another similar forum, absolutely nothing is safe since the explosion of internet users in the last 5 years or so. Don't get me wrong I still think we have a fair amount of time left and I am glad that we're all enjoying it while it lasts.

As for TGT, it's a superb forum and the reason it is so good is because it's not MSE.

[Landprofits]

8) No real good comes from the MSE forum

This forum opens advantage play to people who really should not get involved, glancing over there I see the thread 'help - i laid twice on BetFair!' if you can't work out this simple correction yourself in my opinion then you should not be in this game.

That one was a shocker. By the way I have some fluff and dust in an electrical socket. Is it OK to get it out with tweezers?

[snoopy]

That one was a shocker. By the way I have some fluff and dust in an electrical socket. Is it OK to get it out with tweezers?

I feel this is the most recommended way of removing this fluff, just remember you need tobe standing in a tub of water whilst doing it lol

[EvilMickey]

Gibber, think we need to compare notes!

Have you made your 20,000 since Sept 2008? Or over the three years total? 2/3 comes from casinos but no US books. This is interesting as my experience has shown US books to be incredibly lucrative...

All seems about right to me. No experience of casinos (bar €50 double up that went wrong this week at BAH and Coral having diffulty finding their own game of the month promo as they won't give me the bonus!) but I keep seeing posts like yours above saying "Once I stopped being a big wuss I made a fortune" so perhaps I should jump in before they're totally dead. I've been saying this for about 2.5 years now

Point #6 is an interesting one. I was always a "Find the best odds and extract £24.50 from that £25 SNR". I'm not any more What are your personal thoughts on underlaying? When arbing, I lay off enough to recoup stake as standard now - obviously when a high odds horsie wins using this method I make a fortune but more often than not I make bugger all. I'll often lay more in play if odds fall.

MSE is almost the victim of its own success. It's not just GIOL that suffers. Freebies get posted and the company pulls them, competitions get posted and subsequently pulled.

[Hippyer]

I don't think twice about sticking £200 on a spin of roulette something I would not have dreamt of doing 2 years ago. Casinos now account for 2/3 of my income (give or take month to month) so I am hugely grateful to this forum for helping me take the leap.

I've been dipping my toe in the casino offers alot more, but only very recently. I want to crack on with them more but something is holding me back from battering them.

I tried the double up strategy on the recent bet at home casino bonus because I knew it was a +ev bet. But if I lost I knew it wouldn't really dent my bankroll.

Do you have in your mind a percentage of your bankroll that you are happy to risk a double up on? I've discussed this in the chat room before and settled on 1% but I know when I've done the big blackjack bonuses like bwin with £12,000 worth of wagering required that I have finished up winning £200 by the time of finishing the wagering and if I can finish up this much I can certainly end up down this much.

So if this kind of streak happened with say £100 bonuses with a £10k bankroll would I bust?

I don't think I would bust, but I'm not absolutely clear with the maths and I guess it's this that's holding me back.

Are £100 bonuses reasonable to do with a £10k bankroll?

Thanks for your post, it's nice to read your thoughts from experiences.

[snoopy]

Swings and roundabouts with Casino Bonuses i mean ive lost 8 on the trot now 8 £25 reloads from 32red, but this month i got lucky on the slots and ripped £398 out of them (would have been £498 but i thought i would plough on at £5 a spin as i had completed the WR lol)

Same with Blackjack offers i reckon i have had in excess of £500 from Boylescasino £10 Sunday Blackjack offers over the last 2-3months but on the downside the last 3-4 weeks have been crap and ive pretty much lost money every week, but im still in profit.

I didnt start doing casino's until (i think) September last year and im absolutly kicking myself that i didnt start earlier. Although you do have to be incredibly patient if you want to play at the lowest stakes possible to complete the WR. I busted out twice on gamebookers Blackjack promotion because i was being impatient costing me £422 in total.

I would say jump in on the offers while there still there as the waters still warm but just be patient doing them

..............and as much as i started my AP Career on MSE (and very thankful i am for finding it on there) i feel it definately hindered myself from starting on the casino offers

[Gibber]

Gibber, think we need to compare notes!

Have you made your 20,000 since Sept 2008? Or over the three years total? 2/3 comes from casinos but no US books. This is interesting as my experience has shown US books to be incredibly lucrative...

All seems about right to me. No experience of casinos (bar €50 double up that went wrong this week at BAH and Coral having diffulty finding their own game of the month promo as they won't give me the bonus!) but I keep seeing posts like yours above saying "Once I stopped being a big wuss I made a fortune" so perhaps I should jump in before they're totally dead. I've been saying this for about 2.5 years now

Point #6 is an interesting one. I was always a "Find the best odds and extract £24.50 from that £25 SNR". I'm not any more What are your personal thoughts on underlaying? When arbing, I lay off enough to recoup stake as standard now - obviously when a high odds horsie wins using this method I make a fortune but more often than not I make bugger all. I'll often lay more in play if odds fall.

MSE is almost the victim of its own success. It's not just GIOL that suffers. Freebies get posted and the company pulls them, competitions get posted and subsequently pulled.

22k since September 08 now, my time before that was just bits and pieces when I dabbled a bit. I would agree with US books they seem to be an excellent source of income and I do not really know why I haven't dived in really, could probably afford £6k comfortably for it, its definitely my next step.

Casinos are definitely a rollercoaster. I've had some horrible losses but just had a very nice result on 770 (see the thread) . Its just having the balls to do the double up I find, risking 1% - 2% of my bankroll is usually my range and has worked well for me so far and I have never ever had a losing month. I haven't done any of the really high variance slot offers that are floating about, I don't have a problem with risk but 10% win rate would probably kill me .

I underlay / underdutch most things now to win more at bookie (or out of the bookie if playing at 770) and always have fully underlaid horse arbs, when I arbed the horses full time I would aim for around 4 horses per race so my strike rate of winners was pretty reasonable.