Ever wondered how the Brexit can, and probably will affect your gambling activities? I am eschewing my usual format for the purposes of this article as I genuinely feel that this is something that it is important for any of us who make money through gambling to consider. Now those who are looking or definitive answers are simply going to have to wait (although I may well revisit this topic in the future).

As we all well know, nothing has been agreed between the British government and the EU and until it is, we can only sit and wait with baited breath.

The other point that I want to make before I delve into this is that this isn’t a political post. In fact, any comments that may seem to show bias are likely (attempts) at witticisms and making sure this isn’t too dry to read.

Honestly, I don’t care who voted which way or another. We are a democratic nation and there was a mandate to leave the EU and love or loathe it, it has become a part of the future political landscape for the UK. I would respectfully ask that any comments maintain this impartiality and focus on the reasons that we are here, making money online!

Brexit and Gambling Future

Now that I’ve got all of that out of the way, I can start to get down to business. Here in Britain, it is fair to say that we like to have a bet.

Walk down any high street in the UK and you will eventually see a bookmaker, whether it is one of the few remaining independents or, more likely, one of the global chains. I will also happily bet you that in the last 24 hours, you have seen at least one advertisement for some betting firm or another.

Of course, most people are simply casual punters and what happens post Brexit is unlikely to affect them. If  your business is betting though, this is likely to be a somewhat uncertain time.

One of the things that has added to this (and I have found frustrating) is the media coverage of Brexit is that there has been a lot of coverage of personalities and broad strokes with no questions asked about some of the more niche topics or specifics.

An example of this was an article I read in a major publication authored by a farmer. He made the valid point that whilst the media has been focussing on “bent bananas” and the like, nobody has mentioned that a large part of the agricultural industry in the UK is reliant on EU grants.

As a professional gambler you don’t have to worry about grants and funding, but that doesn’t mean that the landscape of betting in the UK can’t change when we leave.

If I am honest, there are a lot of players involved in this drama of sorts. Some of these are major characters and they’re front and centre. In fact, you may even have thought idly about it at some point.

Others are seemingly small parts but actually have a massive part to play in the future of Post Brexit gambling in the UK (I’m looking at you Gibraltar). I want to focus initially on the larger and more obvious problems before getting into the proverbial nitty gritty.

The Falling Value of the Pound

Whilst Britain is one of the larger betting markets in the world, we are far from the most lucrative for businesses. In fact, 2016 estimates put the average loss per adult resident for Britain at just over $300.

This makes for total losses of around $18 billion per year. Australia meanwhile has average losses of almost $1,000 per adult resident. Meanwhile, China has overall losses of $62.4 billion with the US having the highest overall losses of $116.9 billion.

What I am trying to demonstrate here is that there are a lot of very lucrative markets out there that bookmakers can target and depending on how things end up post Brexit, they may well become a larger area of focus.

There are a number of obvious reasons that this makes economic sense however a big one is if the value of the pound drops.

To use China as an example, at its peak mid 2014, the pound was worth a little over 10.5 Chinese Yuan. It is now worth 8.7 Yuan. This represents a fall in value of almost 20%. What this creates is a situation where China is gambling (and losing) more money per person than in the UK, furthermore, their currency is increasing in value compared to the pound.

Depending on the conditions that are negotiated for Brexit, the value of the pound could fall even further. If it does, I would definitely expect to see some kind of shift in focus from domestic bookies to international markets.

This exodus is actually already being looked at within the betting industry however I feel without a major catalyst, it is unlikely to be particularly aggressive.

If for example you look at the current position that William Hill are in with the US, they are openly building their business for a rapid expansion should the ban on land based sports betting and the situation with online gambling change.

For example, they maintain a very strong presence in Nevada where they operate over 50% of sports books. William Hill also have a sports bar at Monmouth Park race track which could be converted to a sports book if the law permits it.

It is important to keep in mind that this is somewhat speculative. Personally, I can see no reason why bookmakers wouldn’t look to step up investment in growing and stronger economies should Brexit leave Britain worse off. Given that the regulations in the UK are so tight as well, I can see why foreign markets remain attractive.

Different Regulatory Boards, Different Rules

It is no secret that each country have their own regulations and rules when it comes to gambling within the EU. Some markets such as Poland and Hungary are actually very restricted whereas in Britain, there are plenty of regulations but it is relatively simple for companies to get a license.

The fact that the EU never managed to set up a specific gaming or gambling commission is something that bodes well for professional gamblers post Brexit. In many respects, the Gambling Commission will likely continue “as they were”.

Given the freedom that comes with the UK at present, this means that there should also continue to be decent penetration of the market from third party bookmakers.

What this means for you as a punter is that the betting market within the UK will more likely than not continue to grow. This means new bookmakers and a generally more competitive market.

This certainly isn’t a bad thing. Whilst the UK could well impose restrictions on EU gaming companies that want to offer betting services within the UK, there is precedent with the USA to show that this is likely to be the case.

The Gibraltar Problem and Online Betting

If there is one thing more than any other which is going to affect gamblers post Brexit it is what position is ultimately assigned to Gibraltar. For those who aren’t aware, this tiny little rock off the coast of Spain has become a hotbed for tech investment, more specifically, online gambling.

This has become such an important part of the economy for Gibraltar that it is estimated that 25% of the GDP is down to online betting companies.

So why exactly is Gibraltar so inviting to betting companies? Mostly, this is down to the taxation that is in place on gaming. Any fixed odds operations are taxed at just 1% of turnover, up to £42.5 million of annual turnover. This means that tax is capped at a maximum of £415 and a minimum of £85,000 per year.

Casino gaming is also subject to a very similar structure.

What all of this means in real terms is that given its proximity to Spain, Gibraltar is reliant on free movement within the EU in order to ensure that the 3000 plus jobs in the online betting industry are filled.

If there is the oft touted “hard Brexit” then this freedom of movement may not be applicable. Obviously Gibraltar will likely push back on this as the island voted overwhelmingly (more than 95%) to remain in the EU.

So, if Gibraltar hypothetically begins to lose these betting companies, where will betting companies look? The next best place appears to be Malta who are well positioned to take up the mantle of centre of online betting.

They have already established themselves as a centre for betting within the EU and have a considerable number of companies established there (for many of the same reasons that companies have traditionally used Gibraltar).

Whilst all of this may seem rather boring, it is actually very important to consider the broader picture here.

If the 30 something betting companies that call Gibraltar home have to relocate to Malta then there are going to be significant costs involved and as gamblers, we all know that somewhere down the line these are going to be passed on to us. After all, the bookies never like to lose.

I could speculate on what form this could take all day, but my best bet would simply be a tightening up of operations, particularly for online betting. What this could well mean closure of multiple accounts, tighter restrictions and generally a much more intense version of the abuse that any winning punters are already familiar with.

If this is a strategy that was employed, I could see it being a massive blow to the matched betting industry as well as those who are simply successful gamblers.

What Else Might and Might Not Change?

One of the best parts of winning any bet in the UK is that what you make is tax free. This is because the bookmakers are charged a 15% levy on their gross profits. It is a generally more profitable way for the Government of the day to operate.

As a gambler, this does however massively benefit you. This set up has been in place since January 1^st 2002 and there is absolutely no reason to suggest that this is going to change.

There is one potential change that may come about as a result of Brexit that will affect sports gamblers in particular and once again, this comes back to freedom of movement. I am talking more specifically about football, however I can perceive that this may well have an impact elsewhere in the sporting world.

At present it is very easy for players to be transferred around member states of the EU because of laws surrounding freedom of movement. If Brexit takes a hard line approach, this may well stop this happening.

Now, it is very easy to dismiss this as simply being hard luck for those who like to watch overpaid men kick a ball about for 90 minutes, but this has much wider implications.

It is easy to think that this wouldn’t affect betting but truthfully, I feel that the loss of status of British football (particularly the English Premier League) would have a huge impact on bookies interests in the market. Now this is a much longer term concern and it would take time for this to filter through, but it is something that I certainly hadn’t considered until I saw a throwaway comment on a forum relating to the matter.

No Crystal Ball

I don’t have a crystal ball and as such, I don’t know truly know how much, if at all, Britain leaving the EU will affect gambling in this country. I don’t believe that this is a cop out however.

The fact is that even within the information that is available, there is very little mention of gambling, mostly because we continue to have our own gambling commission. Even in terms of the information that is available mostly pertains to bookies with very little thought given to gamblers.

This doesn’t mean that we have to be entirely blind however. Companies tend to act in predictable ways and we can also look at how companies respond to things no in order to guess how they will act in the future. For me, there are a few main factors that will more likely than not impact punters in the future.

I have touched upon them already, but these are mostly based around how attractive the UK remains as a market for gambling. The first thing that I think will be important is whether or not companies have to move from Gibraltar to Malta. There will be significant cost involved here which will inevitably end up being passed onto gamblers.

Whilst it seems likely to me that Britain and Spain will come to terms separately on a freedom of movement therefore eradicating this problem, it is worth keeping the possibility in mind.

The other factor is based on wider economic values, not just within the UK, but elsewhere in the world. At the moment it is clear that Britain remains a big part of global gambling’s future.

It is a lucrative and free market with a large userbase, however as touched upon, there are a lot of emerging markets. If the value of the pound drops even further in a post Brexit world (and if headlines are to be believed at the time of writing this and we do pay a “divorce settlement”, then it likely will) then other markets will become more profitable.

As markets become more profitable it seems reasonable to expect that companies will switch their focus away from the UK. Quite what shape this would take is very much up for debate although I do have some theories.

One of the main ones is that the focus of UK based bookmakers would be to move away from online betting and instead focus on fixed odds machines in their bricks and mortar business. This has already proved successful for bookies and is an area that they continue to push.

If online betting does end up becoming more expensive, I would expect this drive to be upped.

And Finally…

For various reasons I have been pulled away from this article for a few days and coming back and reflecting on it all, there is one statement that can sum things up for me.

Gambling in the UK, particularly online gambling, is a multi billion pound industry that  is simply receiving no coverage in the media in terms of how Brexit will affect it. I mostly chalk this up to the fact that people in Britain are generally apathetic about gambling and simply believe that bookies “print money” and anybody who bets is a mug.

Whilst there is possibly some truth to this (in the main), there is no denying that thousands of people are reliant on the betting industry for jobs and income. With no coverage, this is something that I feel may well end up dangerously overlooked.

A big part of this is down to the fact that we already have our own gambling commission in the UK and as such, there is no direct relationship with the EU to cover.

I cannot promise to keep this page updated every day with developments but this is a topic that I would very much like to return to in the future. Hopefully, over the next few years I can continue to keep on top of developments and keep this article updated.

Truthfully, some of the “legalese” is rather difficult to sift through (there have literally been weeks of research into this) and there remain a lot of grey areas. But where there is understanding to be had, I will aim to put it into as plain English as I can and keep people in the loop about how Brexit may affect gambling in the UK.

The post How Brexit is Affecting Gambling and Trading in The UK appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Steve Howe is another Betfair trader that gets mentioned a lot in trading circles, and runs his own website at ‘itsamugsblog’.

Now earlier this year one of our readers sent us an email to state that they were attending one of Steve’s trading workshops in March just gone, and that if we wanted to, and to help our website readers interested in trading the exchanges, he would happily send us his thoughts on the day, and the training.

I must admit that I have been rather busy this year, and struggled to find time to complete this write up, but the review is below; on Steve Howe as a Betfair trainer and his March 2017 workshop in Coventry.

Let’s start the review:

Review Product Name: Steve Howe Betfair Training Wokshop

What is it: A full day of training with Steve Howe

What You Get: A day of training with Steve on his Betfair strategies

Price: £225

Where To Buy: www.itsamugsblog.co.uk

Who Is Steve Howe/ItsAMugsBlog?

Steve Howe is a Betfair trader from the centre of the UK, who has been trading the markets for many years. Steve states that he has been trading now for well over 10+ years and that he was fascinated at how a profit could be made from the the Betfair website.

After succeeding himself on the Betfair exchanges Steve then decided to start workshops which have become very popular amongst those who are also looking to follow in the footsteps of those who already generate a regular profit.

I have obviously heard of Steve, and have read his website a few times myself, and compared to some of the other professional Betfair traders Steve has always come across as being quite reserved and understated. In fact, I am quite sure that if Steve put extra effort into his website then he could promote his wares better, but that is one of the qualities that draws many of the ‘would be’ traders towards what Steve teaches.

Other well known traders (some of which who we have reviewed) have more of an internet presence, Peter Webb who is another fantastic trader we reviewed last year, who is definitely worth listening to, and we did a detailed write on on his Bet Angel software here, but Steve is not advertised as much, and I get the feeling he likes it that way.

Steve Howe Betfair Trading Workshops

Steve puts on workshops every second month in Coventry at The Village Hotel, and on his website he states that what you will receive is as follows:

• Setting discipline
• Setting up your trading day
• How to set your staking
• Some Bank managment

Steve also states that he will teach you his strategies on how exactly he makes money from the Betfair markets in a quality venue, always on a Monday, which takes place in a dedicated room at the above hotel.

Taking note of Steve’s website over the last few months in preperation of this review, I notice that his workshops always sell out, and places get taken quickly.

So how did the attendee get on? What happened on the day? Did he learn how to trade profitably?

During this review, the attendee (a reader of our own website) has provided the information and feedback, and I have written it to the best of my own ability here, and the attendee has agreed that everything is correct.

So let’s get into it – The following is derived from the attendee of the workshop:

….Start of attendee input:

I arrived at the Village Hotel in Coventry on the Sunday evening, ready to start the day fresh the next day. It was a pleasant drive down, on a clear day, and actually the hotel was extremely easy to find. The sat nav found it very easily. The following snap was from my in car recorder, don’t worry I was not using my phone:

The hotel was decent quality, with a decent pint. Steve did say in his emails a few days before that if we all got to the bar in the evening that it would be the perfect chance to have a chat with himself, and some of the other people on the course, although I had been at a wedding the day before and was shattered, so had a drink and then bed for me – nice hotel though.

This is when I arrived at the hotel:

The room was also nice enough, like a small flat with decent decor, and great for a few nights if that was what you wished to stay for. I think some of the other attendees did stay an extra night, although I had work the next morning so I had only booked for a single night.

If you are interested, here is a picture of the room I stayed in for the workshop:

The next day I had a loverly breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was a bargain price of only £7.50, and noticed that there was not a great deal of people around, so I did actually wonder at this stage if the workshop would be full.

Anyway, as we all met around 8:45am it was clear that the workshop was full, with every seat taken. I say near to where Steve was presenting as I didn’t want to miss anything.

How Did The Workshop Go?

The workshop room was nice enough, darkly lit so that we all could see the computer screens we had access to, there was probably one pc screen between 3 people, and Steve started by showing us an amusing video which was one of those ‘parodies’ which mentioned himself, Peter Webb, and a few other traders and how some market their wares more than others. It was funny and set the theme for the workshop.

We then went around the room one at a time, introducing ourselves and telling the others about our experience and what we were hoping to gain from the course. This was interesting, because what it said was that none of us really were making any money from trading, and were all pretty much in the same position as one another.

Steve started with how he started trading, some of his background, and then we started with the basics, like money management, making notes of your trades (he had a spreadsheet for this), and the importance of writing down your trades.

All basic, and nothing most would not already know, but I assume he had to go through this as some people may have been brand new to Betfair trading.

Some of what was discussed in the early stages of the workshop were the following, and I wrote these from my own notes:

• ODS, Live video recording of the races, and which streams to use.
• 2 Step authentification on Betfair.

All decent stuff, albeit most traders will have known this stuff.

Gruss Betting Assistant Software

Steve then went on to explain what software he uses, and how he changed from using Bet Angel, to now using Gruss Betting Assitant as his software of choice, which he did email us about before attending the workshop to explain that he did use that, and that no matter what software we used ourselves that it would be the principles that were applied that were important, not specifically the software.

One thing I did notice though, was that visually his strategies probably work better on Gruss Software than say Bet Angel, and I did try both when I got home to see if both could be used with the same effect.

Steve also mentioned that he had a hand in designing the Gruss software in line with how he trades personally.

I have used most of the trading software out there, including Betangel and Geeks Toy and some other traders type software so I was also interested in the software itself. The software is more colourful than most, I noticed, and here is a pic of it if you don’t have one for the review:

Steve Howe The Betfair Training?

At around 1pm or so we had lunch which was included, which was finger food, as well as a hot stew which was very nice, with cold cans and hot drinks also included in the price of the workshop, from the ending machine. Very enjoyable.

After lunch is when Steve stated that he would get into the actual trading, and much of this was Steve showing us videos, and what he looks for.

This included pre race and some details based around what to look for with horses approaching the race line, and some signals that can change the betting odds which did surprise me at the time, as well as a few other pointers to look out for which can cause horses to change in price.

Steve also went though a full day race card and explained if he would trade certain races, although the detail was left out in the main.

Did The Betfair Strategies Work?

The workshop from Steve, if I break it down,  mainly came down to a certain strategy regarding the favourite, and if there was a ‘certain something’ happening then this would be the time to trade or not.

Mainly this included the folowing:

• Favourite opportunities.
• Particular race card opportunities.
• What is happening on TV affecting prices.
• Safety points.
• Crossover points.
• Super signals.

What I did notice early on was the time and date of the videos Steve was showing us, the bulk of them were a few years old, which had me thinking as to what the reason was for not showing recent trades. There were a few recent trades but most of the demonstration videos were from a few years ago. I am not sure if anybody else noticed, but it was not questioned, and maybe didn’t matter. I may have been overthinking things.

I suppose if the videos show the relevant points then fair enough, but I did think about it on the day.

Getting back to the main strategy Steve teaches, this was mainly based around which other horse was going to scupper the chances of the favourite’s price movement going down in price, and there were a few details that he advised us to check. Again, throughout explaining these details Steve shown more videos, and then asked us if we could spot them, which was useful.

I remember at the final break I phoned my wife and she asked me what I thought so far, and I remember what I said at the time, and it was that mostly I had not learned a great deal, but if the main strategy that Steve teaches worked, then I would be pleased.

The main strategy was not something I had previously used, although I have been trying to trade successfully for a few years, and I kept saying to myself that ‘surely it cannot be that easy to implement’.

To be fair to Steve his pre emails sent to attendees did state that a lot of practice would be needed after the training and that we definitely would not be the finished article, which is common sense and I didn’t expect to be a fully fledged trader after the workshop, but I did expect more strategies on what to look for.

What was Steve Howe Like?

Steve Howe is a great guy, humorous and although I would say he is not a natural trainer, although he never said he was, but his enthusiasm was plain for all to see, and the bulk of the attendees looked pleased. In the breaks we had on the day Steve stayed around and answered any questions we had, and talked about the trading industry in general.

Further Training From Steve?

One point I do remember vividly was towards the end of the workshop when Steve was giving out his USB sticks. Every attendee was given a 7GB USB stick which contains lots more videos that we can use to watch for these signals Steve taught us. This is the actual USB stick I received

What I remember is that Steve at this point mentioned further training and his Mentor group, I think if he was more of a salesperson he could have got this over a lot better and made more sales, but that is my call centre background kicking in. He looked a little awkward asking for more money which to be fair that is what Steve is like, the workshop didn’t come across as anything fancy, just somebody trying to show us what he does, and for a reasonable price.

This is what the USB stick contained:

The last three videos I added myself to the USB pen after Steve sent us an email the day after the workshop, and I think they are the latest videos added.

Steve Howe Mentorship Programme

As I said the day after I was sent an email from Steve offering his mentorship programme again, which is a Skype group that the email states offers the following:

• Part 1 Morning Racing
• Part 2 Lateral Thinking/RvR
• Part 3 Skype Community
• Mentoring

The cost of the Mentorship, and mentoring programme was £200 access for 6 months to the Skype groups and Steve said that he had around 20 full time traders in the groups which all discuss further trading opportunities daily.

I didn’t take up the mentoring as I am still testing what I learned from Steve, but I may do at some stage because he only offers the mentorship to customers who have been on his workshop.

Conclusion on Steve Howe Workshop From The Attendee?

I liked Steve, a very down to earth bloke who is not up his own behind and I am still trying out the main strategy that he taught us. I have had some success with it, and some set backs, but I need to practice more to see if it will work longer term.

Watching the videos on the USB stick a few times since I returned home, and I noticed this on the day also, that the strategy does involve extremely large stakes to make a decent profit, and although Steve did say on the day that we start smaller, which goes without saying, but some of the liability he had at any one time was huge, but I suppose if it works it works.

I am still testing the strategy and will do for some time yet.

Would you Recommend Steve’s Workshop?

Like I said, I am still practising. I would say it wasn’t the kind of ‘aha’ moment I was expecting, but maybe I was expecting too much, that is possible and my wife tells me off all the time for it, but it was certainly interesting to see a real trader and his views on trading, and how he trades.

I think what Steve teaches is valid, but it is not a case of making a profit from it without some serious practising which I suppose is the same with anything you try like this.

My free trial of Gruss software ran out about 2 weeks ago now and I have yet to renew it, but that is not to do with the training. I would say that all in all it was a very good training day, but just don’t go there expecting to come with a strategy to make money immediately, because I am not in a profit yet, but I continue to learn, although I enjoyed the workshop.

End of attendee input…….

A great insight from the attendee I am sure you would all agree. What sticks out to me, is that the attendee stated what most think about Steve Howe, in that he is a down to earth bloke who knows how to trade. He doesn’t brag and throw himself out there saying ‘look at me’ like some, and he certainly does not play on the fact that he is endorsed by Betfair.

You can see a video below of Steve Howe, and I am sure you will agree, down to earth:

I personally think with any of these type of Betfair training courses, that just because somebody else can do something, it does not always migrate to teaching it to somebody. Probably a little bit like Thierry Henry trying to teach how he plays football, he is a genius at the game, and knows every angle, but teaching it to somebody who is just starting will take time, and a great deal of practice for those learning. Makes a lot of sense.

A great review though I think, and I like the way Steve Howe comes across. He does not over-market himself, and as I said at the start of the review, his workshops always sell out, and nobody has a bad word to say about the guy, which has to speak volumes. In fact, during my research for this review I couldn’t find anybody that had a bad word to say, which says a lot these days.

I have asked the attendee to update me with how he gets on in the future with what he learned at the workshop, so that I can update the review.

Resources and Related Content:

Bet Angel Review, Is Peter Webb’s Betfair Trading Software The Best Out There?

How To Make Money From Gambling, What is Really Possible?

Caan Berry Betfair Trading Guide Review, and Pre Race Video Pack

Is Gambling Tax Free In The UK, and Do You Have To Declare Winnings?

The post Steve Howe Betfair Trader ItsAMugsBlog Workshop Review appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Gruss Betting Assistant is, I would say, one of the lesser known Betfair trading software products, But there is more to it than meets the eye.There are a number of different topics that I happen to know rather well.

…Some of these are much more ‘practical’ than others, however if there is one area that I have studied extensively, it is Betfair trading software.

I have written extensively about the software available, looked at the pros and cons and considered which is ultimately the best of the bunch.

I could spend all my time telling you about the difference in features between Cymatic Advanced Trader and Bet Angel Professional – which I have already reviewed, and found both to be excellent.

I would also more likely than not bore you because if I hold my hands up, in broad strokes, the differences seem a lot more like similarities!

What does all of this have to do with anything I hear you asking now?

Well let’s start the review…

Review Product Name: Gruss Betting Assistant

What is it: A software application for Betfair trading.

What You Get: Full Access to the software, and support.

Price: £6 per month / £60 per year.

Money Back Guarantee?: There is a 30 day free trial

Where To Buy: http://www.gruss-software.co.uk (Please Read Review First)

There is a piece of Betfair trading software currently on the market that I have overlooked recently. It is also different enough to warrant a serious look in an of itself.

The software in question is Gruss Betting Assistant Software, a rather neat piece of kit which has been developed by brothers, Gary Russell and Mark Russell.

Their unique selling point for Gruss Software is that the software has been developed by people who bet on Betfair rather than a software developer simply throwing something together for profit.

And if you remember, I actually did a review of Steve Howe the professional Betfair trader a few days ago, and mentioned that he actually helped to design the Gruss Betting Assistant.

They also listen to and interact with users of Gruss Software a lot allowing them to build the software that people want.

So, What is Gruss Betting Assistant Software?

When you fire Gruss Betting Assistant up, it doesn’t initially look too different to most software that you have probably used before for trading on Betfair.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Everything is heavily inspired by the actual user interface that Betfair employ on their own online exchange, and it all behaves pretty much how you would expect.

The Gruss Ladder Interface

I always find that you need to visually ‘like’ any software you use, so here is an example of how the ladders look:

There is however a lot more to Gruss Software than you get with a “vanilla” Betfair experience and I will look at these features in detail shortly.

As a piece of software, Gruss Software is only compatible with computers running Microsoft Windows which may put some of you off before we even look at it. In terms of how it runs, Gruss Software is clean, crisp and responsive.

Gary Russell and Mark Russell

I haven’t noticed anything major wrong in what I have seen of the software and a look at the forums shows that Gary Russell and Mark Russell are both still actively working on betas and bug fixing, even now.

I have used the term even now because Gruss Software isn’t actually as new as you might think. Somehow, it has slipped under my radar and was actually created all the way back in 2004.

This means that there is 13 years of polish in place and it shows. What is really stand out for me about Gruss Software however is that it doesn’t show in looking flash. There is a strong sense of functionality, but by God is it good under the proverbial hood.

This takes me on to the speed with which Gruss Software performs. I have used a number of different pieces of Betfair trading software and this is definitely amongst the fastest.

The speed with which Gruss Betting Assistant is able to place bets is very much on the mark and a hell of a lot quicker than using “vanilla” Betfair. On top of this, the software itself is quick. What I mean by this is that it is surprisingly well written code and there is no real lag or slowdown when moving between screens.

This doesn’t necessarily sound like the biggest of deals, but when trades are made and broken on split second decisions it can make a world of difference.

What Features Does Gruss Software Have?

In listing the features that Gruss Software has, it would probably save me a lot of time to list what it doesn’t have.

Off the top of my head, there isn’t anything. In my time with the Gruss Betting Assistant, I don’t think that I have once found myself looking for a feature that other pieces of Betfair trading software have that this doesn’t.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Bet Angel in particular have some rather superfluous features and betting systems built in which Gruss Software doesn’t match, but I don’t really use them either.

With all of this in mind, I want to take some time to look at what Gruss Software can do.

The first two things that I think that any trader wants to know about when it comes to a piece of Betfair trading software are what kind of charts does it have and does it have a ladder view.

These have become staples for traders and without them, a piece of software is pretty much useless. Fortunately, Gruss Betting Assistant has both of these.

The ladder view is very much in line with what you would expect. This is one area that I don’t think can be really improved upon or changed, and Gary Russell and Mark Russell haven’t tried to do so.

This is a very good thing. The charts are also very much in line with what you would expect. There are a variety available showing different types of data in different fashions. There is nothing flash about this, however everything is well set out and very clearly shows the information that you need.

As well as the presentation of data, Gruss Betting Assistant comes equipped with a number of tools built in which allow you to implement betting strategies. Key amongst these as far as I am concerned is a really solid system for dutching bets.

This works on both backing and laying with Gary Russell and Mark Russell also programming the software so that you can set how much you want to profit or what you want your maximum liability to be.

This works very well and is one of the better examples of this kind of thing, even compared to much more expensive examples of Betfair software.

Without a doubt, where Gruss Software really starts to excel (and please excuse this pun, I simply couldn’t resist) is when it comes to excel integration. As is typical for most pieces of trading software, Gruss Software allows you to programme your own betting system in excel which can then be used to automate your betting.

Whilst I wouldn’t like to commit to this being intentional on behalf of Gary Russell and Mark Russell, they have done a particularly good job of this aspect. Truthfully, I feel like in this regard, Gruss Betting Assistant Software really does pull away from the competition. Unfortunately, this is also one of the more difficult aspects of Betfair trading.

This does however allow me to neatly segue into my next header…

Gruss Software Community and Support

If there is one aspect of Gruss Software that does deserve to be talked about, it is the community. There is a rather extensive user forum that is not just active, but actually very helpful. Gary Russell and Mark Russell are both active here as well and appear to actively take on board what users ask for and want.

This is something that I haven’t really seen with any of the more substantial Betfair trading software, whilst the smaller examples are often too incomplete to be practical.

This is very much optional (although recommended) in my opinion. Truthfully, Gruss Software does a very good job of explaining what the software can and can’t do. The manual is very much in line with this, being informative without ever wandering too far into the realm of technicality.

You also get a small amount of video assistance as well. Gary Russell and Mark Russell also make themselves available for support via email.

What if I Don’t Use Betfair?

If for some reason you don’t use Betfair as your trading platform of choice, Gruss Software also has an alternative option. There is a version of the software that allows you to trade on Betdaq in the same way as Betfair. This is all currently in beta however and as such isn’t a “complete” product.

There are however plans to make this a bigger part of Gruss Betting Assistant Software in the future. At the moment, there is also no charge for the Betdaq version of Gruss Software however Gary Russell and Mark Russell say that they reserve the right to change this in the future.

How Much Will Gruss Software Cost Me?

When it comes to Betfair trading software, costs differ wildly. Some examples are free and represent a great starting point. Bet Angel is right at the top end of the market and comes in at a rather eye watering £29.99 per month.

Gruss Software is just £6 per month which is at the bottom end of the pay scale really. You can also save even more money by purchasing a 12 month license for £60. Both of these are reasonably priced in my opinion.

Unfortunately, there is no money back guarantee in place for Gruss Software. This is however standard for this kind of software and as such, I don’t believe that it can be held against Gary Russell and Mark Russell.

It is worth pointing out however that you can cancel at any time as Gruss Software isn’t contract based.

Conclusion on Gruss Betting Assistant?

As far as I am concerned Gruss Betting Assistant Software is a very solid contender as far as the “best” Betfair software. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a list that has an outright winner.

There is no best piece of software and realistically, what works well for one is not necessarily going to work well for another. It is however possible to be objective about what traders may look for and what does and doesn’t work well in terms of this. I am of the opinion that Gruss Software does a lot very well.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a completely flawless piece of kit. Those of you who are astute will notice that I haven’t really talked a lot about the user interface. This is for a very good reason.

I feel like it is safe to say that with Gruss Software, Gary Russell and Mark Russell have focused on function rather than form. This doesn’t however ever feel detrimental to the overall product.

The only other problem that I can possibly perceive is that Gruss Software is perhaps aimed a little more at the technically minded crowd. That doesn’t mean that it is difficult to use.

I really don’t believe this to be the case and I haven’t had any problems with the software. What I mean by this is that if you really want to get the most out of Gruss Software, then you do need to have some idea of what you are doing.

As far as I am concerned, Gruss Software is a very complete product with the added bonus that the creators aren’t treating it as such.

What this means for users is that you can guarantee that Gruss Software will only get better as it needs to be. Sticking with the subject of the creators, Gruss Software has a very strong community and creators who genuinely care about their products. In some ways, this is a rarity in and of itself.

Quite whether or not Gruss Software will be for you is something that remains to be seen. I am not naïve enough to suggest that if you have something that works for you, you change it.

What I will say however is if you are considering changing or are looking for some trading software to get you started, I definitely think that Gruss Software is worth a serious look. It is good value, well put together and is an infinite improvement over using Betfair’s web interface.

My Final Thoughts on Gruss Betting Assistant To Use With Betfair?

The guys behind Gruss Software have done a bang up job. There isn’t much more that I can really say. It is affordable, works well and provides everything that a trader would need.

Also, please remember that actual Betfair users have helped design the software, in particular, as I mentioned earlier Steve Howe of Its a Mugs Game Blog

In Fact, you can see Steve Howe using the Gruss Betting Assistant on the video below:

As you can see from aboove, the software is highly visual, attractive even, and easy to use.

Honestly, I am not certain that you could do better than Gruss Betting Assistant Software for the money  that is charged. When you consider that Cymatic (what I consider to be the base standard for trading software, and excellent in it’s own right) has a £6.70 per month cost and is ultimately less versatile than Gruss Software.

It is clear that there is value to be had here with this Betfair trading software.

Resources and Related Content:

Bet Angel Review, Is Peter Webb’s Betfair Trading Software The Best Out There?

Steve Howe Betfair Trader ItsAMugsBlog Workshop Review

BetTrader Review, Sports Trading Software for Betfair

Advanced Cymatic Trader Review

The post Gruss Betting Assistant Review, Betfair Trading Software Made Simple appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Should you register for VAT?, I get a lot of different questions about a lot of different topics. Most of the time, I have an answer but every now and then, I have to go out into the world and carry out some research because I just don’t know something that well.

I was recently asked by an acquaintance about VAT registration for a side venture that had been set up.

I always knew the basics of VAT. Being me however, I felt that I had to find out more about VAT registration, what the pros and cons are etc. To me, it always seemed like a no brainer. I know people who claim their VAT back on purchases and whatnot and they’re forever twisting things into business purchases and bragging about how easy it is.

I had always taken this for granted, simply because it wasn’t something that ever really affected me. Once I realised how little I knew it became like a loose thread for me, and well, here I am.

Over the course of this article I want to explore the pros and cons of being VAT registered. More importantly, I want to look at it in as much detail as possible. I have read a few articles whilst carrying out my research, but truthfully, most of them simply skim over things.

They also have a strong bias on account of them being written by different accountants and financial software companies. With this in mind, here are my findings.

Just on the basis of gathering real life information, I have gone to the lengths of actively speaking to a fair amount of business owners who are VAT registered, and those who are not, to gain some ‘real’ feeling on the subject, as I think you will see on the content below.

What is VAT?

In my personal opinion, and that of some business people I have spoken to, VAT is simply another taxation. Made up taxation where justification for such was simply built around it after the event.

Nobody likes taxes, especially business taxes where there is far more value being offered to society (in the main) than is given credit for.

Therefore, it has been said by quite of few of those I spoke to, that is is just another form of taxation, and that starting and running a business these days means that you are effectively taking 50% out of your coffers before costs and personal income.

It was broken down like this:

Let’s say your business turns over £100,000 a year, then you are immediately losing 20% of that in VAT (tax), and then another 20% of that taken in corporation tax (depending on which side of the bed the Chancellor gets out of on budget day, give or take a few %’s).

Then you are paying employee’s National Insurance contributions, and now their pension contributions, etc.  – give or take what you can claim back and it is said that approximately 50% of your profits are wiped out before you even begin to look at product costs, etc.

Then after all this taxation, when you look to pay yourself some dividends out of what is left, now you are met with at least another 7.5% dividend tax which is placed on top of the rather large heap of other taxes you have have paid to the treasury.

Is it little wonder that businesses really don’t like such taxes, after all the hard work they put into building their businesses? and then having to hand over 50% of their profits to pure taxation, and government interference which then go to fund spurious mandates that hold endless wastage.

Anyway, back to the facts and my VAT findings:

The first place that my search led me to is what VAT actually is. Sure, we all know that VAT is charged at 20% (at the time of writing) on top of purchase prices.

Here in the UK, VAT is also typically factored into purchases meaning that £2 in £10 that you spend on VAT applicable items  ultimately goes back to the Government of the day.

All of the above is pretty straight forward, but I hadn’t considered VAT outside of this context. For example, a company, in charging VAT essentially acts as a tax collection agency on behalf of HM Revenue and Customs.

This almost sounds ludicrous but because of how VAT is handled by companies, this is what they do (I will go into this in much greater detail below so don’t worry if you’re a bit lost. This is a surprisingly deep subject).

So deep in fact, that the varying opinions from businessman that are VAT registered may surprise you. In my research I have found that many business people have a lot to say about the subject, and most of it is from the stance of VAT being a punitive, enforced tax on businesses – especially when the customer is non-commercial, but a retail buyer.

Investopedia wisely summarises VAT as a type of consumption tax which is “placed on a product whenever value is added at a stage of production and at final sale”. This means that as a consumer, you don’t just pay VAT when you buy a completed product.

Each component purchased by a company may have had VAT applied, and the producer of the component may have payed VAT on raw materials and so on and so forth. This isn’t necessarily the most pertinent information, but I found it to be interesting and it does help to create some context later on.

The following link explains how to actually register for VAT (read this review first though!):

https://www.gov.uk/vat-registration/how-to-register

As a company, you naturally have to pay any VAT that you have collected as well as reclaim any VAT that you have paid on business expenses. This typically happens on a quarterly basis.

Whilst there are some exceptions, these are more unusual examples and apply to companies with a turnover of £1.35 million plus. They also seem to be better equipped for big businesses rather than smaller ones.

Does My Business Have To Be VAT Registered?

The short answer to this is that it depends on how much money your company makes. The criteria set by the Government in the UK is as follows:

You must register for VAT if:

• Your VAT taxable turnover is more than £85,000 (the ‘threshold’) in a 12 month period.
• You expect to go over the threshold in a single 30 day period.]

There are also some addendums to this as well.

• You’ll also need to register if you only sell goods or services that are exempt from VAT or ‘out of scope’ but you buy goods for more than £85,000 from EU VAT-registered suppliers to use in your business.
• You may have to register for VAT if you take over a business that’s already registered.

I would like to make a point of clarification at this point. The £85,000 that is referred to is your turnover. This means that even if your business is only making £1 profit per annum, if your takings are £85,000 or above then you must be VAT registered.

