We all know the term “the house always wins”.

Well, not always.

There are ways to take advantage of casino bonus offers that give us players an edge.  This article will tell you everything you need to know about making money from casino bonuses in the USA.

What are Casino Offers?

Whilst there may only be a handful of casino operators in the USA, they are still fighting each other for your money.

They’re always looking to attract new customers, and keep their current customers gambling, so you’ll commonly see bonuses offered. For example, you can see BetMGM have an offer to match any deposit up to $1,000.

Which states have online casinos?

Online casinos have only been legalized in a few states:

• Connecticut
• Michigan
• New Jersey
• Pennsylvania
• West Virginia

Each casino will ask for proof of address in one of these states, so unfortunately it’s not possible to use a VPN to bypass these rules.

To find the latest list of legalized states, refer to Casino.org.

Types of Casino Offer

There are three different types of bonuses that are commonly seen for casinos, each of which comes with slightly different rules.

I will go into more detail about the rules and conditions with casino offers later in this article. However, it’s important to understand one lesson: always carefully read the terms and conditions. Online casinos are sneaky and might change their terms at any time, so it’s important to always read the T&C’s yourself.

Most casino offers come with ‘wagering requirements’. That’s an amount of money you have to bet before the bonus funds are made available for withdrawal. As an example, a 10x wagering requirement on $100 of bonus funds would need $1,000 to be wagered before a withdrawal can be made.

Free Spins

A free spin bonus provides you with a certain number of ‘free’ spins on a slot. Often, these are limited to a specific slot and are valued at the minimum bet for that slot. Commonly 10 – 20 cents per spin.

The winning from those free spins might be yours to keep, or they might be subject to more wagering requirements.

Deposit Bonus

The most common type of casino offer, and the type already presented in the BetMGM offer above. A casino will provide a bonus amount of funds depending on how much a player has deposited (e.g $100 bonus when depositing $100).

Typically, these are presented as a ‘percentage’. The most lucrative offers might offer up to 200% deposit bonus, meaning a $100 deposit results in an additional $200 of bonus funds.

This bonus is almost always linked to some wagering requirements so you won’t be able to simply withdraw it.

You might also think about withdrawing your initial deposit and just playing with bonus funds, however the bookmakers can prevent this in a few different ways:

• Cancelling the bonus (and any winnings) if a withdrawal is made before wagering requirements are complete.
• Merging the bonus funds with your initial deposit and applying the wagering requirements to your deposited cash as well.
• Using your initial deposit cash balance before using the bonus funds.

No Deposit Bonus

This type of casino bonus is fairly self-explanatory. Some casinos offer a bonus to players without requiring any form of cash deposit.

However, no deposit bonuses often come with incredibly high wagering requirements meaning it’s very difficult to withdraw any of the bonus as cash.

How to Exploit Casino Offers

You might be wondering where the secret trick is. So far, I have only explained how difficult it is to extract profit from casino offers due to wagering requirements.

This is where I introduce the magic of Expected Value (EV). It’s the core concept behind casino advantage play.

Expected Value is simply the amount of money you’d be expected to win if you were able to repeat an offer an unlimited number of times.

That means if we have an offer with an EV of $10, we’d be expected to win an average of $10 from infinite attempts. However, the reality is that we only normally get one attempt at an offer.

Therefore, casino advantage play is not risk-free. You can definitely lose your entire deposit and any funds associated with the offer.

Expected Value tells us that we’ll make a profit on average, over many attempts. We must take part in multiple casino bonus offers to make it more likely we end up in profit.

How is Expected Value calculated?

The calculations for Expected Value are quite complicated, with quite a few variables including:

• Bonus Amount
• Wagering Requirements
• Return to Player (RTP)
• Bet Size
• Slot Variance

Return to Player is the amount of money any casino game would be expected to provide from $100 bet on that game. For example, if a game has a 95% RTP then the average gambler who bets $100 on the game will be left with $95.

You can see that bet size has a big effect on the end result by thinking about two different players on Blackjack, which has a RTP of roughly 99%.

• Player A bets a single hand of $100.
  • If they win, they will have $200
  • If they lose, they will have $0
• Player B bets 100 hands of $1.
  • They are likely to win just under 50% of hands and end with $99.
  • A majority of players will finish with $75 – $125.

Each player has wagered the same amount of money, but the variance changes significantly depending on the bet size.

Ultimately, these factors feed into the Expected Value of an offer which tells us whether we have an edge over the casino.

An example of Expected Value

Let’s take a scenario where we have a $100 bonus with a 2x wagering requirement (we need to wager $200 to make our bonus withdrawable).

We choose to play a slot that has an average RTP of 96%.

