We feel this article is necessary after several members of the profitable TrendBetPro tipster service have been in touch with us over the past few days regarding their own bookmaker accounts being limited.
\r\n\r\nBookmakers are booming, with record profits announced seemingly every quarter – mergers worth billions of pounds (think Betfair and PaddyPower, or Coral and Ladbrokes). You’d like to think they had some flexibility in their margin to play a fair game with their customers, but we’re seeing increasing numbers of Tipstrr members being limited or having accounts closed altogether. This isn’t a new thing at all of course, as bookmakers are always tracking their users to detect the sharp punters.
\r\n\r\nFrom our experiences with the systems used by traders at the top high street bookmakers, they’re purely focussed on highlighting customers they deem unprofitable. Long gone are the days where traders compile their own odds, and then manage the books and prices accordingly – technology has meant that football traders are fast becoming nothing but admin staff. The need from users to have hundreds of markets on every match imaginable means that it wouldn’t be feasible to monitor everything, so computer software will compile the prices, leaving enough margin / over-round to ensure profit regardless of outcome.
\r\n\r\nThe traders are measured on their profitability, and nothing hurts their profit like a shrewd high stakes punter. Their only option to be good at their job is to limit these guys, or close their accounts altogether. Here we’ll go over reasons you might see your account limited, and a few tips and tricks to stop
\r\n\r\nReasons bookmakers are limiting your account
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Your stakes are high – High stake punters are automatically deemed high risk and will be monitored from an early stage. Winning when using high stakes hits their bottom line, and if you make £1,000, it means they need a lot of low stakes losers to make that back – the easiest option is to limit your stakes.
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You’re profitable – Any profitable punter could find themselves being monitored by the dreaded trading team. Just because you’re only betting £20 a time, the fact that you’re placing 20 bets a week and making s consistent profit is enough to scrutinise your activity.
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You know what you’re doing – You don’t necessarily have to be profitable, but if you’re showing signs of being knowledgeable, you’ll be on their radar. Signs include betting on markets such as Asian Handicap, or you only bet singles within a specific odds range. Typically, punters with a more specific betting type/pattern will set off the alarm bell.
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You regularly beat the Start Price (SP) – It’s well known that long term profitability, especially in horse racing, shares a direct correlation with one’s ability to beat the SP. If you’re regularly beating the SP, you’re getting value from the market, and your risk to the bookmaker is high. In the good old days a bookmaker might use punters that beat the SP to help sculpt the market and establish their prices, but nowadays it’s a sure-fire way to make it on to their naughty list.
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You’re betting on niche/small markets/leagues – Big markets that see huge betting volumes (in both quantity and turnover) have far more scope from a bookmaker’s perspective. So bigger stakes or shrewd betting is more accepted, because when the volume is high, overall profit will be high. However, in smaller markets where prices are more volatile and their confidence in their prices is far lower, you have to tread very carefully. Make too much in the Bulgarian first division and you’ll quickly be limited, even if it’s only in that league.
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5 Tips to keep your betting accounts open
\r\n\r\nThese are linked to the above reasons for being limited by your bookmaker, and how you can try to avoid being limited by your bookmaker.
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Use low stakes and round numbers – most people use level stakes or at least round numbers. This is important because using random stakes (say £31.58) is indicative of someone who is ‘arbing’ (placing bets at two places to guarantee a profit regardless of outcome). For people wanting to bet larger amounts, placing the bets across multiple bookmakers can be a decent if not time consuming way to go unnoticed.
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Don’t win too much in one place - not really something you want to hear, and this can take a fair bit of organisation on your part. If you’re a profitable punter, you need to try and disguise this where possible. Knowing you’ve made £500 at William Hill in the past two weeks could mean you use them less. One step further, you could bet against yourself to “lose” at William Hill whilst winning at another bookmaker to appear less successful.
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Look like a mug punter – Not an easy feat if you’re trying to make a profit, or if you are making a profit. Saying that, there are ways to look like you’re winging it, rather than being a shrewd sports bettor. Have a few quid on Jagielka to score first, or play a few spins on a slot machine or on the roulette in their casino. These behaviours tell their system that you’re less of a risk (and more likely to be profitable for them), and could help you lay low.
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Beating the SP – Typically, many successful sports bettors bet early before the market begins to take full shape. This is most apparent in Horse Racing. Beat the SP too much, and that will certainly be a red flag – because it’s a great way to be profitable in the long term. With this in mind, don’t always bet early, and don’t only bet at a bookmaker when they’re best price (another potential red flag). Maybe even sometimes choose to bet at SP odds.
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Follow the crowd – liquidity tends to follow the bigger sporting events. The bigger the event, the less likely a big/shrewd/value bet is going to be noticed. What’s more, people who bet on events that are live on TV are typically more casual punters, so doing the same will reduce your apparent risk as a user.
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There are plenty of more ways to try and trick the bookmakers in to thinking you’re a good customer for them, or to just keep you under the radar. Basically, using anything that is high margin for the bookmaker is a good way to stay in their good books. Betting In-Play, cashing out and betting high-odds accumulators are ways to lower your apparent risk to their business, leaving you to bet freely – for now.
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