Furthermore, this number applies only at the time of writing and is subject to change in the future.

Outside of this, being VAT registered is an entirely optional thing. This is where it makes sense to introduce the pros and cons of being VAT registered. There are certainly some strong arguments to be had both for and against voluntary VAT registration.

What Are the Pros of Being VAT Registered

Most of the sources that I have looked at have do nothing but sing the praises of being VAT registered. Honestly, I can see why this would be the default view. If you are a large company, there only appears to be benefits to being VAT registered.

Given that this article is generally geared towards those who have a choice (and as such, are likely to have smaller companies), this will be my focus.

One of the first things that stands out as a benefit for smaller companies considering voluntary VAT registration is that it can boost the profile of your business. When engaging in business, anybody worth their salt will know what the VAT threshold is.

Where this can be used for your benefit is that if you have a VAT number, it creates the appearance that your company has a minimal turnover of £85,000 per year. Given that some businesses may be wary of dealing with significantly smaller companies, seeming bigger than you are can be a huge boon.

This also brings me onto my second point which is ease of business. Based off my research I have seen anecdotal evidence of companies being much less receptive to none VAT registered companies.

Truthfully, this doesn’t seem to be too big an issue in this day and age, however it is something to keep in mind. Irrespective of whether companies will or won’t deal with you, having a VAT number does make the whole transaction process easier for everybody involved.

Having mentioned the VAT number, it is probably worth taking a little bit of time to talk about this. A VAT registration number allows you to be identifiable as a VAT registered business. By having this displayed on your website, stationary and correspondence, it all adds to sense of a big business.

It is also something of a professional courtesy that allows anybody doing business with you to understand that they’re not dealing with “cowboys”.

These are ‘some’ positives however I doubt that they are why you are reading this article. The main reasons for voluntary VAT registration are of course financial. This mostly comes in the form of reclaiming VAT on applicable business purchases.

How To Reclaim VAT

Gov.uk says that you can usually reclaim the VAT paid on goods and services purchased for use in your business. You can also partially reclaim VAT on any purchases that are for personal and private use. This split is typically based around how much you will use a purchase for personal, and how much you will use a purchase for business use.

As an example, I will imagine that I am a VAT registered company owner and I have just purchased a new laptop for myself. 75% of the time, I know that I will be using my laptop for business related services.

This means writing reports, composing business related emails etc. The other 25% of the time, I will be using it at home to browse Facebook, play a bit of online poker and watch Netflix. I can reclaim 75% of the VAT that I paid on the laptop.

What this means in pounds and pence terms can be very attractive. If I had spent £1,000 on my new laptop, then £200 of that would be VAT. Of that £200, I could claim back 75% (the business usage) which means that I could reclaim £150 (staggered over a period of time…!).

This means that my £1,000 laptop has effectively cost me £850 because I will use it for business purposes.

The following link will advise on what can be reclaimed on the VAT, and what cannot:

https://www.gov.uk/reclaim-vat/what-you-can-and-cant-reclaim

This is only one aspect of what you can reclaim however. If you have a mobile phone on contract that is purely for business use, you can reclaim 20% of the purchase cost as well as the cost of the plan.

On a £50 per month contract, this means reclaiming £120 over the course of a year. If you work from home and your home office takes up 10% of the floor space of your house, you can reclaim 10% of the VAT back on your utilities.

Unfortunately, there are some exceptions to this and I would strongly advise that you research what you can and can’t reclaim before rushing into a purchase. Especially if it is on the grounds that you will get some money back on it.

A prime example of this is the fact that you cannot recover VAT on a car for partial business use. If you can prove that a car will be used solely for business use, then you can attempt to reclaim the VAT.

Reclaiming VAT Expenses

The savings that you can make through reclaiming VAT are not necessarily massive amounts on their own. 10% of the VAT on your utility bills might only work out at 2% overall, but this is money that you can essentially claim back “for nothing”.

Really, the numbers only start to come together when you start to factor in all of the day to day costs of running a business.

It is also worth noting that you can reclaim costs staff travel for business trips. This means that if any of the following travel, you can reclaim VAT on travel expenses including meals and accommodation:

• Someone directly employed by you, i.e. not through an agency.
• Directors, partners, any other managers.
• Helpers or stewards who help run events.

There are however different rules when it comes to reclaiming VAT on fuel. Presuming you don’t pay a fixed rate of VAT under the Flat Rate Scheme (something that I will get to soon), then there are 2 main ways of reclaiming (or not reclaiming, as the case may be) VAT on fuel. These are as follows:

• You can reclaim all the VAT that you pay on fuel and pay a fuel scale charge for your vehicle.
• You may choose not to reclaim any VAT if your mileage is so low that the fuel scale charge would be higher than the VAT you can reclaim.

Having mentioned the fuel scale charge, I should now take a look at what this entails. If you drive a car and choose to claim back all VAT on fuel, then you have to pay a fixed fee which depends on the type of vehicle you drive and how you choose to pay.

For example, a BMW 320d would mean paying £65 per month, £197 per quarter or £792 for the year between May 2016 and April 2017 (the last financial year).

Essentially, the fuel scale charge is a “fair” charge that the Government levy to cover any VAT that you recover on your fuel costs that may have been used for personal use. I promise, it is simpler than it sounds.

Basically, if you owned a BMW 320d (as used in the example), you would pay £792 per year on top of your VAT. In return, you can claim VAT on all of your fuel purchases.

Using the above example and diesel prices of £1.20 per litre, we can see that you would be reclaiming 24p on each litre of fuel. Over the course of a year, this would mean that you would have to purchase 3,300 litres of fuel in order to benefit from paying the Fuel Scale Charge.

This is a big part of the reason that some smaller businesses find it easier to simply pay VAT on fuel.

Reclaiming Historic VAT

When you become VAT registered you are also able to claim back some of your historic VAT payments. Whilst there is a time limit in place, you can claim for goods up to 4 years old that you either still have, or that were used to make goods that you still have.

There is also a 6 month limit on services provided.

It is worth keeping in mind that when it comes to reclaiming historic VAT, it must be related to your “business purpose”. What this means is that any historic VAT that you try to claim must relate to VAT taxable goods or services that you currently supply.

It should go without saying that you will have to provide invoices, receipts and other evidence to back all of this up.

What Are the Cons of Being VAT Registered?

I think that one of the most obvious cons that I have found when researching this topic is that VAT can become a complicated beast. For some people, the amount that they will ultimately be able to reclaim simply isn’t worth the paperwork involved. Especially if you are a one man operation and don’t have an accountant in place.

Ultimately, I think that this comes down to how much you value your time. If 8 hours of paperwork is going to allow you to reclaim £500, then it is a bit of a no brainer. If however you can only reclaim £80, you may find something better to do with your time. Like I have said, this is really a bit of a personal preference situation.

The laws and rules regarding bookkeeping and administration when you are VAT registered are also somewhat more specialised. Because you are essentially collecting money on behalf of HMRC, everything has to be done in a very specific way.

With a decent accountant and you keeping detailed and correct records, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. It does however come once more back to the time you have to invest and whether or not this balance works out right for you.

One of the bigger problems associated with being VAT registered is that with small companies/businesses, it can cause cashflow problems. You have to pay any VAT that you have collected on a quarterly basis. If you are unprepared, this can catch you short, especially if you have generated more VAT from goods and services than you have paid to other businesses.

On top of this, there can be fines and penalties if your submissions are late and incorrect. Naturally, these aren’t cheap and  furthermore, they can quickly build up if you are late with payments etc.

Like a lot of the downsides of being VAT registered, this is something that can be easily eradicated with a decent accountant but if your business is new, this will prove a costly option.

All of this can be done manually, but we are back at square one with the volume of paperwork and how much you value your time.

VAT Flat Rate Scheme – Now Rendered Useless

Generally speaking, the amount of VAT that your business will pay (or claim back) is the difference between the VAT that you have charged customers and the VAT that you have paid on your own business purchases. There is however a scheme that some small businesses can take advantage of that can simplify the process.

The following is the eligibility for joining the flat rate scheme:

https://www.gov.uk/vat-flat-rate-scheme/eligibility

With the VAT Flat Rate Scheme, as the name well suggests, you simply pay a flat rate to HMRC and in return, you keep the difference between what you charge your customers and what you pay to HMRC. This sounds rather complicated but actually, it is rather straight forward.

Depending on what industry your business is in, you pay an agreed rate of VAT and get to keep the difference between that and the 20% that your customers should be charged. For example, if your business involves retailing vehicles or fuel, you will pay 6.5% VAT and get to keep the other 13.5% that you charge your customers.

This is however only eligible for businesses to join who have an expected taxable turnover of less than £150,000 in the next 12 months. If your turnover is expected to be, or was more than £230,000 (including VAT) then you must leave this scheme.

The Flat Rate VAT system changed in April 2017

Yes, everything changed for flat rate VAT in April 2017, which means that unless you purchase 2% of tangible goods per quarter (this cannot include services, and the ‘allowable’ goods you are allowed to purchase using this filter are extremely limited) then your flat rate VAT charge will be 16.5%

Since the changes to the flat rate VAT scheme, it is now being talked about as the ‘end of an era’ for businesses who enjoyed the previous benefits. A great write up can be found here:

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tax/business-tax/vat-flat-rate-scheme-end-of-an-era

Bascially, what HMRC are trying to do is ‘force’ everybody onto the 20% rate, because if you are flat rate and go for the 16.5% it means that you cannot reclaim any VAT on your outputs, and this together with only saving 3.5% (compared to the standard 20%) means it probably will not be worth your while anyway, and may as well be on the full rate and be able to reclaim all your VAT expenses.

HMRC are targeting low cost traders, internet types that have very little costs, and literally forcing them to pay the full VAT rate, rendering the flat rate scheme almost useless.

Should You Avoid VAT Registration?

Personally, unless you are running the type of business where you can easily add VAT to your existing prices, making no odds to the receiving party (another VAT registered business), then I would personally advise against registering for VAT for as long as is humanly possible.

The reasons are simple. VAT is effectively a stealth tax, packaged in a way that HMRC offer it as ‘being professional’. They even have courses about it where they try to convince you that it is a ‘genuine’ business expense.

Why you should avoid VAT registration if your customers are not VAT registered also.

Consider the following:

Let’s say you are selling on eBay, or have a website selling a product, or even a service on the high street where you are competing with other rivals.

You sell a washing machine repair service in your local area. You advertise in your local papers to drum up trade, and are doing rather well. So much so that you are now approaching the VAT threshold, where you are ‘forced’ to register – under current HMRC rules. Not such a problem you might think.

• You duly register with HMRC, and receive your freshly printed VAT registration certificate.
• You add 20% onto your prices to cover your VAT liability, and continue running your business.

All of a sudden you start realising that you are not getting as many phone calls as you normally do, and you find that you are spending more and more time in your shop instead of actually out on the road fixing people’s washing machines.

You now start scratching your head as to what the reason could be for this lack of new business.

What changed now that you are VAT registered?

It is quite simple, all your competitors that are not VAT registered can now easily undercut your pricing….

Eh?….that’s not right?! Yup, because you are now VAT registered and have increased your prices accordingly, all the other washing machine repair businesses who are not VAT registered can now keep their prices the same, whereas you have to increase your prices by 20%.

Think about it logically. Who would you choose as a customer? A cheaper provider/serviceman, or one who is now 20% more expensive than some of the others.

You have now been penalised by HMRC for being successful – Great eh 

What can you do to solve this?

Not a great deal. You either do the following, and keep inline with your obligations:

• Add the 20% to your prices
• Absorb the 20% and take the hit on your profits

Not exactly fair is it? Your competition can now easily undercut your prices and there is not a single thing you can do about it.

VAT registration and eBay Chinese Sellers

This exact same scenario is being carried out on eBay multiple times a day. Especially now that many Chinese companies who advertise themselves as UK based are in fact operating from China, and bypass the VAT.

This is crippling UK sellers for the exact same reasons as I outlined with the washing machine example.

Read this report on the Guardian Newspaper which highlights the story:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/28/amazon-ebay-sellers-vat-fraud-ipads-tax-free

It is not just a problem with overseas sellers. The simple fact is that many UK businesses are now actively choosing to stay VAT free, by stopping trading once they hit the threshold.

Meaning, that if you yourself sell a similar line of goods and are registered for VAT, they can easily undercut you, and your sales will drop.

Chinese eBay sellers VAT avoidance techniques:

Many sellers from China actively advertise themselves as UK based, but products are sent from overseas marked as gifts, etc.

VAT is also being applied to invoices from eBay, with sellers being forced to pay them whether they are VAT registered or not:

https://www.ft.com/content/805baf76-3710-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e

The above is also for personal items, like your old games console that you just wanted to make a few quid from by selling on eBay.

Put simply, for sellers on eBay, that unless you are selling unique items, or personalised products that are not easy to compete with, then once you hit the VAT threshold, your competition is going to have the upper hand, all courtesy of your friendly HMRC.

HMRC are, and have been clamping down on seller VAT ‘avoiders’ for many years,  but are now actively ramping up their activities.

What Can You Do To Avoid VAT?

Of course you can avoid VAT by not going over the threshold of £85,000 (2017 year), and restricting your sales accordingly. Many people do this –  as ludicrous as it sounds.

It really is crazy when you think about it; having to restrict your sales, or your profits are going to reduce anyway once you register, and then you are fighting for more sales just to basically stand still.

Many businesses, and products don’t even make a 20% margin on their bottom line, and thus have no option but to increase their prices to try and make a profit, which immediately puts them at a large disadvantage from their competitors.

Of course, as I mentioned above, if your customers are VAT registered (other VAT registered businesses) then it does not matter, because you would simply add the 20% to the invoice and they claim it back, but for a retail customer base it is not so easy to do this, for all the reasons outlined above.

If you are then reaching the VAT threshold, and are in a business that has a retail customer base, with competition, then you have a serious decision to make.

You either stop trading once you have hit the threshold, making accurate calculations that you can trade again at a certain point in the future (remembering that VAT is a 12 month period of threshold calculation  – not just in the current financial year), or you decide to register for VAT and take the risk.

If you feel that you can increase your sales volume moving forward sufficiently enough to warrant the 20% loss in profits, and increase sales enough to make additional profit, then the decision is already made for you.

Not many are in that position with a small business though, and it is now crippling many, many businesses who are either forced to register for VAT, and have to stop trading completely untill their sales are back under the VAT threshold.

Conclusion on Registering for VAT

It is not straight forward. As previously mentioned, if you are in a B2B (business to business) environment, then you can simply add the VAT ‘hit’ to your clients, who generally have no problem with this as they claim it back anyway.

If you are an eBay seller, own a website, or even a high street business with competition from other businesses that are not themselves VAT registered then you can have an issue, because you will be immediately undercut on prices = lost sales and revenue.

The current VAT system certainly hides any advantages very well,  whilst at the same time penalising many small businesses, and it is all packaged up as a legitimate way of doing business. HMRC even give ‘courses’ on it these days, as if they are somehow doing you a ‘favour’.

“Gee… Thanks for the extra tax/loss of profits, and for the free course to make it easier for me to hand it over to you…”

Basically it sucks, so my advice, and the majority of those business people I spoke to would be to be careful when approaching that VAT threshold and think VERY carefully about your next steps.

VAT is simply a stealth tax for many small businesses, and you simply do not make money by being VAT registered, you will never be able to claim back more than you pay over the long term, but it is a legal obligation, so you need to decide on what is best you your business – speak to your accountant also.

Above all, do your research and think carefully!

Related Content

Is Gambling Tax Free In The UK, and Do You Have To Declare Winnings?

The post How to Register for VAT, Should You Avoid VAT, and Why? The Pitfalls. appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

The Affluence System has launched. If there is one name more than any other that will likely go down in the proverbial annals of betting history, it is Mike Cruickshank. This is a man who popularised a new concept in betting which has gone on to make a lot of people a lot of money.

Following on from a number of successful products before now, Mike Cruickshank has set out to create what may well be the single most comprehensive matched betting product on the market today.

The Affluence stystem has been added to the already successful Accumulator Generator product that this very website reviewed a while back.

£6 Profit For Every £25 Bet Placed

New releases from Mike Cruickshank aren’t a common occurrence and so I was excited to see how The Affluence System would play out, and that is exactly what I have done.

I know that others have rushed out a few pages of content relating to The Affluence System before now (more likely than not to bring in traffic), but I really wanted to see if this latest effort was as sustainable as previous products. Especially given that I do think that the matched betting bubble will eventually burst.

Sitting down to write this now, you probably won’t be surprised to hear me say that The Affluence System is every bit as quality as you would expect.

Mike Cruickshank has proven time and again that he can deliver results and this latest offering (addition) doesn’t break this cycle. I don’t want to get too much into the nitty gritty of The Affluence System here, but this may be one of the best betting products currently on the market.

Here’s a Video of Mike Cruickshank Explaining How The Affluence System Works:

Product Name: The Affluence System (additional to Accumulator Generator)

What you get: This additional system has now been added to the Accumulator Generator membership.

The price: 14 Day trial for just £1

Where to Buy: Click The Link:   Project Prosperity Affluence System

What is The Affluence System?

There is so much on offer here that I genuinely don’t know where to start, but I will try with an overview of the product. The Affluence System is something new that Mike Cruickshank has added for existing members of Accumulator Generator, although you can now try this for yourself – for just £1.

As is so often the case when dealing with Mike, The Affluence System puts a focus on very low risk betting methods with a view to building a betting bank which you then put to work for the profit.

Basically, if you already have Accumulator Generator, then great, you know how good it is. If you don’t and are now interested in this new Affluence system, then it is now part of the same package, which was recently added by Mike for free to his members.

One point though, Mike has put a time limit on this new system being included, so you will need to act with some urgency before the offer expires.

So What do You Get With The Affluence System?

You gain access to a new system that Mike has added. If you are already an accumulator generator customer, then this will already be in your members area, although new members can now gain access to this new addition, which can also be used even if your bookmaker accounts are limited!

.

How Does All of The Affluence System Work?

I think the video above explains this better, as Mike goes through the whole process on how you can make £6 profit for every £25 you place as a bet.

A big bonus on this though, is that Mike has also made sure that those who already have limited sportsbook accounts can STILL make profits this way, using bookmaker accas.

How Much is The Affluence System?

If there is one thing that I can’t sugar coat, it is the price of The Affluence System. Mike Cruickshank is definitely asking a lot at first glance, however the initial figure isn’t as overwhelming as it initially seems.

For More details, and to start the £1 for a 14 Trial for this mammoth package – Click Here

There is an initial up front payment of £97 plus VAT in order to gain access to The Affluence System/Accumulator Generator. After this, there are 3 monthly payments of £197 plus VAT. This sounds like a hell of a lot of money, however this pricing structure is much fairer than it seems.

Having had experience with matched betting I can comfortably say that after paying your up front costs, making the £197 per month is more than plausible. This means that really, you are paying £97 to sign up, and so long as you follow The Affluence System, the service will pay for itself in many regards.

On top of this, Mike Cruickshank says that if you do purchase The Affluence System and find that it isn’t for you, you have a 30 day window in which you can claim a refund.

Alternatively, you look at how much money you can save compared to subscription fees which amounts to a rather substantial fee as well.

How Much Can I Make With The Affluence System?

Again, the video on this page will explain the profit potential that Mike estimates. With the aim being to grow a £500 betting bank into £500 initially, so that you can actually start taking an income from the system/s.

Accumulator Generator did extremely well for our readers when it launched, so with the addition of the Affluence System, the profit potentil is now even higher.

Conclusion on Mike’s Affluence System

The bottom line is, that the original Accumulator Generator did great, and continues to make profits for Mike’s members, and what Mike has actually done, is to make the package far more attractive with the additon of the Affluence system.

Also, as Mike is obviously aware that a certain amount of bettors will have their accounts limited at some stage (after making some very nice profits), then he has used his knowledge and expertise to figure out a way around this, and this alone has to be enticing to all the matched bettors out there.

Final Thoughts From Me

It’s Mike Cruickshank

What he provides simply makes money, so if you have not already got Accumulator Generator, then now the new Affluence system has been added, this surely has to make it a winning combination.

Plus, we are BIG fans of Mike Cruickshank and his products! Basically you getting the whole package, and the new additional for just a quid’s trial quid

For More details, and to start the £1 for a 14 Trial for this mammoth package – Click Here

The above link expires soon, so if you are interested in this, take a look today would be my advice.

Related Content:

Mike Cruickshank Matched Betting Software Review. Mike’s Latest Product Can Save You a Lot of Time

Accumulator Generator Review From Mike Cruickshank

Profit Maximiser Review Mike Cruickshank – Plus Special Bonus

Incoming search terms:

• projectprosperity co uk/affluence
• affluence system

The post The Affluence System Review, a Mike Cruickshank Product appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Looking for Betting Mastermind? I would be surprised if you have not already heard of it, because basically Mike Cruickshank has packaged up every product he has, and is offering it on a plate to those who are serious about matched betting and making profits from a variety of different avenues.

New releases from Mike Cruickshank aren’t a common occurrence and so I was excited to see how Betting Mastermind would play out, and that is exactly what I have done.

I know that others have rushed out a few pages of content relating to Betting Mastermind before now (more likely than not to bring in traffic), but I really wanted to see if this latest effort was as sustainable as previous products. Especially given that I do think that the matched betting bubble will eventually burst.

Sitting down to write this now, you probably won’t be surprised to hear me say that Betting Mastermind is every bit as quality as you would expect.

Mike Cruickshank has proven time and again that he can deliver results and this latest offering doesn’t break this cycle. I don’t want to get too much into the nitty gritty of Betting Mastermind here, but this may be one of the best betting products currently on the market.

Here’s a Video of Mike Cruickshank Explaining How Betting Mastermind Works:

Let’s Start The Review.

Product Name: Betting Mastermind

What you get: See content below (too much to put here!)

The price: £97 + Vat

Money Back Guarantee: 30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Author: Mike Cruickshank

Where to Buy: Click The Link: Try-Betting-Mastermind

What is Betting Mastermind?

There is so much on offer here that I genuinely don’t know where to start, but I will try with an overview of the product. Betting Mastermind brings together a large number of existing and new tools and strategies that Mike Cruickshank has offered before.

As is so often the case when dealing with Mike, Betting Mastermind puts a focus on very low risk betting methods with a view to building a betting bank which you then put to work for the profit.

A Little Bit of History of Mike Cruickshank

When Mike Cruickshank first sat down to create his first Bonus Bagging product, I don’t think that he could have anticipated just how large an online empire he was going to build.

None the less, this is exactly what has happened. When the creator of this online operation says that: “Nobody has EVER offered a betting system nearly this powerful before!”, then you have to pay some attention.

Of course, I am writing this as somebody who is very familiar with Mike Cruickshank and his previous works. In order to understand why any new release is a big deal, we do have to delve into the history of Betting Mastermind a little.

I should take the time to point out that any of the products that I mention here will be explored in detail a little later on in this article, as such, if you still feel out of your depth, don’t worry too much.

Mike Cruickshank made his name by launching what I believe was the first major matched betting product onto the market. Matched betting involves using free bets from bookmakers, as well as laying bets, to make a profit with no risk.

This was revolutionary when it launched and there have been a number of imitators in recent time putting out similar products.

In order to really understand just how profitable matched betting can be, Mike Cruickshank and his followers supposedly took SkyBet for over £1 million in 24 hours due to a loophole on one of their offers.

Some people would have been happy with this success however Mike Cruickshank isn’t one of them. This is probably or the best as without his tenacity, I wouldn’t be writing about Betting Mastermind now.

There have been a number of products since those relatively humble early days which have continued in the vein of the initial principles of Bonus Bagging. What this means in real terms is that all of his products (and by proxy, Betting Mastermind) retain that low risk approach to “betting”.

In many cases, there is absolutely no risk at all.

So What do You Get With Betting Mastermind?

In terms of what this betting system entails, there is a lot of ground to cover. Put very basically however, Betting Mastermind takes a number of different products from Mike Cruickshank and compiles them into one big one.

This combination of tools and betting strategies are ultimately designed to produce a rather substantial profit and boy are they capable of delivering.

There are 11 different products and tools that ultimately make up Betting Mastermind.

Here is what Mike states on the website:

OK, so now you know what Mike states, let’s go into some detail about exactly what the complete Betting Mastermind package includes, and what you can gain from it.

There is definitely some overlap between some of them, however each of these has at some point existed as either a stand alone strategy or as an upgrade to something existing. With that in mind, I want to take some time to look at each of these tools and what they can do for you.

1. Bonus Bagging – This is the first product that Mike Cruickshank launched and it is the one that catapulted him to the fame that he now enjoys. As such, it is no surprise that this is where Betting Mastermind decides to start users off. Bonus Bagging provides you with bets for 30 different bookmaker “new account” offers. This is a brilliant starting point as it allows you to immediately build a decent sized betting bank.
2. Profit Maximiser – If Bonus Bagging sets you up, then Profit Maximiser is what takes you to the next level. In many respects, this is the centre of Mike Cruickshank’s online products and it is by far and away the one that most people have enjoyed success with. When you buy into Betting Mastermind, you receive full access to the Profit Maximise membership site, video tutorials and access to a member’s only forum. Having explored Profit Maximiser before, I can say that all of these are invaluable tools in and of themselves. Finally, you will receive all of the latest bonus offers directly to your email complete with instructions on how they actually work.
3. Matched Betting Software – This is a really neat and straight forward piece of software which will allow users to take control of their betting experience. Featuring bets across a number of sports, everything is simply laid out detailing the outcome, market, odds to back and lay at and even the bookmakers and betting exchanges that you should use. If all of this sound complicated, as is the case with almost anything from Mike Cruickshank, there is plenty of support available.
4. Each Way Sniper – Each Way Sniper was a product that was launched by Mike Cruickshank in order to help users to find a more consistent strategy to make money. Using Extra Place Races, Betting Mastermind isn’t reliant on bookmaker offers or bonuses in order to generate a profit. This adds a lot of flexibility to the Betting Mastermind arsenal.
5. Accumulator Generator – This is one of the more recent offerings from Mike Cruickshank and it was a very good product then and remains so now. As is the case with Each Way Sniper, Accumulator Generator is another attempt to move away from being overly reliant on bookmaker offers. This involves placing a number of different bets and lay bets at advised odds. As is the case with most of the tools included with Betting Mastermind, the bets etc. are all detailed for you.
6. EV Maxmiser – This is a rather unique product within the Betting Mastermind stable. It doesn’t look at traditional betting methods and as such, there is perhaps a little more risk involved than there is with other Mike Cruickshank products. EV Maximiser focuses on using casino bonus offers and how to extract the best possible value from them. There is definitely a lot of potential to make money here, however by the same token, there is more risk inherent.
7. Betfair Sniper – For those who find dealing with bookies tedious, Betfair Sniper may well be up your street. It is a Betfair system that only uses exchanges. This is a simple strategy which is explained in full by Mike Cruickshank. You are essentially looking at value in the markets whilst Mike Cruickshank will show you how and when to enter a trade. You will also be shown how to leave it to trade out for an equal profit, regardless of the ultimate race winner.
8. Betfair Renegade – This is a rather helpful tool which allows you to make money from football markets on Betfair. Without going too much into the details of how it does things, Betfair Renegade shows you the correct Betfair odds for match odds on the correct score and over/under markets. This is a “bet and forget” system which means that there is no need to trade out in game etc.
9. Bookie Blowout – Mike Cruickshank refers to this as his “idiot-proof” system for beating the bookies at their own game. This is again a straight forward service where you are advised of bets directly to your email. You receive information on stakes and odds, and all you have to do is place the bets advised.
10. Betfair 1% Club System – A rather interesting offering from Mike Cruickshank this one. It is a Betfair trading system that targets making 1-2% of your betting bank in profit on a single trade. As is something of a trademark of Mike Cruickshank, this is all done with the least possible risk. The Betfair 1% Club System is a decent little earner that can be run, even when you’re on the go.
11. Project Prosperity Training System – In many ways, this is crucial to Betting Mastermind as a project. It is a 5 step training system in which Mike Cruickshank shows you how to maximise your profits as well as how to get results in an hour or less per day. The Project Prosperity Training System is a fantastic feature as it allows you to make the most of your money, but more importantly, help manage your finances.

Full details on Betting Mastermind – Click Here

Before now I have seen people start out with matched betting and the like and they have ended up losing out because they have started to get silly with their money.

Whilst the Project Prosperity Training System doesn’t tell you how to spend or when to withdraw, it does help you to ensure that you have enough to bankroll the next stage of your betting experience.

And with that, we’re done looking at the bulk of Betting Mastermind. It is certainly a hell of a lot of content that is being offered in one package.

Even though I have looked at several of these products individually before now in much greater detail, I also feel that it is important to review their purpose here so that you can really start to see what Mike Cruickshank is setting out to do with Betting Mastermind.

Betting Mastermind is probably the single most comprehensive and powerful betting tool that I have seen for a considerable amount of time. The beauty of this as far as I’m concerned isn’t just the product, but who has worked on it.

I think that it is fair to say that Mike Cruickshank is probably one of the most trusted names when it comes to making money through betting. This is no small feat and it adds weight to Betting Mastermind that simply wouldn’t be there if this came through the typical crappy affiliate channels.

How Does All of Betting Mastermind Work?

Put bluntly, Betting Mastermind works by bringing together all of the different products that Mike Cruickshank has ever released. Each of these uses a different strategy and approach to betting in order to make profit. Whilst each of these is very much proven, by bringing them all together there is the potential to make massive amounts of profit here.

For those who are a fan of somewhat obscure 80’s references, Betting Mastermind is a little bit like Voltron.

The truth is that Betting Mastermind has a clear starting point, and with the Project Prosperity Training System, you can start to build your profits. What I like about this path is that unlike some betting systems which leave you an instructional manual and no implementation strategy, Betting Mastermind really holds your hand as much as you need it.

Perhaps the best way that I can describe how Betting Mastermind works is to imagine a huge machine comprised of lots of different gears. Each of these can turn on their own, but it is only when they are all turning together will the machine run. Likewise, each product makes money on its own, but together, they are greater than the sum of their individual parts.

How Much is Betting Mastermind?

If there is one thing that I can’t sugar coat, it is the price of Betting Mastermind. Mike Cruickshank is definitely asking a lot at first glance, however the initial figure isn’t as overwhelming as it initially seems.

There is an initial up front payment of £97 plus VAT in order to gain access to Betting Mastermind. After this, there are 3 monthly payments of £197 plus VAT. This sounds like a hell of a lot of money, however this pricing structure is much fairer than it seems.

Having had experience with matched betting I can comfortably say that after paying your up front costs, making the £197 per month is more than plausible. This means that really, you are paying £97 to sign up, and so long as you follow Betting Mastermind, the service will pay for itself in many regards.

On top of this, Mike Cruickshank says that if you do purchase Betting Mastermind and find that it isn’t for you, you have a 30 day window in which you can claim a refund.

I also believe that it is worthwhile discussing how much you save buying into Betting Mastermind in this format rather than buying each product individually. Mike Cruickshank says that if you were to buy each of the 9 none subscription services, you would pay £203.86 more than you would for Betting Mastermind.

Alternatively, you look at how much money you can save compared to subscription fees which amounts to a rather substantial fee as well.

How Much Can I Make With Betting Mastermind?

The income potential with Betting Mastermind across the board is hugely dependent on how much you are willing to initially invest. What I can say is that matched betting on its own is a massively lucrative opportunity where a lot of people have made a lot of money.

Combined with the other different strategies, I feel quite comfortable in saying that the income potential of Betting Mastermind is definitely on the substantial side.

For those who are looking for a more concise idea of how much you can expect to earn, you don’t have to look much further than Mike Cruickshank’s own testimonials.

Here there are plenty of people talking about the windfalls that they have enjoyed. Naturally there is a pretty large range in terms of figures, but you will very rarely see anybody making less than at least a £1,000 profit.

A number have gone on to make five figure incomes. It is interesting to note that these have been made using just one or two of the different aspects that ultimately make up Betting Mastermind.

So, Does Betting Mastermind Represent Value for Money?

In order to look at whether or not Betting Mastermind represents value for money, you need to put serious consideration into how serious you are about making money online. If you are willing to work hard and invest time and effort, then I definitely feel that Betting Mastermind represents value for money.

It is probably one of the more comprehensive betting profits on the market. If on the other hand you don’t have a reasonable income to play with, then you might be better starting off smaller than Betting Mastermind.

Conclusion on Mike’s Betting Mastermind

Whilst I think that Betting Mastermind is a fantastic product, I do believe that to say that Mike Cruickshank has done it again is a bit of an overstatement. Truthfully, what he has done is simply the same thing that he has always done before.

This doesn’t mean that Betting Mastermind isn’t good quality however. In fact, I would be inclined to say that it is pretty far from it. Mike Cruickshank has arguably put together the single most complete betting product on the market.

Each one of Mike Cruickshank’s products that I have looked at has delivered to at least some degree. With Betting Mastermind bringing all of these together, there are some very clear positive indicators.

The fact that there is always a focus on low risk betting is something that really helps Betting Mastermind to stand out from a lot of the so called competition, and I say that knowing that there isn’t really a lot that is really in the same ball park as Betting Mastermind.

I have tried to identify flaws with Betting Mastermind, but this has been a difficult thing to do. This is a quality product and it shows in almost every facet of the final product. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t things to be criticised however.

The cost involved, whilst justifiable, is still sizable to say the least. In fact, the last product that I looked at that came close to costing what Mike Cruickshank is asking for Betting Mastermind was one of Tim Lowe’s products.

What is interesting about both of these however is that you are talking about people who have a consistent track record in their chosen fields. Yes, The Betting Mastermind is expensive, but I genuinely believe that the service will pay for itself many times over.

I also think that there is a lot to process and even with Mike Cruickshank’s guidance, Betting Mastermind is a little bit overwhelming.

Once again, this is counteracted by the Project Prosperity training which does a good job of walking you through things. That having been said, there are a lot of different betting products involved with Betting Mastermind and some of these I have known even experienced bettors struggle with a bit.

Ultimately, the question of Betting Mastermind boils down to how badly you want it. As I have said before now, if you are serious about making money through online betting then I don’t think that there are many better options. There aren’t however many options that are more expensive however either.

Final Thoughts From Me

Betting Mastermind is a fantastic collection of best selling income generating services all brought together in one placet. Unfortunately, I don’t see it being for everybody. This is a method that if you want to extrapolate the best possible results from it is rather expensive. It is also time consuming and rather harder work in reality than the sales material makes out.

That having been said, I also think that Betting Mastermind is one of the most genuine ways of making money online today. I do think that you will make money on this as well.

There don’t tend to be a lot of “if’s” when it comes to Mike Cruickshank and that allows me to put a lot of faith in his products.

As I have said at the start of this review, without the name attached to it, I couldn’t see Betting Mastermind being close to what it should be. Fortunately, it does, and as such I believe that it is definitely a worthwhile to any betting portfolio that can afford it.

Plus, we are BIG fans of Mike Cruickshank and his products!

Basically you getting EVERY SINGLE product that Mike Cruickshank has ever produced for a fantastic price, and with a money back guarantee from one of the most popular publishers of such content in the last 10 years.

Full details on Betting Mastermind – Click Here

Related Content:

The Affluence System Review, a Mike Cruickshank Product

Accumulator Generator Review From Mike Cruickshank

Profit Maximiser Review Mike Cruickshank – Plus Special Bonus

The post Betting Mastermind Review, A Complete Spectrum of Profit Generation appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

When I set out to write about affiliate marketing to make money online, or from home, I had no idea that the whole project would end up spanning as much as it has, but here I am almost 10,000 words deep on the subject and preparing to write yet another article.

Since I have looked at both Clickbank and Amazon’s affiliate programme in detail, I have decided that one of the major topics left to cover is what you need to do in order to actually market products.

This is a massively varied topic and so this article is likely to be a little bit less structured than some of the content that I have put out before, however I do hope that it will continue to be useful.

As always, the goal here isn’t to set out a step by step process for you as there are plenty of examples of this available online. What they don’t do is compare and contrast the different methods of promoting products.

I personally feel that a big part of this is down to the sheer volume of methods that you can use as an affiliate.

I also feel that it is important to take the time to say that despite what a number of questionable products will say, there is no definitive method of affiliate marketing. Everybody will have their own preferences etc. and these will mostly be dependent on what it is you are marketing.

I will try to give examples of niches that different marketing methods would work best with.

So, Where Do I Start as an Affiliate?

Picking a starting point for your new affiliate marketing network is one of the most difficult parts and yet truthfully, I don’t think that it is as hard a choice as some places will make it seem.

The best place that you can start with any affiliate marketing network is to have a website. This doesn’t have to be particularly fancy and many successful marketers will simply use a WordPress website as the hub of their marketing network.

A website is important for a number of reasons, but the main one is that it gives you a permanent web presence and things like this offer a lot of reassurance to people.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that when I see something that interests me online, the first thing I will do is to search to see how well established a company is. By having a website you allow yourself to be instantly recognised whilst at the same time, serving as a huge part of your sales funnel or affiliate network.

What is a Sales Funnel?

There are many different terms that one can use for the methods that you use to sell products online. I personally use the term network as I feel that this best describes what you are creating.

A sales funnel is a much broader term that describes the different points of customer interaction, each ultimately (in theory) driving customers to the narrow end of the funnel which is a purchase.