When we play through $100, we are expected to have $96 in our account balance. After playing through another $100, we would be expected to have $92 in our account balance. At this point, those $92 would be withdrawable as we have met the wagering requirements.

In this scenario, we are incredibly likely to walk away with a profit.

However, keep in mind that $92 is the average winnings expected if we repeated the offer an unlimited number of times. In reality, we might find ourselves winning far more, or even losing our full deposit.

EV Calculators for Casino

To check whether an offer has a positive expected value, it makes sense to use a calculator as the math can get quite complicate

Unfortunately, there aren’t many good EV calculators publicly available.

This calculator from YesBets is one of the best I’ve found. If we plug in the numbers from our BetMGM offer using a slot with a 95% RTP using $10 spins, here’s what it looks like:

This suggests that we have a 60% chance of taking a profit from the offer, with an Expected Value of $307.

What would happen if we change our bet size to $1 per spin (that would be 15,000 spins)?

You can see that our chances of making a profit from this offer have jumped up to 99%. Essentially, we are very unlikely to lose any money with $1 spins.

However, our Expected Value has dropped a bit. We are likely to win $222.

How often should you expect to bust out?

‘Busting out’ is when bonus funds run out before the wagering requirements are complete. In this scenario, your remaining funds are usually unlocked for withdrawal. However, it’s important to check if the wagering requirements apply to both your deposit and bonus.

The chances of busting out depend on the size of your bets, the wagering requirements, the RTP, and the variance of the casino game.

You can reduce your chances of busting out of offers by reducing your bet size and using games with a higher return to player.

In my experience, you are looking for a balance between the amount of time required to complete the offer and reducing your risk of busting out. Nobody wants to wager $15,000 in 10 cent spins. Even using autoplay, that’s still 150,000 spins.

How to Find Casino Offers?

Casino offers are not particularly elusive. Most online casino operators publicly advertise their offers to potential new players.

However, each offer comes with a unique set of terms and conditions. This means the optimal strategy to extract a profit might not be very obvious.

That’s why services like ProfitDuel exist. They search out all the available casino offers, review the terms and conditions, calculate the expected value, then present back the optimal strategy for extracting profit.

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Understanding Casino Terms & Conditions

I’ve participated in hundreds of casino bonuses across multiple continents, so I’ve spent many hours reading and trying to comprehend their terms and conditions.

Whilst they’re often written in ‘legalese’, it’s critical to read through the fine print to make sure you don’t fall foul of a crazy rule.

Wagering Requirements

A wagering requirement is how many times you need to ‘wager’ (bet) your bonus before it becomes withdrawable as cash. These are usually denoted as ‘x1’, ‘x10’, ‘x20’ etc.

Check the terms carefully to see whether your wagering requirements apply to just the bonus or apply to both the deposit and bonus (often seen as d+bx10 for a 10x wagering requirement on deposit and bonus).

Let’s take a scenario of a $100 deposit for a 50% bonus, leaving us with $150 in our account.

As you can see, the wagering requirements have a significant impact on our chances of being able to withdraw winnings from any offer. As a rule of thumb, any wagering requirements above 20x make it very difficult to find a positive Expected Value.

Game Contributions and Eligibility

To make wagering requirements more complicated, some casino games only contribute a limited percentage towards the wagering requirements.

Here’s an example from the BetMGM offer we’ve been discussing:

If the wagering requirement was 20x, playing Blackjack would effectively make the wagering requirement 200x. Whilst Blackjack has a very high RTP, it’s not high enough to make it worth playing through this wagering requirement.

Casinos can also restrict certain slots or games from counting towards the wagering requirements at all.

Order of Funds & Sticky Wagering Requirements

When you get a deposit bonus, the funds will often display in your account as an ‘available balance’ (your deposit) and a ‘bonus balance’. Different casinos have different rules around which order these funds are used, and whether they are both tied into the wagering requirements.

Let’s look at the BetMGM offer:

The second bullet point is critical here. The wagering requirements will stick around as long as any money remains in your account.

That means it’s possible to lose all of your money with this promotion. It’s high risk, high reward.

Other casinos might opt to use your deposit before your bonus funds, so you won’t even start getting through the wagering requirements until your deposit is gone. It’s advisable to avoid any offers with strict terms like this.

If you do happen to lose all of your deposit + bonus, always double check that the wagering requirements have been deactivated from your account before making a new deposit. Some casinos see any new deposits as being included in the previously active wagering requirements.

State Rules

Individual states might have slightly different rules based on varying legislation between states.

Some states have strong consumer protection on bonus offer than others, which can sometimes result in some promotions not being made available at all to users with some states.

