Sports Arbitrage Trading (8): Taking Full Advantage of Bookmaker Bonuses

You may even be laboring under a misconception that online bookmakers are people to be feared and respected. In actual fact, most online bookmakers are parts of large corporations turning over hundreds of millions of dollars on a daily basis. They are well aware of sports arbitrage trading and are not prepared to do too much about it.

The simple fact is that whilst sports arbitrage trading can be exceptionally profitable for every individual trader who has his operation running properly, online gaming is immensely more profitable to those companies who operate it, and online bookmakers are no exception.

They are also well aware that for every arbitraged wager that they have to pay out on, there will be more that they can collect on. On average, a sports arbitrage trader will lose more bets than he wins. For example, when he places a trade on a soccer match, he bets on 3 outcomes and of those, one will win and two will lose. Of course, the trader will always win more money than he has outlaid but the actual number of bets he wins will be less than the number he loses.

However, every online bookmaker has a profile on each of their clients, and may look for patterns that might display that a particular client is an arbitrageur. It is up to the experienced sports arbitrage trader to recognize what online bookmakers may be looking for and do their best to cover their tracks.

Of course, dealing with bookmakers is an unavoidable aspect of being involved in sports arbitrage trading but it need not be an unpleasant experience. You should try to understand their marketing philosophy and their need to earn from you. Their role in life is to attract customers, to draw you in, and to keep you in once they have done so. There is no need for them to ever know that you are a sports arbitrage trader.

Unless you are foolish enough to tell them or allow them to build a suspicion in any way, you will be just an average "punter" from whom they have nothing to fear. Once you have learned to achieve that objective, you will be able to start extracting from them the long term profits that will make your sports arbitrage trading enterprise the success you are hoping it will be.

In terms of bookmaker accounts, it pays to spread your net widely. This can mean having active accounts with between sixty and ninety online bookers at any time. Online sportsbooks are not difficult to find, and any subscription arbs service will provide an up to date list, with some of the leading ones even providing some pretty smart software that will speed up the process of opening accounts.

Many newbie sports arbitrage traders, anxious to speed up the process are happy to take advantage of this service, and there is no doubt that it saves a lot of time and drudgery. However, you should ensure that you are comfortable with each bookmaker that you sign up with. After all, these are companies to whom you will be trusting sums of your hard earned money, and there is no guarantee that they won’t go belly up, although they very rarely do.

However some of them are better as others in terms of customer service, speed of payouts and the tendency to renege on payouts if the conditions suit them. There are a number of reliable websites that will provide an objective appraisal on many of the online bookmakers currently active. Any trader who takes his profession seriously will keep up to date on what is happening with all or most of these companies on a daily basis.

The time spent checking out these online sports websites will be well-spent. Most serious professional sports arbitrage traders establish their own data bases, containing vital information on the terms and conditions of each sports book, as well as their own betting history with them.

The information contained might be as follows:

Maximum and minimum bets
Currencies accepted
Depositing methods
Pay out times and methods
Any other special arrangements.
Wins, losses and accumulative betting with the book, on a daily, weekly, monthly or even annual basis. ( if you are taking a long term view)

Many of these online bookmakers offer a form of welcome bonus, and these are important. These bonuses represent an inducement to open account with a sports bookmaker. Bonuses on offer range from the generous to the non-existent, and average out at about £40 per bookmaker. If you open accounts with 80 online bookmakers, then these bonuses will amount to over £3,000 from a standing start.

However as the saying goes "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" and this proverb especially applies to your friendly online bookmakers. Each and every one of these bonuses will come with "terms and conditions" which are designed to ensure that the sports book operators keep you playing and depositing for as long as they can without you ever seeing your bonuses. In a best scenario, they will be "match bonuses" which means that you will have deposit a sum of money, which the bookmaker will match.

Assuming that you are there to wager as any normal punter would, the sometimes ask you to "wager through" the amount of the bonus three or four times before you can actually withdraw it.

For example, you deposit £50 at a certain bookmaker, and they give you a match bonus of £50. That means that you have £100 to wager with. However the "terms and conditions" of that offer means that you have to wager the £100 three times to a total of £300 before you can make a withdrawal. Where the match bonus system works in favor of the sports arbitrage trader is that there can often be a time spell of up to three months where that wagering can take place, which is more than enough time to find "half a pair" with any online bookmaker.

The match betting bonus is a very clever system where the bookmaker expects to draw in new clients, who, they assume is betting on single wagers only and not on arbs. However, their marketing tool can begin to work against them when arbitrage betting comes into play.

See this bonus-scalping article for more detailed information on this profitable trading method: http://www.sportsarbitrageworld.com/minicourse/07.html

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