I personally prefer the term network as really, each facet of your operation should operate as its own independent sales funnel. None the less, these terms refer to similar practices and you will find that as you read more into internet marketing, there is a lot of interchangeability on a number of different phrases.

Building a Website

The first step to creating your website is to find a relevant URL. There are a few different approaches to this and they will ultimately depend on how sustainable you want your business to be.

If you have a single product in mind that you want to market and are looking for quick traffic and easier SEO, then you may wish to have a URL that is something like cavemanpaleodietreview.com (for the fictional product, Caveman Paleo Diet).

The problem with doing this is rather apparent in so much as you can only really use that URL for that particular product.

Alternatively, you can cast a wider net and you could use something like thebestpaleodietsreview.com. This is likely to lead to much more competition as you are trying to capture all searches for “the best paleo diets” or “paleo diets reviews”, however the flexibility means that you can continue to modify your site as other products generate more traction on Clickbank or Amazon.

Creating a website can be as time consuming and as complex as you want it to be, but for the purposes of starting a new affiliate network there is no need to go into this in too much detail.

You can very easily find somebody to create a website from scratch for you but this can be expensive, time consuming and you aren’t guaranteed to get what you want. With this in mind, most affiliates will use WordPress (a subject that I will look at in more detail).

This is a simple platform that allows you to create your own websites with ease.

One of the other things to consider is what kind of website you want to operate to sell a product. There are a lot of different website types that people use when affiliate marketing and as is the case with a lot of decisions that need to be made, the niche that you have chosen.

These can range from setting up a review style website where you list the pros and cons of different products to creating your own content and articles on a theme.

There aren’t however any real hard and fast rules in this regard however and your approach should ultimately be something that you enjoy. After all, you will likely be spending a lot of time with your website, especially in the first few months when you are setting up. This will mean creating a lot of content.

How Much Does It Cost to Host a Website?

Technically speaking you can host a website yourself but this is well beyond the realm of possibility for most people. With this in mind, I would recommend looking at a hosting company.

There are thousands of these online and finding the right once can be a daunting task. With some searching however, you should be able to find a good host that offers their services at a reasonable cost, especially if you get a WordPress only hosting package.

When you have chosen your host, you will be faced with a large number of different options in terms of how much space you will need, how much traffic your website can handle etc.

The differences in costs between the different tiers can seem negligible, but it is important to remember that your new affiliate marketing venture is a business and as such, you want it to become sustainable as quickly as possible.

What Is WordPress?

Wordpress is a very flexible, lightweight and easy to use website creation platform. These features make it one of the most oft utilised tools in the affiliate marketers arsenal. A big part of this flexibility is that there is a massive customer driven market for things like themes and layouts for your website as well as plugins that allow you to modify the behaviour of your site.

This approach means that no matter what your intent when creating your website, you will find something that suits you. For example, simply looking at WordPress themes, there are examples for websites that are image based, that want to sell a product (or products) and even templates that are perfect for article based content.

All of these are customisable so that you can choose colours, fonts etc. and really build the brand of your website.

The most powerful part of WordPress however isn’t that you can make a website look pretty (although that certainly helps), it is the plugins I mentioned earlier. These can allow you to tag new articles and posts in such a fashion that Google will “like” your posts and rank them higher.

There are also plugins that allow you to have popups appear on your website so that you can advertise a product that way or even capture visitors email addresses (something that is hugely important as I will look at below).

A vast majority of these plugins are free however I do feel that it I should point out that some are also paid. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for with WordPress plugins however it is worth paying attention to reviews.

I have expended far too much time and effort before now trying to get a plugin to do what I want on the grounds that it can supposedly do this, only to find a much better rated alternative a few pages along.

Resource: http://www.wordpress.com

How Do I Get My Website Ranked on Google?

I have already mentioned that you will need to create a lot of content in order to get your website up and running but this can’t be overstated. Depending on the needs of your business, you may find that simply getting a website ranked for certain keywords is enough.

This kind of approach is generally used by those who are looking to sell an individual product. If however you are looking for something more sustainable, then you should be consistently updating your website.

In terms of what Google is looking for, this can be a difficult thing to know. They are constantly updating their search algorithms to ensure that only the best quality and most relevant websites are ranked. This generally means articles that are at least 1000 words.

This can soon mount up which is one of the main reasons that I have advised in other articles about affiliate marketing that your niche should interest you.

Resource: https://www.google.com/webmasters/

Basic SEO – Search engine optimisation

I have chosen to title this section basic SEO as I don’t want to go into too much detail, namely because there is far too much detail to go into on the topic.

In fact, SEO could well be an article of this length in and of itself. SEO stands for search engine optimisation and this all relates to how you get your content ranked on search engines (usually Google given their massive market share and for the purposes of this, I will be referring to Google) for certain incoming search terms related to the products that you are marketing.

There are no hard and fast rules for SEO because as I have touched on, the actual algorithms that Google use are highly secretive and are also subject to change.

That change can and has broken entire online affiliate marketing rings in one fell swoop, simply because the content a marketer has in place doesn’t meet Google’s standards.

Having said all of this, there are some generally widely considered basics that you can always rely upon if you want your site to be ranked. Google has always, and in some way or another, will always look for high quality content that is relevant to inbound search terms.

What this means is that if you are selling a horse racing betting system as an affiliate and your website mainly has content relating to football, Google is unlikely to see your site as an authority on the subject.

Google looks at the quality of your content by robotically reading the content of your site and applying their algorithms to what you have on your site. This is predominantly based around keywords however simply putting the name of a product over and over won’t work.

The content has to read organically and should ideally be written by a real person. Once upon a time, it was possible to simply have somebody with English as a second language bang out articles for next to nothing but because these don’t read well, they are viewed as less valuable by Google.

Another factor in how Google ranks your site is how many websites connect to it and arguably more importantly, whether they are good quality websites. If you simply link to your site from websites with no relevance or status (for example empty blogs), then Google will not see you as valuable.

If however your site has incoming links from big and well established websites, it will itself be held in higher regard.

Finally, I want to talk about something that is so easy to overlook that it is oft forgotten when people are discussing SEO. Your content should be unique. You may well see websites offering “done for you” content in a certain niche but this is generally existing articles that are not unique to your website.

If the content is unique, it has generally been put through a text spinner and the output is drivel and a long way from the genuine and organic content that Google looks for.

Resource: www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

What Other Marketing Options are Available?

If a website is the hub of your affiliate marketing network, then there more branches coming off it than I can list. As always, I do intend to break these down and look at what options are available and which are most effective.

After your website, arguably the most important aspect of your affiliate marketing network is social media. This can take a number of different guises however and each of these is worthy of their own section.

There are also email marketing campaigns, something which a lot of marketers consider to be central to their operations.

As I have touched upon, there are also less ethical ways of marketing your products, however most of these are only really suited to those who are looking to try and gain an immediate and easy boost to numbers.

Many of these methods are decidedly scam like and truthfully, few marketers will use the as part of a sustainable business.

Facebook Marketing

Facebook is probably the best known social media site in the world and as such, it is no surprise that affiliate marketers often take advantage of the platform. One of the reasons for this popularity is that Facebook is a very versatile tool in the right hands.

There are so many different ways of reaching out to prospective customers and the best part is  that most of them won’t actually cost you any money.

The first place to start is with a fan page or even a Facebook page for the product if such a thing doesn’t exist. This is something that a lot of marketers use as it  allows you to be discoverable when people are searching for the product.

There is more to it than this however as it allows you to communicate with other users whilst representing the product you are selling.

This leads me onto the second method of marketing on Facebook which is to find groups relevant to the product you are selling and promote there. This is one of the less ethical methods that I have talked about however and many groups will not appreciate this type of intrusion and you may quickly find yourself banned or your account reported.

That having been said, if you are looking mostly to gain a quick boost, this may be worth exploring.

The final method of marketing through Facebook that I wish to explore is paid ads. This has numerous advantages, one of the most obvious being that you can legitimately target groups that are looking for products similar to what you are selling.

The cherry on top of this is that Facebook prioritises its own ads in such a way that people are practically guaranteed to lay eyes on your ads. The big downside however is in the name, the ads are paid. When you are starting out, this can be an expensive way of building a network.

Resource: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business

Email Marketing

One of the most consistent phrases that I have seen in my time looking at ways of making money online is that the list is king, and by list, we are referring to a list of email contacts.

Email marketing is one of the oldest and most efficient ways of ensuring that plenty of people see exactly what you have to offer. The downside to an email list is that you have to build it although if you have set your affiliate network up correctly, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Email list management is the main thing that you have to consider here and there are a number of different tools that are available to help with this. If you are just getting started, there are various WordPress plugins that will allow you to carry out building a list however these are very basic.

If you are serious about building a list however then you will want to look to some of the many companies that offer this service.

There are a large number of these third party companies however there are two main ones that I wish to discuss. The first of these is MailChimp.

This is a company that has been established since 2001 and offers a myriad of services. One of the truly stand out things that MailChimp offers is a free service that allows you to send up to 12,000 emails per month to up to 2,000 subscribers.

The other main provider of email related services are Aweber who are arguably the larger company and the more preferred professionally. Whilst they technically offer very similar services, I would probably say that Aweber offer a few more features and have slightly better integration with most WordPress plugins.

You do however ultimately pay for this as the service only comes with a 30 day free trial rather than any free option.

I have mentioned that building an email list as part of your affiliate network however this doesn’t necessarily go far enough. This is one area that a lot of people really struggle with. Probably the best tactic for collating emails from your customer base is to offer something for “free” in exchange for an email.

This can be a simple report relating to the product that you are selling or the niche you operate in or a free product that you have PLR rights to.

One of the main reasons that email marketing is so important is that if you have been collecting emails through your affiliate network, you are marketing directly to people who have expressed an interest in your products. You can also use email marketing to target people who have bought from you before.

Resource: https://www.aweber.com/

Marketing Through Instagram

One method of marketing that is increasingly used is Instagram, a social media website that is based predominantly on images.

For those who don’t know, Instagram allows users to post images and interact with people who comment on them making it a haven for those who are selling products that have a visual component.

The main niche that I have seen flourish under Instagram is health and fitness where inspirational quotes, pictures of body builders and models etc. can all garner a lot of interest.

Because Instagram also has a tagging feature, you can tag images to attract people who are searching for terms related to your niche or the product you are selling.

Once you begin to gain a following, you can start to post an affiliate link directly or even refer your followers to your main website. One of the only downsides to Instagram is that the service is mobile based and getting multiple accounts can require some technical knowledge.

This is getting easier with time however and I feel like Instagram is going to become a bigger platform in the near future.

Resource: https://www.instagram.com

Twitter Marketing

Twitter is a short messaging service which allows you to broadcast to your follows. Unfortunately, you are limited to a set number of characters however. This means that you can only send out the bare minimum in terms of information.

What Twitter can be useful for however is broadcasting updates to your followers on your website etc. Truth be told, Twitter is not a marketing device in and of itself, despite what people will tell you. Whilst you can post images etc. the format isn’t really set up to sell products to people.

Resource: https://twitter.com/TwitterMktg

PPC Advertising (Pay Per Click)

PPC Advertising stands for pay per click which is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. There are lots of different formats for PPC ranging from small time websites all the way to perhaps the most well known example, Google Ads.

Truthfully, if you are getting started as an affiliate marketer, you will likely find that this route is expensive and not necessarily the most productive method you can use. PPC is best utilised as a method of generating traffic for a main website and as a part of a wider network if you are going to use it.

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-per-click

Fiverr Use and Marketing

Fiverr is a bit of a new platform and whilst you can’t necessarily use it directly for affiliate marketing purposes, in terms of building your network, it can be a valuable tool.

I have touched upon how your website should be linked to others and how Google will look for content. Fiverr can help you with this for a very nominal fee (the entire website is based around people doing things for £5).

Some users will link to your website quickly building links and making your site look more established than it is. Other people will sell their skills as a writer meaning that you can get some fresh and good quality content written which will fit the criteria that Google lay out.

Of course these aren’t long term solutions and in the case of building backlinks to your site, it can have a negative effect (I have seen massively conflicting reports on this). Ultimately, I am including this section simply to allow people to fully understand what is available to help them.

Resource: https://www.fiverr.com/

Bringing Everything Together

I have looked at a number of different ways of marketing products over the course of this article and you will generally find that most affiliate marketers will use a combination of these methods.

There are also less ethical and sustainable methods like spamming forums related to the product you are selling or the niche you operate in and even buying email lists from sources online. Generally speaking, however these do not have good results.

To really make a decent affiliate marketing network, you have to be willing to take a lot and work hard at combining different methods of marketing. It is only by doing this that you can start to attract a steady stream of custom to your affiliate link and ultimately make sales.

This doesn’t however mean that you should commit to all of them. Some of the shrewdest moves you can make in business is to cut loose aspects that aren’t contributing value.

All of these different methods are what I am talking about when I refer to an affiliate network and it is also why earlier I wished to separate this term from the concept of a sales funnel.

It can be difficult and trying when you are starting out to get people on board and visiting your site however you will find that if you stick at it, you will get traffic and once you start to get organic traffic, you will only continue to get more.

Conclusion on Making Money as an Affiliate

What I hope I have done with this article is ultimately to demonstrate that you don’t need a lot of money to get started. In fact, a lot of what I have looked at you can do for free or for just a few pounds a month if you shop around.

This is by no means a definitive guide however I hope to have painted a broad picture that will allow you the reader to understand the journey ahead of you and to have provided some idea of where to start.

Honestly, getting started as an affiliate marketer is not easy. I cannot stress this enough and I have tried to keep this tone in everything that I have looked at related to the topic. Any product or person who tells you that they can have you making big money in little to no time is likely only out to scam you.

In spite of this, running an affiliate marketing business is one of the most formulaic methods of making money online that I know of. I know that this is massively contradictory and I feel that it is very important that I take some time to explain and qualify this statement.

The thing about affiliate marketing is that as you get more used to getting things off the ground, it becomes quicker and easier because you will know what works best for you. Most of the successful affiliate marketers that I know of do almost the exact same thing for every product that they set out to sell.

This is also why many of them go on to sell you the “blueprint” for making money as an affiliate marketer but there are a lot of nuanced details that will differ depending on your personal approach.

By all means, if you want to buy one of the myriad of products online that claim to show you step by step how to build an affiliate marketing business, then do. Using it as a vague template may well help you to skip a few steps when you are starting out, but to miss these steps is a bit like buying out an existing business to me.

In order to really be successful, and most importantly to replicate your success, you have to understand how things work.

Once you have that understanding there are (as I have said many times) two different approaches to affiliate marketing. You can go after the quick money, and if you do understanding that formula will be more important than ever, but I have always erred towards the more permanent side of things.

By taking time to build a proper affiliate network and to establish a site with good content (such as this one), you can hypothetically sell products forever off the back of one website.

Whatever you choose to do, I think that the most important thing that you can do as an affiliate marketer is have fun with it. It is a lot of work and there is very little in the way of immediate rewards.

I have mentioned before now that you should try and sell products that are in a niche that is of interest to you or that you enjoy and that is all because the work/reward ratio takes some time to balance out.

Related Content:

What is an Amazon Associate, and Starting as an online Affiliate

How To Make Money Using ClickBank, A Detailed Affiliates Review

How to Make Money Online From Affiliate Marketing – The Reality

The post How To Make Money Online Series – Affiliate Marketing and Building a Network appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

I have been asked if I would test a lay betting tipster service by a vendor that this website has reviewed for before. Now this is not a system, but an actual tipster service: Lay Traders.

I have been asked before to test such tipsters, but this one does seem to stand out based on the results sent in to me, and basd on around 2 weeks testing myself laying the bets on Betfair.

But with lay betting, it is ALL in the percentages, and 2 weeks worth of profits is not always enough to validate a tipster, not in this business.

Lay betting is fairly simple to understand, but on this review I will be explaining the basics of how it works, some background information on the tipster, as well as the full results for at least 2 weeks moving forward (providing I have the time, of course).

What this lay betting review will contain:

• Background to lay betting.
• How lay betting works.
• The tipster selections (pre race)
• The tipster results.

If you have used Betfair for lay betting before then you will probably know that usually the trades go your way, but it is when the trades don’t go your way that you can make losses, so the percentages of losing horses needs to be extremely high, and the odds not too hight o make this work.

I have been sent some results from the tipster concerned, and they are impressive to say the least (so far!), but as with all such things, this needs testing in a real life situation, and so that you the readers can see the selections/tips before the races start, and the potential profits (or losses) being made over a decent enough timescale.

That is my aim on the lay betting review.

All the tips will be placed BEFORE the races start, and we can then evaluate the success of this service, as we have done with other testing on this website.

What is Betfair Lay Betting?

Lay betting on Betfair is the process of betting against an outcome.

For example, if you thought Liverpool were going to lose against Arsenal, then you can make a bet, or trade on this outcome happening, and if Liverpool then do lose the match, you will have made a profit.

There are differences with lay betting, compared to conventional back betting, and the main difference is that you are liable for more losses depending on the odds you have chosen for your lay bet.

The same goes for horse racing, which this test will be all about.

If the horse the tipster gives you loses the race, and you have layed it at Betfair, then you win your trade.

For example, on this lay betting test, the first selection ( Bay Station) I have placed a £2 trade on, and you can see from the image below, that should the horse lose, I will win £2.

Although, should the horse win the race, I will lose £14.80, as I actually placed the lay bet at 8.4.

You can see the result below:

As you can see from the image above, Ebitda won the race (odds of 1.01), and the horse I layed, which was the selection from the tipster, lost the race.

The following is the Betfair profit from this first selection:

Let the lay betting testing begin. As I said, I will be placing ALL the tips before the races start so that you can see this testing live, and the results yourself. I have not deducted Betfair commissions for ease of explanation, and reporting, but on average this will be around 5%.

I will be testing this for around 2 weeks, using £2 stakes (After the first profit of this review, I have now decided to increase the stakes from £2 to £20 moving forward to give this a real test).

I am told all selections will below 9.0 as much as possible, and that selections are created using statistics, and algorithms.

The Betfair Laying Tips are as follows:

What are The Benefits to Lay Betting?

The main benefits to lay betting is that it is far easier to pick a losing horse than a winning one.

This is obviously really, because if you are looking at a typical racing card with day 8 runners, then only one of those horses is going to win, so if you then look at the form of all the horses, you can mostly predict what is going to happen in a race, and the chances of your chosen horse winning, or losing the race.

It is like in a football match, the chances of Chelsea losing to Burton Albion is slim to none, is a competitive match, so you have a high chance of winning your lay bet if you bet on Burton Albion to lose.

Thus you would be reasonably confident that you would win your lay bet, and you probably will unless something highly unusual happens in the game.

The same goes for lay betting on the horses.

For example, if you look at today’s race at Leicester, the 14:55 below, you will see that the favourite is Beautiful Memory at 2.66 in back odds, and the lay odds are currently 2.68.

Then you have Savaanah at odds of 10 on the back bet side, and 11.5 on the lay bet side, so obviously the betting market thinks that Savaanah has a much less chance of winning the race, and thus you may this this is ripe for a lay bet:

What are the Negatives to Lay Betting?

The negatives are that unlike with direct betting where you place say £2 on a horse to win, then no matter what the odds are, if the horse loses you will only lose £2.

With lay betting on Betfair, if you say lay a horse to lose at odds of 12.5, then if the horse wins the race (the opposite to what you have bet on it to do), then you are risking a lot more, because you are then risking the LIABILITY.

• With back betting you risk the stake.
• With lay betting you risk the liability.

The above is well worth remembering.

To give you an example, using the same race at Leicester, the odds of Savaanah have now drifted out, and the lay bet option odds are now at 12.5, so as the image below shows, if you place a lay bet on that horse at those odds, the liability (if it won) is now £25, compared to winnings of £2 if it lost:

As you can see from above, you are risking far more money the higher you go up on the odds.

If for example you were to place a lay bet at evens, then you would be risking the same amount as you would be winning if the result went your way, so the success of lay betting is the odds in the main.

I will demonstrate this now.

I will go to Betfair on the same Leicester race and ask for odds of 2.0 on the lay bet side for Savaanah, and see what happens:

As you can see from the image above, by asking for lower odds, my liability should the race not go in my direction (the horse winning) I would be liable for just £2, which is the amount I would lose if the horse won.

To further demonstrate this, I will show you the actual card which Betfair conveniently shows you the profit and loss depending on which way the result goes:

As demonstrated above, now the I have asked for much lower odds, the winnings, compared to the potential losses are now equal, because I have asked for even prices (2.0).

Is Lay Betting Successful?

It is a good question, and the fact is, that if it were easy to predict everybody would be at it wouldn’t they?

There are people, and tipsters who obviously make profits using lay bets, but I feel the key to the success is as follows:

• Getting real value on pricing
• Doing real background checks on the horses potential
• A proven history on success
• A high enough success rate  – which is essential

The last point, the success rate needs to be extremely high, definitely in the 90’s and with low enough odds to ensure that long term, even with a few losses that do not go your way, that overall a decent profit is made.

The Lay Betting Tipster Being Tested?

As I mentioned earlier, I have been approached by a vendor that we have reviewed before, and asked if we would publish the live results, and tips of this lay betting service.

I am told that there has never been a losing month, and that in 95% of the previous results, that a 100% record has been achieved on a monthly basis regarding the laying tips.

I will be publishing the lay betting tips for 2 weeks on this website before the races commence, and then updating with the results.

I have no doubt that profits can be made using lay betting, but this is the first time that I have tested a live trial of a Betfair lay betting service on this website, and it should be interesting as to what the results bring.

The odds need to be decent enough to avoid over-exposure to the markets, and the success rate needs to be high enough to produce a long term profit.

I have actually been testing this for a few weeks now, as I was asked a while ago to check this out before making this blog review, and the results were excellent, hence why I am going live with the results to give readers the chance to follow the tips, and results.

Conclusion on the Lay Betting Tipster

At the end of the 2 week trial, I will public my full findings and see if this really does have potential.

You can bookmark this page if you wish to follow the trial.

Lay Betting Tipster Update 13th Sept 2017

I know we should not judge too early, and I am usually the first to say to readers that trading, and betting is long term, but considering when I was approached, I was told that 95% of the months over the last 12 months had a 95% successful lay betting record, I expect a much better start than 2 losses out of the first 3 races.

We tested the same on the Greats Bets review, and the more recent Racing Wins review (both of which can be read in the reviews section), and both those services had fantastic previous records, and then when we tested them the results were less than favourable.

The same thing also happened more recently with the DataKings Product from Agora Lyfestyles/Betting Rant, in that their reviewer checked all the stats for a particular bot service, and when they launched it to their full membership base, and their email list the results just did not replicate previous results that the author achieved.

The difference with a lay betting tipster service, is that the winning percentage really does have to be so high, or you are forever chasing the proverbial £ note trying to recoup your losses.

On this test, after 2 races, 2 out of 3 losses has already placed a massive spanner in the works, so much so that another couple of losses in the next few races could lead to quite considerable losses overall, unlike say with a direct betting system where you only lose the stake, and a few losses is sustainable.

After only 3 races we are already £216 down to £20 stakes, so to recoup those losses we would need 10.8 winning races on the bounce to break even, which shows you how delicate lay betting can be.

It is of course possible that this is down to reviewer’s curse, in that when a service has been flying high for even 12 months, when a third party starts to review the service, it gets off to a bad start. Maybe the tipster gets nervous due to their outfit being reviewed, live. The problem is, if such a service had launched yesterday, there would be a lot of potential agry folks already in deficit-city.

…….Albeit that still does not (yet) mean something does not work, just possibly a bad start, but still, it is difficult for the grey matter to comprehend when you have such a loss in your Betfair account.

lay betting has to be ultra focused on the winning percentages to stand even the slightest of chances.

I will continue to put up the selections just to see what happens, as I did say I would give it 2 weeks, and the early results could have been a blip, or as I say reviewer’s curse.

Related Content:

Lay Betting Systems, Calculators, Odds and How it All Works in Reality.

Horse Racing Systems, Free, Paid For, and Which One To Choose

Each Way Betting Systems, and How It Works, Rules and Odds

The post Lay Traders Review. Lay Betting Tipsters on Betfair – Testing Started appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Everyone loves a winner, and there is no greater feeling than walking out of a bookmakers with a few hundred quid in your pocket. It’s over to the pub or out with your wife for a night you won’t soon forget, all from a few well placed bets.

It’s just a shame that this doesn’t really happen all that often in the real world.

Sure, watch an advert from the bookies and they’ll make it seem like a sure thing. Especially some of the more “laddish” campaigns that feature a Cockney Geezer sort talking about the thrill and the win.

Let’s look at the reality though. If you’re reading this, you are reading it because like almost all punters you aren’t actually winning. Sure, you might have the odd win and the buzz that comes with it is something that you will continue to pursue.

Why Gambling/Betting is Addictive

It is a very strong and positive high that can quickly become addictive.

It is estimated that 95% of people who bet on a regular basis end up losing money to bookies. Whilst this may come to a surprise to a layperson, as somebody who is somewhat involved with the betting industry it is actually more than I would expect.

A big part of this is that everybody knows somebody who makes money through gambling. Without fail, if you ask anybody in a bookies, there will be somebody who knows, if not claims to be, in that elusive top percentile.

Why do people think this? It’s simple. Mentally speaking, we are programmed to remember the good and not the bad.

When somebody talks about how a few weeks ago they hit their strike and had 10 horses come in, half of which were outsiders, it is interesting to press exactly how many weeks ago.

Henry Royce (of Rolls Royce) once said that quality will remain long after the price is forgotten. In the same vein, wins will always remain when the losses are forgotten.

This leads me to my first step to winning more through betting.

Remember Your Losses as Well as the Wins

As boring as it may be, if you want to be a decent bettor, you also have to be prepared to be an accountant in some small way. By keeping a detailed log of your winnings and your losses, it allows you to gain a much better idea of how you are doing.

More importantly, this approach can help you to understand where you are earning money and where you are losing it.

It is a simple enough thing to do as well. All that you need is a simple spreadsheet or even an old fashioned ledger is plenty enough.

Keeping track of the dates, what you have bet on, how much you have bet and how much you won/lost is more than enough to get started. At the end of the month, it can be worth totalling up how you have done and using this as a starting point.

This works in two different ways…

The first is that you don’t sit around thinking that you are constantly winning. By the end of the month, it is very easy to trick your brain into forgetting a couple of losing £10 bets. Do this often enough and you can lose track of hundreds of pounds of losses.

The fact is that in acknowledging where you have lost money, you don’t become overly confident with your betting which allows you to become more disciplined.

It is only through discipline and avoiding erratic staking and chasing losses that you can really make betting a consistently profitable endeavour.

Find What You Are Good at and Stick to It

The second method of improving your betting actually ties into the idea of keeping a full log of your bets. Recording your bets in this fashion allows you to improve is by highlighting where you are winning and where you aren’t.

This can be as detailed as you want it to be too. For example, you might bet on football and horse racing and find that you are losing on football but winning on horse racing.

By cutting football out of the equation, you are left with only profitable bets. Of course the whole process is rarely this black and white, however it does give you an idea of where to start looking to trim some of the losses off your betting record.

Finding what you are good at however is an inexact science at best. This is in part because you should try to understand why you are picking winning bets in a certain market or sport, whilst also trying not to overcomplicate things. Good look juggling to paradoxical statements like that.

What this really means is, if for example, you are picking obvious wins in European Football then lumping them into small accumulators, then don’t stop. Most people who are fans of football recognise an easy game when they see them.

In fact, I would be inclined to say that even people who don’t like football can identify them. To keep on point with this, if you start trying to analyse what constitutes an easy game, then you are complicating a process that doesn’t require it.

On the other hand, you spend each morning going over the form of horses on a given day. You have a preference for those that have ran in similar conditions in the last few months. Those that have done well, you decide to back.

Here you have a system and something like this can be refined. For example, you may decide to see how many that have won their last race go on to win again, or if a horse has placed in the last few races by how much?

The difference between a system and betting on instinct is that a system can be refined. It is a series of numbers that you can add factors to in order to produce a more accurate result.

Remember that the House Always Has an Edge

Whenever bookmakers make their books, it is in their interests to price betting markets so that the odds on offer do not necessarily represent the statistical probability of an event occurring.

As you can probably guess by now, this section is not going to be light reading however I do feel that it is something that is important to address. It is only really by understanding how a bookmaker works that you can hope to beat them.

The best example that I have ever seen of explaining how bookmaking works is based on a 6 sided die (presuming for the purposes of this that it is entirely fair and shows no bias).

There is a 100% chance of a number between 1 and 6 being rolled. Resultantly, this means that each side has a 16.66% chance of coming up and should be priced accordingly. Instead, imagine that bookmakers decide to round this number up to 17%.

….After all, it is seemingly close enough. This means that the actual market percent is 102% rather than 100%. This 2% represents the houses edge.

Now consider this being applied to something like horse racing where there aren’t fixed odds, and you can easily see how bookmakers can manipulate their market percent.

With many bookmakers, it is estimated that this number can be as high as 110%. Despite this obvious house edge, it is something that is often overlooked, especially by people who are new to gambling and don’t understand the concept.

This explains why bookmakers are able to offer fantastic odds on certain outcomes on certain events. I’m sure you’ve seen them in the bookies window before now.

Bale to score first, Real Madrid to Win. 3/1. The market percentage that is lost on this bet outcome is made up through other bet outcomes so that no matter what, the bookies theoretically can’t lose.

Avoid the Gambler’s Fallacy

Whilst we are talking about the house edge, I feel that it is important to look at a similar although actually quite different concept. The Gambler’s Fallacy is something that I have watched wipe out more people who are interested in betting than I care to admit.

These are not typical “mug punters” either, but intelligent people. The problem with overcoming the Gambler’s Fallacy is that we are also programmed mentally to look for patterns.

This is why if you look at something random for long enough, you will begin to perceive shapes.

The same thing starts to happen with gambling. We think that we’re beginning to see patterns emerging however the reality is often very far removed from this.

The most well known examples of Gambler’s Fallacy come courtesy of the roulette table. For the last 5 spins, a fair roulette table has come up on a red number. The next spin must surely be black because the odds of getting 6 reds in a row is 1 in 64.

The reality however is that the odds reset for each spin and the odds remain the same for both black and white.

This same method of pattern searching can be seen when looking at any sporting event. The important part is to ensure that any pattern that you think that you have seen can be tested in a productive and structured fashion.

Only Bet What you can Afford to Lose

This is something that seems so blatantly obvious on paper and yet, I have seen people ruined by trying to stretch a betting bank to increase their profits. Generally speaking, you should be looking to bet to level stakes.

This not only makes it easier to keep track of how much you are betting, but also ensures that you don’t start to chase losses. I would strongly recommend steering clear of any staking plan that offers recovery.

These seem great on paper but often end up leaving you broke very quickly.

I would personally recommend starting with a 100 point betting bank. A point is a term used to represent how much each bet should be. For example, a £500 betting bank would mean betting £5 per bet. If you just had £100, then it would be £1 per bet.

Whatever your initial betting bank is, it should be money that you are hypothetically be willing to lose. It is only when you have  this mindset that you are likely to be able to bet in a consistent and professional manner.

Level staking doesn’t mean however that you are tied down to simply betting a quid at a time and making a fiver back on the odd horse.

As well as a level staking plan based on single numbers, you can also use a percentile approach in order to increase your profits through compounding.

This means that instead of staking £1 per bet, you bet 1% of your betting bank. This will slowly increase the amount that you are betting and increase your profits, however it also means that you can lose more.

It is also worth pointing out that whilst your betting bank is hypothetically infinite, you may find that you quickly end up betting so little that  it is impossible to build your bank up again.

However you choose to bet with your bank, the amount should be something that you can afford to lose. If you start to stretch yourself, realistically, things will only end badly in the long run.

Shop Around for Odds and Value When Betting

Generally speaking, bookies odds will not vary too much from one to another. The key thing to take away from this however is that there is some variance and this is one way that you can quickly and easily increase the profitability of your betting.

Once upon a time, this was a difficult and time consuming thing to do however the landscape of betting has changed a lot over the last 10 years or so.

One of the major game changers for punters is a website called Oddschecker (https://www.oddschecker.com/). What Oddschecker does is list all the prices that bookies are offering on a given market. This means that you can make sure that you’re getting the best possible value from your bets with very little real effort.

Whilst shopping around for odds may not see a huge increase in your profits, it is important to note that this is probably the single easiest way to boost them.

Take Advantage of Bonuses and Offers

(But Check the Terms and Conditions)

Because it is such a competitive industry, bookies almost always have some offer or another on. These range from free bets to boosted odds but they all have one important thing in common. They let you bet on the bookies money.

You should look to take full advantage of these whenever possible (this approach has been taken to the extreme with matched betting). This kind of bet can be a good way of boosting your betting bank with very little risk.

With the positives out of the way, it comes to something that I cannot stress enough and that is to check the terms and conditions of these bonuses and offers.

A number of years ago, I thought that I had hit on a pretty sound system for playing roulette (I still argue that it holds up on paper).

Being inexperienced and having returned from a reasonably successful night at the casino, I signed up for a free £10 bet on roulette when you deposited £10.

What I didn’t realise was that I had to bet the free £10 300 times to withdraw any winnings. This mean that when I came to cash out my £30 (not bad for a nights work), I couldn’t.

I would have had to have staked this 100 times in order to withdraw anything. I ended up losing a tenner on that night but the lesson that I learned was invaluable.

It hasn’t put me off using free offers, however I do now double check what the terms and conditions are as you can very easily end up getting stung down the line.

Avoid the Casino Games at All Costs

I don’t know how you like to place your bets but since you’re reading this online, I am going to hazard a guess that you use the same method for betting.

If you want to make money by gambling online, then one of the worst things that you can do is play online casino games. These are fixed odds and whilst they sound enticing (some promise that they pay out as much as 90% of all money wagered), the  reality is that they are easy money for bookies.

For those who prefer to go into a bookmakers, you will see their in store equivalent. Fixed odds betting machines.

Again, these sing about a 70% pay out rate, however this means that bookies are still taking 30p on the pound from them. This kind of “easy money” betting is something that bookies will always encourage.

As a punter however, you can even the scores a little bit by avoiding them.

The main reason for the appeal of Casino games is that they are sold as quick and easy money. Just come and have a quick spin on the roulette wheel, have a hand of blackjack.

If you win, then it is genuinely some of the quickest and easiest money you will have made. On the flip side of the coin, it is possible to lose £10 in literal minutes. When you are up against “the computer” so to speak, what this really means is that you are going to lose.

Betting Exchanges Are Your Friend, Sometimes.

Betting exchanges are a gift and a curse in the world of betting. They are a great way of getting the bet that you want. Sometimes bookies offer much better or worse odds than are available on an exchange.

Betting exchanges are also the only way to lay a bet (that is to bet against an outcome happening) as well. This is a valuable strategy that can be used for some very strong profits in the right hands.

There are also much more varied and arguably better betting strategies that can be implemented when you are using a betting exchange.

The core reasoning for this is that a betting exchange allows you to do so much more than simply bet, you can actively trade your position as the day goes on. This allows for savvy bettors to lock in profits before an event has concluded or even begun.

Despite the positives that come with a betting exchange, there are negatives. The first I that unlike betting with a bookie, you have to pay a small percentage of your winnings to the company who operate the exchange.

This typically ranges from around 2% to 5%. The other thing that can be a problem, particularly for those who aren’t familiar with them, is that betting exchanges can be overwhelming.

There is a lot of data and information being updated at a very fast rate and until you understand what it means, it can be a very intimidating place.

Find Reputable Help

Help with betting is available in a number of different formats. Some of it is free, however I cannot sugar coat the fact that a lot of people online will charge for their services.

Whether these are as a tipster or somebody with a betting service, odds are you will find some cost to you somewhere down the line.

This makes finding decent advice a difficult thing. I have known free services that have produced a decent profit and I have known of people losing tens of thousands of pounds to scam artists.

Finding genuine help is a difficult thing however the best places to start in my opinion are the multiple forums that are out there. It is also worthwhile finding a decent website that offers advice (if you’re reading this, you’re on one ).

In terms of different products that are available, it is worthwhile looking long and hard at results and testimonials before you commit to making a purchase. Some websites have a lot more integrity than others so you should look for websites that are impartial or independent.

There are some websites out there linking to products that are for the company that funds said website. Not surprisingly, they also come with glowing reviews.

The best help will introduce you to interesting and new ways of making money through your betting. Sometimes they may seem intimidating but the best products talk you through everything step by step.

This can really help you to add new string to your bow and increase your overall profits.

Be Prepared to Lose, But Don’t Expect It

Nobody simply becomes good at betting in the straightest forward sense of the word. Going into a bookies and placing bets, even with the best system in the world will lose. Unfortunately, nobody likes to talk about this side of things.

I have already talked about remembering your losses and that is massively important, but it is equally important to be prepared to lose.

If, on some level, you are prepared for your bets to lose then it can massively help you to keep your composure. This is where preparing to lose is much different than simply noting your losses.

It is easy to write down that you are losing £10 here and £10 there. It may help foster a broader understanding of betting, but dealing with that feeling in your gut where you are simply losing money is a difficult beast.

On the flip side of the coin, being prepared to lose can lead to expectation and in much the same way that being overly confident can lead you to make bad calls, so can sloppy betting where you’re playing to lose.