Always search the terms and conditions for your state’s name and check any specific requirements.

Deposit Code

Most casinos will apply the bonus to your account automatically when you make a cash deposit, usually through an opt-in checkbox during the deposit process.

However, some casinos will require you to enter a promotional code. Check the promotion carefully and make sure your deposit will qualify for the bonus.

Bonus Expiry

Most casino bonuses don’t stay in your account forever. Many have relatively short time periods of between 7 – 14 days where the bonus funds are valid and the wagering requirements must be completed in this time.

Participation Limitation

All casinos will have a condition limiting bonus offers to 1x per individual. Due to licensing rules that require proof of identity, it’s very difficult to circumvent this restriction.

Most offers will also have a limitation of being available only once to a household as well. This means you may not be able to open accounts in both yours and your spouse/partner’s name.

Types of Casino Games

Excluding social wagers between friends, a lot of people have never gambled before. If that’s you, this guide likely seems very complicated.

Fortunately, casinos are actually very simple. Most of them offer just three different types of games, each of which behave slightly differently.

Slots

Slots are a game of pure chance, whereby a player selects their preferred bet amount and spins a set of reels.

It’s important to recognize that slots can be very varied and have evolved far from the original 3-reel BAR & 7s slot. They now have a wide variety of reels, win lines, symbols, and even special bonus rounds.

In fact, there are thousands of different slot games available. Each has a slightly different theme and behaviors.

To extract value from casino bonuses, it’s advised to use a slot that has a high RTP, without a jackpot, and low variance. This is because the extremely slim chance of winning the jackpot is included in the RTP, so a low variance slot without a jackpot will pay out smaller winnings more regularly. You’ll be less likely to bust out.

Table Games

Most people have heard of traditional casino games like Blackjack & Roulette, which are joined by games like Craps, Baccarat, and Poker as table games at a casino.

Blackjack is the perfect game for working through wagering requirements due to its high RTP (99%) and incredibly low variance. Whilst you’re unlikely to win large amounts playing Blackjack, you’re also unlikely to lose a large amount.

Blackjack is also the ideal game for non-gamblers because there’s a ‘perfect’ strategy to earn the 99% RTP. You just need to follow exactly what is recommended in the following table, which depends on your cards and the dealer’s hand.

 It’s a shame that some offers severely limit Blackjacks’ contribution to wagering requirements, so definitely check the terms & conditions carefully.

Table games can be played as either standard ‘slot’ mechanisms where you can play at your own pace, or live table games where you bet on a live dealer being streamed from a casino.

Virtual Sports

A virtual sports game is when you can bet on a sport like Soccer, Horse Racing, or NFL, with completely made-up teams and players. The game provides you with the odds of each outcome and you place bets on those outcomes.

The game then plays out in front of you and provides a randomly generated result. There is no skill involved in picking the right team, it’s a game of pure luck.

Whilst I count these games as being part of the casino, I would heavily advise against using virtual sports when working through bonuses. They often have a terrible ‘return to player’ compared to the other alternatives including slots.

Taxes on Casino Advantage Play

One last very important aspect of casino bonuses to mention is taxes. Unfortunately, all gambling winnings earned in the USA are taxed at both the federal level and state level.

This means you need to declare any winnings in your yearly tax return. To enable this, all online casinos will provide a summary of your gaming activities in January – February every year.

If you win more than $1,200 from one spin, or more than $600 on a Live game with a payout more than 300x your wager, the casino will provide a W-2G form and automatically withhold a portion of your winnings.

Federally, the standard tax on gambling winnings is 24%. At a state level, this varies significantly, and you should check the rules specifically for your state.

Managing tax related to gambling can be a challenging activity for American residents. I highly recommend deferring the preparation of your taxes to a licensed professional.

To read more about how gambling winnings are taxed, I recommend this article from PlayUSA.

Let’s dive into what dutching is, some practical examples, and importantly how regular people like you and I can use dutching to guarantee profitable bets.

What is Dutching?

Dutching is a general term used to describe placing bets on multiple outcomes within the same betting market.

Think about betting on 2 horses in the same race, or betting on both players to win a tennis match.

Dutching is used in the gambling world to reduce the probability of losing money on an event. This leads to winning smaller amounts more regularly and is used to ‘de-risk’ some betting strategies.

In Matched Betting, dutching is the method used to cover all possible outcomes. Through dutching, we can guarantee the financial result before the event has even happened.

There are a few different dutching methods that we’ll discuss and provide practical examples for.

Where did the term dutching come from?

Whilst nobody is certain about the etymology of the term ‘dutching’, the most obvious answer is that it is based on “going dutch” where everyone pays their fair share of a bill. They’re both systems that split costs across multiple places.

