It’s early Spring here in Australia and not only is it a great time of year to be in this country, it’s a busy time for Sports and Racing Punters because we have Footy Finals and the Spring Racing Carnival just warming up. This means it’s a great time to be having a Bet and the local bookmakers know it. Ever since the Corporate Bookies were allowed into the market En Masse a decade or so ago they have been dominating the Betting Landscape – especially at this time of year.
The Business Model of the Corporates is a bit different from the traditional track-side Bookies. Both want to make money of course, but where the old Bookies would be holding a bag on the coalface and taking on ALL punters, the Corporates are largely faceless and they can pick and choose. They use a slightly different approach which is to really target MUG punters and get the winning punters off their books. With the advantages of internet technology and modern information systems they have become pretty good at weeding out the winners. I would know because over the last 10 years or so I’ve lost a LOT of my betting accounts or had them severely limited.
However, this Business Model does have it’s Achilles Heel. To try and rope in the mugs they often will offer Deposit Bonuses to new clients at this time of year, especially if they are fairly new on the scene and looking to get established. You can often sign up and deposit $200 or so to get $200 in Bonus Bets on top….because most punters are losing punters and they expect you to lose. But if you’re smart you can convert those Bonus Bets into Cash before they can figure out that you actually know what you’re doing. As a result you can build up a bit of a Bankroll with little to no risk.
Basically you find a market where you can get a decent price to bet your Bonus with your Bookmaker and then take an opposing LAY Bet on an exchange like Betfair as a hedge. I’ve done this on and off for years and I can usually get a conversion rate of about 80% of Bonus Bets to Cash, though recently this has dropped to 70% because of Commissions and the markets being a bit sharper. Still, if you can do a bit of Math it’s worth doing and it’s pretty easy money. The Corporate Bookies have been stripping Punters for a long time now, so it’s good to get some back off them when you can.