In need of inspiration and guidance

[westv]

Well maybe an example might help, OldMan.

Ladbrokes 6 Nations refund if England win

France £100 at 2.5. Lay £95.06 at 2.68 = loss £9.70 (5% comm).
If England win you get a refund of £100 which is effectively a £9.70 bet at odds of 10.30.
Current England odds are about 5.5.

That's probably a poor example but it's the sort of thing I mean. I wouldn't necessarily do something like that though.

[Andy]

As above but how I really have actually placed bets on that market, in a way that I am happiest with:

Backed France £100 at 2.5 in Ladbrokes shop
Layed France for £89 at 2.66 has £147.74 liability
Layed England for £16 at 5.5 has £72 liability

Net results are:
France win +£18ish (pretty likely)
England win +17ish (has a chance, and it means I can cheer on England)
Anyone else +£5ish (not likely and I can now want those teams to lose more)

The market is 2% at Smarkets FYI. The above is not by any means "the best" way to do it, but it is the best way for me which is what counts.

[Mariner13]

I think £600 a month should be possible from a £4k float, although ideally you'd want a bigger float. I've been f/t for 20 months now and average a bit over £1.3k a month from a float that was £20k when i started and is £25k now. It very rarely gets maxed out, but often on a Saturday i'll have about £15k in play, mostly on arbs.

Re the "if" offers, personally i think they get a bit over hyped, especially the FGS ones, which i hardly ever do. I will do some "ifs", but mostly thoses i can get an arb on or no loss. Sometimes will do small loss ones, like the darts ones @ Xmas which i thought were very +EV (and they were!). There's a definite destinction between if offers where you have to (or almost always have to) take a loss, and those where you can actually lock in a profit, such as the above rugby examples. Also you often have to get on "if" offers very early, as once a lot of APers have piled into the obvious player/team for the offers, odds get slashed - this was the case with Ladbrokes Oz Open offer.

If you want to make money from arbing, one of the most important things is to maximise profit from each arb you find, so if you havent done already learn to dutch. Even with Smarkets @ 1% i reckon between a third and a half of my arbs have been dutched rather than layed there. If you do find an arb somewhere and get on it, your immediate next action should be to look for the same / similar arb at other places or on related markets.

You mentioned you "spend hours every single day looking". Imo rather than do this, you should prioritise your APing time. I reckon 75% of my profits are made on a Saturday between 6am and 2pm. The rest of the week i'll keep an eye on whats going on, but not worry much if i'm not making money / placing bets. Better to be fresh and on the ball on a Saturday, than be fed up cos you've been scratching around for pennies during the week.

Personally i'd continue to keep records, otherwise you'll not know how your doing. You could be making more than you need, in which case great, or you could be making less and your float could be dwindling, in which case you'd need to take some kinda action.

If you've only been MBing for a year, there's no way you can have done all the SUBs out there, or even come close. Have a search around for threads with lists of bookies, i'm sure there's a few on here and pile into them, even the ones with small subs. Intertops has only a tiny sub, but i've made more money from them than any other single book over the last 2 months. The more books you have the more reloads / offers you'll get. Have a read of the relay diary and £400 a month threads - very inspirational stuff in both. Also have a look at the full time APing thread - some great posts in there too.

Plan ahead - look when sporting events are, and add the markets for them into "My Markets" at Betfair, so you can check the odds any time. I did that for the 2nd Test, and when i got up last Monday morning, thought i'd have a quick look, saw the price of the draw had dropped loads, and got £40 worth of arbs, i wasn't expecting. Cheltenham, Ascot and The World Cup dates have all been in my diary for some time too.

Sharbing's been mentioned above, so if you haven't already, sign up to the Sharbing email, so you'll get copies of the bookies coupons each week. It's worth dipping your toe into at least, as once your online accounts become more gubbed, you'll have an alternative. Phone bookies and Spread Betting also well worth looking at, if you haven't already, as well as all the bingo subs.

Finally another angle, make sure you can't reduce your outgoings. You mentioned £600 pcm required, but can you get that down at all by shopping around for things like gas, electric, phone, insurance etc. Sometimes it's easy to think ah it's only a few quid less a month, hardly worth switching, but it all adds up. I looked at my gas/electic a couple of months ago, and found i could get on a different tarif with the same company - one phone call saved me £10 a month.

[OldMan]

Thanks Mariner. Quite a few shops around here so I've signed up for the Sharbing email.
I have done a few simple 2-way dutches - problem I find is finding them in the first place - do u just look at prices at various asians or is there a specific site you use for finding these?

Thanks to everyone, it really is a great bunch of people here. Thanks also to those that have PM'd me.