I know that I have talked at length about the process of dealing with losing out on a bet but honestly, if you expect to lose, then you can become lethargic and not care if you win or lose and that is where addiction lies.

The truth is that a lot of betting on a serious level is psychological. It takes a very certain type of person to be able to bet in a sustained fashion and to ride the highs and the lows that come with it.

It is very much a balancing act and it is one that can very easily throw you off if you aren’t careful. This brings me onto arguably the single most important thing if you want to win more through betting.

Discipline is Everything

More than anything else, discipline is the single most important way of making your betting more profitable. Generally speaking, if you speak to a lot of people who have failed with their betting it is because somewhere along the line, they have broke their discipline.

If you have been paying attention to this article, you will likely have realised that the idea of discipline is something of an over arcing theme.

Quite what we mean by discipline can be a massively varied thing. For example, some people talk about discipline in the simplest sense. This means making sure that they aren’t chasing any losses that they might have incurred.

By sticking to a staking plan, you can reasonably reliably predict where your betting bank will be in the future. To others, discipline is about the bets that you place.

You  might want to back your favourite football team or a horse with a name that means something to you, but if you deviate from a system that is profitable then you can expect to lose money.

Discipline is more than this however. As well as sticking with what works, discipline can be as much about what doesn’t work. Identifying your short fallings as bettor and trying to take steps to correct them is a part of being disciplined as well.

All of this sounds so straightforward on paper and this is exactly why it is so difficult to be disciplined. It seems like a really obvious thing to say that if something isn’t working then it is worth mixing it up, but at what point is a system simply having a bad run and when is it not working?

It is only through taking a vigorous and focussed approach to betting that you can come to understand some of these differences.

Probably the hardest part of being disciplined though is that it can become something of a bore. Not the making money side of things. That is one of the most enjoyable things that you can encounter as a bettor.

Instead, there is very little thrill in placing a bet. Pursuing exciting bets is all well and good but it is rare that you will find yourself profiting from it.

Final Thoughts

Being a profitable bettor is a lot of work and that is the key word. It is work. Just like your 9-5 job, you will find that at times you resent it. You will more likely than not find that some days you simply can’t be bothered to focus on things.

This is all natural and like anybody who is self employed in any capacity, you have to rely on yourself to keep things moving forward.

The rewards from making money through betting are clear and very much there for the taking. You will find that there are a lot of naysayers in the wider world and I am loathe to say with good reason.

Most people’s idea of betting and gambling is a long way removed from the professional, almost clinical approach that seasoned bettor will make.

I have talked about discipline at length and honestly, I could probably write another thousand words on why it is so important in betting.

I think that the real way to have fun with betting, either as a second income or as your primary income if that is your inclination (although it is significantly harder trying to make a full wage through gambling) is in trying to find pleasure in what you do.

The truth is that if you look at betting and gambling it is a numbers game. From jockeys to  trainers and from bookies to punters, we are all looking at numbers.

It takes a certain kind of mind to be happy pouring over figures and results, considering in factors that can seem wholly unrelated or things that are so blindingly obvious that you overlook them.

But if you can derive pleasure from this work, if you can change the thrill that comes with betting from winning to identifying a way of picking winners, then you will do well.

Betting is not for everybody. In fact, I would be inclined to say that it is very far from it and you only have to look at the harsh reality of gambling addiction in the UK.

Truth be told though, there is a reasonable percentage of people who have substantially improved their lifestyle through gambling. It is possible. The secret is not so secret either. It is just very difficult to maintain your discipline.

Do NOT, EVER Gamble with Money You Need

I will say it again, gambling, and betting can be highly addictive, so never ever gamble, or bet with money that you cannot afford to lose.

Treat gambling as a hobby, a hobby that if you made a profit – great, but if not, then see it as an entertaining experiment, but never gamble with your family’s money, or money that will keep you awake at night should you lose it.

That is a golden rule.

There are far too many horror stories of gamblers becoming addicted, and this can lead to a downward spiral that is difficult to escape from.

If you do think you have any kind of problem, then there are many websites that can help you, including the following:

https://www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk/

https://www.begambleaware.org/

http://www.gamcare.org.uk/

Gambling, and betting can be highly profitable, but it must be carried out with the correct mentality, and with anything really. All in moderation, and the right focus.

Related Content:

How To Make Money From Gambling, What is Really Possible?

Online Betting Exchanges vs Online Bookmakers The Differences and Pros and Cons

Is Gambling Tax Free In The UK, and Do You Have To Declare Winnings?

The post How You Can Win More Money Through Your Betting? The Mind of a Gambler appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Football trading, and betting systems, especially on Betfair is a topic that many people are now interested in. For a long time, betting in the UK was synonymous with horse racing. This is with good reason as well. If it weren’t for bookmakers at the side of the track, I think it is fair to say that shops wouldn’t have opened up on the high street and so on.

Times have changed since those days however and so has betting. Horse racing is still the largest betting market in the UK, but football is fast catching up and as bookies pursue a more casual type of punter, I think that interest in betting on football will continue to grow.

In fact, it is estimated that anywhere between £435 billion and £625 billion are spent on sports betting each year across both legal and illegal betting sources. Of this number around 70% is estimated to be on football.

These are not small numbers and they highlight the fact that what was once a bit of a niche, can quickly become central to a whole industry. As you can see that is a LOT of money being traded, and the amount of money traded on football in any given week is colossal .

I mean, the amount of money traded is mainly due to the global interest in the sport, but not only that, football is a much slower sport to trade than, say, horse racing where the majority of people trying to make a few quick will just back the favourite and hope for the best.

Think about it, with horse racing some of the races are over inside a minute, where you get punters panick betting if the results are not going their way, and this leads to an unstable position (especially in play), because it is more risky, no doubt.

In play football trading is much slower paced, more more relaxing because at the end of the day you have a whole 90 minutes in which to plan and implement any strategy you may be using, and use all the ammunition to make a profit, and to make the game pay.

Of course, if is not always that easy, or we’d all be raking in the spondules on a weekly, if not daily basis

Although, what I want to show you on this write-up, and this ‘review’ is how the markets works, the traders who definitely make it work for them, what to look out for, and just what football trading is – as there is more to it than meets the average eye, who just see numbers jumping about on Betfair’s website.

What is Football Trading Then?

Truth be told though; football betting has existed in some form or another for almost 100 years and was born here in the UK. Football pools used to be a method of betting in which you would try and predict outcomes of a large number of games.

Really, the football pools were more akin to a lottery, however unlike betting now, you were competing with a “pool” (hence the name) of other bettors. The person with the most accurate and highest scoring predictions would taking home the prize. It is interesting that football betting started in this fashion and has now come full circle of sorts.

In 1999, the first large scale and commercially viable betting exchanged launched in the shape of Betfair. This allowed people to bet directly against other people rather than a bookmaker. It also changed the landscape of betting immensely.

As Betfair has grown, football has become an increasingly popular sport for people to bet and trade on and this is with very good reason. The structure of Betfair made in play betting a viable thing to do for any football game. It also opened up betting markets that probably won’t have been touched by bookies at the time.

Fast forward to today and there are so many options open to bettors that it almost seems to be overwhelming. Whether or not you consider this to be a good or a bad thing depends on your approach to betting I suppose, but the majority of people I talk to are loving it at the moment.

Now that I’ve spent a little bit of time painting a picture, I want to get down to the brass tacks of my article today and that is football betting through Betfair.

Using a Betting Exchange For Football Trading

Before I can talk about football trading specifically, I want to start by looking at what betting on a betting exchange entails and how this works. I feel like most people reading this will already be familiar with the process to some degree, however I am aware that many people are not familiar.

With this in mind, I will not just be referring back to betting exchange concepts when talking about football betting. As a result of that, I don’t want people to feel alienated or out of their depth.

It is well known how placing a bet works with a bookmaker. You go in, they set the odds, and you either take them or walk out of the door. With a betting exchange, you are betting with your fellow punters which makes the whole experience a lot more flexible. Instead of accepting the odds which are offered, you can essentially put your bet out there, with other people accepting your bet.

If you win, you receive payment at the odds that you chose.

On the other side of this bet, you can also “lay” your bet. This is essentially being on the other side of the bet as discussed above. Laying a bet means that you are betting against an outcome rather than for it and it is the crux of betting exchanges. Lay betting, as it is often referred to, is an integral part of many betting strategies, both football and none.

One of the other key features of betting on a betting exchange as opposed to through bookmakers is the concept of trading. For many, this feature is what makes a betting exchange superior to betting through a bookmaker and it isn’t difficult to see why. Because of how betting exchanges work, when you place a bet, you can then “trade” that bet out midway through an event.

This allows you to take a profit before an event has finished or alter your bets completely.  I will cover this topic in much greater detail below however.

Football Betting, How It Works

Football betting is really straightforward, right? You put a tenner on your team to beat Crystal Palace (because so far, this season, of course you do) and you make a few quid to cover beer money for your next game. Some people might go a little bit more in depth. That is most people’s experience of football betting and taking this approach probably won’t steer you far wrong in the short term. Long term however, we are looking for very different results and to really understand this, we have to look at football betting as a whole.

For a long time there were football pools, but in many ways, this was more akin to a lottery than modern football betting. Modern football betting has truthfully only really started to take off in the last few decades, mostly because it is seen as being a more profitable market for bookmakers to make money. This is because when people are betting on football, they are more likely to bet with their heart than with their head.

Think about your chosen football team for a minute, and then ask yourself how comfortable you really feel betting on them to lose. It feels a little bit like turning your back on somebody. Of course, you may not enjoy football in which case football betting is simply another stream of revenue for you. Frankly, this is the best attitude that you can have.

As I have already touched upon however, betting is slowly changing, especially in regards to the methods of betting that people employ. Trading is becoming increasingly popular and it isn’t really hard to see why.

Aside from some of the obvious advantages such as being able to cash out a bet when there is some profit and allowing a much more different analysis of betting markets, trading can be used to all but guarantee a profit in game or allow you to turn a negative into a positive. Traditional football betting simply isn’t in the same league (if you’ll pardon the pun).

Trading on Betfair

Trading on Betfair is a skill which is not necessarily new. In fact, a large number of the fundamental skills that are involved in trading on Betfair have been brought over from Forex markets. The early pioneers of trading were financial traders who came to notice that there were similar patterns and indicators on betting exchanges as there were on the foreign exchange, something that the name strongly implies (betting exchange).

By bringing their skills over from finances to betting, there have been a large number of professional bettors trading on Betfair both historically, and presently.

One of the things that it is important to note when looking at trading on Betfair compared to betting is that you don’t have to know anything about a sport to trade. When you are betting however, you generally need some knowledge. This opens up trading on Betfair in ways that you wouldn’t have ever expected when compared to the traditional betting route.

Trading Football on Betfair

With our appetisers out of the way, I think that it is important to look at what this article is really about and that is trading football on Betfair. There are a lot of reasons that you would want to trade football over other sports and likewise, there are a lot of reasons that you would want to trade over betting, most of which I will probably go into over the course of this article.

The long and short of this is that trading carries significantly less risk than betting if the correct approach is taken. It also allows for very different strategies which focus on making a more consistent profit on a day to day basis rather than the ups and downs that come with traditional betting. After all, I think that most people who bet on football would rather win £5 every day, than lose £5 every day, only to win it back with a £35 profit at the end.

Many traders try to show you how to actually trade the football markets on betfair, as there is a whole nich that has been built up around this topic over the last few years, and here is Steve Howe, a professional Betfair Trader Of ItsaMugsBlog explaining his own simple football systems:

What Football Can I Trade?

The number of games that you can trade on Betfair is frankly rather staggering.  It is a genuine year round affair with a massive variety of different leagues and competitions from different countries and continents. In fact, I have just logged onto the Betfair exchange and there are an eyewatering 53 different countries that I could bet on the football over. There are also international games as well.

This kind of variety is hugely important as a big part of profitable football trading lies in finding value. It is no coincidence that most of the profitable football tipsters and settings that I have looked at have involved betting on more obscure leagues and games. Fortunately, the breadth of depth that exists on Betfair’s exchange makes it ideal for trading, whether you are looking at the Champions League final or an Azerbaijani Cup match.

Which Football Markets Can I Trade?

For many serious football traders on Betfair, the types of games that they are betting on is somewhat secondary to the betting markets that are available. This will vary from game to game depending on what games you are betting on (more niche leagues and cups have less markets), however the main ones have you more than covered.

Obviously, the main markets that people will be used to are win markets.

This means backing a team to win, lose or draw. It can also mean laying a team as well. Generally speaking, this is where the least value is to be found in football trading as the number of potential outcomes are fixed. This doesn’t mean that it is a bad market to bet on as it is often the most liquid. Furthermore, there are some very well established trading techniques which are based around backing or laying on this market. This includes half time/full time markets which involve choosing the outcome at halftime and full time.

The next bet type that I wish to look at that you can trade are the over/under goals markets. These are exactly what they say on the tin. You can place bets on there being over or under anywhere from 0.5 goals all the way up to 6.5 goals. Over/under goals markets have become a staple of the Betfair trading scene. There are a number of reasons for this but the main ones are liquidity, the ability to hedge bets and the value that is available.

The other types of football bets that you can trade are something of an eclectic mix. This includes things like the correct score (both at the end of the game and at anytime during the game). Whether a penalty will be awarded in a game and even whether a hat trick will be scored.

This kind of esoteric bet isn’t something that most traders will look at, usually because there simply isn’t really any value in this type of bet. Furthermore, they are also generally very unpredictable.

The only other bet type that is left to trade are Asian Handicap bets. These are an interesting but somewhat niche bet type which teams are handicapped based on their form. This particular betting market has yet to be really take off in terms of trading. This is mostly down to the fact that to the best of my knowledge, there aren’t any specific trading strategies for Asian Handicap bets.

What is Befair Liquidity and Why is it So Important?

I have mentioned a number of times about liquidity in markets and this is arguably one of the single most important aspects of trading anything on Betfair. Because you are betting with other people on an exchange, liquidity must be a thing to get your bets matched. This is because liquidity is basically the amount of money that is available on any given betting market on any given game. More liquidity is a good thing as it means that you are more likely to get bets accepted.

Naturally there are certain general rules that you can expect to see when you are looking at liquidity of bets. For example, the bigger the game, the more money will wagered on it. Take the upcoming United vs Liverpool match. At the time of writing, there has been just under £240,000 stakes on the game simply on Match Odds. By contrast , the Qatari game between Al-Rayyan SC and Al Sadd has had just £19,188 bet on it.

What is important to keep in mind is that generally speaking, with any game that you wish to trade on, liquidity will be at its peak the closer you get to the game. When it comes to trading, this is generally where you can get the best possible odds and your bets are most likely to be matched. This is of huge benefit to a trader as you are able to get the most out of each of your trades.

Which Markets Have the Most Liquidity?

Now that we know what liquidity is, we can take a look at which markets generally have the most. Using the upcoming Liverpool v Manchester United game I can start to look at how liquidity is spread out. I have already talked about the match odds and the amounts of money that have been bet there and this is generally where you will find the most liquidity.

People like to believe that it is easiest to predict the overall outcome, something that I believe that there is some truth to.

The match odds liquidity will inevitably increase as we get closer to the match, as will other markets. For example, the correct score market currently has around £16,000 stakes on it, a figure that will naturally rise as more goals are scored in game. The same applies to over/under goals markets which have across all examples a touch over £10,000.

After this you tend to find that there simply isn’t that much liquidity unless it is a particularly big game. This is because the kind of bets (as I have already talked about) tend to be niche and unpredictable. As a result of this, it can mean that there is less interest from bettors and as a direct result, less liquidity.

How Do I Become a Successful Football Trader?

The best way to start earning your stripes in football trading is to get on Betfair and start trying to trade bets. I will be looking at some basic systems below which if you follow, you should enjoy at least a little success with. Ultimately, this will all depend on your mindset when you are trading.

Betting and trading take a very different approach and this is mostly down to the fact that betting is binary. You can win, or you can lose. If you win, then you will make a profit and if you lose, you will lose your stake. Trading is much more fluid than this because you choose at what point you wish to begin or end a trade.

To trade successfully, what you really need to be focussed on is avoiding losing rather than winning. This is because the nature of trading means that you are looking to make less money, more often. The narrower profit margins mean that anything resembling a big loss can kill your profits for a month. On a personal level, this means that you have to think a certain way. You must be selective and have patience and discipline when you have a trade in play.

This is of course somewhat boring which is why most football betting traders that you see are more mature in age. These are people who are not seeking the thrill of a big win, but the feeling that comes with knowing that you have made a profit for the day, no matter how big or small that is. What matters is getting to the end of the year and seeing steady bank growth and an overall profit.

It is important to talk about this before talking about practical advice for trading, not least of which is because without the mindset, you can easily overextend yourself. Making a trading plan is a good idea regardless of your experience. This means finding games that you believe have strong opportunities and working out which are best to trade. Consider things we have discussed like liquidity in the market, will teams play to score or will both play for a draw?

From here, you can consider the kinds of trades that you might want to look at and start to learn how to manage trading throughout a game. When you are getting started, you might prefer to have the game playing out live in front of you. Irrespective of what markets you are trading and the set up that you have, it is important to keep in mind the fundamentals of trading football on Betfair.

Trading Using Software

You will probably find it far easier to trade using either the Betfair platform itself, or by using software such as Bet Angel, and you can see a quick, albeit simplistic kind of system below from Peter Webb, who is trading the under 2.5 goals market:

What Kind of Football Trading Systems Are There?

In terms of the numbers of football trading systems for Betfair, there are more than I care to count. Fundamentally however, all trading can be viewed in two lights. These are pre game trades, and in play. Both of these are pretty self explanatory however it is important to understand the differences as they can massively influence how you trade.

Pre game trading strategies will often involve the least risk. This is because you are looking to leverage small market movements often in order to identify profitable trading opportunities. This is often compared to the more traditional market trading methods of scalping. Pre game trading strategies of this nature generally involve being able to buy positions as soon as news breaks in order to get the best odds. You can then trade these out as prices move to lock in profit before a game even kicks off.

In game trading is a much more dynamic affair that can produce much higher profits than pre game trading. This can be somewhat more exciting as there are a greater variety of bets to trade. It is however important to remember to be disciplined here and not let your trades drift into bet territory.

General Trading

This type of trading is arguably the purists trading in so much as it most resembles the traditional financial trading that ultimately evolved into bet trading. This kind of trading involves taking advantage of market positions and movements to generate a profit. It is arguably the most time consuming and riskiest method of trading as you are relying on things going one way or another in order to get results.

This kind of trading doesn’t necessarily require you to have a substantial knowledge of football however if you wish to mitigate your risk then it will definitely help. A good example of in game trading may look something like this:

Before a game, you notice that a teams star striker is on the bench, despite being up against an evenly matched team. You place a bet on Over 0.5 goals at odds of 1.8. The game plays out as expected and ends up feeling very much like a stalemate at 0-0. Both teams are reasonably matched with no obvious advantage. Team A suddenly bring on their star striker.

At this point, the value in the various goals markets starts to drop significantly which means that your original position can be traded out for a profit, even though there hasn’t been a goal scored. You trade your bet and lock in a profit, despite the game ultimately ending in a draw.

As you can see from this, we are using knowledge of the sport in order to identify where there are opportunities to make profits.  With the correct approach, you can carry out this kind of trade multiple times in a game on a wide variety of markets which means that it is massively flexible. As I have mentioned however, you do need to have a reasonable understanding of football in order to really profit from this. Furthermore, you should ideally be watching the match so you can see where opportunities are becoming available.

Whilst this method of football trading sounds simple, and in principle it is, it can actually be very difficult to remain profitable in the long term. This is because trades can often turn on a dime and the amounts of income that you generate are quite small. You can of course implement stop losses and trade out before you lose too much money, but it is difficult to ignore that this is a risky method of trading.

Trading counter goals is really quite a good example of in game trading which involves looking at a very specific set of circumstances on which to trade. Consider the following example:

The same Team A and Team B used in the example above are playing. Both are evenly matched although Team A happen to be a point ahead in the league. Team A manage to score a goal in the 60^th minute. The markets inevitably go crazy and the odds ultimately settle at 1.3 for Team A to win. At this point, you could lay Team A knowing that Team B are going to push hard to score a goal back and get at least a draw. Team B start to play a much more offensive game with a stream of corners coming their way. The odds for Team A winning drift to 1.8 at which point you cash out your lay bet for a profit. The game ends 1-0 to Team A

This is a method that is again somewhat dependent on having some understanding of football. You have to have a reasonable amount of knowledge to say whether or not a team really has a chance of scoring a goal in return. This approach to training when paired with a sensible stop loss can allow you to make a decent profit in game with minimal risk.

You will notice that in both of the examples that I have listed above, the winning trades ultimately end up being losing bets. This is what being a savvy trader is about. You are looking for trades that will win, not bets that will win and that is a distinction that most people struggle with, especially at first. Once you have got past this however, I feel that trading becomes a much more natural process.

Specific Trading Strategies

There are a lot of trading strategies out there that individuals use to make money every day. Some of these are clear winners and others are much more questionable. The truth is that what might work for one person might not work for another and vice versa. Trading is a very personal thing and it is really up to you to find where you are comfortable in terms of managing risk and your profit and loss sheet.

That doesn’t mean however that you should instantly dismiss football trading strategies for Betfair out of hand. Becoming a successful trader is something that you never really stop working towards and there are some genuinely very good guides and strategies online. Dismissing them on the grounds of “knowing what you’re doing” can definitely impact how much money you can make through trading.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Trading Football on Betfair Versus Traditional Betting?

I have already touched upon the answer to this at numerous points in this article but there are some very clear pros and cons to trading over betting. Naturally there are some nuanced and grey areas, however in the main, there are quite definite differences.

One of the main differences between betting and trading lies in the approach to profit. As I have already talked about at length, trading is all about finding small profits and consistently taking advantage of them in order to increase your bank in the long term. When you are betting, you have to take profit where it comes as ultimately, you have no control over anything. Personally, I consider this to be a positive for football trading over betting.

Obviously, this does eat away at the excitement a little which some people will find to be a big disadvantage however I am not one of them.

The next difference is in how time consuming each discipline is. Betting is usually “set and forget”. Put simply this means that once you have placed your bets you have nothing to do but simply wait to see what happens. Trading undoubtedly means spending more time at your computer. Especially when you are getting started. Even when you are experienced you will need to spend some time at your computer.

The time consuming nature of trading can be mitigated somewhat through the use of a trading bot, however this will not apply to every method of football trading.

Finally, the big difference as far as I am concerned is that football trading is a skill. Many traders that I have spoken with talk about how they could land somewhere new and start to make a living immediately. With a small amount of initial capital, I can entirely believe it. Betting on the other hand always involves some degree of luck.

Realistically, I think that betting and trading both operate at different ends of the same spectrum. Which of the two you find preferential will ultimately depend on your approach to making money. For my money, I definitely prefer the approach that traders have to making money through football. Betting seems fraught with risk by comparison, and whilst landing a big win is definitely a thrill, I find that it is not enough to override being 50 points in the red whilst you wait for a win.

Conclusion on Football Trading, Betting and Gambling

Trading on Betfair is one of the safer ways of making money online that I can think of, so long as know what you are doing. Those who jump in with reckless abandon are almost guaranteed to lose money. This is unfortunate, but trading on Betfair simply isn’t for everybody. As I have already touched upon, you have to be dedicated, disciplined and hard working if you want to be successful in trading.

Trading football on Betfair is one of you best options as well in my opinion. I know of plenty of people who prefer horse racing, and some of them make good money through it. To each their own. For me, football is just more accessible. When you are looking at horse racing you might have to consider 3 or 4 different horses per race. With football, there are only 3 possible outcomes per game. Furthermore, there are many more markets that you can aim to take advantage of.

Not always that easy trying to make a profit…

It is not always as easy as it may seem, when trying to profit on football, and the following Youtube video will show you how one such trader is pretty much all over the place when trying to make a small profit:

As you can see, the guy was fumbling around all over the place. But, many do make a profit, so it is always best not to focus on those who cannot do something, or who go around the houses just for the sake of showing a YouTube video

There are other reasons that I prefer trading football on Betfair however. One of the main ones is that I find football easier to follow.

The first thing to keep in mind is that there is a firm media bias towards sports and sports personalities when reporting. This means that if a teams star striker is injured and unavailable to play, you will likely read about it in all of the papers. Compare this to a horse getting a slight knock which affects its gait which might get reported in the Racing Post.

Second of all, there is the fact that football gives you plenty of breathing room when you are trading. 90 minutes is a long time and there are plenty of strategies that you can apply in that time scale. This is significantly longer than the few minutes that a horse race will last and as such, you get more time to respond to in game events. This makes it particularly well suited to those who are just starting out with trading.

All things considered, I believe that bet trading is a skill. It is not a flash in the pan thing and if you take the correct approach, you can literally build your betting bank from next to nothing. This is no small feat. The truth about trading on Betfair whether it is football or any other sport,  is that it takes hard work to get things going.

This is something of a point of contention when it comes to making money online with a lot of products underrepresenting how much you have to do turn a profit.

If you are looking for a consistent way to make money online then I believe that football trading on Betfair is one of the best approaches that you can take. It is not the easiest, however I also believe that it is something that pretty much anybody can do.

Even if you don’t know a lot about football, it is not a difficult sport to come to understand. Again, I particularly apply this when put next to horse racing, however I feel that it can be applied to a variety of other sports.

As I stated earlier, there are many nprofessional traders who do make a living trading the football markets on betfair, and if you are an avid reader of this website, then you will know that we have recently completed a review of the Daisho Trading System, offered by Tony Langley, and this is one guy who does know how to trade football.

I should be clear though, football trading on Betfair isn’t going to make you a millionaire (as if, right!). I cannot stress enough that trading is all about making small and frequent wins. The beauty of trading as a method, when combined with this approach, is that you are in control. This is massively different to a lot of ways of making money online which require you to operate at a loss and rely on third party sources to make you money.

Trading is all about your abilities, and understanding the task at hand!

Whether you are currently involved in football trading on Betfair or not, I think that this is a method that at the very least is worth a look. Especially if you are serious about making money online. There are very few immediate negatives outside of having to put time and effort.

If these things are problems for you, I have to hold my hands up and say that it isn’t just Betfair trading that you will have problems with, it is any method of making money online. You have to apply a lot of effort when making a profit with anything.

Related Content

How You Can Win More Money Through Your Betting? The Mind of a Gambler

How to Avoid Banned Bookmaker Accounts and Restrictions

Football Dutching Systems Review Strategies and Methodologies

The post Betfair Football Trading and Betting Systems, Do They Really Work? appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Advantage Play Secrets has been launched recently. The name Mike Cruickshank might not mean a lot to most people reading this. In fact, I would not be surprised to find out that it doesn’t mean anything to a lot of people. What they may well have heard of however is the culmination of his hard work and the name that remains from his first product, Bonus Bagging. I am referring of course to matched betting.

If you haven’t heard of matched betting and have an interest in gambling, welcome to the show. You’re rather late. I think that it is fair to say that matched betting is arguably one of the most important developments from a punters point of view in the last decade. The almost zero risk betting approach made a lot of people a lot of money and Mike Cruickshank has continued in this vein for some time.

It has been a while since Mike Cruickshank has released an entirely new product however, so it is with a fair amount of excitement that I sit down to look at Advantage Play Secrets. This applies doubly so as I had heard some rather positive things on the grapevine about it. Truth be told, I think that whilst matched betting was an incredible thing, the bookies are getting savvier, more people are offering their take on it, more people are getting involved and the waters are slowly starting to muddy.

Let’s Start The Review.

Product Name: Advantage Play Secrets

What you get: See content below (too much to put here!)

The price: £1 14 Day Trial

Money Back Guarantee: 30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Author: Mike Cruickshank

Where to Buy: Click The Link: Try-Advantage-Play-Secrets

With all of this in mind, I want to start to take a look at Advantage Play Secrets and whether or not it can deliver the same quality that I have come to expect from Mike Cruickshank.

What is Advantage Play Secrets?

Advantage Play Secrets is an entirely new product which brings together several different low risk betting strategies, each developed by Mike Cruickshank. Now I have to be upfront from the start. Using Advantage Play Secrets is not like matched betting products which you may be familiar with.

What Mike has actually done here is packaged up 4 of his very lastest income generating products, and offered them as a membership.

For example, the main products in the Advantage Play Secrets product, he was offering to entice customers on another product recently, and I know for a fact that customers and new members came flocking, with the feedback on these new products being extremely positive.

Therefore I suspect that this is the very reason that Mike has now decided to offer them as a package, and I cannot blame him for that.

This is what Mike Cruickshank himself claims the product contains:

With the Advantage Play Secrets Course & Software Package,
it’s almost like STEALING money from the bookies!

In fact, they’d consider you to be a QUADRUPLE THREAT…
Imagine This Is All Yours:

• 4 Brand new strategies you can execute back-to-back to progressively increase your earnings, and build your betting bank!
• Time-saving tools that take ALL the guesswork out of betting (because all of the research and calculating has already been done FOR you!)
• Intelligent software that quickly and easily finds you the BEST bets. (No more researching bets for hours!)
• A world-class Online Betting coach – watch over my shoulder as I use these strategies to place low-risk, profitable bets in REAL TIME that you can mimic.

Whilst Mike Cruickshank does a very good job of explaining everything with Advantage Play Secrets, this is not the “paint by numbers” approach that you might be used to with other products. By this I mean that there is a bit of work involved. Fortunately, there are a number of tools included with Advantage Play Secrets to help you.

As an overall package, Advantage Play Secrets is made up of 4 different systems, each of which I will look at in detail in their own section. What I can say now is that all 4 are actually very capable of working and ultimately making you a profit. Ultimately, you can expect very comprehensive training showing you live examples of how to bet using a given method.

These are recorded by Mike Cruickshank and he talks you through the process, step by step, of what each betting strategy involves.

The whole thing has clearly been designed to be user friendly and I feel like Mike Cruickshank is to be commended for this. In fact, I was able to navigate round the members area with absolutely no problems and everything did what I expected it to do.

The content that is contained within Advantage Play Secrets is concise and too the point whilst Mike Cruickshank is very informative and helpful in his videos.

With this in mind, I will now look at each of the different systems that comprise Advantage Play Secrets.

The Golden Parachute Method

This is recommended as the starting point of Advantage Play Secrets and I can definitely see why. Mike Cruickshank refers to it as one of his favourite beginner methods and it isn’t hard to see why.

First of all, the nature of the method behind The Golden Parachute Method is incredibly straight forward. You don’t really have to have any understanding of betting to get started and in a rare but welcome move for a product aimed at those starting out betting, you don’t need to invest a lot of cash to get started.

As always I am loathe to go into detail about how The Golden Parachute Method works. This is a product if Mike Cruickshank and to publish the details simply isn’t fair. Betting isn’t too difficult which is mostly down to a rather comprehensive piece of software which calculates your bets and stakes for you.

I don’t think that I am giving away anything in saying that The Golden Parachute is based around dutching and taking advantage of pricing movement from bookmakers.

In Mike’s Own Words:

At this point I feel the need to point out that I have been somewhat critical of most products which claim to use this as a basis for a service. With The Golden Parachute Method however, you are not simply looking at odds and pricing movement based on a criteria of your own design. This is often the case with tipsters and frankly, it is the problem that I have with their methods.

There is no verifiable way of monitoring their reason for predicting price swings outside of “I think this horse will be faster on the day”.

The method that The Golden Parachute Method employs is however steeped in a very logical, almost machine like process.

This means that it will work the same way every time and that is something that I always expect when looking at a betting product. Combine this with a piece of software which helps you to place your bets and calculate where your profits lie and there is little denying that this first element of Advantage Play Secrets is a winner.

The Golden Parachute Method is a decent low risk system however it is important to keep in mind that it is “only” low risk. Truthfully, I can see how if you lack discipline and start betting erratically there may be an increased risk. Generally, though, there are a large enough number of decent bets available each day that you shouldn’t find yourself in this position.

Everything about this introductory aspect of Advantage Play Secrets has been geared towards those who are starting off and this doesn’t just show, but it is appreciated. It is clear that there are some decent returns to be made (Mike Cruickshank logged a profit of 27% on just one bet) and you really don’t need a lot to get things started. Even the software that you use in order to calculate everything is deceptively simple.

Putting all of my cards on the table, I would go as far as to say with the exception of a very small handful of other betting methods, The Golden Parachute Method is one of the strongest beginners betting strategies I have ever looked at.

There are a number of reasons for this, and they are points I have raised before, but they bear repeating. Advantage Play Secrets is low risk, simple and doesn’t require a substantial betting bank to get started. These are ideal conditions for those at the beginning of their betting journey.

The Dutching Bounty Method

As the name of this particular aspect of Advantage Play Secrets implies, this method is a dutching strategy. Like The Golden Parachute Method, the focus here is very much on minimising risk whilst also maximising profit.

Where the previous method is based more on volume of bets, the Dutching Bounty Method can generate much higher profits on a “per race” basis, however there is a notable dropping off in the number of races that you will be able to identify.

Once again, I won’t go into too much detail about The Dutching Bounty Method as I don’t believe that it is fair to Mike Cruickshank to have his system available in the public domain. Essentially you are looking for certain dutching opportunities to appear on a very specific betting market. The first thing that you have to do however is find a race.

There is a very clear indicator as to which races do and don’t fit the criteria for The Dutching Bounty Method which goes a long way to keeping things simple.

In Mike’s Words:

As with almost all aspects of Advantage Play Secrets, there is a full calculator which is included for use with The Dutching Bounty Method. When you have found a race, the next thing that you need to do is to identify what the best possible stakes are.

This may sound like an odd statement to make (surely more is better right?), however there is a very strong balance between the risk and reward. Fortunately, The Dutching Bounty Method calculator comes with a “simulator” which shows the potential profits and losses from your bets. By consulting this, you can place the correct bet. There are also options to further boost your profits and further minimise that risk.

Truth be told, there isn’t a lot more that I can say about this aspect of Advantage Play Secrets without giving it away. What I can say is that whilst you won’t necessarily be finding races every day with this, there is a lot of potential for big profits.

This isn’t however an entirely risk free betting strategy, something that Mike Cruickshank is open about and actually provides examples of where it can go wrong (a very sure indicator of how consistently The Dutching Bounty Method actually works in my eyes).

All of that having been said, the losses that you face might be at most £10-12 compared to realistic profits of £50 plus per bet. From a purely mathematical point of view, this represents a very good opportunity. Especially given the fact that the losses themselves are actually unlikely to occur as they rely on very specific outcomes.

Acca Booster

Acca Booster is one element of Advantage Play Secrets that doesn’t come without risk. In fact, I think that it is fair to say that you will lose a lot using this method, however, there is something at work here that means that it isn’t a system that should be dismissed out of hand. In fact, I think that it is reasonable to say that it is one of the more interesting betting strategies that I have looked at recently.

As the name suggests, Acca Booster is all about betting on accumulator bets. More importantly, it involves finding examples that have been “boosted” by bookmakers that also have value. By using a strategy which I won’t divulge for obvious reasons, Acca Boosters is very good at identifying value accumulators, something which Mike Cruickshank has provided a number of videos that show you want to do.

Acca Booster is a bit of a dark horse, especially when compared with the other products that make up Advantage Play Secrets. It is also one that I am least sold on. Because of how Acca Booster works, Mike Cruickshank says that the law of big numbers means that you will eventually profit if you follow the rules of finding value accumulators (so much so that Mike Cruickshank recommends that you record results over at least 250 times.

In Mike’s Own Words:

This means that you have to have a lot of discipline and the patience to manage your betting bank over the long term. It also means keeping staking don to a minimum. In fact, Mike Cruickshank says that you should only stake between 0.25 and 0.5 on any one Acca Booster bet.

This highlights to me just how strong the possibility can be for things to go wrong, particularly in the shorter term.

As with the other systems that make up Advantage Play Secrets, there is a piece of software which will help you to identify when Acca Booster bets are available. This is incredibly easy to use which is by far and away one of the strongest points for me.

Betfair Matched Bettors Exploit

I find it rather fortunate that Mike Cruickshank is so open about what his Betfair Matched

Bettors Exploit involves as I would have a very difficult job trying to convince you it can work otherwise. I also have to credit Mike Cruickshank for turning one aspect of his betting industry into yet another way that you can find value and as a result, decent profits.

Essentially, Betfair Matched Bettors Exploit does exactly what it says on the tin. It exploits Betfair matched bettors. Because matched bettors are only interested in using betting exchanges to hedge their bets, this can be in turn leveraged to find value in backing these same bets. This is not a straight forward method however and I would even be inclined to say that it is the riskiest method of betting included in Advantage Play Secrets.

In Mike’s Own Words:

Truthfully, this particular method definitely isn’t going to suit everybody and it is a far cry from what I was expecting coming into Advantage Play Secrets. This doesn’t however mean that it is a bad strategy.

Truth be told, it is a fantastic way of identifying value bets quickly and easily. If you are comfortable being in the red for extended periods of time and are content to keep a long term approach to betting, then Betfair Matched Bettors Exploit will likely turn you a profit. You may well just have to wait for it.

