Lessons learnt this weekend: Juggling too many bets
This weekend I wanted to jump in with both feet and cash in on 4 matched bets.
First I thought this was a good idea but it quickly turned into a nightmare.
I signed up for 4 new betting accounts and when through the process of placing the qualifier bets for each one. Two of these were ok. I had a couple of issues with the other two.
1) One of the bets I placed was only partially matched on the betting exchange. It finally got sort of matched but it meant that part of the bet was at the correct odds and the remainder was at a different odds. This lead to a bigger than expected loss in the qualifier bet round.
2) The other issue was that I placed a bet for Monday rather than the Saturday. This meant waiting with money tied up in a bet which could have been used in another earlier bet to extract profit more quickly.
Once the qualifier bets were settled I moved on to placing the free bets and extract the profits.
Only I was faced with a couple more issues (it wasn’t my weekend!).
1) I accidentally placed the free bet on odds which I could not / did not want to meet the liability of. It was something stupid like a £600 liability. So I had to let that free bet play out on its own with laying it.
2) The other issue again was on liability. This weekend meant that I had to put up £400 in liabilities to extract the profit from the free bets. This is an issue as even though I know that matched betting in itself is relatively risk-free, there is also the element of human error, and more annoying, in that the bookmakers or betting exchange could limit, freeze or delete an account of mine. Essentially I don’t feel comfortable with having too much money sitting in liabilities.
What have I learnt from this weekend:
A) Don’t run more than two free bet offers in one go. Doing 4 means managing at least 8 bets.
B) Double check the dates of the events you are betting on.
C) Double check the liabilities of the bets you place and that you can afford them.
D) Be comfortable with the amount of money you are staking / putting up as liability. It’s not just about if you can afford it, it’s also about are you comfortable with that level of money.
The only good thing from this weekend is that I have increased my profits from ~£20 to ~£105 from a total of 6 matched bets.