As always if you need a reminder of the reasons and rules behind this challenge have a read of the about me page. To see last month’s matched betting profit visit November’s results post here.
I find myself once more writing this post nearly half way through the month without having done any matched betting.
Once again, despite very, (VERY) limited spare time in which to complete offers, I seem to have done a sterling job of racking up decent profits, even if I didn’t manage to hit the heady heights of last month where I somehow had an average transaction value (the average of all individual qualifying losses/profits) of over £16!
I actually planned to stop sooner (as soon as I had hit my overall £5,000 target) however for some reason I had got it into my head that I need over £133 instead of £113. Which doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things (more money for me!), but it meant I spent an extra few days going through offers that I didn’t have to.
I then took a well-earned break from it all…
And I still haven’t returned to it.
I needed to step back from matched betting because the fun had gone out of it for me.
As I am typing this (now a full 4 weeks after taking a break), for the first time in a very long time I am getting excited about matched betting again.
I am genuinely looking forward to getting back into the swing of things and earning an easy extra £150-£300 a month in return for very little effort indeed.
£500 to £5000 Challenge Complete
So I finally did it!
I turned £500 into £5000 in less than 12 months with just a one hour’s work per weekday and the occasional few hours on a Saturday morning (usually one or two per month).
Do I feel a great sense of achievement?
Meh. Not really.
Do I feel richer?
Certainly not…In fact, I’m not entirely sure where the money has gone.
I think the majority has been spent on holidays to an amazing skiing holiday in Austria and a week away in Florida, America for one of my best friend’s wedding. Two trips I wouldn’t really have been able to afford without that extra cash. With it, I was just able to pay for them straight away without even thinking about it, which is certainly a luxury I’m not used to.
Total Profit: £142.97 Average Transaction Value: £13.00 Days Active: 10
Cumulative Percentage of Overall Target: 100.60%
Cumulative Profit: £5,029.94
How Many Accounts Do I Have Left?
Not as many as I would like, that’s for sure.
Secondly, the absolute worst happened this month.
I lost William Hill.
Gutted, is an understatement. I didn’t just lose sports either, I lost the whole lot!
What was interesting, however, was the timing.
I received the email after over 3 weeks of inactivity, which is highly unusual for me (I was usually checking in almost daily for their offers prior to my matched betting break).
Which adds more credence to my theory that bookmakers know exactly what you are up to and as soon as you start matched betting, but they are happy to go along with it until you aren’t making them any money.
In terms of the “Big Accounts” I have lost Ladbrokes, Coral, SkyBet, and William Hill. Obviously, I’ve lost others too like Betway but I don’t count them as big earners.
I only have Bet365, Paddy Power and Betfred left out of the big players on the sports side. I think I have a fairly clean slate on the casino-only side through, which is encouraging.
Of course I have plenty of smaller sports accounts that I can still profit from, the only issue is it’s going to take more effort.
With increasingly stretched time I’m not sure how much effort I want to put in, as there are other side hustles that I have been getting on with that make more money (granted not at the same velocity).
What Next?
For you O.G. (<– This means “Original Gangsta”) followers of this blog, you will have witnessed its transformation from small blog documenting my matched betting journey to a much wider reaching website about anything to do with making money online in the UK and beyond.
With that being said I want to continue to write about matched betting because I firmly believe not enough people know about it, and there is no easier (or faster) way of making money online (shame it’s currently limited to the UK and some other European countries).
Now that I am racking up gubbings like they are going out of fashion I will maybe experiment with arbing and trading (if I have time) and report back with what I learn.
The advantage of trading is there isn’t the worry of being limited in the future through gubbings or stake restrictions if you manage to develop your skills and start making decent money.
However, there are several different versions of charges know as “premium” charges, which are effectively just the betting exchanges taxing you for making such large profits. These can run up to 60% of earnings!
Not that I will ever remotely get to that level.
I will continue to write about other money making methods and experiment with what works and what doesn’t…
(**coughs**, surveys, **coughs**).
This website is also finally starting to make money in of itself, which has always been the long term aim. It’s taken me 9 months but I am now earning respectable amounts for a website that literally only has 50 posts on it.
Income Reports
Taking all of the above into account I am going to carry on reporting how much I make on the side each month in the form of an income report. I have always enjoyed reading them on other blogs so I think it should be pretty fun to put together.
But here’s something different:
I will do one each and every month until this website ceases to exist. I always HATE it when bloggers do income reports for around a year and then stop.
I don’t get it?
Most cite that they started their blog as a side hustle and now it’s their full time income so they don’t want to share it because they are embarrassed about how much they make (usually way more than the average person).
I’m sorry but if you are amazing enough at blogging to be earning $3,000 – 5,000+ a month from a semi-passive (and sometimes fully passive) business you should be proud to show how much you make, not hide it. It’s so inspiring to the rest of us normal non-pro bloggers to see your progression.
I don’t care if you make more than $100,000 a month and you feel that your readers can no longer relate to these sums of money, I want to see how you are scaling your business and learn from your mistakes!
If I ever get into that miraculous position I can promise you now, I won’t stop posting them. No matter how much I make (undoubtedly very little). Even if I never make more than $1,000 a month I’ll still share with you.
I guess I’m missing the embarrassment gene that other bloggers have seem to inherited from each other.
Conclusion
Overall, this year has been one hell of a ride. I have made over £5,000 from a hobby, I’ve launched a new freelance side business which continues to grow daily, and I have launched this website which is finally a profitable venture.
I hope you decide to join me for my personal and business ups and downs of 2019, which will be undoubtedly shaped by the apocalyptic fall-out of a post-Brexit Britain.
I wish you all the best with your own online money-making ventures and here’s to making 2019 your best year yet.
And if for some reason you haven’t started your online venture yet and have been sat on the fence for far too long without taking any action, I’ll leave you with this famous quote from the first century Jewish Scholar Hillel:
“If not now, then when?
And if not you, then who?”