Advantage Play Secrets Members Area Log In

Here is an image of the actual logged in page to Advantage Play Secrets:

As you can see it is quite a simplified log in area, but that is what Mike Cruickshank does – he makes it simple. There is no point is over-complicating such things, because what is really important is learning how to make a profit.

Advantage Play Secrets Software

Where required, there is software assicated with each of the 4 areas (as described in this review), and Mike is the ‘Don’ of software products, so rest assured that the software you need to be able to work out your trades is all valid, present and correct.

Here is an example of the software on the Acca Booster:

So What Do I Think of Advantage Play Secrets as a Package?

I am actually rather surprised by the content of Advantage Play Secrets as an overall package. If I am completely honest, Mike Cruickshank has thrown in a number of approaches that I wasn’t expecting given his track record. This doesn’t mean that it is bad however; it is just different. I will try to get into detail to explain what this means below, but for now, I will say I am a little bit on the fence about Advantage Play Secrets.

The reasoning for this is perhaps down to my own prejudice more than anything else. There are certain things that you expect from the Mike Cruickshank brand and frankly, only half of Advantage Play Secrets delivers on this.

Where I think it is important to be up front about this is precisely because of the kind of thing that people associate with Mike Cruickshank.

The truth is that on a long enough time scale, I believe that all aspects of Advantage Play Secrets will prove profitable. The Acca Boosters and the Betfair Matched Bettors Exploit use some pretty sound principles for identifying value.

The thing about value based betting is that when it is done properly (as Mike Cruickshank has), it will eventually turn good. The Golden Parachute Method and The Dutching Bounty Method are both much more in line with what I was expecting. These produce decent yields with low risk.

Really, I would say that Advantage Play Secrets is the start of moving into more intermediate betting strategies. Mike Cruickshank has a clear approach to his products with each generally leading into one or another in a roundabout fashion. In Advantage Play Secrets I feel like the last vestiges of low risk betting have likely been plundered and this means that inevitably, things have to change. This change is what makes for intermediate betting.

I cannot stress enough how difficult it can be to manage a betting bank and keep a long term approach to betting. This is in part because I think most people simply don’t have the financial freedom to make their money make money for them. Of course, Mike’s earlier products can definitely help you with that and if you are new to his work, go pick up those before you look at Advantage Play Secrets.

The truth is that it takes a certain resilience to watch yourself losing money week on week and a lot of people don’t have that. In fact, this is one area where I would have really liked to have seen more from Mike Cruickshank.

He has been in this game for years and I know that he has written about the topic before now. Something that reassures you about a long term and value based approach is sorely needed given the Acca Booster and Betfair Matched Betting Exploit strategies.

It might sound like I’ve been giving Advantage Play Secrets a bit of a hard time so far and to some degree this is true. As a reviewer, it is my job to point out the good and bad of a service. The fact is that despite these negatives, there is a lot to Advantage Play Secrets that is more than worthwhile. I just think that you have to be aware of exactly what you are getting when you sign up to the service.

If you can keep what I have already said in mind and are able to take the correct approach to Advantage Play Secrets I actually think this is a decent product. It is definitely not what I was expecting from Mike Cruickshank but I don’t think that this move is a bad thing. The fact is that there is only so much you can do around matched betting and low risk betting before you have to look elsewhere.

There are a number of directions that you can go, but I think that finding quantifiable value and using that as a basis isn’t terrible.

Does Advantage Play Secrets Represent Value for Money?

This is a bit of tricky question as it very much depends on who you are and where you are in your betting career. If you are starting out or are still using some of the more basic matched betting techniques that Mike Cruickshank has developed, then you are going to struggle with Advantage Play Secrets.

As such, it isn’t really worth paying anything out; never mind the cost of Advantage Play Secrets. If however you are looking for the next logical step from matched betting, then Advantage Play Secrets is a solid option.

Obviously all of this leads me on to the price. There is only one option which is available if you want to sign up for Advantage Play Secrets which is a single payment of £99 (plus VAT).

This buys you full access to the training, videos and the related software for a full 12 months At the time of writing, you can also get full access to Advantage Play Secrets for 14 days for just £1 in order to trial the service. Payment for both of these options is handled via Cickbank. These are famous for offering a no quibble 60 day money back,

As far as I am concerned, you are getting 4 very solid betting systems for £100 (after the £1 trial).

This is definitely a fair price and more than in line with what you would pay for much lesser offerings. Yes it is quite a substantial initial outlay, however given that you only pay once I think it is justified. With that in mind, if you are able to handle the risks that come with Advantage Play Secrets, I think it represents excellent value for money.

Conclusion on Advantage Secrets Play

There are two ways of viewing Advantage Play Secrets. The first is in the same light as Mike Cruickshank’s previous offerings. In this regard, I think that it possibly pushes people’s expectations of what is on offer a little too much.

Truthfully, most matched bettors and low risk bettors (which I feel it is safe to say make up most of Mike Cruickshank’s audience) are very unlikely to be happy with the risks that come from  Acca Boosters and The Betfair Matched Bettors Exploit.

It is important to discuss these risks as I feel they are perhaps more prominent that any aspect of Advantage Play Secrets really makes out. Looking at Acca Boosters, the fact that you need a minimum sample size of 250 bets is a hell of an ask. Even if you are only staking small amounts, this can still cause a fair amount of trouble for your betting bank.

The second way of looking at Advantage Play Secrets is as a new chapter in Mike Cruickshank’s journey as a “betting guru” and this is the way that I want to look at it. I am quite certain that if you are reading this article, you have probably seen and heard some crap.

I however practically eat, breathe and sleep it. As such, I know when there is something genuine and when somebody is trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Mike Cruickshank is definitely genuine. One look at the methods he employs for extracting value in bets tells me this.

This makes Advantage Play Secrets a winner in my book, albeit not necessarily a typical example. There is a hell of a lot on offer and whilst there is risk in the systems, Mike Cruickshank has done a good job of minimising it as much as you can expect. The fact is that really, the only real risk that I could perceive is the costs but with the trial and the money back period this is negated.

Would I rush out to buy Advantage Play Secrets? If I were serious about building a long term betting system portfolio then absolutely. If however you are looking for  something shorter term or that will turn around a quicker profit, I would look at Mike’s more “traditional” products, as we have reviewed many times on this website.

Recommended

Click Here To Claim Your Advantage Play Secrets £1 Trial

Related Content:

Profit Maximiser Review Mike Cruickshank – Plus Special Bonus

Betting Mastermind Review, A Complete Spectrum of Profit Generation

Accumulator Generator Review From Mike Cruickshank

The post Advantage Play Secrets Review, New From Mike Cruickshank appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Most people have heard about Bitcoin, but BitConnect is probably a new name for you. Many cry scam when something comes out that they do not understand, and I am always on the lookout for new ways of generating a passive income online. Why passive income? Passive income is the dream. Simply logging into a site and withdrawing your profits is the dream of many an online entrepreneur.

With this dream however comes a large number of questionable and less than ethical services which also claim to offer just that. One such site which was very recently brought to my attention is BitConnect. Initially, I set out to carry out a standard review but once I began to dig a little deeper, it became clear that BitConnect warranted more than this,

As you can probably tell from the name, BitConnect is a part of the increasingly popular crypto currency craze. For those who aren’t aware of this term, a crypto currency is a form of currency which exists solely online. These have become massively popular in recent years as their value has grown exponentially with Bitcoin currently being the best known and most valuable.

Interestingly, this growth is only linked to the intrinsic value which is placed upon it by those who are buying the currencies.

The scope of different services that have sprung up in the wake of this increasing popularity is massive. As such, I have watched companies spring up that promise to show you how to trade bitcoins, how to mine bitcoins, how you can invest in bitcoins for the future, collectives and so on and so forth. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the business that surrounds bitcoins is now probably worth more than the value of the coins themselves.

Truth be told, the industry that has been built around Bitcoin as a brand is rife for scamming and there are a number of reasons for this which I will explore over the course of this article. Of course, that isn’t to say that BitConnect is a scam product.

In fact, at the time of writing this I know that a number of people are making money from the service. The smart ones amongst them are willing to accept that this revenue stream may collapse in the immediate future.

Now that I have painted a picture of how I have come to find BitConnect, I want to get down to the nitty gritty. This may turn out to be rather substantial, but truth be told I am yet to find a website that has really got in depth on the subject of BitConnect.

A Brief History of BitConnect and Why It Has to be Brief

In early February 2016, the domain Bitconnect.co was registered. This was carried out entirely anonymously and the website registrant continues to remain anonymous. That is about all that your brief history of BitConnect can include, largely down to the fact that this is all the information that I am able to dig up.

I would at this point love to say that having explored around I am not the only one who has struggled to tie down information on BitConnect.

If there were any one place where I wanted to start highlighting the vulnerabilities that BitConnect has in terms of its legitimacy, this is as good a place as any. There is some speculation surrounding who may be behind BitConnect including listings on company house, but these aren’t explicitly tied to BitConnect either.

The only thing that is of note in the very brief history of BitConnect lies in the relatively recent past which is an expansion of the service from UK and American audiences to also include a large quantity of Asian versions of BitConnect. This includes Vietnam, Indonesia and South Korea.

This is what the website claims:

What is bitconnect?

A self regulated Financial system

BitConnect is an open source all in one bitcoin and crypto community platform designed to provide multiple investment opportunities with cryptocurrency education where it is entirely possible to find the independence we all desire, in a community of like-minded, freedom loving individuals who, like you, are seeking the possibility of income stability in a very unstable world.

What is BitConnect All About?

With the worrying lack of history covered, I feel that it is important to look at what exactly you are getting yourself into with BitConnect. There is rather a lot of ground to cover here and many of the services which are offered by BitConnect deserve a detailed look under their own header. With that in mind, I don’t want to go into too much detail, but instead provide an overall summary of what is available.

Now I must say at this stage, that trying to view the BitConnect website immediately started to flag on my MalwareBytes software as a problem:

So the above was a red flag immediately, as I have found MalwareBytes over the years to be highly reliable is weeding out websites that have flaws. But let’s continue with this review…

The BitConnect website perhaps best tells the story of what you are getting with BitConnect referring to it as a self regulated financial system. Whilst I can’t help but feel that this is supposed to reassure, I find it to be massively concerning for more reasons than I care to list. I will however get to these over the course of this article.

Truthfully, the website for BitConnect isn’t very clear about things here and I cannot find anywhere near all the information that should be available so stick with me here. BitConnect say that they have a number of different coin supply channels. This includes mining coins (which is the same process as any crypto currency mining operation). It also appears that when you purchase BitConnect, they release coins for you to use.

This isn’t explicitly stated, but is rather implied at various points.

Let’s allow the website to say what it is all about, as this is what it states on the BitConnect website:

BitConnect is also bitcoin and cryptocurrency news site that allows you to keep up to date with new businesses that accepts bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and bitcoin regulations news. We also report on latest crypto currency news, prices, talks and new start up related to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

There is also a coin demand channel which includes the lending platform and once again, the staking comes into play here. Presumably (but again, never explicitly stated), it appears that as demand increases, more BitConnect coins are simply pumped into the “ecosystem”. There is also the concept of lending which I have gone into greater detail about below.

What is interesting is that I don’t see how lending increases demand of BitConnect coins as it appears to me that you are pumping more into the market

Finally, there is the BitConnect coin distribution channel. This is simply a self contained exchange in which you can buy and sell BitConnect coins.

In terms of how you make money through BitConnect, there are 5 core ways each of which will get a detailed review. For now however, I simply wish to provide a rough approximation of what you can expect as a BitConnect user. Once again, I wish to highlight that there is very little clear information on this side of things which remains a key concern.

The first method of monetising BitConnect is to literally just purchase some coins. When you make a deposit into BitConnect, the service will supposedly make consistent returns through the price of coins simply going up. This is the crux of the passive income that I have discussed before now and is most likely what the majority of bettors will be aiming to achieve with BitConnect.

Secondly, we have the lending arm of BitConnect. This isn’t really lending in any traditional sense of the word. Instead when you “lend” to BitConnect, you are really opening some of your accounts up to a trading bot. This supposedly trades on the volatility of the BitConnect market and is used to boost the profits that you make through method one.

The third method that BitConnect uses is straight up trading. This involves purchasing your own BitConnect coins and trading them on an exchange. This is arguably the most traditional way of using the BitConnect platform to generate a profit.

There is also the option to mine BitConnect coins. This can be done simply by using your CPU/GPU which means that theoretically, it can be used on any home computer.

Finally, there is a multilevel marketing aspect to BitConnect as well. This is something which isn’t really discussed in the sales material however I know from research that this is in place.

Obviously, all of these different methods are interchangeable, and you can use as many of them as you want. If you believe what BitConnect say, if you want to maximise your profits then you should look to combine as many of these different methods as possible.

I would like to have a bit of a final word on BitConnect here before I try to decipher what passes for information on the service. Truth be told there is very little about BitConnect that is concrete.

The English of whoever is behind the service is atrocious with a large number of mistakes that range from typos to grammatical phrasing that seems to change what is supposedly on offer. Truth be told, I think that this is in part an attempt to clearly obfuscate information and make it difficult to understand exactly what you are getting. That way, it is harder for BitConnect to be held accountable.

Investing in BitConnect

As I have mentioned, the core premise behind BitConnect is simple. You leave them with your money and in return, you get dividends paid out on a regular basis. BitConnect say that “the moment you acquire BitConnect coin it becomes an interest bearing asset”.  This sounds fantastic and as I have mentioned is in many ways the ideal platform for those who are looking for a passive form of income.

There is however a lot going on behind the scenes of BitConnect that make me question how legitimate this all really is. The sales material says that all that you have to do is pay into your BitConnect wallet and this is enough. This is all well and good, except that you essentially buy BitConnect with Bitcoin.

This means that the developers of BitConnect are selling you their own product in exchange for a much more tangible asset. This would be akin to buying Disney Dollars as a financial investment.

It isn’t difficult to see how an economy which is controlled by the sole creators of the currency is a risky investment. Especially when you consider the terms of depositing your Bitcoin in exchange for BitConnect coins. To quote the BitConnect website:

“You will receive daily profit based on your investment option. Upon investment term completion you will receive your CAPITAL BACK to take out from the BitConnect lending platform or optionally reinvest back in lending platform to continue receiving daily profit”.

Reading through this there are a few things that stand out here. The most important is that you can only get your investment capital back after an allotted amount of time. This means that any money that you invest in BitConnect is tied up with them for a length of time dictated by them. I have said it before now, but I cannot stress enough.

Any investment which doesn’t allow you an option to withdraw your investment capital or sell on your assets, especially when it is for something as intangible as BitConnect, is not an investment worth making.

BitConnect on YouTube

I had to put a section here about the affiliate marketers who are promoting BitConnect on youtube. And as with any product, even if it does not work as advertised, you will get affiliate marketers saying it does. Here is a section (an image) of just some of the claims on YouTube:

Some quite crazy claims as you can see, so let’s see a video which shows an entirely different angle on this:

Lending

Lending is a very strange concept in BitConnect. The sales material says the following:

“You can invest BitConnect coin in Bitconnect lending platform exclusively from the BitConnect Dashboard. This investment option involves profiting from Bitconnect trading bot and volatility software. You will receive daily profit based on your investment option.

Upon investment term completion, you will receive your CAPITAL BACK to take out from the Bitconnect lending platform or optionally reinvest back in lending platform to continue receiving daily profit.”

This is essentially what simply owning some BitConnect coins does as well, the difference apparently being that you are choosing to incest your current BitConnect coins in order to boost your return on investment. Really though, as you can see above there is that seeming attempt to obfuscate information again.

This did however lead me to the BitConnect volatility software. Using this supposedly provides a safe way to earn a high rate of return on your investment. There is supposedly a guaranteed interest rate in place, however this is also calculated by the BitConnect price volatility software?

What this actually appears to mean is that your investment is subject to a rate of interest which is determined by tracking the volatility of Bitcoin vs USD and the volatility of the USD against “major world currencies”. In 365 days, this has supposedly never been a negative number.

From what little I can gather I stand by the assumption that this is an extension of the core staking service. It simply happens that you choose how much of your assets you choose to leverage in order to increase your returns.

Trading

The trading aspect of BitConnect is welcomingly straightforward. You are able to buy and sell BitConnect coins as you please in line with the self contained BitConnect exchange. From what I have seen and can fathom, this is one of the more convenient ways of transferring your BitConnect coins directly into Bitcoins. It is important to keep in mind however that there has to be somebody looking to buy your BitConnect coins first.

Mining for Bitcoin Currency

For those who don’t now, mining a cryptocurrency works by getting your computer to make large numbers of calculations that unlock small amounts of said currency. To successfully mine Bitcoin now there are companies that employ massive server farms which have been constructed solely to focus on this task. These work 24/7 in order to successfully mine coins. This is important to create some context as mining with BitConnect simply requires a home computer.

Not surprisingly I you want to mine these coins you have join a pool of other miners. This is common place however what is less common is the fact that one of the required mining pools that you have to connect to is operated by BitConnect. This type of approach is seen everywhere with BitConnect seemingly wanting to manage all aspects of the economic value of their coins.

Multi Level Marketing

On top of all these different ways of making money through BitConnect, there is of course a multi level marketing aspect. This is sold as you having an affiliate status but truthfully, you are recruiting new people to bring new money into BitConnect. Interestingly, in order to be an affiliate, you have to be actively lending with BitConnect.

This is supposedly because you “earn bitcoins from lenders you refer through your affiliate link”. In other words, you have to have people signed up and paying into the lending pool in order to get paid anything.

There doesn’t appear to be any direct downlines with BitConnect however I have seen people who use it talking about being several levels deep with affiliates. This suggests to me that this is definitely a thing.

This All Sounds a Bit Suspicious Surely?

I don’t think that I have looked at something as divisive as BitConnect for a long time and I have to be honest and say that there is good reason for this. Put bluntly, that reason is that people are definitely making money through this service. I have even looked at well respected review sites who are happy to recommend the service on the grounds that it is paying out, and if something is making you money it isn’t necessarily the best thing to question it.

That is a valid point however on the flip side of that coin is that this is exactly how a Ponzi scheme works. There is a focus on getting people on the bottom level to keep paying out. With their money, you pay the people who are further up the pyramid (hence the other name, pyramid scheme) who continue to glow about something because they continue to make money. Of course this isn’t to say that BitConnect is a pyramid scheme, however I do think that it would be naïve of me to overlook the similarities.

So, What Are the Pros and Cons of Bitconnect?

More than anything else there is currently one big positive to BitConnect and that is that it is paying out. Making money with something like this is the bottom line and I have known of people who have been aware they are involved in pyramid schemes but have been content as they have continued to make money.

I also have to say that if there is another positive to BitConnect it is that the returns are not just consistent, but are seemingly rather high. One reputable website that I know of have made an ROI of just under 10% making $121 off an investment of just over $1,500.

Elsewhere I have seen numbers which are much larger than this as well as claims of winning sports cars etc. for being top promoters. It is interesting to note however that these extreme cases are only really touted by the same people who are trying to get you to sign up (and earn them a commission).

As I have been writing this I think that I have covered the cons of BitConnect rather well. In fact, I would be inclined to say that I have been overly cynical with this service although I find that this is often the best way. Let us address the two biggest concerns that I have with BitConnect however. The first one is that neither I, nor anybody else online, can appear to find who is behind the service.

I can find limited companies registered in the UK however the broken English in the sales material makes it seem more likely that this is a foreign run operation. This is unfortunately all speculative however and this helps to highlight how much of a problem this actually is.

This brings me onto the next big problem with BitConnect which is the lack of tangible assets. I know that a Bitcoin is a none tangible asset, as is an BitConnect coin. On paper, there should be no difference between the two in so much as both exist online and only have a value that is ascribed to it by those who are using it as an investment platform.

There is one key difference however and it is a biggie. With Bitcoin I can go online and find hundreds of reputable exchanges. I can see millions of people all of who express an interest in the currency.

Whilst I don’t think the bubble will last forever, Bitcoins remain an asset of interest for a very wide collective. With BitConnect coins however, the only people that are interested in them are those who are currently within the fold. Despite this, I have traded an asset that has “real world” value for these coins.

This has a twofold effect on the potential future value of your BitConnect coins. First of all, if interest from the community dies out, then there is no wider interest and your assets could be rendered valueless. More concerningly is that the unknown figures behind BitConnect could choose to pull the plug on the whole operation and disappear into the sunset. This means that again, your assets have no value.

Conclusion on BitConnect

There are a lot of reasons that I wouldn’t invest in BitConnect. More than I care to count if I am completely honest, however I will none the less look to cover them here. To start with, the whole concept of BitConnect is fatally flawed if you are an investor. The bottom line of what you are doing is trading an asset for a product which only has value within the context of BitConnect. This means that if BitConnect turns out to be as questionable as it appears, you may well be left with a currency which is entirely valueless.

The other thing for me is that your assets are tied up in BitConnect essentially until they say that you can cash them out. Were you to invest a single bitcoin into BitConnect, that remains in the wallet of the unknown creators until a certain time has elapsed. Yes, you have had returns on that investment and when the time comes to pull it out, you might have had generous returns, however it doesn’t alter the fact that if your circumstances change, you are stuck.

I will try not to tread old ground too much here, but the lack of genuine information surrounding BitConnect is very concerning. As I have touched upon, everything that I have seen that is positive comes from those who are embroiled in the service. Whilst this can look good at first glance, I am yet to see any long term evidence that I would say is truly conclusive that BitConnect is genuine.

This is in direct contrast to being able to see the whole set up from the outside and identify that it is on inherently shaky grounds. Whenever I look at something like BitConnect I like to look at the product that you are buying. Putting aside the interest and returns for a minute, what you are buying with BitConnect is nothing, and it is an expensive nothing at that. You are then going to pay for this nothing to nobody using a method of payment that whilst not untraceable, is difficult to follow.

My personal recommendation for BitConnect is to avoid it like the plague. For a minute, let us remove the crypto currency factor and play BitConnect’s pitch out as an “on the street” encounter.

A complete stranger approaches you and asks you for £100 cash, for which they will give you £125 in Monopoly money. They tell you that there are plenty of other people in the area who want to buy that Monopoly money for real money. Once you have it, you can go and find one of those people and trade them your £125 Monopoly money and make yourself a tidy profit. Life is good.

But if you ask yourself honestly, would you have let it get that far? Or would you have stopped this at the point where somebody asked for your real money in exchange for Monopoly money. I don’t see BitConnect as being any different.

I will be balanced here however and say that this is a big operation and I think that if BitConnect is going to collapse under its own weight, this will be some time off. With that in mind, if you want to get in on the ground level and start making some money whilst it is still there to be had, then you should probably try and get involved with BitConnect sooner rather than later.

Furthermore, there is enough evidence to say that at the moment it is paying out something. Again, I wouldn’t like to speculate too much on the long term future, but people are definitely making money, and it is easy money at that.

Final Thoughts on BitConnect

BitConnect isn’t for me. I have looked at enough products along similar lines to this that are no longer about. Despite this, I can’t help but think that BitConnect is just an incredibly high risk investment. You may well take a decent amount of money out of it and that potential is there for now. Perhaps to best way that I can close this rather lengthy look at BitConnect is by comparing it to the Schrodinger’s Cat though experiment.

Just as the cat is both alive and dead until we open the box and check, BitConnect retains a sense of being both legitimate and a potential dishonest scheme by paying out and also hiding a lot of information.

The post BitConnect Review, The Bitcoin Craze Continues appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Are you a lottery user? Been scammed by a fake lottery? I try to keep politics and current events out of the things that I write about and that will continue to be my mantra. I am here to inform, not to tell you how to think.

Recently however, there have been a few events that have come together at the right time to make me think that maybe there is an article on the subject of lotteries and more importantly to you as a user, lottery scams.

I’ve sat down at my desk today following a beautiful day spent lounging about the garden and catching up with a few chores I needed to do (the bags in my shed weren’t going to take themselves to the tip). I have caught up with the news and one of the bigger stories is that the Euro Millions jackpot is likely to exceed £100,000,000.

It has been said many times, that playing the lottery is a tax on the stupid

We’ll dissect that though, and see if it is really of a benefit to the average person, or if it really is just a ‘tax on the stupid’. By the way, I have played the lottery a few times, epsecially in the early years when we all though we had a chance

Now I could turn this article into a fantasy about what I would spend that kind of money on (I’ll start by definitively stating that I wouldn’t be taking my own bags to the tip!), but that isn’t what I want to talk about. I was recently linked to a product and I was asked by an associate what I thought of it. I ended up looking at the product which was being marketed as Free Money Plus and LottoSpring. It was crap.

My detailed review on LottoSpring was here.

With the jackpot getting as high as it is through official marketing channels however, I thought back to LottoSpring. More specifically, I thought about the number of people who are drawn into questionable arrangements on the back of very real opportunities. Now I should preface all of this article really by saying that I don’t generally play any sort of lottery.

I’ll talk about the why’s behind that a little later, but I will have an occasional punt when the numbers get crazy big (I’ll be out to have a fiver on tonight for example).

What I will do to have a go on the lottery is to head to a licensed lottery seller here in the UK, and purchase tickets from them (actually, I’ll probably buy them online, but the point is that my entrance ticket is coming from the organisational body).

That way, if my numbers come in, I know that I can claim my £100 million and never be heard from again. What I wouldn’t do is head online to the multitude of stores offering discounted and cut rate lottery tickets.

What Is So Bad About Cut Rate Lottery Tickets?

I, like many reading this, can remember when Lotto first started, or as it was called back then, The National Lottery. It was a pound a ticket and being a millionaire really meant something. Times however have changed. It is now £2 per ticket, or £2.50 for the EuroMillions and yet, there are resellers online claiming to sell tickets for much cheaper.

Some are sold through clever affiliate and multi level marketing schemes, however I have increasingly seen these sites appearing on services such as Groupon. Like anybody who is browsing Groupon, I like to save a few quid here and there, but I have also been stung before now (restaurant vouchers that could only be used on a weekday Afternoon and on a fixed menu or a clear Chinese knock off immediately spring to mind). However you hear about them you should exercise caution.

The big problem with a lot of these companies that claim to provide subscribers with cheap cut rate lottery tickets is that you are very rarely buying tickets. Going back to my point in the introduction, I said that I would only ever purchase a ticket through an authorised dealer or through the lottery website. Truthfully, almost all of the bargain lottery service that you see use something called Lotto Betting.

What Is Lotto Betting?

Fundamentally, lotto betting is exactly what it says. Rather than entering a lottery, you are betting on the final outcome. This doesn’t seem like much of a distinction to make however it is an absolutely massive one. When you enter a lottery, your agreement is with the lottery company and your payment, should you win, is essentially already paid for by everybody else who has bought a ticket.

When you buy a ticket through Lotto Betting, you are buying a ticket directly from the company in question. If you win through them, then you receive the same jackpot as the lottery is offering. In and of itself, this sounds relatively straight forward with the companies simply piggy backing on the better known lotteries. By this I mean that they will use the numbers from actual lotto draws.

The problem with piggy backing like this for you as a consumer is that there is often a lot of overlap. Especially in terms of what it is implied you are getting and what you aren’t. Take for example a TV advert by Lottoland, one of the larger companies that operate this kind of service (and also one of the more trustworthy in my opinion). You have Chris Tarrant talking about how you can bet on the outcome of lotteries. Something that is only mentioned once and never explained, despite it being massively important.

Immediately after saying this, there are images showing giant lottery balls for various lotteries from across the world including the US Powerball, the Australian Lottery and EuroMillions. All of this makes it look like you are partaking in those lotteries. Once again, I have to stress that you aren’t in fact entering lotteries.

So how does lottery betting pay out if they match the same jackpots that have been accumulating over weeks and even months? The short answer s through very well measured insurance policies. If a lotto betting company ever actually has a big winner (which has monumentally smaller odds, arguably more so than a lottery, something that I will go into a little later), then it will ultimately be an insurance policy that pays out the jackpot rather than the company themselves.

So Is Lotto Betting a Scam?

Lotto betting is no more or less of a scam than lotteries are in and of themselves. For example, using the EuroMillions as an example, the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 139,838,160. To put this into context, there is supposedly a 1 in 10,000,000 chance that you will be hit by a falling plane part. What is interesting is that these odds are also supposedly the same as being fatally struck by lightning.

Some people call the lottery a scam but the truth is that it is an entirely random event and as such, it is probably one of the fairest methods of gambling that you can employ. Unfortunately, something being fair doesn’t necessarily equate to something that is winnable. In fact, the number of large scale rollovers only shows how few people really win.

In actuality, between 1994 when it launched, and 2014 which was its 20^th anniversary, the British National Lottery claims to have made more than 4,400 millionaires. Keeping in mind that this is across things like scratch cards etc. and you can see that the actual number of jackpot winners really isn’t that high.

Moving back onto lotto betting specifically, if you are using a reputable company then I can’t see any reason why you would expect the service to be a scam. I can find no examples of bigger companies not paying out and I have little reason to believe that they would. Unfortunately, these aren’t what you have to look out for.

Unfortunately, as with any market where there is a legitimate operation, there will be shadier examples copying the same model, without the regard for a customer. Using the EuroMillions as an example again, the odds of winning are around 1 in 140 million. You as a lotto betting operator are privy to 25% of the number of people who actually play the lottery (I am working with entirely hypothetical numbers here to demonstrate a point), however your ability to charge less per ticket means that the 25% of users buy twice as many tickets.

This puts you at half of the users, which means that in real terms, you are half as likely to have to pay out. Less tickets means less combinations covered, less combinations covered means less chance of there being a match.

An unscrupulous person could very easily set up a lotto betting company on those odds of not having to pay out and enjoy a decent income every month from it. Again, I have to highlight the fact that this isn’t the case for a lot of companies, however I have looked at some smaller ones researching this article and I would not be surprised to find that it happens.

Syndicates and Lotto Betting

One of the main selling points that I see from lotto betting websites is that they are somehow a better thing as you can sign up to a larger syndicate. There is some truth to this as bringing together large numbers of people together into a syndicate from around the world clearly means more tickets and more chances to win.

There is also the managed aspect of syndicates which supposedly enhances the syndicate experience for users. Lotto betting companies will tell you that you can buy as many tickets as you want on recurring payments and that pay outs are automatically spread out amongst those in a syndicate. Truth be told, the only aspect of this that real lotteries don’t offer is paying out to all syndicate members.

Also, if you do join a lottery syndicate then make sure that you have a signed agreement between all the players, as there have been many reported instances of major fallouts between syndicates who thought that ‘good will’ would last after they have come into the spondoolies, money changes people you see

Here is how a lottery syndicate works:

So What Should You Look out For?

It is easy to say that a healthy dose of common sense will help you to no end in this kind of thing but truth be told, it is easy to be led astray online. Many of the more questionable lotto betting operations that I have looked at have been operated through social media. Think about Facebook groups, promotions taking you to very basic websites etc.

Another thing to look for is to ensure that the company in question is registered with a gambling commission. Certain conditions have to be met in order for a company to get a license and key to this is they have to demonstrate the ability to pay out in the event of a win. This means that if you do happen to have won on a draw, the company has to have the funding and ultimately, they have to pay out to you.

If there is one piece of advice that I would offer to anybody who is looking into lotto betting, it is to look out for any product or service that requests more of you than buying tickets. I say this with things like LottoSpring in mind which had a large multi level marketing aspect. In fact the lotto betting aspect of the service appeared to take a back seat to the multi level marketing. This meant paying an expensive monthly subscription and dedicating a lot of your time to recruitment rather than the core product.

Are There Other Lottery Scams?

There are more types of scams built around lotteries than I know what to do with, however there are a few ones that are worth exploring.

If at any point you receive a notification that you have been deemed a winner in a lottery, draw or competition that you don’t remember entering, somebody is trying to scam you. This kind of scam is very crude and involves you getting to pay a fee in order to release your prize, usually under the guise of an administration fee.

Of course, where big money is concerned people also start to get greedy. Just watch this lottery scam which I thought was quite amusing during my research for this article:

So What Are My Final Thoughts on Lotto Betting?

Personally, I don’t see why lotto betting exists as a concept. I understand that for a small minority of people, mostly large scale syndicates, it may work out easier or better. Truth be told though, the National Lottery website now allows you to run everything online which means that creating a syndicate is just as quick and easy through official channels.

Despite my opinions and thoughts, lotto betting companies continue to grow and for legitimate operations, I don’t think this is of any consequence. The problems come with the numbers of fraudulent services that use very similar marketing methods.

If I hold up my hands however, they may not be as common as they appear to me. After all, I spend a very fair amount of my time immersed in the world of making money online and as such, see more than the average person.

Once again, I do feel that I must reiterate if you are going to use a lotto betting site rather than an official lottery, make sure that this is all that they do. Anything that talks about other ways of making money or even talks about buying tickets for you is highly suspect and I would recommend avoiding them, for obvious reasons.

Are Lotteries a Viable Method of Gambling?

The odds of winning anything on a lottery is inherently very low. Using the Lotto (which has arguably the “best” odds of winning), even the odds of winning a free entry into another draw stand at 1 in 10. That means that for every £20 that you were to invest, mathematically, you would receive a free £2 go on next weeks lottery. The lowest cash prize is £25 however just 1 in 97 tickets wins this. This would mean investment of £194 and a loss of £169.

All of that having been said, there is the potential for a truly life altering amount of money and if you are lucky enough, it may well be you. I have always been of the mentality that when it comes to the lottery, you have to be in it to win it. Statistically, you will never win and over 30 years, playing £4.50 per week (a Lotto and a EuroMillions), you would have spent over £7,000.  That having been said, the actual amount spent is negligible.

So in answer to the question of the viability of lotteries, they are statistically a very bad bet. That having been said, your actual real world outlay is quite small, around the cost of a large coffee at most high street chains. It is a very personal decision to make and one that I don’t generally partake in, however I can also very easily see why people would.

Can You Improve Your Odds of Winning The Lottery?

I have looked at a few products before now that have explored this very question. The short answer is no, and whilst it is rather dry, I will explain why. None the less, you should be wary of anything that claims to be able to increase your chances of winning the lottery. Some of the methods that I have seen before now have ranged from looking for the most common numbers (presuming some kind of bias), avoiding sequences and not choosing numbers that have been drawn in the last month.

The thing about a random number generator is that it is entirely random, and that is what the machines that choose the balls are. If there were an algorithm or edge to be had, I feel like somebody would have spotted this by now. Honestly, a lot of products that claim to improve your odds are reliant on a gambler’s fallacy rather than any genuine pattern that has been discovered.

To answer the question of why the odds can’t be changed on a lottery draw, consider the following.

Let us presume that there are 49 balls and 6 numbers must be matched in order to “win”. Each ball has a 1 in 49 chance of being selected. The inherently random nature of lottery machines means that they should be fair and so this is a reasonable statement to make. The second ball has a 1 in 48 chance of being chosen, the third 1 in 47 and so on and so forth.

What this demonstrates is that each time a ball is selected, the probability resets on each subsequent turn. In the grand scheme of things, this means that 1,2,3,4,5,6 has as much chance as winning as 3,9,14,23, 31, 45 (1 in 13,983,816). But if someone were to tell you one of those numbers were the winning lottery numbers for next week, which sounds more likely?

Let’s see what somebody in the know thinks about the odds of winning the Lottery:

So there you have it. Your chances of winning the National lottery are:

1 in 45,000,000 (1 in 45 million)

Despite knowing that mathematically, both outcomes have the same chance, we favour those that look “right”. Any product that claims to help you to win on the lottery will only give you patterns that appear to have some truth to them.

The Lottery Compared to Other Methods of Gambling

The big difference between the lottery and other methods of gambling in my opinion are the numbers. Put simply, they are astronomical. A rank outsider in horse racing may have odds of 500/1 and unless there is something that you know that other people don’t, these odds will not often be taken up. Even when Leicester City won the Premier League their odds were 5000/1. The lottery is miles away from even this.

There is one simple reason that people prefer other methods of gambling too and that is because it is much easier to predict outcomes. The fact that lotteries are entirely random is one of the biggest factors in deciding whether or not they are a good investment. On the one hand, you genuinely have the same chance as anybody else of winning. On the other, you can gain an edge when looking at other gambling methods.

The traditional gambling approach, that is sports betting or horse racing is all about a more balanced approach. It is about winning some weeks and losing others and, it has to be said, investing significantly more capital than your average lottery player would. For example, the £7,000 figure I mentioned earlier in this article, some professional bettors will easily clear in a matter of months. Their wins will also not be as high as the lottery jackpot, but the important bit to focus on there is that there will be wins.

Conclusion on Using Lotteries

I’m actually settling down to write my conclusion on Saturday morning, post breakfast. The fact that I am doing so tells you that my few tickets were not lucky. I am fortunately just a fiver down though and as I have already said, I won’t miss it.

Lotteries are a difficult thing to judge from the position of somebody who wants to make money as they are a terrible idea on paper. But as has often been said, you have to be in it to win it.

This brings me onto the concept of luck. I don’t want to wax philosophical about luck and whether it is or isn’t a real thing. Honestly, I’m not really sure what I think (although we’ve all felt lucky some days more than others). If you subscribe to the concept of luck then seeing a lottery as a method of making money is something worthwhile. If you are a pure numbers man (which I tend to be), you won’t. Even if I do still throw caution to the wind and have the odd bet.

