Free Bet and Bonus Abuse Using Matched Betting, eWallets and Duplicate Accounts
Whether you’re a first time bettor who’s just having a look at the various companies that you can have a flutter with or you’re a long-term gambler who knows the ins and outs of the industry, there’s a good chance that you’ll have seen bookmakers making offers in order to tempt you in the signing up with them. You know the sort of thing: promises that your deposit will be matched with Free Bet credits, a chunk of money to use in the Casino or even a Free Bet if you deposit over a certain amount.
They’re all extremely tempting and, in the vast majority of cases, you’d be daft not to take the betting site up on them. That is even more true if you were planning on signing up with the bookmaker anyway. After all, if you’re about to sign up with them in order to place a bet then doesn’t it make all sorts of sense to get a free bet as part of the deal? Online betting is especially competitive and this is the reason why sites have what often appear as crazy offers. They are designed primarily to give you something for free to try the new brand out with and they also hope you will get off to a winning start so that you get a good ‘feel’ about the company.
Sure, they often add a few rules and technicalities into the offers, but they’re very rarely overly complicated and we have to remember that they are, ultimately, running a business that needs to make profit – they can’t just give money away! The reality is that for the average punter these offers are great and allow you to win an extra bit of money that you weren’t expecting. Money Back Free Bets are often favourites because they say that you place your bet up to a value of, say, £50 and if your bet wins then you take your profit and everyone’s happy. If it loses then you get to to place another bet of the same value with a Free Bet token, meaning you essentially get two bites at the cherry. Yet what happens when someone decides that they want to abuse these offers? How do people do so and what, if anything, can bookmakers do about it? We’ll look to answer those questions here.
Matched Betting
One of the major ways in which some punters take advantage of a free bet offer is by using a technique known as Matched Betting. The idea behind this type of betting is that the entire process depends on the outcome of a mathematical equation rather than whether or not your chosen selection actually wins.
The process takes advantage either of a using a betting exchange or one fixed odds sportsbook against another. Exchange betting, in case you’re unaware, allows you to essentially play the role of the bookmaker. You can either Back something, which means you’ll believe it will win, or you can Lay it, which means that you think any of the other participants/outcomes in the competition or event will win.
Let’s look at a fake example:
- MadeUpBookie is offering new customers a 25/1 enhanced odds offer with a £1 bet amount for Andy Murray to win a tennis match, with the winnings paid as free bets.
- InventedBookmaker are also offering a 25/1 £1 enhanced odds offer with free bet winnings on Novak Djokovic to win.
You would place a bet on both of them to win, knowing that one of them definitely will and you’ll therefore make some profit. The company that’s offering the free bet will insist that you’ll have to ‘turnover’, or re-bet, your free bet or bonus winnings before you’ll be able to withdraw any money from your account. This is when the Backing and Laying on an exchange or betting with another bookmaker comes in.
The terms and conditions of the free bet say that you don’t get your stake back with any winnings, so you’ve got, say, £25 that you’ll need to turnover in order to be able to withdraw it. In that instance, what you’d do is find a bet where the odds on one winner being victorious with one bookmaker and the odds of them losing if placed on the Betting Exchange or with another bookie would definitely leave you with a profit. It might only be a profit of £10, but you know that at the end of the contest you’ll win £10 regardless of the outcome.
That might all sound massively convoluted and, to an extent, it is. However, the reality is that there are companies out there that work all of this out for you. You pay them a monthly fee and in exchange they’ll tell you which bets to place and how much to bet on each outcome, plus how much profit you’re going to get back at the end of it all. All you need to do is follow the instructions and you’ll be in the money.
The problem is that while this can be very lucrative it is often a one time shot, and while there are many bookies out there to choose from eventually you will find you have used all the welcome deals and probably have been banned from most of the operators.
How The Bookies Combat Matched Betting
Having read all of the above you’d be forgiven for wondering why everyone doesn’t do this method of betting all of the time. Guaranteed money sounds like a good thing! The answer isn’t a simple one to explain. For starters, though the bets have a positive value for the punter if you follow the instructions, not everyone has the small amount of start up capital or the time needed that you need in order to place the bets in the first place. That’s obviously not something that bookmakers can control, however, so they have their own methods in place in order to stop this becoming too widespread.
This when a term known as ‘Gubbing’ comes into play. If a bookmaker believes that your account is demonstrating suspicious activity then they will restrict what you can do with your account in the future. When this happens those in the Matched Betting circles would say that your account has been ‘gubbed’. That’s a slang term and would obviously not appear in any official correspondence with a bookie, but do a quick internet search for it and you’ll come across hundreds of people that know exactly what it means. Ultimately, a bookie’s long-term aim is to make profit. If you have an account with them and you keep making money and never losing then they will want to restrict what you can and can’t do.
