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 June’s results post here.
Well this is the first time ever when I’ve finished the month pretty much bang on target. But I am really frustrated by the lack of progress made after the World Cup finished. After smashing my personal best last month, looking at this month’s figures have left me feeling rather flat.
It’s like all the offers evaporated on the spot. With no major horse racing festivals taking part in the latter half of July (Goodwood is in August), I found it incredibly tough going for the latter two weeks. Hell, even the casino offers reduced! As I write this I am anxiously waiting for the start of the new football season so I can get back to £500+ a month again!
What’s probably more worrying is the fact that next year there won’t be a World Cup or European Championship to prolong the football season, which will make June and July even more trying.
I need to look at how I can switch to perhaps casino offers only in these months next year and pray that I can make the same amount. But variance is a very cruel mistress and if she isn’t on my side…well I could end up without any profits whatsoever!
Finishing World Cup Offers
As you can see from the graph I had a pretty strong finish to the World Cup. I kept doing the usual offers with Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and Sky Bet. These offers got me to quickly over £100.
But then I had a massive stroke of luck not once but twice, both with the same price boost from William Hill. Firstly, I do the flash odds on the horses every day at 12 noon. When I backed the boost, the horse was priced at 4 and if I recall correctly the lay was around 3.5. Nothing earth shattering but a decent boost all the same.
When I came back to check the results I saw that the horse in question had won (made no difference to me as I hadn’t underlayed) but my exchange balance at Smarkets didn’t seem low enough considering it had won.
When I went back through my statement it showed not one but two reduction factors on the lay due to horses pulling out. Usually when this happens the bookie reduces the odds in kind.
However, because this was a special offer market they honoured the original price of 4. My lay had dropped to odds less than 2.75 meaning it had turned it into a massive underlay. I netted a nice additional £20 for doing no extra work.
The steep upward curve you see on the 10th was due to another massive stroke of luck.
When William Hill release their flash odds the lay odds go flying out with every single matched bettor simultaneously trying to lay the same horse, so I tend to set an alarm for later on to come back when the odds have calmed down a bit.
I stupidly left my phone downstairs whilst tidying the kitchen (no rest for the wicked!) and cue me missing my alarm and completely forgetting to lay the horse full stop. It came romping home to win, giving me £70 profit when I should have written it off as a -£20 mistake!
Karma came to get me later in the month when the exact same thing happened, except I had my phone on me, I just inexplicably never set the alarm. £20 down the swanny! I’m happy to report it hasn’t happened since…yet 😅.
Total Profit: £412.03 Average Transaction Value: £3.61 Days Active: 23
Cumulative Percentage of Overall Target: 71.90%
Cumulative Profit: £3,595.09
Under/Over Monthly Target: – £4.64
Losing Sky Bet
It was around this time that I also lost one of my best accounts. It was the mother of all gubbings, I didn’t just lose Sky Bet, I lost Sky Vegas, Sky Casino, and Sky Bingo in one fell swoop.
They were recently purchased by the Stars Group (owners of PokerStars and BetStars) and within a few days they had done the mother of all culls. The gubbing thread on Oddsmonkey was filled with the same story.
I think anyone that took their World Cup offers were ousted. Personally for me this was a tough one to take, because they are one of the best sportsbook accounts you can have. They do great horse racing refunds and they also have easy football profits through boosts and free bets.
But also because it was my first ever bookmaker accounts. I opened this back in my university days and remember fondly building ridiculous football accumulators thinking they would win. Alas, that was hardly ever the case.
But I had a great run (9 months) of abusing every offer I could. Although I don’t think I was ever offered one of the famous “Weekly Reload” Sky Casino offers. Some of those offers only came with x1 wagering!
I’m more left with a “what could have been…” wistfulness than anything else. Oh well. Onwards and upwards!
New Casino Sign Ups
I tried to break up the trying times by signing up to another member of the Gamesys group.
This time it was StarSpins.
What I didn’t realise was that they have changed their sign up offer (it used to be deposit £10 get £30 bonus). It’s now 30 free spins, which is nowhere near as good. Sometimes you’ll end up with a massive win, but 9/10 times you’ll end up with a “meh” win.
I ended up with meh.
I think I won a princely sum of £3.70. However, I have since turned that into £13+ through carrying on with their wager £5 a day for 3 consecutive days for a cash prize. I was up wagering on Blackjack every day and I won £6 from the “Box Bonanza” cash prize at the end.
Let’s hope I soon get one of those juicy 150% deposit match bonuses to make up for it!
I also joined PlayOJO which I had putting off for no real reason, their constant radio adverts on Capital finally pushed me over the edge (see advertising works!).
I had an equally disastrous return from my 50 free spins on Book of Dead. Something like £3. From 50 free spins! It was just dead spin after dead spin and then paltry wins when something finally fell into place!
Again I manage to increase this to over £15 wagering my deposit through Blackjack (thank god for Blackjack!) avoiding a complete disaster but I’m not going to lie I was hoping for more.
Wrap Up
I think August, particularly the first couple of weeks, will be equally dreadful. I then go away for the week to Scotland for an annual family holiday. Which will mean even less time (if any) to matched bet.
Hopefully I can really kick on when I get back and get on all types of offers for the Premier League, Europa League and Champions League Qualifiers, and any big horse racing events. I will also try and pick up the pace on casino offers, which I’ve probably been a bit too picky over of late.
Luckily I have built up a bit of a cushion with regards to the £500 to £5000 challenge and I’m less than £1500 off my end goal. Something would have to go pretty wrong to not hit it now (touch wood) before my December 31st deadline, but I’m taking nothing for granted.
See you in September with my results!
See August’s results here.