I think that the best way that I can possibly describe the in order to justify it being a part of any business strategy would be to see it as an incredibly high yielding and high risk investment that requires minimal capital. Put that way, it certainly sounds better however the reality doesn’t change.

Of course, joining a syndicate is one way of increasing your chances of winning however the odds remain astronomically against you. Even if your syndicate has 100 tickets, each with different numbers, your odds are still well outside the boundaries of what you will find in other methods of gambling. Furthermore, when in a syndicate the prizes are also watered down as well.

With all of this in mind, I maintain my stance that the lottery is not a viable method of gambling at all. I can however see the appeal.  I know that I have said this multiple times throughout this article, but for my money, the lottery is only worth entering if you don’t mind losing the money, and in fact, many people don’t.

Moving away from the concept of lotteries and onto lotto betting, this is a very curious niche. As I have said before now, I don’t really see the point in it when there are actual lotteries that you can enter, and yet there is a clear interest in the products and the concept. I can also see this sector growing as people become disillusioned with paying out as much as actual lotteries are charging.

The biggest concern for me in this regard is that consumers are going to end up worse off in the long run. Not because the business model is in any way illegitimate, but because there is so much room for illegitimate business to be founded on the model. I have already seen questionable multi level marketing operations (one of which has been examined in detail in the shape of LottoSpring.

There is also massive scope for out and out scamming people as the lotto betting model grows into the public conscience, something that at this point seems inevitable. It is clear from the odds that wins aren’t going to happen often and with this high profit business model, I can see people exploiting it for quick and easy cash.

All things considered, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with playing the lottery. I might doubt the rationale behind it but there is clear appeal. If there is one thing that I want people to take away from this article however, it isn’t so much whether or not you can make money through lotteries or not (although I am all for a debate on the subject).

My concern is that I can see this being an area in which there will be increased questionable activity. With this in mind, I feel like it is my duty to notify and inform with a view to helping people protect themselves in the long term.

The post Make Money from the Lottery, Lotto Betting and Avoiding Lottery Scams appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Should you register for VAT?, I get a lot of different questions about a lot of different topics. Most of the time, I have an answer but every now and then, I have to go out into the world and carry out some research because I just don’t know something that well.

I was recently asked by an acquaintance about VAT registration for a side venture that had been set up.

I always knew the basics of VAT. Being me however, I felt that I had to find out more about VAT registration, what the pros and cons are etc. To me, it always seemed like a no brainer. I know people who claim their VAT back on purchases and whatnot and they’re forever twisting things into business purchases and bragging about how easy it is.

I had always taken this for granted, simply because it wasn’t something that ever really affected me. Once I realised how little I knew it became like a loose thread for me, and well, here I am.

Over the course of this article I want to explore the pros and cons of being VAT registered. More importantly, I want to look at it in as much detail as possible. I have read a few articles whilst carrying out my research, but truthfully, most of them simply skim over things.

They also have a strong bias on account of them being written by different accountants and financial software companies. With this in mind, here are my findings.

Just on the basis of gathering real life information, I have gone to the lengths of actively speaking to a fair amount of business owners who are VAT registered, and those who are not, to gain some ‘real’ feeling on the subject, as I think you will see on the content below.

What is VAT?

In my personal opinion, and that of some business people I have spoken to, VAT is simply another taxation. Made up taxation where justification for such was simply built around it after the event.

Nobody likes taxes, especially business taxes where there is far more value being offered to society (in the main) than is given credit for.

Therefore, it has been said by quite of few of those I spoke to, that is is just another form of taxation, and that starting and running a business these days means that you are effectively taking 50% out of your coffers before costs and personal income.

It was broken down like this:

Let’s say your business turns over £100,000 a year, then you are immediately losing 20% of that in VAT (tax), and then another 20% of that taken in corporation tax (depending on which side of the bed the Chancellor gets out of on budget day, give or take a few %’s).

Then you are paying employee’s National Insurance contributions, and now their pension contributions, etc.  – give or take what you can claim back and it is said that approximately 50% of your profits are wiped out before you even begin to look at product costs, etc.

Then after all this taxation, when you look to pay yourself some dividends out of what is left, now you are met with at least another 7.5% dividend tax which is placed on top of the rather large heap of other taxes you have have paid to the treasury.

Is it little wonder that businesses really don’t like such taxes, after all the hard work they put into building their businesses? and then having to hand over 50% of their profits to pure taxation, and government interference which then go to fund spurious mandates that hold endless wastage.

Anyway, back to the facts and my VAT findings:

The first place that my search led me to is what VAT actually is. Sure, we all know that VAT is charged at 20% (at the time of writing) on top of purchase prices.

Here in the UK, VAT is also typically factored into purchases meaning that £2 in £10 that you spend on VAT applicable items  ultimately goes back to the Government of the day.

All of the above is pretty straight forward, but I hadn’t considered VAT outside of this context. For example, a company, in charging VAT essentially acts as a tax collection agency on behalf of HM Revenue and Customs.

This almost sounds ludicrous but because of how VAT is handled by companies, this is what they do (I will go into this in much greater detail below so don’t worry if you’re a bit lost. This is a surprisingly deep subject).

So deep in fact, that the varying opinions from businessman that are VAT registered may surprise you. In my research I have found that many business people have a lot to say about the subject, and most of it is from the stance of VAT being a punitive, enforced tax on businesses – especially when the customer is non-commercial, but a retail buyer.

Investopedia wisely summarises VAT as a type of consumption tax which is “placed on a product whenever value is added at a stage of production and at final sale”. This means that as a consumer, you don’t just pay VAT when you buy a completed product.

Each component purchased by a company may have had VAT applied, and the producer of the component may have payed VAT on raw materials and so on and so forth. This isn’t necessarily the most pertinent information, but I found it to be interesting and it does help to create some context later on.

The following link explains how to actually register for VAT (read this review first though!):

https://www.gov.uk/vat-registration/how-to-register

As a company, you naturally have to pay any VAT that you have collected as well as reclaim any VAT that you have paid on business expenses. This typically happens on a quarterly basis.

Whilst there are some exceptions, these are more unusual examples and apply to companies with a turnover of £1.35 million plus. They also seem to be better equipped for big businesses rather than smaller ones.

Does My Business Have To Be VAT Registered?

The short answer to this is that it depends on how much money your company makes. The criteria set by the Government in the UK is as follows:

You must register for VAT if:

• Your VAT taxable turnover is more than £85,000 (the ‘threshold’) in a 12 month period.
• You expect to go over the threshold in a single 30 day period.]

There are also some addendums to this as well.

• You’ll also need to register if you only sell goods or services that are exempt from VAT or ‘out of scope’ but you buy goods for more than £85,000 from EU VAT-registered suppliers to use in your business.
• You may have to register for VAT if you take over a business that’s already registered.

I would like to make a point of clarification at this point. The £85,000 that is referred to is your turnover. This means that even if your business is only making £1 profit per annum, if your takings are £85,000 or above then you must be VAT registered.

Furthermore, this number applies only at the time of writing and is subject to change in the future.

Outside of this, being VAT registered is an entirely optional thing. This is where it makes sense to introduce the pros and cons of being VAT registered. There are certainly some strong arguments to be had both for and against voluntary VAT registration.

What Are the Pros of Being VAT Registered

Most of the sources that I have looked at have do nothing but sing the praises of being VAT registered. Honestly, I can see why this would be the default view. If you are a large company, there only appears to be benefits to being VAT registered.

Given that this article is generally geared towards those who have a choice (and as such, are likely to have smaller companies), this will be my focus.

One of the first things that stands out as a benefit for smaller companies considering voluntary VAT registration is that it can boost the profile of your business. When engaging in business, anybody worth their salt will know what the VAT threshold is.

Where this can be used for your benefit is that if you have a VAT number, it creates the appearance that your company has a minimal turnover of £85,000 per year. Given that some businesses may be wary of dealing with significantly smaller companies, seeming bigger than you are can be a huge boon.

This also brings me onto my second point which is ease of business. Based off my research I have seen anecdotal evidence of companies being much less receptive to none VAT registered companies.

Truthfully, this doesn’t seem to be too big an issue in this day and age, however it is something to keep in mind. Irrespective of whether companies will or won’t deal with you, having a VAT number does make the whole transaction process easier for everybody involved.

Having mentioned the VAT number, it is probably worth taking a little bit of time to talk about this. A VAT registration number allows you to be identifiable as a VAT registered business. By having this displayed on your website, stationary and correspondence, it all adds to sense of a big business.

It is also something of a professional courtesy that allows anybody doing business with you to understand that they’re not dealing with “cowboys”.

These are ‘some’ positives however I doubt that they are why you are reading this article. The main reasons for voluntary VAT registration are of course financial. This mostly comes in the form of reclaiming VAT on applicable business purchases.

How To Reclaim VAT

Gov.uk says that you can usually reclaim the VAT paid on goods and services purchased for use in your business. You can also partially reclaim VAT on any purchases that are for personal and private use. This split is typically based around how much you will use a purchase for personal, and how much you will use a purchase for business use.

As an example, I will imagine that I am a VAT registered company owner and I have just purchased a new laptop for myself. 75% of the time, I know that I will be using my laptop for business related services.

This means writing reports, composing business related emails etc. The other 25% of the time, I will be using it at home to browse Facebook, play a bit of online poker and watch Netflix. I can reclaim 75% of the VAT that I paid on the laptop.

What this means in pounds and pence terms can be very attractive. If I had spent £1,000 on my new laptop, then £200 of that would be VAT. Of that £200, I could claim back 75% (the business usage) which means that I could reclaim £150 (staggered over a period of time…!).

This means that my £1,000 laptop has effectively cost me £850 because I will use it for business purposes.

The following link will advise on what can be reclaimed on the VAT, and what cannot:

https://www.gov.uk/reclaim-vat/what-you-can-and-cant-reclaim

This is only one aspect of what you can reclaim however. If you have a mobile phone on contract that is purely for business use, you can reclaim 20% of the purchase cost as well as the cost of the plan.

On a £50 per month contract, this means reclaiming £120 over the course of a year. If you work from home and your home office takes up 10% of the floor space of your house, you can reclaim 10% of the VAT back on your utilities.

Unfortunately, there are some exceptions to this and I would strongly advise that you research what you can and can’t reclaim before rushing into a purchase. Especially if it is on the grounds that you will get some money back on it.

A prime example of this is the fact that you cannot recover VAT on a car for partial business use. If you can prove that a car will be used solely for business use, then you can attempt to reclaim the VAT.

Reclaiming VAT Expenses

The savings that you can make through reclaiming VAT are not necessarily massive amounts on their own. 10% of the VAT on your utility bills might only work out at 2% overall, but this is money that you can essentially claim back “for nothing”.

Really, the numbers only start to come together when you start to factor in all of the day to day costs of running a business.

It is also worth noting that you can reclaim costs staff travel for business trips. This means that if any of the following travel, you can reclaim VAT on travel expenses including meals and accommodation:

• Someone directly employed by you, i.e. not through an agency.
• Directors, partners, any other managers.
• Helpers or stewards who help run events.

There are however different rules when it comes to reclaiming VAT on fuel. Presuming you don’t pay a fixed rate of VAT under the Flat Rate Scheme (something that I will get to soon), then there are 2 main ways of reclaiming (or not reclaiming, as the case may be) VAT on fuel. These are as follows:

• You can reclaim all the VAT that you pay on fuel and pay a fuel scale charge for your vehicle.
• You may choose not to reclaim any VAT if your mileage is so low that the fuel scale charge would be higher than the VAT you can reclaim.

Having mentioned the fuel scale charge, I should now take a look at what this entails. If you drive a car and choose to claim back all VAT on fuel, then you have to pay a fixed fee which depends on the type of vehicle you drive and how you choose to pay.

For example, a BMW 320d would mean paying £65 per month, £197 per quarter or £792 for the year between May 2016 and April 2017 (the last financial year).

Essentially, the fuel scale charge is a “fair” charge that the Government levy to cover any VAT that you recover on your fuel costs that may have been used for personal use. I promise, it is simpler than it sounds.

Basically, if you owned a BMW 320d (as used in the example), you would pay £792 per year on top of your VAT. In return, you can claim VAT on all of your fuel purchases.

Using the above example and diesel prices of £1.20 per litre, we can see that you would be reclaiming 24p on each litre of fuel. Over the course of a year, this would mean that you would have to purchase 3,300 litres of fuel in order to benefit from paying the Fuel Scale Charge.

This is a big part of the reason that some smaller businesses find it easier to simply pay VAT on fuel.

Reclaiming Historic VAT

When you become VAT registered you are also able to claim back some of your historic VAT payments. Whilst there is a time limit in place, you can claim for goods up to 4 years old that you either still have, or that were used to make goods that you still have.

There is also a 6 month limit on services provided.

It is worth keeping in mind that when it comes to reclaiming historic VAT, it must be related to your “business purpose”. What this means is that any historic VAT that you try to claim must relate to VAT taxable goods or services that you currently supply.

It should go without saying that you will have to provide invoices, receipts and other evidence to back all of this up.

What Are the Cons of Being VAT Registered?

I think that one of the most obvious cons that I have found when researching this topic is that VAT can become a complicated beast. For some people, the amount that they will ultimately be able to reclaim simply isn’t worth the paperwork involved. Especially if you are a one man operation and don’t have an accountant in place.

Ultimately, I think that this comes down to how much you value your time. If 8 hours of paperwork is going to allow you to reclaim £500, then it is a bit of a no brainer. If however you can only reclaim £80, you may find something better to do with your time. Like I have said, this is really a bit of a personal preference situation.

The laws and rules regarding bookkeeping and administration when you are VAT registered are also somewhat more specialised. Because you are essentially collecting money on behalf of HMRC, everything has to be done in a very specific way.

With a decent accountant and you keeping detailed and correct records, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. It does however come once more back to the time you have to invest and whether or not this balance works out right for you.

One of the bigger problems associated with being VAT registered is that with small companies/businesses, it can cause cashflow problems. You have to pay any VAT that you have collected on a quarterly basis. If you are unprepared, this can catch you short, especially if you have generated more VAT from goods and services than you have paid to other businesses.

On top of this, there can be fines and penalties if your submissions are late and incorrect. Naturally, these aren’t cheap and  furthermore, they can quickly build up if you are late with payments etc.

Like a lot of the downsides of being VAT registered, this is something that can be easily eradicated with a decent accountant but if your business is new, this will prove a costly option.

All of this can be done manually, but we are back at square one with the volume of paperwork and how much you value your time.

VAT Flat Rate Scheme – Now Rendered Useless

Generally speaking, the amount of VAT that your business will pay (or claim back) is the difference between the VAT that you have charged customers and the VAT that you have paid on your own business purchases. There is however a scheme that some small businesses can take advantage of that can simplify the process.

The following is the eligibility for joining the flat rate scheme:

https://www.gov.uk/vat-flat-rate-scheme/eligibility

With the VAT Flat Rate Scheme, as the name well suggests, you simply pay a flat rate to HMRC and in return, you keep the difference between what you charge your customers and what you pay to HMRC. This sounds rather complicated but actually, it is rather straight forward.

Depending on what industry your business is in, you pay an agreed rate of VAT and get to keep the difference between that and the 20% that your customers should be charged. For example, if your business involves retailing vehicles or fuel, you will pay 6.5% VAT and get to keep the other 13.5% that you charge your customers.

This is however only eligible for businesses to join who have an expected taxable turnover of less than £150,000 in the next 12 months. If your turnover is expected to be, or was more than £230,000 (including VAT) then you must leave this scheme.

The Flat Rate VAT system changed in April 2017

Yes, everything changed for flat rate VAT in April 2017, which means that unless you purchase 2% of tangible goods per quarter (this cannot include services, and the ‘allowable’ goods you are allowed to purchase using this filter are extremely limited) then your flat rate VAT charge will be 16.5%

Since the changes to the flat rate VAT scheme, it is now being talked about as the ‘end of an era’ for businesses who enjoyed the previous benefits. A great write up can be found here:

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tax/business-tax/vat-flat-rate-scheme-end-of-an-era

Bascially, what HMRC are trying to do is ‘force’ everybody onto the 20% rate, because if you are flat rate and go for the 16.5% it means that you cannot reclaim any VAT on your outputs, and this together with only saving 3.5% (compared to the standard 20%) means it probably will not be worth your while anyway, and may as well be on the full rate and be able to reclaim all your VAT expenses.

HMRC are targeting low cost traders, internet types that have very little costs, and literally forcing them to pay the full VAT rate, rendering the flat rate scheme almost useless.

Should You Avoid VAT Registration?

Personally, unless you are running the type of business where you can easily add VAT to your existing prices, making no odds to the receiving party (another VAT registered business), then I would personally advise against registering for VAT for as long as is humanly possible.

The reasons are simple. VAT is effectively a stealth tax, packaged in a way that HMRC offer it as ‘being professional’. They even have courses about it where they try to convince you that it is a ‘genuine’ business expense.

Why you should avoid VAT registration if your customers are not VAT registered also.

Consider the following:

Let’s say you are selling on eBay, or have a website selling a product, or even a service on the high street where you are competing with other rivals.

You sell a washing machine repair service in your local area. You advertise in your local papers to drum up trade, and are doing rather well. So much so that you are now approaching the VAT threshold, where you are ‘forced’ to register – under current HMRC rules. Not such a problem you might think.

• You duly register with HMRC, and receive your freshly printed VAT registration certificate.
• You add 20% onto your prices to cover your VAT liability, and continue running your business.

All of a sudden you start realising that you are not getting as many phone calls as you normally do, and you find that you are spending more and more time in your shop instead of actually out on the road fixing people’s washing machines.

You now start scratching your head as to what the reason could be for this lack of new business.

What changed now that you are VAT registered?

It is quite simple, all your competitors that are not VAT registered can now easily undercut your pricing….

Eh?….that’s not right?! Yup, because you are now VAT registered and have increased your prices accordingly, all the other washing machine repair businesses who are not VAT registered can now keep their prices the same, whereas you have to increase your prices by 20%.

Think about it logically. Who would you choose as a customer? A cheaper provider/serviceman, or one who is now 20% more expensive than some of the others.

You have now been penalised by HMRC for being successful – Great eh 

What can you do to solve this?

Not a great deal. You either do the following, and keep inline with your obligations:

• Add the 20% to your prices
• Absorb the 20% and take the hit on your profits

Not exactly fair is it? Your competition can now easily undercut your prices and there is not a single thing you can do about it.

VAT registration and eBay Chinese Sellers

This exact same scenario is being carried out on eBay multiple times a day. Especially now that many Chinese companies who advertise themselves as UK based are in fact operating from China, and bypass the VAT.

This is crippling UK sellers for the exact same reasons as I outlined with the washing machine example.

Read this report on the Guardian Newspaper which highlights the story:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/28/amazon-ebay-sellers-vat-fraud-ipads-tax-free

It is not just a problem with overseas sellers. The simple fact is that many UK businesses are now actively choosing to stay VAT free, by stopping trading once they hit the threshold.

Meaning, that if you yourself sell a similar line of goods and are registered for VAT, they can easily undercut you, and your sales will drop.

Chinese eBay sellers VAT avoidance techniques:

Many sellers from China actively advertise themselves as UK based, but products are sent from overseas marked as gifts, etc.

VAT is also being applied to invoices from eBay, with sellers being forced to pay them whether they are VAT registered or not:

https://www.ft.com/content/805baf76-3710-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e

The above is also for personal items, like your old games console that you just wanted to make a few quid from by selling on eBay.

Put simply, for sellers on eBay, that unless you are selling unique items, or personalised products that are not easy to compete with, then once you hit the VAT threshold, your competition is going to have the upper hand, all courtesy of your friendly HMRC.

HMRC are, and have been clamping down on seller VAT ‘avoiders’ for many years,  but are now actively ramping up their activities.

What Can You Do To Avoid VAT?

Of course you can avoid VAT by not going over the threshold of £85,000 (2017 year), and restricting your sales accordingly. Many people do this –  as ludicrous as it sounds.

It really is crazy when you think about it; having to restrict your sales, or your profits are going to reduce anyway once you register, and then you are fighting for more sales just to basically stand still.

Many businesses, and products don’t even make a 20% margin on their bottom line, and thus have no option but to increase their prices to try and make a profit, which immediately puts them at a large disadvantage from their competitors.

Of course, as I mentioned above, if your customers are VAT registered (other VAT registered businesses) then it does not matter, because you would simply add the 20% to the invoice and they claim it back, but for a retail customer base it is not so easy to do this, for all the reasons outlined above.

If you are then reaching the VAT threshold, and are in a business that has a retail customer base, with competition, then you have a serious decision to make.

You either stop trading once you have hit the threshold, making accurate calculations that you can trade again at a certain point in the future (remembering that VAT is a 12 month period of threshold calculation  – not just in the current financial year), or you decide to register for VAT and take the risk.

If you feel that you can increase your sales volume moving forward sufficiently enough to warrant the 20% loss in profits, and increase sales enough to make additional profit, then the decision is already made for you.

Not many are in that position with a small business though, and it is now crippling many, many businesses who are either forced to register for VAT, and have to stop trading completely untill their sales are back under the VAT threshold.

Conclusion on Registering for VAT

It is not straight forward. As previously mentioned, if you are in a B2B (business to business) environment, then you can simply add the VAT ‘hit’ to your clients, who generally have no problem with this as they claim it back anyway.

If you are an eBay seller, own a website, or even a high street business with competition from other businesses that are not themselves VAT registered then you can have an issue, because you will be immediately undercut on prices = lost sales and revenue.

The current VAT system certainly hides any advantages very well,  whilst at the same time penalising many small businesses, and it is all packaged up as a legitimate way of doing business. HMRC even give ‘courses’ on it these days, as if they are somehow doing you a ‘favour’.

“Gee… Thanks for the extra tax/loss of profits, and for the free course to make it easier for me to hand it over to you…”

Basically it sucks, so my advice, and the majority of those business people I spoke to would be to be careful when approaching that VAT threshold and think VERY carefully about your next steps.

VAT is simply a stealth tax for many small businesses, and you simply do not make money by being VAT registered, you will never be able to claim back more than you pay over the long term, but it is a legal obligation, so you need to decide on what is best you your business – speak to your accountant also.

Above all, do your research and think carefully!

Related Content

Is Gambling Tax Free In The UK, and Do You Have To Declare Winnings?

The post How to Register for VAT, Should You Avoid VAT, and Why? The Pitfalls. appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

The Affluence System has launched. If there is one name more than any other that will likely go down in the proverbial annals of betting history, it is Mike Cruickshank. This is a man who popularised a new concept in betting which has gone on to make a lot of people a lot of money.

Following on from a number of successful products before now, Mike Cruickshank has set out to create what may well be the single most comprehensive matched betting product on the market today.

The Affluence stystem has been added to the already successful Accumulator Generator product that this very website reviewed a while back.

£6 Profit For Every £25 Bet Placed

New releases from Mike Cruickshank aren’t a common occurrence and so I was excited to see how The Affluence System would play out, and that is exactly what I have done.

I know that others have rushed out a few pages of content relating to The Affluence System before now (more likely than not to bring in traffic), but I really wanted to see if this latest effort was as sustainable as previous products. Especially given that I do think that the matched betting bubble will eventually burst.

Sitting down to write this now, you probably won’t be surprised to hear me say that The Affluence System is every bit as quality as you would expect.

Mike Cruickshank has proven time and again that he can deliver results and this latest offering (addition) doesn’t break this cycle. I don’t want to get too much into the nitty gritty of The Affluence System here, but this may be one of the best betting products currently on the market.

Here’s a Video of Mike Cruickshank Explaining How The Affluence System Works:

Product Name: The Affluence System (additional to Accumulator Generator)

What you get: This additional system has now been added to the Accumulator Generator membership.

The price: 14 Day trial for just £1

Where to Buy: Click The Link:   Project Prosperity Affluence System

What is The Affluence System?

There is so much on offer here that I genuinely don’t know where to start, but I will try with an overview of the product. The Affluence System is something new that Mike Cruickshank has added for existing members of Accumulator Generator, although you can now try this for yourself – for just £1.

As is so often the case when dealing with Mike, The Affluence System puts a focus on very low risk betting methods with a view to building a betting bank which you then put to work for the profit.

Basically, if you already have Accumulator Generator, then great, you know how good it is. If you don’t and are now interested in this new Affluence system, then it is now part of the same package, which was recently added by Mike for free to his members.

One point though, Mike has put a time limit on this new system being included, so you will need to act with some urgency before the offer expires.

So What do You Get With The Affluence System?

You gain access to a new system that Mike has added. If you are already an accumulator generator customer, then this will already be in your members area, although new members can now gain access to this new addition, which can also be used even if your bookmaker accounts are limited!

How Does All of The Affluence System Work?

I think the video above explains this better, as Mike goes through the whole process on how you can make £6 profit for every £25 you place as a bet.

A big bonus on this though, is that Mike has also made sure that those who already have limited sportsbook accounts can STILL make profits this way, using bookmaker accas.

How Much is The Affluence System?

If there is one thing that I can’t sugar coat, it is the price of The Affluence System. Mike Cruickshank is definitely asking a lot at first glance, however the initial figure isn’t as overwhelming as it initially seems.

For More details, and to start the £1 for a 14 Trial for this mammoth package – Click Here

There is an initial up front payment of £97 plus VAT in order to gain access to The Affluence System/Accumulator Generator.

Having had experience with matched betting I can comfortably say that after paying your up front costs, making the £97 payment more than plausible. This means that really, you are paying £97 to sign up, and so long as you follow The Affluence System, the service will pay for itself in many regards.

On top of this, Mike Cruickshank says that if you do purchase The Affluence System and find that it isn’t for you, you have a 30 day window in which you can claim a refund.

Alternatively, you look at how much money you can save compared to subscription fees which amounts to a rather substantial fee as well.

How Much Can I Make With The Affluence System?

Again, the video on this page will explain the profit potential that Mike estimates. With the aim being to grow a £500 betting bank into £500 initially, so that you can actually start taking an income from the system/s.

Accumulator Generator did extremely well for our readers when it launched, so with the addition of the Affluence System, the profit potentil is now even higher.

Conclusion on Mike’s Affluence System

The bottom line is, that the original Accumulator Generator did great, and continues to make profits for Mike’s members, and what Mike has actually done, is to make the package far more attractive with the additon of the Affluence system.

Also, as Mike is obviously aware that a certain amount of bettors will have their accounts limited at some stage (after making some very nice profits), then he has used his knowledge and expertise to figure out a way around this, and this alone has to be enticing to all the matched bettors out there.

Final Thoughts From Me

It’s Mike Cruickshank

What he provides simply makes money, so if you have not already got Accumulator Generator, then now the new Affluence system has been added, this surely has to make it a winning combination.

Plus, we are BIG fans of Mike Cruickshank and his products! Basically you getting the whole package, and the new additional for just a quid’s trial quid

For More details, and to start the £1 for a 14 Trial for this mammoth package – Click Here

The above link expires soon, so if you are interested in this, take a look today would be my advice.

Related Content:

Mike Cruickshank Matched Betting Software Review. Mike’s Latest Product Can Save You a Lot of Time

Accumulator Generator Review From Mike Cruickshank

Profit Maximiser Review Mike Cruickshank – Plus Special Bonus

The post The Affluence System Review, a Mike Cruickshank Product appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Looking for Betting Mastermind? I would be surprised if you have not already heard of it, because basically Mike Cruickshank has packaged up every product he has, and is offering it on a plate to those who are serious about matched betting and making profits from a variety of different avenues.

New releases from Mike Cruickshank aren’t a common occurrence and so I was excited to see how Betting Mastermind would play out, and that is exactly what I have done.

I know that others have rushed out a few pages of content relating to Betting Mastermind before now (more likely than not to bring in traffic), but I really wanted to see if this latest effort was as sustainable as previous products. Especially given that I do think that the matched betting bubble will eventually burst.

Sitting down to write this now, you probably won’t be surprised to hear me say that Betting Mastermind is every bit as quality as you would expect.

Mike Cruickshank has proven time and again that he can deliver results and this latest offering doesn’t break this cycle. I don’t want to get too much into the nitty gritty of Betting Mastermind here, but this may be one of the best betting products currently on the market.

Here’s a Video of Mike Cruickshank Explaining How Betting Mastermind Works:

Let’s Start The Review.

Product Name: Betting Mastermind

What you get: See content below (too much to put here!)

The price: £97 + Vat

Money Back Guarantee: 30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Author: Mike Cruickshank

Where to Buy: Click The Link: Try-Betting-Mastermind

What is Betting Mastermind?

There is so much on offer here that I genuinely don’t know where to start, but I will try with an overview of the product. Betting Mastermind brings together a large number of existing and new tools and strategies that Mike Cruickshank has offered before.

As is so often the case when dealing with Mike, Betting Mastermind puts a focus on very low risk betting methods with a view to building a betting bank which you then put to work for the profit.

A Little Bit of History of Mike Cruickshank

When Mike Cruickshank first sat down to create his first Bonus Bagging product, I don’t think that he could have anticipated just how large an online empire he was going to build.

None the less, this is exactly what has happened. When the creator of this online operation says that: “Nobody has EVER offered a betting system nearly this powerful before!”, then you have to pay some attention.

Of course, I am writing this as somebody who is very familiar with Mike Cruickshank and his previous works. In order to understand why any new release is a big deal, we do have to delve into the history of Betting Mastermind a little.

I should take the time to point out that any of the products that I mention here will be explored in detail a little later on in this article, as such, if you still feel out of your depth, don’t worry too much.

Mike Cruickshank made his name by launching what I believe was the first major matched betting product onto the market. Matched betting involves using free bets from bookmakers, as well as laying bets, to make a profit with no risk.

This was revolutionary when it launched and there have been a number of imitators in recent time putting out similar products.

In order to really understand just how profitable matched betting can be, Mike Cruickshank and his followers supposedly took SkyBet for over £1 million in 24 hours due to a loophole on one of their offers.

Some people would have been happy with this success however Mike Cruickshank isn’t one of them. This is probably or the best as without his tenacity, I wouldn’t be writing about Betting Mastermind now.

There have been a number of products since those relatively humble early days which have continued in the vein of the initial principles of Bonus Bagging. What this means in real terms is that all of his products (and by proxy, Betting Mastermind) retain that low risk approach to “betting”.

In many cases, there is absolutely no risk at all.

So What do You Get With Betting Mastermind?

In terms of what this betting system entails, there is a lot of ground to cover. Put very basically however, Betting Mastermind takes a number of different products from Mike Cruickshank and compiles them into one big one.

This combination of tools and betting strategies are ultimately designed to produce a rather substantial profit and boy are they capable of delivering.

There are 11 different products and tools that ultimately make up Betting Mastermind.

Here is what Mike states on the website:

OK, so now you know what Mike states, let’s go into some detail about exactly what the complete Betting Mastermind package includes, and what you can gain from it.

There is definitely some overlap between some of them, however each of these has at some point existed as either a stand alone strategy or as an upgrade to something existing. With that in mind, I want to take some time to look at each of these tools and what they can do for you.

1. Bonus Bagging – This is the first product that Mike Cruickshank launched and it is the one that catapulted him to the fame that he now enjoys. As such, it is no surprise that this is where Betting Mastermind decides to start users off. Bonus Bagging provides you with bets for 30 different bookmaker “new account” offers. This is a brilliant starting point as it allows you to immediately build a decent sized betting bank.
2. Profit Maximiser – If Bonus Bagging sets you up, then Profit Maximiser is what takes you to the next level. In many respects, this is the centre of Mike Cruickshank’s online products and it is by far and away the one that most people have enjoyed success with. When you buy into Betting Mastermind, you receive full access to the Profit Maximise membership site, video tutorials and access to a member’s only forum. Having explored Profit Maximiser before, I can say that all of these are invaluable tools in and of themselves. Finally, you will receive all of the latest bonus offers directly to your email complete with instructions on how they actually work.
3. Matched Betting Software – This is a really neat and straight forward piece of software which will allow users to take control of their betting experience. Featuring bets across a number of sports, everything is simply laid out detailing the outcome, market, odds to back and lay at and even the bookmakers and betting exchanges that you should use. If all of this sound complicated, as is the case with almost anything from Mike Cruickshank, there is plenty of support available.
4. Each Way Sniper – Each Way Sniper was a product that was launched by Mike Cruickshank in order to help users to find a more consistent strategy to make money. Using Extra Place Races, Betting Mastermind isn’t reliant on bookmaker offers or bonuses in order to generate a profit. This adds a lot of flexibility to the Betting Mastermind arsenal.
5. Accumulator Generator – This is one of the more recent offerings from Mike Cruickshank and it was a very good product then and remains so now. As is the case with Each Way Sniper, Accumulator Generator is another attempt to move away from being overly reliant on bookmaker offers. This involves placing a number of different bets and lay bets at advised odds. As is the case with most of the tools included with Betting Mastermind, the bets etc. are all detailed for you.
6. EV Maxmiser – This is a rather unique product within the Betting Mastermind stable. It doesn’t look at traditional betting methods and as such, there is perhaps a little more risk involved than there is with other Mike Cruickshank products. EV Maximiser focuses on using casino bonus offers and how to extract the best possible value from them. There is definitely a lot of potential to make money here, however by the same token, there is more risk inherent.
7. Betfair Sniper – For those who find dealing with bookies tedious, Betfair Sniper may well be up your street. It is a Betfair system that only uses exchanges. This is a simple strategy which is explained in full by Mike Cruickshank. You are essentially looking at value in the markets whilst Mike Cruickshank will show you how and when to enter a trade. You will also be shown how to leave it to trade out for an equal profit, regardless of the ultimate race winner.
8. Betfair Renegade – This is a rather helpful tool which allows you to make money from football markets on Betfair. Without going too much into the details of how it does things, Betfair Renegade shows you the correct Betfair odds for match odds on the correct score and over/under markets. This is a “bet and forget” system which means that there is no need to trade out in game etc.
9. Bookie Blowout – Mike Cruickshank refers to this as his “idiot-proof” system for beating the bookies at their own game. This is again a straight forward service where you are advised of bets directly to your email. You receive information on stakes and odds, and all you have to do is place the bets advised.
10. Betfair 1% Club System – A rather interesting offering from Mike Cruickshank this one. It is a Betfair trading system that targets making 1-2% of your betting bank in profit on a single trade. As is something of a trademark of Mike Cruickshank, this is all done with the least possible risk. The Betfair 1% Club System is a decent little earner that can be run, even when you’re on the go.
11. Project Prosperity Training System – In many ways, this is crucial to Betting Mastermind as a project. It is a 5 step training system in which Mike Cruickshank shows you how to maximise your profits as well as how to get results in an hour or less per day. The Project Prosperity Training System is a fantastic feature as it allows you to make the most of your money, but more importantly, help manage your finances.

Full details on Betting Mastermind – Click Here

Before now I have seen people start out with matched betting and the like and they have ended up losing out because they have started to get silly with their money.

Whilst the Project Prosperity Training System doesn’t tell you how to spend or when to withdraw, it does help you to ensure that you have enough to bankroll the next stage of your betting experience.

And with that, we’re done looking at the bulk of Betting Mastermind. It is certainly a hell of a lot of content that is being offered in one package.

Even though I have looked at several of these products individually before now in much greater detail, I also feel that it is important to review their purpose here so that you can really start to see what Mike Cruickshank is setting out to do with Betting Mastermind.

Betting Mastermind is probably the single most comprehensive and powerful betting tool that I have seen for a considerable amount of time. The beauty of this as far as I’m concerned isn’t just the product, but who has worked on it.

I think that it is fair to say that Mike Cruickshank is probably one of the most trusted names when it comes to making money through betting. This is no small feat and it adds weight to Betting Mastermind that simply wouldn’t be there if this came through the typical crappy affiliate channels.

How Does All of Betting Mastermind Work?

Put bluntly, Betting Mastermind works by bringing together all of the different products that Mike Cruickshank has ever released. Each of these uses a different strategy and approach to betting in order to make profit. Whilst each of these is very much proven, by bringing them all together there is the potential to make massive amounts of profit here.

For those who are a fan of somewhat obscure 80’s references, Betting Mastermind is a little bit like Voltron.

The truth is that Betting Mastermind has a clear starting point, and with the Project Prosperity Training System, you can start to build your profits. What I like about this path is that unlike some betting systems which leave you an instructional manual and no implementation strategy, Betting Mastermind really holds your hand as much as you need it.

Perhaps the best way that I can describe how Betting Mastermind works is to imagine a huge machine comprised of lots of different gears. Each of these can turn on their own, but it is only when they are all turning together will the machine run. Likewise, each product makes money on its own, but together, they are greater than the sum of their individual parts.

How Much is Betting Mastermind?

If there is one thing that I can’t sugar coat, it is the price of Betting Mastermind. Mike Cruickshank is definitely asking a lot at first glance, however the initial figure isn’t as overwhelming as it initially seems.

There is an initial up front payment of £97 plus VAT in order to gain access to Betting Mastermind. After this, there are 3 monthly payments of £197 plus VAT. This sounds like a hell of a lot of money, however this pricing structure is much fairer than it seems.

Having had experience with matched betting I can comfortably say that after paying your up front costs, making the £197 per month is more than plausible. This means that really, you are paying £97 to sign up, and so long as you follow Betting Mastermind, the service will pay for itself in many regards.