Nowadays plenty of the various bookmakers out there are linked, with Paddy Power – Betfair and Ladbrokes – Coral being a prime example of that. If you place one bet with Paddy Power and a bet on a different outcome of the same bet with Betfair, it’s possible that the two companies will communicate and discover that you’re attempted to make a profit via Matched Betting. You might find that one, if not both, companies choose to restrict your account moving forward.
Restrictions can include the likes of the following:
| Restiction | What Does That Mean For You? |
|---|---|
| Maximum Stakes Limit | You can only place bets up to a certain amount, with your maximum stake being limited |
| Limited Odds | The odds on an event may be far lower than you’d be able to get from a different bookmaker or that other punters might be able to place |
| No Promotional Betting Allowed | In terms of Matched Betting, this is the worst punishment. You will not be allowed to take advantage of any promotional betting offers that the bookmaker might have in the future. |
Avoiding Being ‘Gubbed’
It is possible to avoid a bookmaker ‘Gubbing’ you, but you’ll need to ‘lose’ money in order to do so. This is achieved by placing what are known as ‘Mug Bets’, or bets that have little chance of winning. Customers who only place bets when there’s a promotion available will quickly flag themselves up to the bookies who they bet with. Mixing in promotional bets with ‘normal’ ones, even those of a low stake, will suggest that you’re just a typical punter who likes to find value every now and again. You can attempt to mitigate your losses by Laying your bet with an Exchange.
If you find that your account has been Gubbed in spite of regular Mug Betting, all hope is not lost. Some bookmakers will lift restrictions if they feel that there’s still a chance you’ll lose more than you win over the long term. Place Mug Bets for a couple of weeks or months and it’s possible that the more generous bookies will decide that they were wrong about you and lift the restrictions placed on your account. Obviously that means that you’ll need to lose a bit of money in the short-term, but that’s what happens when you try to play a system that essentially goes against the bookmaker’s rules.
Historical Use Of eWallets To Abuse Betting Offers
It’s not just Matched Betting that bookmakers aren’t overly fond of. If you’ve ever looked at the Terms & Conditions of a bookie’s offer the you’ll almost certain have seen reference to the fact that you’re not allowed to use eWallets, such as Skrill or NeTeller, to sign up when you open your account. Obviously the most natural follow-up question to that is ‘Why not?’
One of the main reasons that bookies are suspicious of eWallets is that you can open account without needing to prove your identity. The amount of money that you’ll be allowed to move from one account to another will be limited until you do confirm your identity, but you’ll still be able to use them if you don’t. That means that you could theoretically open numerous different accounts with the same bookmaker and take advantage of the welcome offer with each of them.
Obviously companies expect you to operate in good faith, but they’re also aware that there are numerous people out there who wouldn’t if the opportunity presented itself. As a result, bookies decided a few years ago to simply stop people from being able to make use of a welcome offer or Free Bet offer if they’re depositing money into their account with an eWallet like any of those in the PaySafe Group family.
There have also been examples in the past of some customers using these eWallets for the purposed of money laundering. This is obviously an illegal activity and whilst the companies that own the eWallets do their best to ensure it doesn’t happen, they can’t catch everyone. Bookmakers definitely don’t want their business to be caught up in anything as shady as money laundering, especially as that could result in them losing their Gambling Commission licence, so rather than take the risk they simply don’t allow the payment methods that could be used for that purpose.
Duplication Of Accounts
Regardless of how much bookmakers do to limit possible abuse of their offers and promotions, there will always be people out there trying to take advantage of them. Using duplicate accounts is one of the main ways that the perpetrators attempt to do so. That’s not just about using eWallets, as suggested in the above section. Sometimes people will attempt to register accounts using false information or by using the information of friends or family members. If you’re determined to get yourself an extra account then there are countless illegal ways in which you’re likely to be able to do so.
As you would expect, bookies are not slow to react to this sort of thing, either. One of the common Terms & Conditions that you’ll come across is one stopping more than one person from opening an account from the same residential address or using the same I.P address. There are also strict rules about proving your identity, often when you join but certainly before you withdraw, with bookmakers suspicious that you might not be who you said you are requiring the likes of a driving licence or bank statement to be sent to them as proof of address. Nevertheless, some people still manage to slip through the net, requiring bookies to close their accounts when they’ve been discovered. In short, if you want to operate fairly and not be caught out then don’t do things that break the rules of your betting account.