On top of this, Mike Cruickshank says that if you do purchase Betting Mastermind and find that it isn’t for you, you have a 30 day window in which you can claim a refund.

I also believe that it is worthwhile discussing how much you save buying into Betting Mastermind in this format rather than buying each product individually. Mike Cruickshank says that if you were to buy each of the 9 none subscription services, you would pay £203.86 more than you would for Betting Mastermind.

Alternatively, you look at how much money you can save compared to subscription fees which amounts to a rather substantial fee as well.

How Much Can I Make With Betting Mastermind?

The income potential with Betting Mastermind across the board is hugely dependent on how much you are willing to initially invest. What I can say is that matched betting on its own is a massively lucrative opportunity where a lot of people have made a lot of money.

Combined with the other different strategies, I feel quite comfortable in saying that the income potential of Betting Mastermind is definitely on the substantial side.

For those who are looking for a more concise idea of how much you can expect to earn, you don’t have to look much further than Mike Cruickshank’s own testimonials.

Here there are plenty of people talking about the windfalls that they have enjoyed. Naturally there is a pretty large range in terms of figures, but you will very rarely see anybody making less than at least a £1,000 profit.

A number have gone on to make five figure incomes. It is interesting to note that these have been made using just one or two of the different aspects that ultimately make up Betting Mastermind.

So, Does Betting Mastermind Represent Value for Money?

In order to look at whether or not Betting Mastermind represents value for money, you need to put serious consideration into how serious you are about making money online. If you are willing to work hard and invest time and effort, then I definitely feel that Betting Mastermind represents value for money.

It is probably one of the more comprehensive betting profits on the market. If on the other hand you don’t have a reasonable income to play with, then you might be better starting off smaller than Betting Mastermind.

Conclusion on Mike’s Betting Mastermind

Whilst I think that Betting Mastermind is a fantastic product, I do believe that to say that Mike Cruickshank has done it again is a bit of an overstatement. Truthfully, what he has done is simply the same thing that he has always done before.

This doesn’t mean that Betting Mastermind isn’t good quality however. In fact, I would be inclined to say that it is pretty far from it. Mike Cruickshank has arguably put together the single most complete betting product on the market.

Each one of Mike Cruickshank’s products that I have looked at has delivered to at least some degree. With Betting Mastermind bringing all of these together, there are some very clear positive indicators.

The fact that there is always a focus on low risk betting is something that really helps Betting Mastermind to stand out from a lot of the so called competition, and I say that knowing that there isn’t really a lot that is really in the same ball park as Betting Mastermind.

I have tried to identify flaws with Betting Mastermind, but this has been a difficult thing to do. This is a quality product and it shows in almost every facet of the final product. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t things to be criticised however.

The cost involved, whilst justifiable, is still sizable to say the least. In fact, the last product that I looked at that came close to costing what Mike Cruickshank is asking for Betting Mastermind was one of Tim Lowe’s products.

What is interesting about both of these however is that you are talking about people who have a consistent track record in their chosen fields. Yes, The Betting Mastermind is expensive, but I genuinely believe that the service will pay for itself many times over.

I also think that there is a lot to process and even with Mike Cruickshank’s guidance, Betting Mastermind is a little bit overwhelming.

Once again, this is counteracted by the Project Prosperity training which does a good job of walking you through things. That having been said, there are a lot of different betting products involved with Betting Mastermind and some of these I have known even experienced bettors struggle with a bit.

Ultimately, the question of Betting Mastermind boils down to how badly you want it. As I have said before now, if you are serious about making money through online betting then I don’t think that there are many better options. There aren’t however many options that are more expensive however either.

Final Thoughts From Me

Betting Mastermind is a fantastic collection of best selling income generating services all brought together in one placet. Unfortunately, I don’t see it being for everybody. This is a method that if you want to extrapolate the best possible results from it is rather expensive. It is also time consuming and rather harder work in reality than the sales material makes out.

That having been said, I also think that Betting Mastermind is one of the most genuine ways of making money online today. I do think that you will make money on this as well.

There don’t tend to be a lot of “if’s” when it comes to Mike Cruickshank and that allows me to put a lot of faith in his products.

As I have said at the start of this review, without the name attached to it, I couldn’t see Betting Mastermind being close to what it should be. Fortunately, it does, and as such I believe that it is definitely a worthwhile to any betting portfolio that can afford it.

Plus, we are BIG fans of Mike Cruickshank and his products!

Basically you getting EVERY SINGLE product that Mike Cruickshank has ever produced for a fantastic price, and with a money back guarantee from one of the most popular publishers of such content in the last 10 years.

Full details on Betting Mastermind – Click Here

Related Content:

The Affluence System Review, a Mike Cruickshank Product

Accumulator Generator Review From Mike Cruickshank

Profit Maximiser Review Mike Cruickshank – Plus Special Bonus

Incoming search terms:

• betting mastermind
• accumulator generator and each way sniper
• profit maximiser mastermind
• profit maximiser/mastermind

The post Betting Mastermind Review, A Complete Spectrum of Profit Generation appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

When I set out to write about affiliate marketing to make money online, or from home, I had no idea that the whole project would end up spanning as much as it has, but here I am almost 10,000 words deep on the subject and preparing to write yet another article.

Since I have looked at both Clickbank and Amazon’s affiliate programme in detail, I have decided that one of the major topics left to cover is what you need to do in order to actually market products.

This is a massively varied topic and so this article is likely to be a little bit less structured than some of the content that I have put out before, however I do hope that it will continue to be useful.

As always, the goal here isn’t to set out a step by step process for you as there are plenty of examples of this available online. What they don’t do is compare and contrast the different methods of promoting products.

I personally feel that a big part of this is down to the sheer volume of methods that you can use as an affiliate.

I also feel that it is important to take the time to say that despite what a number of questionable products will say, there is no definitive method of affiliate marketing. Everybody will have their own preferences etc. and these will mostly be dependent on what it is you are marketing.

I will try to give examples of niches that different marketing methods would work best with.

So, Where Do I Start as an Affiliate?

Picking a starting point for your new affiliate marketing network is one of the most difficult parts and yet truthfully, I don’t think that it is as hard a choice as some places will make it seem.

The best place that you can start with any affiliate marketing network is to have a website. This doesn’t have to be particularly fancy and many successful marketers will simply use a WordPress website as the hub of their marketing network.

A website is important for a number of reasons, but the main one is that it gives you a permanent web presence and things like this offer a lot of reassurance to people.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that when I see something that interests me online, the first thing I will do is to search to see how well established a company is. By having a website you allow yourself to be instantly recognised whilst at the same time, serving as a huge part of your sales funnel or affiliate network.

What is a Sales Funnel?

There are many different terms that one can use for the methods that you use to sell products online. I personally use the term network as I feel that this best describes what you are creating.

A sales funnel is a much broader term that describes the different points of customer interaction, each ultimately (in theory) driving customers to the narrow end of the funnel which is a purchase.

I personally prefer the term network as really, each facet of your operation should operate as its own independent sales funnel. None the less, these terms refer to similar practices and you will find that as you read more into internet marketing, there is a lot of interchangeability on a number of different phrases.

Building a Website

The first step to creating your website is to find a relevant URL. There are a few different approaches to this and they will ultimately depend on how sustainable you want your business to be.

If you have a single product in mind that you want to market and are looking for quick traffic and easier SEO, then you may wish to have a URL that is something like cavemanpaleodietreview.com (for the fictional product, Caveman Paleo Diet).

The problem with doing this is rather apparent in so much as you can only really use that URL for that particular product.

Alternatively, you can cast a wider net and you could use something like thebestpaleodietsreview.com. This is likely to lead to much more competition as you are trying to capture all searches for “the best paleo diets” or “paleo diets reviews”, however the flexibility means that you can continue to modify your site as other products generate more traction on Clickbank or Amazon.

Creating a website can be as time consuming and as complex as you want it to be, but for the purposes of starting a new affiliate network there is no need to go into this in too much detail.

You can very easily find somebody to create a website from scratch for you but this can be expensive, time consuming and you aren’t guaranteed to get what you want. With this in mind, most affiliates will use WordPress (a subject that I will look at in more detail).

This is a simple platform that allows you to create your own websites with ease.

One of the other things to consider is what kind of website you want to operate to sell a product. There are a lot of different website types that people use when affiliate marketing and as is the case with a lot of decisions that need to be made, the niche that you have chosen.

These can range from setting up a review style website where you list the pros and cons of different products to creating your own content and articles on a theme.

There aren’t however any real hard and fast rules in this regard however and your approach should ultimately be something that you enjoy. After all, you will likely be spending a lot of time with your website, especially in the first few months when you are setting up. This will mean creating a lot of content.

How Much Does It Cost to Host a Website?

Technically speaking you can host a website yourself but this is well beyond the realm of possibility for most people. With this in mind, I would recommend looking at a hosting company.

There are thousands of these online and finding the right once can be a daunting task. With some searching however, you should be able to find a good host that offers their services at a reasonable cost, especially if you get a WordPress only hosting package.

When you have chosen your host, you will be faced with a large number of different options in terms of how much space you will need, how much traffic your website can handle etc.

The differences in costs between the different tiers can seem negligible, but it is important to remember that your new affiliate marketing venture is a business and as such, you want it to become sustainable as quickly as possible.

What Is WordPress?

Wordpress is a very flexible, lightweight and easy to use website creation platform. These features make it one of the most oft utilised tools in the affiliate marketers arsenal. A big part of this flexibility is that there is a massive customer driven market for things like themes and layouts for your website as well as plugins that allow you to modify the behaviour of your site.

This approach means that no matter what your intent when creating your website, you will find something that suits you. For example, simply looking at WordPress themes, there are examples for websites that are image based, that want to sell a product (or products) and even templates that are perfect for article based content.

All of these are customisable so that you can choose colours, fonts etc. and really build the brand of your website.

The most powerful part of WordPress however isn’t that you can make a website look pretty (although that certainly helps), it is the plugins I mentioned earlier. These can allow you to tag new articles and posts in such a fashion that Google will “like” your posts and rank them higher.

There are also plugins that allow you to have popups appear on your website so that you can advertise a product that way or even capture visitors email addresses (something that is hugely important as I will look at below).

A vast majority of these plugins are free however I do feel that it I should point out that some are also paid. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for with WordPress plugins however it is worth paying attention to reviews.

I have expended far too much time and effort before now trying to get a plugin to do what I want on the grounds that it can supposedly do this, only to find a much better rated alternative a few pages along.

Resource: http://www.wordpress.com

How Do I Get My Website Ranked on Google?

I have already mentioned that you will need to create a lot of content in order to get your website up and running but this can’t be overstated. Depending on the needs of your business, you may find that simply getting a website ranked for certain keywords is enough.

This kind of approach is generally used by those who are looking to sell an individual product. If however you are looking for something more sustainable, then you should be consistently updating your website.

In terms of what Google is looking for, this can be a difficult thing to know. They are constantly updating their search algorithms to ensure that only the best quality and most relevant websites are ranked. This generally means articles that are at least 1000 words.

This can soon mount up which is one of the main reasons that I have advised in other articles about affiliate marketing that your niche should interest you.

Resource: https://www.google.com/webmasters/

Basic SEO – Search engine optimisation

I have chosen to title this section basic SEO as I don’t want to go into too much detail, namely because there is far too much detail to go into on the topic.

In fact, SEO could well be an article of this length in and of itself. SEO stands for search engine optimisation and this all relates to how you get your content ranked on search engines (usually Google given their massive market share and for the purposes of this, I will be referring to Google) for certain incoming search terms related to the products that you are marketing.

There are no hard and fast rules for SEO because as I have touched on, the actual algorithms that Google use are highly secretive and are also subject to change.

That change can and has broken entire online affiliate marketing rings in one fell swoop, simply because the content a marketer has in place doesn’t meet Google’s standards.

Having said all of this, there are some generally widely considered basics that you can always rely upon if you want your site to be ranked. Google has always, and in some way or another, will always look for high quality content that is relevant to inbound search terms.

What this means is that if you are selling a horse racing betting system as an affiliate and your website mainly has content relating to football, Google is unlikely to see your site as an authority on the subject.

Google looks at the quality of your content by robotically reading the content of your site and applying their algorithms to what you have on your site. This is predominantly based around keywords however simply putting the name of a product over and over won’t work.

The content has to read organically and should ideally be written by a real person. Once upon a time, it was possible to simply have somebody with English as a second language bang out articles for next to nothing but because these don’t read well, they are viewed as less valuable by Google.

Another factor in how Google ranks your site is how many websites connect to it and arguably more importantly, whether they are good quality websites. If you simply link to your site from websites with no relevance or status (for example empty blogs), then Google will not see you as valuable.

If however your site has incoming links from big and well established websites, it will itself be held in higher regard.

Finally, I want to talk about something that is so easy to overlook that it is oft forgotten when people are discussing SEO. Your content should be unique. You may well see websites offering “done for you” content in a certain niche but this is generally existing articles that are not unique to your website.

If the content is unique, it has generally been put through a text spinner and the output is drivel and a long way from the genuine and organic content that Google looks for.

Resource: www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

What Other Marketing Options are Available?

If a website is the hub of your affiliate marketing network, then there more branches coming off it than I can list. As always, I do intend to break these down and look at what options are available and which are most effective.

After your website, arguably the most important aspect of your affiliate marketing network is social media. This can take a number of different guises however and each of these is worthy of their own section.

There are also email marketing campaigns, something which a lot of marketers consider to be central to their operations.

As I have touched upon, there are also less ethical ways of marketing your products, however most of these are only really suited to those who are looking to try and gain an immediate and easy boost to numbers.

Many of these methods are decidedly scam like and truthfully, few marketers will use the as part of a sustainable business.

Facebook Marketing

Facebook is probably the best known social media site in the world and as such, it is no surprise that affiliate marketers often take advantage of the platform. One of the reasons for this popularity is that Facebook is a very versatile tool in the right hands.

There are so many different ways of reaching out to prospective customers and the best part is  that most of them won’t actually cost you any money.

The first place to start is with a fan page or even a Facebook page for the product if such a thing doesn’t exist. This is something that a lot of marketers use as it  allows you to be discoverable when people are searching for the product.

There is more to it than this however as it allows you to communicate with other users whilst representing the product you are selling.

This leads me onto the second method of marketing on Facebook which is to find groups relevant to the product you are selling and promote there. This is one of the less ethical methods that I have talked about however and many groups will not appreciate this type of intrusion and you may quickly find yourself banned or your account reported.

That having been said, if you are looking mostly to gain a quick boost, this may be worth exploring.

The final method of marketing through Facebook that I wish to explore is paid ads. This has numerous advantages, one of the most obvious being that you can legitimately target groups that are looking for products similar to what you are selling.

The cherry on top of this is that Facebook prioritises its own ads in such a way that people are practically guaranteed to lay eyes on your ads. The big downside however is in the name, the ads are paid. When you are starting out, this can be an expensive way of building a network.

Resource: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business

Email Marketing

One of the most consistent phrases that I have seen in my time looking at ways of making money online is that the list is king, and by list, we are referring to a list of email contacts.

Email marketing is one of the oldest and most efficient ways of ensuring that plenty of people see exactly what you have to offer. The downside to an email list is that you have to build it although if you have set your affiliate network up correctly, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Email list management is the main thing that you have to consider here and there are a number of different tools that are available to help with this. If you are just getting started, there are various WordPress plugins that will allow you to carry out building a list however these are very basic.

If you are serious about building a list however then you will want to look to some of the many companies that offer this service.

There are a large number of these third party companies however there are two main ones that I wish to discuss. The first of these is MailChimp.

This is a company that has been established since 2001 and offers a myriad of services. One of the truly stand out things that MailChimp offers is a free service that allows you to send up to 12,000 emails per month to up to 2,000 subscribers.

The other main provider of email related services are Aweber who are arguably the larger company and the more preferred professionally. Whilst they technically offer very similar services, I would probably say that Aweber offer a few more features and have slightly better integration with most WordPress plugins.

You do however ultimately pay for this as the service only comes with a 30 day free trial rather than any free option.

I have mentioned that building an email list as part of your affiliate network however this doesn’t necessarily go far enough. This is one area that a lot of people really struggle with. Probably the best tactic for collating emails from your customer base is to offer something for “free” in exchange for an email.

This can be a simple report relating to the product that you are selling or the niche you operate in or a free product that you have PLR rights to.

One of the main reasons that email marketing is so important is that if you have been collecting emails through your affiliate network, you are marketing directly to people who have expressed an interest in your products. You can also use email marketing to target people who have bought from you before.

Resource: https://www.aweber.com/

Marketing Through Instagram

One method of marketing that is increasingly used is Instagram, a social media website that is based predominantly on images.

For those who don’t know, Instagram allows users to post images and interact with people who comment on them making it a haven for those who are selling products that have a visual component.

The main niche that I have seen flourish under Instagram is health and fitness where inspirational quotes, pictures of body builders and models etc. can all garner a lot of interest.

Because Instagram also has a tagging feature, you can tag images to attract people who are searching for terms related to your niche or the product you are selling.

Once you begin to gain a following, you can start to post an affiliate link directly or even refer your followers to your main website. One of the only downsides to Instagram is that the service is mobile based and getting multiple accounts can require some technical knowledge.

This is getting easier with time however and I feel like Instagram is going to become a bigger platform in the near future.

Resource: https://www.instagram.com

Twitter Marketing

Twitter is a short messaging service which allows you to broadcast to your follows. Unfortunately, you are limited to a set number of characters however. This means that you can only send out the bare minimum in terms of information.

What Twitter can be useful for however is broadcasting updates to your followers on your website etc. Truth be told, Twitter is not a marketing device in and of itself, despite what people will tell you. Whilst you can post images etc. the format isn’t really set up to sell products to people.

Resource: https://twitter.com/TwitterMktg

PPC Advertising (Pay Per Click)

PPC Advertising stands for pay per click which is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. There are lots of different formats for PPC ranging from small time websites all the way to perhaps the most well known example, Google Ads.

Truthfully, if you are getting started as an affiliate marketer, you will likely find that this route is expensive and not necessarily the most productive method you can use. PPC is best utilised as a method of generating traffic for a main website and as a part of a wider network if you are going to use it.

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-per-click

Fiverr Use and Marketing

Fiverr is a bit of a new platform and whilst you can’t necessarily use it directly for affiliate marketing purposes, in terms of building your network, it can be a valuable tool.

I have touched upon how your website should be linked to others and how Google will look for content. Fiverr can help you with this for a very nominal fee (the entire website is based around people doing things for £5).

Some users will link to your website quickly building links and making your site look more established than it is. Other people will sell their skills as a writer meaning that you can get some fresh and good quality content written which will fit the criteria that Google lay out.

Of course these aren’t long term solutions and in the case of building backlinks to your site, it can have a negative effect (I have seen massively conflicting reports on this). Ultimately, I am including this section simply to allow people to fully understand what is available to help them.

Resource: https://www.fiverr.com/

Bringing Everything Together

I have looked at a number of different ways of marketing products over the course of this article and you will generally find that most affiliate marketers will use a combination of these methods.

There are also less ethical and sustainable methods like spamming forums related to the product you are selling or the niche you operate in and even buying email lists from sources online. Generally speaking, however these do not have good results.

To really make a decent affiliate marketing network, you have to be willing to take a lot and work hard at combining different methods of marketing. It is only by doing this that you can start to attract a steady stream of custom to your affiliate link and ultimately make sales.

This doesn’t however mean that you should commit to all of them. Some of the shrewdest moves you can make in business is to cut loose aspects that aren’t contributing value.

All of these different methods are what I am talking about when I refer to an affiliate network and it is also why earlier I wished to separate this term from the concept of a sales funnel.

It can be difficult and trying when you are starting out to get people on board and visiting your site however you will find that if you stick at it, you will get traffic and once you start to get organic traffic, you will only continue to get more.

Conclusion on Making Money as an Affiliate

What I hope I have done with this article is ultimately to demonstrate that you don’t need a lot of money to get started. In fact, a lot of what I have looked at you can do for free or for just a few pounds a month if you shop around.

This is by no means a definitive guide however I hope to have painted a broad picture that will allow you the reader to understand the journey ahead of you and to have provided some idea of where to start.

Honestly, getting started as an affiliate marketer is not easy. I cannot stress this enough and I have tried to keep this tone in everything that I have looked at related to the topic. Any product or person who tells you that they can have you making big money in little to no time is likely only out to scam you.

In spite of this, running an affiliate marketing business is one of the most formulaic methods of making money online that I know of. I know that this is massively contradictory and I feel that it is very important that I take some time to explain and qualify this statement.

The thing about affiliate marketing is that as you get more used to getting things off the ground, it becomes quicker and easier because you will know what works best for you. Most of the successful affiliate marketers that I know of do almost the exact same thing for every product that they set out to sell.

This is also why many of them go on to sell you the “blueprint” for making money as an affiliate marketer but there are a lot of nuanced details that will differ depending on your personal approach.

By all means, if you want to buy one of the myriad of products online that claim to show you step by step how to build an affiliate marketing business, then do. Using it as a vague template may well help you to skip a few steps when you are starting out, but to miss these steps is a bit like buying out an existing business to me.

In order to really be successful, and most importantly to replicate your success, you have to understand how things work.

Once you have that understanding there are (as I have said many times) two different approaches to affiliate marketing. You can go after the quick money, and if you do understanding that formula will be more important than ever, but I have always erred towards the more permanent side of things.

By taking time to build a proper affiliate network and to establish a site with good content (such as this one), you can hypothetically sell products forever off the back of one website.

Whatever you choose to do, I think that the most important thing that you can do as an affiliate marketer is have fun with it. It is a lot of work and there is very little in the way of immediate rewards.

I have mentioned before now that you should try and sell products that are in a niche that is of interest to you or that you enjoy and that is all because the work/reward ratio takes some time to balance out.

Related Content:

What is an Amazon Associate, and Starting as an online Affiliate

How To Make Money Using ClickBank, A Detailed Affiliates Review

How to Make Money Online From Affiliate Marketing – The Reality

The post How To Make Money Online Series – Affiliate Marketing and Building a Network appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

I have been asked if I would test a lay betting tipster service by a vendor that this website has reviewed for before. Now this is not a system, but an actual tipster service: Lay Bet Kings.

I have been asked before to test such tipsters, and usually discount them, but this one does seem to stand out based on the results sent in to me, and based on around 2 weeks testing myself laying the bets on Betfair.

But with lay betting, it is ALL in the percentages, and 2 weeks worth of profits is not always enough to validate a tipster, not in this business.

Lay betting is fairly simple to understand, but on this review I will be explaining the basics of how it works, some background information on the tipster, as well as the full results for at least 2 weeks moving forward (providing I have the time, of course).

What this lay betting review will contain:

• Background to lay betting.
• How lay betting works.
• The tipster selections (pre race)
• The tipster results.

The Product Review

Product Name: Lay Bet Kings.

Offered By: laybetkings101.

Price: £200 Per Month by Western Union Only.

Where to Buy: Not given (see warning in review).

What You Get : 20 lay bet tips per month.

If you have used Betfair for lay betting before then you will probably know that usually the trades go your way, but it is when the trades don’t go your way that you can make losses, so the percentages of losing horses needs to be extremely high, and the odds not too hight o make this work.

I have been sent some results from the tipster concerned, and they are relatively impressive (so far!), but as with all such things, this needs testing in a real life situation, and so that you the readers can see the selections/tips before the races start, and the potential profits (or losses) being made over a decent enough timescale.

That is my aim on the Lay Bet Kings review.

All the tips will be placed BEFORE the races start, and we can then evaluate the success of this service, as we have done with other testing on this website.

What is Betfair Lay Betting?

Lay betting on Betfair is the process of betting against an outcome.

For example, if you thought Liverpool were going to lose against Arsenal, then you can make a bet, or trade on this outcome happening, and if Liverpool then do lose the match, you will have made a profit.

There are differences with lay betting, compared to conventional back betting, and the main difference is that you are liable for more losses depending on the odds you have chosen for your lay bet.

The same goes for horse racing, which this test will be all about.

If the horse the tipster gives you loses the race, and you have layed it at Betfair, then you win your trade.

For example, on this lay betting test, the first selection ( Bay Station) I have placed a £2 trade on, and you can see from the image below, that should the horse lose, I will win £2.

Although, should the horse win the race, I will lose £14.80, as I actually placed the lay bet at 8.4.

You can see the result below:

As you can see from the image above, Ebitda won the race (odds of 1.01), and the horse I layed, which was the selection from the tipster, lost the race.

The following is the Betfair profit from this first selection:

Let the lay betting testing begin. As I said, I will be placing ALL the tips before the races start so that you can see this testing live, and the results yourself. I have not deducted Betfair commissions for ease of explanation, and reporting, but on average this will be around 5%.

I will be testing this for around 2 weeks, using £2 stakes (After the first profit of this review, I have now decided to increase the stakes from £2 to £20 moving forward to give this a real test).

I am told all selections will below 9.0 as much as possible, and that selections are created using statistics, and algorithms.

The Betfair Laying Tips are as follows:

What are The Benefits to Lay Betting?

The main benefits to lay betting is that it is far easier to pick a losing horse than a winning one.

This is obviously really, because if you are looking at a typical racing card with day 8 runners, then only one of those horses is going to win, so if you then look at the form of all the horses, you can mostly predict what is going to happen in a race, and the chances of your chosen horse winning, or losing the race.

It is like in a football match, the chances of Chelsea losing to Burton Albion is slim to none, is a competitive match, so you have a high chance of winning your lay bet if you bet on Burton Albion to lose.

Thus you would be reasonably confident that you would win your lay bet, and you probably will unless something highly unusual happens in the game.

The same goes for lay betting on the horses.

For example, if you look at today’s race at Leicester, the 14:55 below, you will see that the favourite is Beautiful Memory at 2.66 in back odds, and the lay odds are currently 2.68.

Then you have Savaanah at odds of 10 on the back bet side, and 11.5 on the lay bet side, so obviously the betting market thinks that Savaanah has a much less chance of winning the race, and thus you may this this is ripe for a lay bet:

What are the Negatives to Lay Betting?

The negatives are that unlike with direct betting where you place say £2 on a horse to win, then no matter what the odds are, if the horse loses you will only lose £2.

With lay betting on Betfair, if you say lay a horse to lose at odds of 12.5, then if the horse wins the race (the opposite to what you have bet on it to do), then you are risking a lot more, because you are then risking the LIABILITY.

• With back betting you risk the stake.
• With lay betting you risk the liability.

The above is well worth remembering.

To give you an example, using the same race at Leicester, the odds of Savaanah have now drifted out, and the lay bet option odds are now at 12.5, so as the image below shows, if you place a lay bet on that horse at those odds, the liability (if it won) is now £25, compared to winnings of £2 if it lost:

As you can see from above, you are risking far more money the higher you go up on the odds.

If for example you were to place a lay bet at evens, then you would be risking the same amount as you would be winning if the result went your way, so the success of lay betting is the odds in the main.

I will demonstrate this now.

I will go to Betfair on the same Leicester race and ask for odds of 2.0 on the lay bet side for Savaanah, and see what happens:

As you can see from the image above, by asking for lower odds, my liability should the race not go in my direction (the horse winning) I would be liable for just £2, which is the amount I would lose if the horse won.

To further demonstrate this, I will show you the actual card which Betfair conveniently shows you the profit and loss depending on which way the result goes:

As demonstrated above, now the I have asked for much lower odds, the winnings, compared to the potential losses are now equal, because I have asked for even prices (2.0).

Is Lay Betting Successful?

It is a good question, and the fact is, that if it were easy to predict everybody would be at it wouldn’t they?

There are people, and tipsters who obviously make profits using lay bets, but I feel the key to the success is as follows:

• Getting real value on pricing
• Doing real background checks on the horses potential
• A proven history on success
• A high enough success rate  – which is essential

The last point, the success rate needs to be extremely high, definitely in the 90’s and with low enough odds to ensure that long term, even with a few losses that do not go your way, that overall a decent profit is made.

The Lay Betting Tipster Being Tested?

As I mentioned earlier, I have been approached by a vendor that we have reviewed before, and asked if we would publish the live results, and tips of this lay betting service.

I am told that there has never been a losing month, and that in 95% of the previous results, that a 100% record has been achieved on a monthly basis regarding the laying tips.

I will be publishing the lay betting tips for 2 weeks on this website before the races commence, and then updating with the results.

I have no doubt that profits can be made using lay betting, but this is the first time that I have tested a live trial of a Betfair lay betting service on this website, and it should be interesting as to what the results bring.

The odds need to be decent enough to avoid over-exposure to the markets, and the success rate needs to be high enough to produce a long term profit.

I have actually been testing this for a few weeks now, as I was asked a while ago to check this out before making this blog review, and the results were excellent, hence why I am going live with the results to give readers the chance to follow the tips, and results.

Conclusion on the Lay Betting Tipster

At the end of the 2 week trial, I will public my full findings and see if this really does have potential.

You can bookmark this page if you wish to follow the trial.

Lay Betting Tipster Update 13th Sept 2017

I know we should not judge too early, and I am usually the first to say to readers that trading, and betting is long term, but considering when I was approached, I was told that 95% of the months over the last 12 months had a 95% successful lay betting record, I expect a much better start than 2 losses out of the first 3 races.

We tested the same on the Greats Bets review, and the more recent Racing Wins review (both of which can be read in the reviews section), and both those services had fantastic previous records, and then when we tested them the results were less than favourable.

The same thing also happened more recently with the DataKings Product from Agora Lyfestyles/Betting Rant, in that their reviewer checked all the stats for a particular bot service, and when they launched it to their full membership base, and their email list the results just did not replicate previous results that the author achieved.

The difference with a lay betting tipster service, is that the winning percentage really does have to be so high, or you are forever chasing the proverbial £ note trying to recoup your losses.

On this test, after 2 races, 2 out of 3 losses has already placed a massive spanner in the works, so much so that another couple of losses in the next few races could lead to quite considerable losses overall, unlike say with a direct betting system where you only lose the stake, and a few losses is sustainable.

After only 3 races we are already £216 down to £20 stakes, so to recoup those losses we would need 10.8 winning races on the bounce to break even, which shows you how delicate lay betting can be.

It is of course possible that this is down to reviewer’s curse, in that when a service has been flying high for even 12 months, when a third party starts to review the service, it gets off to a bad start. Maybe the tipster gets nervous due to their outfit being reviewed, live. The problem is, if such a service had launched yesterday, there would be a lot of potential agry folks already in deficit-city.

…….Albeit that still does not (yet) mean something does not work, just possibly a bad start, but still, it is difficult for the grey matter to comprehend when you have such a loss in your Betfair account.

lay betting has to be ultra focused on the winning percentages to stand even the slightest of chances.

I will continue to put up the selections just to see what happens, as I did say I would give it 2 weeks, and the early results could have been a blip, or as I say reviewer’s curse.

Lay Betting Tipster Update 18th Sept 2017

The results over the last week have definitely got better, in fact, I actually missed one of the tips that was issued.  It was sent but for some reason I didn’t receive it, which was also proven to me, and it was a winner for the tips.

Let’s see how the results go for the next 2 weeks, or maybe longer. I currently stand by my initial stance on lay betting tipsters, in that the results have to be very, very high to produce a consistent profit.

One other point to make, is that the second loss on the results section was irregular, as usually there is only one tip per day, not 2, and if that had been maintained we would be in profit by now.

The tipster concerned sends out one tip per day, so that second tip that resulting in the second loss should not have been given, but it was given so I have included it in the vein of transparency.

I also suspect the tipster was trying to make up for the first loss that day due to this review, so these lay betting results are still interesting to me, especially considering the back dated results that I have checked, and which can be seen below:

• August 2017 – 19/20 lay bets won = 95% success rate.
• July 2017 – 19/20 lay bets won = 95% success rate.
• June 2017 – 20/20 lay bets won = 100% success rate.
• May 2017 – 20/20 lay bets won = 100% success rate.

78 lay wins out of 80 lay bets given cannot be ignored in this business. Obviously the above results would have produced excellent profits had you been trading them – although as you will see below, they are manipulating their results, which we found out at a later stage…

Let’s see how the rest of the results pan out, because I don’t have a great deal of interest in previous tipping results, because as we all know the past does not equal the future, and that is even more relevant when dealing with tipsters, lay betting or otherwise.

Lay Betting Tipster Conclusion 19th Sept 2017

I am concluding this review early. In fact it is one of the quickest reviews we have done.

The tips that were provided are just not of good enough quality, and if all the tips had been traded, then a loss of £336 would have been made in just 9 selections/tips, which is only 6 wins out of 9 selections, and 3 losses, which is a very poor strike rate.

Generally, that strike rate would not seem too bad in a backing environment, but when you are being asked to LAY horses at odds of 12.0+, then this becomes extremely risky, and as I mentioned early on in the review, the strike rate needs to be in the high 90’s to make a success of lay betting, and these tips are nowhere near that.

Final Lay Bet Kings Results to £20 Stakes

(Finished early due to Poor Results/Odds):

Could it have been just a blip? Possibly, but a blip that could have wiped out a betting bank, and when you consider the previous results I mentioned on the last update, then those results compared to the live testing results seem very suspect indeed, and this is the whole reason why it is absolutely imperative to TEST under live conditions.

WARNING: Lay Bet Kings Changing Their Results:

I have now been alerted, that due to the losses this particular Lay Bet Kings Blogspot tipster had in September, that they have removed all the losses from their website, and are now claiming they have had a ‘100% success rate’ with a ‘new algorithm’, which is very underhanded, and misleading the public regarding their service.

The Lay Bet Kings Tipster now has the following results for their September selections:

20/20 =  100% success rate

Which is strange considering there were at least 3 losses given to us during the testing for this review, and one more loss earlier on for the September results on their page. Now those losses seem to have mysteriously ‘vanished’.

I have no doubts that lay betting can, and does work, but not with this tipster, especially when one of their key messages on their home page is:

“Just Check On Our Results And Subscribe Through Western Union

Get In Now For Only 200 Pounds Per Month”

Plus the following statement on their Twitter account just 12 hours ago:

“#100% RECORD IN TACK 20/20 Lay Bets Won For September Subscribe Now For October”

Well, there were at least 3 losses given to us during the trial, and at least another loss further up the September month results.

This highlights how some tipsters are manipulating their results/figures in an attempt at fooling new, and potential members into thinking they are successful – especially considering that Lay Bet Kings are charging their members a massive £200 per month.

 – It is actually fraud.

Never judge on previous results alone.

Related Content:

Lay Betting Systems, Calculators, Odds and How it All Works in Reality.

Horse Racing Systems, Free, Paid For, and Which One To Choose

Each Way Betting Systems, and How It Works, Rules and Odds

Incoming search terms:

• laybetkings

The post Lay Bet Kings Review. Lay Betting Tipsters on Betfair – Testing Started appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Everyone loves a winner, and there is no greater feeling than walking out of a bookmakers with a few hundred quid in your pocket. It’s over to the pub or out with your wife for a night you won’t soon forget, all from a few well placed bets.

It’s just a shame that this doesn’t really happen all that often in the real world.

Sure, watch an advert from the bookies and they’ll make it seem like a sure thing. Especially some of the more “laddish” campaigns that feature a Cockney Geezer sort talking about the thrill and the win.

Let’s look at the reality though. If you’re reading this, you are reading it because like almost all punters you aren’t actually winning. Sure, you might have the odd win and the buzz that comes with it is something that you will continue to pursue.

Why Gambling/Betting is Addictive

It is a very strong and positive high that can quickly become addictive.

It is estimated that 95% of people who bet on a regular basis end up losing money to bookies. Whilst this may come to a surprise to a layperson, as somebody who is somewhat involved with the betting industry it is actually more than I would expect.

A big part of this is that everybody knows somebody who makes money through gambling. Without fail, if you ask anybody in a bookies, there will be somebody who knows, if not claims to be, in that elusive top percentile.

Why do people think this? It’s simple. Mentally speaking, we are programmed to remember the good and not the bad.

When somebody talks about how a few weeks ago they hit their strike and had 10 horses come in, half of which were outsiders, it is interesting to press exactly how many weeks ago.

Henry Royce (of Rolls Royce) once said that quality will remain long after the price is forgotten. In the same vein, wins will always remain when the losses are forgotten.

This leads me to my first step to winning more through betting.

Remember Your Losses as Well as the Wins

As boring as it may be, if you want to be a decent bettor, you also have to be prepared to be an accountant in some small way. By keeping a detailed log of your winnings and your losses, it allows you to gain a much better idea of how you are doing.

More importantly, this approach can help you to understand where you are earning money and where you are losing it.

It is a simple enough thing to do as well. All that you need is a simple spreadsheet or even an old fashioned ledger is plenty enough.

Keeping track of the dates, what you have bet on, how much you have bet and how much you won/lost is more than enough to get started. At the end of the month, it can be worth totalling up how you have done and using this as a starting point.

This works in two different ways…

The first is that you don’t sit around thinking that you are constantly winning. By the end of the month, it is very easy to trick your brain into forgetting a couple of losing £10 bets. Do this often enough and you can lose track of hundreds of pounds of losses.

The fact is that in acknowledging where you have lost money, you don’t become overly confident with your betting which allows you to become more disciplined.

It is only through discipline and avoiding erratic staking and chasing losses that you can really make betting a consistently profitable endeavour.

Find What You Are Good at and Stick to It

The second method of improving your betting actually ties into the idea of keeping a full log of your bets. Recording your bets in this fashion allows you to improve is by highlighting where you are winning and where you aren’t.

This can be as detailed as you want it to be too. For example, you might bet on football and horse racing and find that you are losing on football but winning on horse racing.

By cutting football out of the equation, you are left with only profitable bets. Of course the whole process is rarely this black and white, however it does give you an idea of where to start looking to trim some of the losses off your betting record.

Finding what you are good at however is an inexact science at best. This is in part because you should try to understand why you are picking winning bets in a certain market or sport, whilst also trying not to overcomplicate things. Good look juggling to paradoxical statements like that.

What this really means is, if for example, you are picking obvious wins in European Football then lumping them into small accumulators, then don’t stop. Most people who are fans of football recognise an easy game when they see them.

In fact, I would be inclined to say that even people who don’t like football can identify them. To keep on point with this, if you start trying to analyse what constitutes an easy game, then you are complicating a process that doesn’t require it.

On the other hand, you spend each morning going over the form of horses on a given day. You have a preference for those that have ran in similar conditions in the last few months. Those that have done well, you decide to back.

Here you have a system and something like this can be refined. For example, you may decide to see how many that have won their last race go on to win again, or if a horse has placed in the last few races by how much?

The difference between a system and betting on instinct is that a system can be refined. It is a series of numbers that you can add factors to in order to produce a more accurate result.

Remember that the House Always Has an Edge

Whenever bookmakers make their books, it is in their interests to price betting markets so that the odds on offer do not necessarily represent the statistical probability of an event occurring.

As you can probably guess by now, this section is not going to be light reading however I do feel that it is something that is important to address. It is only really by understanding how a bookmaker works that you can hope to beat them.

The best example that I have ever seen of explaining how bookmaking works is based on a 6 sided die (presuming for the purposes of this that it is entirely fair and shows no bias).

There is a 100% chance of a number between 1 and 6 being rolled. Resultantly, this means that each side has a 16.66% chance of coming up and should be priced accordingly. Instead, imagine that bookmakers decide to round this number up to 17%.

….After all, it is seemingly close enough. This means that the actual market percent is 102% rather than 100%. This 2% represents the houses edge.

Now consider this being applied to something like horse racing where there aren’t fixed odds, and you can easily see how bookmakers can manipulate their market percent.

With many bookmakers, it is estimated that this number can be as high as 110%. Despite this obvious house edge, it is something that is often overlooked, especially by people who are new to gambling and don’t understand the concept.

This explains why bookmakers are able to offer fantastic odds on certain outcomes on certain events. I’m sure you’ve seen them in the bookies window before now.

Bale to score first, Real Madrid to Win. 3/1. The market percentage that is lost on this bet outcome is made up through other bet outcomes so that no matter what, the bookies theoretically can’t lose.

Avoid the Gambler’s Fallacy

Whilst we are talking about the house edge, I feel that it is important to look at a similar although actually quite different concept. The Gambler’s Fallacy is something that I have watched wipe out more people who are interested in betting than I care to admit.

These are not typical “mug punters” either, but intelligent people. The problem with overcoming the Gambler’s Fallacy is that we are also programmed mentally to look for patterns.

This is why if you look at something random for long enough, you will begin to perceive shapes.

The same thing starts to happen with gambling. We think that we’re beginning to see patterns emerging however the reality is often very far removed from this.

The most well known examples of Gambler’s Fallacy come courtesy of the roulette table. For the last 5 spins, a fair roulette table has come up on a red number. The next spin must surely be black because the odds of getting 6 reds in a row is 1 in 64.

The reality however is that the odds reset for each spin and the odds remain the same for both black and white.

This same method of pattern searching can be seen when looking at any sporting event. The important part is to ensure that any pattern that you think that you have seen can be tested in a productive and structured fashion.

Only Bet What you can Afford to Lose

This is something that seems so blatantly obvious on paper and yet, I have seen people ruined by trying to stretch a betting bank to increase their profits. Generally speaking, you should be looking to bet to level stakes.

This not only makes it easier to keep track of how much you are betting, but also ensures that you don’t start to chase losses. I would strongly recommend steering clear of any staking plan that offers recovery.

These seem great on paper but often end up leaving you broke very quickly.

I would personally recommend starting with a 100 point betting bank. A point is a term used to represent how much each bet should be. For example, a £500 betting bank would mean betting £5 per bet. If you just had £100, then it would be £1 per bet.

Whatever your initial betting bank is, it should be money that you are hypothetically be willing to lose. It is only when you have  this mindset that you are likely to be able to bet in a consistent and professional manner.

Level staking doesn’t mean however that you are tied down to simply betting a quid at a time and making a fiver back on the odd horse.

As well as a level staking plan based on single numbers, you can also use a percentile approach in order to increase your profits through compounding.

This means that instead of staking £1 per bet, you bet 1% of your betting bank. This will slowly increase the amount that you are betting and increase your profits, however it also means that you can lose more.

It is also worth pointing out that whilst your betting bank is hypothetically infinite, you may find that you quickly end up betting so little that  it is impossible to build your bank up again.

However you choose to bet with your bank, the amount should be something that you can afford to lose. If you start to stretch yourself, realistically, things will only end badly in the long run.

Shop Around for Odds and Value When Betting

Generally speaking, bookies odds will not vary too much from one to another. The key thing to take away from this however is that there is some variance and this is one way that you can quickly and easily increase the profitability of your betting.

Once upon a time, this was a difficult and time consuming thing to do however the landscape of betting has changed a lot over the last 10 years or so.

One of the major game changers for punters is a website called Oddschecker (https://www.oddschecker.com/). What Oddschecker does is list all the prices that bookies are offering on a given market. This means that you can make sure that you’re getting the best possible value from your bets with very little real effort.

Whilst shopping around for odds may not see a huge increase in your profits, it is important to note that this is probably the single easiest way to boost them.

Take Advantage of Bonuses and Offers

(But Check the Terms and Conditions)

Because it is such a competitive industry, bookies almost always have some offer or another on. These range from free bets to boosted odds but they all have one important thing in common. They let you bet on the bookies money.

You should look to take full advantage of these whenever possible (this approach has been taken to the extreme with matched betting). This kind of bet can be a good way of boosting your betting bank with very little risk.

With the positives out of the way, it comes to something that I cannot stress enough and that is to check the terms and conditions of these bonuses and offers.

A number of years ago, I thought that I had hit on a pretty sound system for playing roulette (I still argue that it holds up on paper).

Being inexperienced and having returned from a reasonably successful night at the casino, I signed up for a free £10 bet on roulette when you deposited £10.

What I didn’t realise was that I had to bet the free £10 300 times to withdraw any winnings. This mean that when I came to cash out my £30 (not bad for a nights work), I couldn’t.

I would have had to have staked this 100 times in order to withdraw anything. I ended up losing a tenner on that night but the lesson that I learned was invaluable.

It hasn’t put me off using free offers, however I do now double check what the terms and conditions are as you can very easily end up getting stung down the line.

Avoid the Casino Games at All Costs

I don’t know how you like to place your bets but since you’re reading this online, I am going to hazard a guess that you use the same method for betting.

If you want to make money by gambling online, then one of the worst things that you can do is play online casino games. These are fixed odds and whilst they sound enticing (some promise that they pay out as much as 90% of all money wagered), the  reality is that they are easy money for bookies.

For those who prefer to go into a bookmakers, you will see their in store equivalent. Fixed odds betting machines.

Again, these sing about a 70% pay out rate, however this means that bookies are still taking 30p on the pound from them. This kind of “easy money” betting is something that bookies will always encourage.

As a punter however, you can even the scores a little bit by avoiding them.

The main reason for the appeal of Casino games is that they are sold as quick and easy money. Just come and have a quick spin on the roulette wheel, have a hand of blackjack.

If you win, then it is genuinely some of the quickest and easiest money you will have made. On the flip side of the coin, it is possible to lose £10 in literal minutes. When you are up against “the computer” so to speak, what this really means is that you are going to lose.

Betting Exchanges Are Your Friend, Sometimes.

Betting exchanges are a gift and a curse in the world of betting. They are a great way of getting the bet that you want. Sometimes bookies offer much better or worse odds than are available on an exchange.

Betting exchanges are also the only way to lay a bet (that is to bet against an outcome happening) as well. This is a valuable strategy that can be used for some very strong profits in the right hands.

There are also much more varied and arguably better betting strategies that can be implemented when you are using a betting exchange.

The core reasoning for this is that a betting exchange allows you to do so much more than simply bet, you can actively trade your position as the day goes on. This allows for savvy bettors to lock in profits before an event has concluded or even begun.

Despite the positives that come with a betting exchange, there are negatives. The first I that unlike betting with a bookie, you have to pay a small percentage of your winnings to the company who operate the exchange.

This typically ranges from around 2% to 5%. The other thing that can be a problem, particularly for those who aren’t familiar with them, is that betting exchanges can be overwhelming.

There is a lot of data and information being updated at a very fast rate and until you understand what it means, it can be a very intimidating place.

Find Reputable Help

Help with betting is available in a number of different formats. Some of it is free, however I cannot sugar coat the fact that a lot of people online will charge for their services.

Whether these are as a tipster or somebody with a betting service, odds are you will find some cost to you somewhere down the line.

This makes finding decent advice a difficult thing. I have known free services that have produced a decent profit and I have known of people losing tens of thousands of pounds to scam artists.

Finding genuine help is a difficult thing however the best places to start in my opinion are the multiple forums that are out there. It is also worthwhile finding a decent website that offers advice (if you’re reading this, you’re on one ).

In terms of different products that are available, it is worthwhile looking long and hard at results and testimonials before you commit to making a purchase. Some websites have a lot more integrity than others so you should look for websites that are impartial or independent.

There are some websites out there linking to products that are for the company that funds said website. Not surprisingly, they also come with glowing reviews.

The best help will introduce you to interesting and new ways of making money through your betting. Sometimes they may seem intimidating but the best products talk you through everything step by step.

This can really help you to add new string to your bow and increase your overall profits.

Be Prepared to Lose, But Don’t Expect It

Nobody simply becomes good at betting in the straightest forward sense of the word. Going into a bookies and placing bets, even with the best system in the world will lose. Unfortunately, nobody likes to talk about this side of things.

I have already talked about remembering your losses and that is massively important, but it is equally important to be prepared to lose.

If, on some level, you are prepared for your bets to lose then it can massively help you to keep your composure. This is where preparing to lose is much different than simply noting your losses.

It is easy to write down that you are losing £10 here and £10 there. It may help foster a broader understanding of betting, but dealing with that feeling in your gut where you are simply losing money is a difficult beast.

On the flip side of the coin, being prepared to lose can lead to expectation and in much the same way that being overly confident can lead you to make bad calls, so can sloppy betting where you’re playing to lose.

I know that I have talked at length about the process of dealing with losing out on a bet but honestly, if you expect to lose, then you can become lethargic and not care if you win or lose and that is where addiction lies.

The truth is that a lot of betting on a serious level is psychological. It takes a very certain type of person to be able to bet in a sustained fashion and to ride the highs and the lows that come with it.

It is very much a balancing act and it is one that can very easily throw you off if you aren’t careful. This brings me onto arguably the single most important thing if you want to win more through betting.

Discipline is Everything

More than anything else, discipline is the single most important way of making your betting more profitable. Generally speaking, if you speak to a lot of people who have failed with their betting it is because somewhere along the line, they have broke their discipline.

If you have been paying attention to this article, you will likely have realised that the idea of discipline is something of an over arcing theme.

Quite what we mean by discipline can be a massively varied thing. For example, some people talk about discipline in the simplest sense. This means making sure that they aren’t chasing any losses that they might have incurred.

By sticking to a staking plan, you can reasonably reliably predict where your betting bank will be in the future. To others, discipline is about the bets that you place.

You  might want to back your favourite football team or a horse with a name that means something to you, but if you deviate from a system that is profitable then you can expect to lose money.

Discipline is more than this however. As well as sticking with what works, discipline can be as much about what doesn’t work. Identifying your short fallings as bettor and trying to take steps to correct them is a part of being disciplined as well.

All of this sounds so straightforward on paper and this is exactly why it is so difficult to be disciplined. It seems like a really obvious thing to say that if something isn’t working then it is worth mixing it up, but at what point is a system simply having a bad run and when is it not working?

It is only through taking a vigorous and focussed approach to betting that you can come to understand some of these differences.

Probably the hardest part of being disciplined though is that it can become something of a bore. Not the making money side of things. That is one of the most enjoyable things that you can encounter as a bettor.

Instead, there is very little thrill in placing a bet. Pursuing exciting bets is all well and good but it is rare that you will find yourself profiting from it.

Final Thoughts

Being a profitable bettor is a lot of work and that is the key word. It is work. Just like your 9-5 job, you will find that at times you resent it. You will more likely than not find that some days you simply can’t be bothered to focus on things.

This is all natural and like anybody who is self employed in any capacity, you have to rely on yourself to keep things moving forward.

The rewards from making money through betting are clear and very much there for the taking. You will find that there are a lot of naysayers in the wider world and I am loathe to say with good reason.

Most people’s idea of betting and gambling is a long way removed from the professional, almost clinical approach that seasoned bettor will make.

I have talked about discipline at length and honestly, I could probably write another thousand words on why it is so important in betting.

I think that the real way to have fun with betting, either as a second income or as your primary income if that is your inclination (although it is significantly harder trying to make a full wage through gambling) is in trying to find pleasure in what you do.

The truth is that if you look at betting and gambling it is a numbers game. From jockeys to  trainers and from bookies to punters, we are all looking at numbers.

It takes a certain kind of mind to be happy pouring over figures and results, considering in factors that can seem wholly unrelated or things that are so blindingly obvious that you overlook them.

But if you can derive pleasure from this work, if you can change the thrill that comes with betting from winning to identifying a way of picking winners, then you will do well.

Betting is not for everybody. In fact, I would be inclined to say that it is very far from it and you only have to look at the harsh reality of gambling addiction in the UK.

Truth be told though, there is a reasonable percentage of people who have substantially improved their lifestyle through gambling. It is possible. The secret is not so secret either. It is just very difficult to maintain your discipline.

Do NOT, EVER Gamble with Money You Need

I will say it again, gambling, and betting can be highly addictive, so never ever gamble, or bet with money that you cannot afford to lose.

Treat gambling as a hobby, a hobby that if you made a profit – great, but if not, then see it as an entertaining experiment, but never gamble with your family’s money, or money that will keep you awake at night should you lose it.

That is a golden rule.

There are far too many horror stories of gamblers becoming addicted, and this can lead to a downward spiral that is difficult to escape from.

If you do think you have any kind of problem, then there are many websites that can help you, including the following:

https://www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk/

https://www.begambleaware.org/

http://www.gamcare.org.uk/

Gambling, and betting can be highly profitable, but it must be carried out with the correct mentality, and with anything really. All in moderation, and the right focus.

Related Content:

How To Make Money From Gambling, What is Really Possible?

Online Betting Exchanges vs Online Bookmakers The Differences and Pros and Cons

Is Gambling Tax Free In The UK, and Do You Have To Declare Winnings?

The post How You Can Win More Money Through Your Betting? The Mind of a Gambler appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.

Football trading, and betting systems, especially on Betfair is a topic that many people are now interested in. For a long time, betting in the UK was synonymous with horse racing. This is with good reason as well. If it weren’t for bookmakers at the side of the track, I think it is fair to say that shops wouldn’t have opened up on the high street and so on.

Times have changed since those days however and so has betting. Horse racing is still the largest betting market in the UK, but football is fast catching up and as bookies pursue a more casual type of punter, I think that interest in betting on football will continue to grow.

In fact, it is estimated that anywhere between £435 billion and £625 billion are spent on sports betting each year across both legal and illegal betting sources. Of this number around 70% is estimated to be on football.

These are not small numbers and they highlight the fact that what was once a bit of a niche, can quickly become central to a whole industry. As you can see that is a LOT of money being traded, and the amount of money traded on football in any given week is colossal .

I mean, the amount of money traded is mainly due to the global interest in the sport, but not only that, football is a much slower sport to trade than, say, horse racing where the majority of people trying to make a few quick will just back the favourite and hope for the best.

Think about it, with horse racing some of the races are over inside a minute, where you get punters panick betting if the results are not going their way, and this leads to an unstable position (especially in play), because it is more risky, no doubt.

In play football trading is much slower paced, more more relaxing because at the end of the day you have a whole 90 minutes in which to plan and implement any strategy you may be using, and use all the ammunition to make a profit, and to make the game pay.

Of course, if is not always that easy, or we’d all be raking in the spondules on a weekly, if not daily basis

Although, what I want to show you on this write-up, and this ‘review’ is how the markets works, the traders who definitely make it work for them, what to look out for, and just what football trading is – as there is more to it than meets the average eye, who just see numbers jumping about on Betfair’s website.

What is Football Trading Then?

Truth be told though; football betting has existed in some form or another for almost 100 years and was born here in the UK. Football pools used to be a method of betting in which you would try and predict outcomes of a large number of games.

Really, the football pools were more akin to a lottery, however unlike betting now, you were competing with a “pool” (hence the name) of other bettors. The person with the most accurate and highest scoring predictions would taking home the prize. It is interesting that football betting started in this fashion and has now come full circle of sorts.

In 1999, the first large scale and commercially viable betting exchanged launched in the shape of Betfair. This allowed people to bet directly against other people rather than a bookmaker. It also changed the landscape of betting immensely.

As Betfair has grown, football has become an increasingly popular sport for people to bet and trade on and this is with very good reason. The structure of Betfair made in play betting a viable thing to do for any football game. It also opened up betting markets that probably won’t have been touched by bookies at the time.

Fast forward to today and there are so many options open to bettors that it almost seems to be overwhelming. Whether or not you consider this to be a good or a bad thing depends on your approach to betting I suppose, but the majority of people I talk to are loving it at the moment.

Now that I’ve spent a little bit of time painting a picture, I want to get down to the brass tacks of my article today and that is football betting through Betfair.

Using a Betting Exchange For Football Trading

Before I can talk about football trading specifically, I want to start by looking at what betting on a betting exchange entails and how this works. I feel like most people reading this will already be familiar with the process to some degree, however I am aware that many people are not familiar.

With this in mind, I will not just be referring back to betting exchange concepts when talking about football betting. As a result of that, I don’t want people to feel alienated or out of their depth.

It is well known how placing a bet works with a bookmaker. You go in, they set the odds, and you either take them or walk out of the door. With a betting exchange, you are betting with your fellow punters which makes the whole experience a lot more flexible. Instead of accepting the odds which are offered, you can essentially put your bet out there, with other people accepting your bet.

If you win, you receive payment at the odds that you chose.

On the other side of this bet, you can also “lay” your bet. This is essentially being on the other side of the bet as discussed above. Laying a bet means that you are betting against an outcome rather than for it and it is the crux of betting exchanges. Lay betting, as it is often referred to, is an integral part of many betting strategies, both football and none.

One of the other key features of betting on a betting exchange as opposed to through bookmakers is the concept of trading. For many, this feature is what makes a betting exchange superior to betting through a bookmaker and it isn’t difficult to see why. Because of how betting exchanges work, when you place a bet, you can then “trade” that bet out midway through an event.

This allows you to take a profit before an event has finished or alter your bets completely.  I will cover this topic in much greater detail below however.

Football Betting, How It Works

Football betting is really straightforward, right? You put a tenner on your team to beat Crystal Palace (because so far, this season, of course you do) and you make a few quid to cover beer money for your next game. Some people might go a little bit more in depth. That is most people’s experience of football betting and taking this approach probably won’t steer you far wrong in the short term. Long term however, we are looking for very different results and to really understand this, we have to look at football betting as a whole.

For a long time there were football pools, but in many ways, this was more akin to a lottery than modern football betting. Modern football betting has truthfully only really started to take off in the last few decades, mostly because it is seen as being a more profitable market for bookmakers to make money. This is because when people are betting on football, they are more likely to bet with their heart than with their head.

Think about your chosen football team for a minute, and then ask yourself how comfortable you really feel betting on them to lose. It feels a little bit like turning your back on somebody. Of course, you may not enjoy football in which case football betting is simply another stream of revenue for you. Frankly, this is the best attitude that you can have.

As I have already touched upon however, betting is slowly changing, especially in regards to the methods of betting that people employ. Trading is becoming increasingly popular and it isn’t really hard to see why.

Aside from some of the obvious advantages such as being able to cash out a bet when there is some profit and allowing a much more different analysis of betting markets, trading can be used to all but guarantee a profit in game or allow you to turn a negative into a positive. Traditional football betting simply isn’t in the same league (if you’ll pardon the pun).

Trading on Betfair

Trading on Betfair is a skill which is not necessarily new. In fact, a large number of the fundamental skills that are involved in trading on Betfair have been brought over from Forex markets. The early pioneers of trading were financial traders who came to notice that there were similar patterns and indicators on betting exchanges as there were on the foreign exchange, something that the name strongly implies (betting exchange).

By bringing their skills over from finances to betting, there have been a large number of professional bettors trading on Betfair both historically, and presently.

One of the things that it is important to note when looking at trading on Betfair compared to betting is that you don’t have to know anything about a sport to trade. When you are betting however, you generally need some knowledge. This opens up trading on Betfair in ways that you wouldn’t have ever expected when compared to the traditional betting route.

Trading Football on Betfair

With our appetisers out of the way, I think that it is important to look at what this article is really about and that is trading football on Betfair. There are a lot of reasons that you would want to trade football over other sports and likewise, there are a lot of reasons that you would want to trade over betting, most of which I will probably go into over the course of this article.

The long and short of this is that trading carries significantly less risk than betting if the correct approach is taken. It also allows for very different strategies which focus on making a more consistent profit on a day to day basis rather than the ups and downs that come with traditional betting. After all, I think that most people who bet on football would rather win £5 every day, than lose £5 every day, only to win it back with a £35 profit at the end.

Many traders try to show you how to actually trade the football markets on betfair, as there is a whole nich that has been built up around this topic over the last few years, and here is Steve Howe, a professional Betfair Trader Of ItsaMugsBlog explaining his own simple football systems:

What Football Can I Trade?

The number of games that you can trade on Betfair is frankly rather staggering.  It is a genuine year round affair with a massive variety of different leagues and competitions from different countries and continents. In fact, I have just logged onto the Betfair exchange and there are an eyewatering 53 different countries that I could bet on the football over. There are also international games as well.

This kind of variety is hugely important as a big part of profitable football trading lies in finding value. It is no coincidence that most of the profitable football tipsters and settings that I have looked at have involved betting on more obscure leagues and games. Fortunately, the breadth of depth that exists on Betfair’s exchange makes it ideal for trading, whether you are looking at the Champions League final or an Azerbaijani Cup match.

Which Football Markets Can I Trade?

For many serious football traders on Betfair, the types of games that they are betting on is somewhat secondary to the betting markets that are available. This will vary from game to game depending on what games you are betting on (more niche leagues and cups have less markets), however the main ones have you more than covered.

Obviously, the main markets that people will be used to are win markets.

This means backing a team to win, lose or draw. It can also mean laying a team as well. Generally speaking, this is where the least value is to be found in football trading as the number of potential outcomes are fixed. This doesn’t mean that it is a bad market to bet on as it is often the most liquid. Furthermore, there are some very well established trading techniques which are based around backing or laying on this market. This includes half time/full time markets which involve choosing the outcome at halftime and full time.

The next bet type that I wish to look at that you can trade are the over/under goals markets. These are exactly what they say on the tin. You can place bets on there being over or under anywhere from 0.5 goals all the way up to 6.5 goals. Over/under goals markets have become a staple of the Betfair trading scene. There are a number of reasons for this but the main ones are liquidity, the ability to hedge bets and the value that is available.

The other types of football bets that you can trade are something of an eclectic mix. This includes things like the correct score (both at the end of the game and at anytime during the game). Whether a penalty will be awarded in a game and even whether a hat trick will be scored.

This kind of esoteric bet isn’t something that most traders will look at, usually because there simply isn’t really any value in this type of bet. Furthermore, they are also generally very unpredictable.

The only other bet type that is left to trade are Asian Handicap bets. These are an interesting but somewhat niche bet type which teams are handicapped based on their form. This particular betting market has yet to be really take off in terms of trading. This is mostly down to the fact that to the best of my knowledge, there aren’t any specific trading strategies for Asian Handicap bets.

What is Befair Liquidity and Why is it So Important?

I have mentioned a number of times about liquidity in markets and this is arguably one of the single most important aspects of trading anything on Betfair. Because you are betting with other people on an exchange, liquidity must be a thing to get your bets matched. This is because liquidity is basically the amount of money that is available on any given betting market on any given game. More liquidity is a good thing as it means that you are more likely to get bets accepted.

Naturally there are certain general rules that you can expect to see when you are looking at liquidity of bets. For example, the bigger the game, the more money will wagered on it. Take the upcoming United vs Liverpool match. At the time of writing, there has been just under £240,000 stakes on the game simply on Match Odds. By contrast , the Qatari game between Al-Rayyan SC and Al Sadd has had just £19,188 bet on it.

What is important to keep in mind is that generally speaking, with any game that you wish to trade on, liquidity will be at its peak the closer you get to the game. When it comes to trading, this is generally where you can get the best possible odds and your bets are most likely to be matched. This is of huge benefit to a trader as you are able to get the most out of each of your trades.

Which Markets Have the Most Liquidity?

Now that we know what liquidity is, we can take a look at which markets generally have the most. Using the upcoming Liverpool v Manchester United game I can start to look at how liquidity is spread out. I have already talked about the match odds and the amounts of money that have been bet there and this is generally where you will find the most liquidity.

People like to believe that it is easiest to predict the overall outcome, something that I believe that there is some truth to.

The match odds liquidity will inevitably increase as we get closer to the match, as will other markets. For example, the correct score market currently has around £16,000 stakes on it, a figure that will naturally rise as more goals are scored in game. The same applies to over/under goals markets which have across all examples a touch over £10,000.

After this you tend to find that there simply isn’t that much liquidity unless it is a particularly big game. This is because the kind of bets (as I have already talked about) tend to be niche and unpredictable. As a result of this, it can mean that there is less interest from bettors and as a direct result, less liquidity.

How Do I Become a Successful Football Trader?

The best way to start earning your stripes in football trading is to get on Betfair and start trying to trade bets. I will be looking at some basic systems below which if you follow, you should enjoy at least a little success with. Ultimately, this will all depend on your mindset when you are trading.

Betting and trading take a very different approach and this is mostly down to the fact that betting is binary. You can win, or you can lose. If you win, then you will make a profit and if you lose, you will lose your stake. Trading is much more fluid than this because you choose at what point you wish to begin or end a trade.

To trade successfully, what you really need to be focussed on is avoiding losing rather than winning. This is because the nature of trading means that you are looking to make less money, more often. The narrower profit margins mean that anything resembling a big loss can kill your profits for a month. On a personal level, this means that you have to think a certain way. You must be selective and have patience and discipline when you have a trade in play.

This is of course somewhat boring which is why most football betting traders that you see are more mature in age. These are people who are not seeking the thrill of a big win, but the feeling that comes with knowing that you have made a profit for the day, no matter how big or small that is. What matters is getting to the end of the year and seeing steady bank growth and an overall profit.

It is important to talk about this before talking about practical advice for trading, not least of which is because without the mindset, you can easily overextend yourself. Making a trading plan is a good idea regardless of your experience. This means finding games that you believe have strong opportunities and working out which are best to trade. Consider things we have discussed like liquidity in the market, will teams play to score or will both play for a draw?

From here, you can consider the kinds of trades that you might want to look at and start to learn how to manage trading throughout a game. When you are getting started, you might prefer to have the game playing out live in front of you. Irrespective of what markets you are trading and the set up that you have, it is important to keep in mind the fundamentals of trading football on Betfair.

Trading Using Software

You will probably find it far easier to trade using either the Betfair platform itself, or by using software such as Bet Angel, and you can see a quick, albeit simplistic kind of system below from Peter Webb, who is trading the under 2.5 goals market:

What Kind of Football Trading Systems Are There?

In terms of the numbers of football trading systems for Betfair, there are more than I care to count. Fundamentally however, all trading can be viewed in two lights. These are pre game trades, and in play. Both of these are pretty self explanatory however it is important to understand the differences as they can massively influence how you trade.

Pre game trading strategies will often involve the least risk. This is because you are looking to leverage small market movements often in order to identify profitable trading opportunities. This is often compared to the more traditional market trading methods of scalping. Pre game trading strategies of this nature generally involve being able to buy positions as soon as news breaks in order to get the best odds. You can then trade these out as prices move to lock in profit before a game even kicks off.

In game trading is a much more dynamic affair that can produce much higher profits than pre game trading. This can be somewhat more exciting as there are a greater variety of bets to trade. It is however important to remember to be disciplined here and not let your trades drift into bet territory.

General Trading

This type of trading is arguably the purists trading in so much as it most resembles the traditional financial trading that ultimately evolved into bet trading. This kind of trading involves taking advantage of market positions and movements to generate a profit. It is arguably the most time consuming and riskiest method of trading as you are relying on things going one way or another in order to get results.

This kind of trading doesn’t necessarily require you to have a substantial knowledge of football however if you wish to mitigate your risk then it will definitely help. A good example of in game trading may look something like this:

Before a game, you notice that a teams star striker is on the bench, despite being up against an evenly matched team. You place a bet on Over 0.5 goals at odds of 1.8. The game plays out as expected and ends up feeling very much like a stalemate at 0-0. Both teams are reasonably matched with no obvious advantage. Team A suddenly bring on their star striker.

At this point, the value in the various goals markets starts to drop significantly which means that your original position can be traded out for a profit, even though there hasn’t been a goal scored. You trade your bet and lock in a profit, despite the game ultimately ending in a draw.

As you can see from this, we are using knowledge of the sport in order to identify where there are opportunities to make profits.  With the correct approach, you can carry out this kind of trade multiple times in a game on a wide variety of markets which means that it is massively flexible. As I have mentioned however, you do need to have a reasonable understanding of football in order to really profit from this. Furthermore, you should ideally be watching the match so you can see where opportunities are becoming available.

Whilst this method of football trading sounds simple, and in principle it is, it can actually be very difficult to remain profitable in the long term. This is because trades can often turn on a dime and the amounts of income that you generate are quite small. You can of course implement stop losses and trade out before you lose too much money, but it is difficult to ignore that this is a risky method of trading.

Trading counter goals is really quite a good example of in game trading which involves looking at a very specific set of circumstances on which to trade. Consider the following example:

The same Team A and Team B used in the example above are playing. Both are evenly matched although Team A happen to be a point ahead in the league. Team A manage to score a goal in the 60^th minute. The markets inevitably go crazy and the odds ultimately settle at 1.3 for Team A to win. At this point, you could lay Team A knowing that Team B are going to push hard to score a goal back and get at least a draw. Team B start to play a much more offensive game with a stream of corners coming their way. The odds for Team A winning drift to 1.8 at which point you cash out your lay bet for a profit. The game ends 1-0 to Team A

This is a method that is again somewhat dependent on having some understanding of football. You have to have a reasonable amount of knowledge to say whether or not a team really has a chance of scoring a goal in return. This approach to training when paired with a sensible stop loss can allow you to make a decent profit in game with minimal risk.

You will notice that in both of the examples that I have listed above, the winning trades ultimately end up being losing bets. This is what being a savvy trader is about. You are looking for trades that will win, not bets that will win and that is a distinction that most people struggle with, especially at first. Once you have got past this however, I feel that trading becomes a much more natural process.

Specific Trading Strategies

There are a lot of trading strategies out there that individuals use to make money every day. Some of these are clear winners and others are much more questionable. The truth is that what might work for one person might not work for another and vice versa. Trading is a very personal thing and it is really up to you to find where you are comfortable in terms of managing risk and your profit and loss sheet.

That doesn’t mean however that you should instantly dismiss football trading strategies for Betfair out of hand. Becoming a successful trader is something that you never really stop working towards and there are some genuinely very good guides and strategies online. Dismissing them on the grounds of “knowing what you’re doing” can definitely impact how much money you can make through trading.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Trading Football on Betfair Versus Traditional Betting?

I have already touched upon the answer to this at numerous points in this article but there are some very clear pros and cons to trading over betting. Naturally there are some nuanced and grey areas, however in the main, there are quite definite differences.

One of the main differences between betting and trading lies in the approach to profit. As I have already talked about at length, trading is all about finding small profits and consistently taking advantage of them in order to increase your bank in the long term. When you are betting, you have to take profit where it comes as ultimately, you have no control over anything. Personally, I consider this to be a positive for football trading over betting.

Obviously, this does eat away at the excitement a little which some people will find to be a big disadvantage however I am not one of them.

The next difference is in how time consuming each discipline is. Betting is usually “set and forget”. Put simply this means that once you have placed your bets you have nothing to do but simply wait to see what happens. Trading undoubtedly means spending more time at your computer. Especially when you are getting started. Even when you are experienced you will need to spend some time at your computer.

The time consuming nature of trading can be mitigated somewhat through the use of a trading bot, however this will not apply to every method of football trading.

Finally, the big difference as far as I am concerned is that football trading is a skill. Many traders that I have spoken with talk about how they could land somewhere new and start to make a living immediately. With a small amount of initial capital, I can entirely believe it. Betting on the other hand always involves some degree of luck.

Realistically, I think that betting and trading both operate at different ends of the same spectrum. Which of the two you find preferential will ultimately depend on your approach to making money. For my money, I definitely prefer the approach that traders have to making money through football. Betting seems fraught with risk by comparison, and whilst landing a big win is definitely a thrill, I find that it is not enough to override being 50 points in the red whilst you wait for a win.

Conclusion on Football Trading, Betting and Gambling

Trading on Betfair is one of the safer ways of making money online that I can think of, so long as know what you are doing. Those who jump in with reckless abandon are almost guaranteed to lose money. This is unfortunate, but trading on Betfair simply isn’t for everybody. As I have already touched upon, you have to be dedicated, disciplined and hard working if you want to be successful in trading.

Trading football on Betfair is one of you best options as well in my opinion. I know of plenty of people who prefer horse racing, and some of them make good money through it. To each their own. For me, football is just more accessible. When you are looking at horse racing you might have to consider 3 or 4 different horses per race. With football, there are only 3 possible outcomes per game. Furthermore, there are many more markets that you can aim to take advantage of.

Not always that easy trying to make a profit…

It is not always as easy as it may seem, when trying to profit on football, and the following Youtube video will show you how one such trader is pretty much all over the place when trying to make a small profit:

As you can see, the guy was fumbling around all over the place. But, many do make a profit, so it is always best not to focus on those who cannot do something, or who go around the houses just for the sake of showing a YouTube video

There are other reasons that I prefer trading football on Betfair however. One of the main ones is that I find football easier to follow.

The first thing to keep in mind is that there is a firm media bias towards sports and sports personalities when reporting. This means that if a teams star striker is injured and unavailable to play, you will likely read about it in all of the papers. Compare this to a horse getting a slight knock which affects its gait which might get reported in the Racing Post.

Second of all, there is the fact that football gives you plenty of breathing room when you are trading. 90 minutes is a long time and there are plenty of strategies that you can apply in that time scale. This is significantly longer than the few minutes that a horse race will last and as such, you get more time to respond to in game events. This makes it particularly well suited to those who are just starting out with trading.

All things considered, I believe that bet trading is a skill. It is not a flash in the pan thing and if you take the correct approach, you can literally build your betting bank from next to nothing. This is no small feat. The truth about trading on Betfair whether it is football or any other sport,  is that it takes hard work to get things going.

This is something of a point of contention when it comes to making money online with a lot of products underrepresenting how much you have to do turn a profit.

If you are looking for a consistent way to make money online then I believe that football trading on Betfair is one of the best approaches that you can take. It is not the easiest, however I also believe that it is something that pretty much anybody can do.

Even if you don’t know a lot about football, it is not a difficult sport to come to understand. Again, I particularly apply this when put next to horse racing, however I feel that it can be applied to a variety of other sports.

As I stated earlier, there are many nprofessional traders who do make a living trading the football markets on betfair, and if you are an avid reader of this website, then you will know that we have recently completed a review of the Daisho Trading System, offered by Tony Langley, and this is one guy who does know how to trade football.

I should be clear though, football trading on Betfair isn’t going to make you a millionaire (as if, right!). I cannot stress enough that trading is all about making small and frequent wins. The beauty of trading as a method, when combined with this approach, is that you are in control. This is massively different to a lot of ways of making money online which require you to operate at a loss and rely on third party sources to make you money.

Trading is all about your abilities, and understanding the task at hand!

Whether you are currently involved in football trading on Betfair or not, I think that this is a method that at the very least is worth a look. Especially if you are serious about making money online. There are very few immediate negatives outside of having to put time and effort.

If these things are problems for you, I have to hold my hands up and say that it isn’t just Betfair trading that you will have problems with, it is any method of making money online. You have to apply a lot of effort when making a profit with anything.

Related Content

How You Can Win More Money Through Your Betting? The Mind of a Gambler

How to Avoid Banned Bookmaker Accounts and Restrictions

Football Dutching Systems Review Strategies and Methodologies

The post Betfair Football Trading and Betting Systems, Do They Really Work? appeared first on Money Makers Reviewed.