However, the general consensus is that the term “dutching” is from American mobster Arthur Flegenheimer who’s famously also known as ‘Dutch Schultz’. Based in New York City, he ran a multi-million dollar racket by manipulating the odds of “pick 3” lotteries.

These lotteries used seemingly ‘random’ numbers derived from the amounts bet at Belmont Park, however Schultz realized he could game the lottery by betting significant amounts of money on multiple runners for certain races.

Many articles reference the idea that Schultz was Al Capone’s accountant but this appears to be fabricated.

The pros and cons of dutching

The reason people use dutching as a gambling strategy is simple, it helps manage risk primarily by reducing the variance experienced when gambling.

Some people would also describe this as ‘hedging’ a bet by making alternative wagers to mitigate the risk of a single event happening (or not happening). By making multiple selections, basic probability proves that you’ll end up selecting more winners.

Using the movement of odds before/during a race can be a very effective way to strategically dutch certain bets. If the odds move in your favour, you can even use dutching to lock in a profit.

However, dutching has three primary issues:

1. When one of your selections wins, you also must take into account the losing stakes on the other bets.
2. If none of your selections win, you lose all of the stakes made on that event.
3. Dutching requires a good understanding of how odds work, so most casual bettors will stick to simpler sportsbook betting strategies.

In matched betting, we overcome these issues by utilizing sportsbook offers, betting on markets with only 2-3 markets, and leveraging dutching calculators to handle all the mathematics for us.

Types of Dutch Betting

There are 3 primary types of dutch betting, that vary based on the outcome you’re trying to achieve. When we know the odds of each event, and the outcome we want to achieve, we can use some simple calculations to determine our betting amounts.

We’ll use examples from Horse Racing where we aren’t covering all possible outcomes. Skip ahead to learn how matched betting guarantees a profit by covering all possible outcomes.

Simple Dutch Betting

The most basic form of dutch betting, mostly used by punters who are casually betting and like the chances of a few horses in the same race.

• Stake $20 on Horse A at 300
• Stake $20 on Horse B at 500

There are three possible outcomes:

• Horse A wins
  • Horse A returns +$60 profit.
  • Horse B returns -$20 loss.
  • Total winnings of $40.
• Horse B wins
  • Horse A returns -$20 loss.
  • Horse B returns $100 profit.
  • Total winnings of $80
• Neither Horse A nor Horse B win:
  • Horse A returns -$20 loss.
  • Horse B returns -$20 loss.
  • Total loss of $40.

Set-Profit Dutch Betting

In set-profit dutching, you set a target amount of profit you want to reach as long as at least one of your selected outcomes occurs. Let’s set ourselves a target of $100 profit with the same two horses.

• Stake $40 on Horse A at 300
• Stake $24 on Horse B at 500

As before, there are three possible outcomes:

• Horse A wins
  • Horse A returns +$120 profit.
  • Horse B returns -$20 loss.
  • Total winnings of $100.
• Horse B wins
  • Horse A returns -$20 loss.
  • Horse B returns $120 profit.
  • Total winnings of $100
• Neither Horse A nor Horse B win:
  • Horse A returns -$20 loss.
  • Horse B returns -$20 loss.
  • Total loss of $40.

As you can see, this requires you to adjust the amount of money staked on each horse to ensure that your profit is the same regardless of the (winning) outcome.

Set-Amount Dutch Betting

Similar to set-profit dutching, this approach requires you to set a total amount you’re willing to stake before calculating how much you should put on each horse to ensure profit is the same.

In this example, we only want to bet $30 but we want to win the same amount regardless of which horse wins.

• Stake $18 on Horse A at 300
• Stake $12 on Horse B at 500

As before, there are three possible outcomes:

• Horse A wins
  • Horse A returns +$54 profit.
  • Horse B returns -$12 loss.
  • Total winnings of $42.
• Horse B wins
  • Horse A returns -$18 loss.
  • Horse B returns $60 profit.
  • Total winnings of $42
• Neither Horse A nor Horse B win:
  • Horse A returns -$20 loss.
  • Horse B returns -$20 loss.
  • Total loss of $40.

Is Dutch Betting a Profitable Strategy?

Any successful gambling strategy relies on beating the sportsbook’s odds. You want to bet on events that are more likely than the Sportsbook odds imply.

Therefore, if you think multiple possibilities are more likely to occur, it’s smart betting to place money on multiple outcomes.

Dutching is also very effective as a hedging strategy when odds change, or you identify that your first selection is less likely to win than you thought. Similar to a Sportsbook cash-out option, dutching can be used to reduce your potential losses or lock in a profit from any bet.

Dutching is a technique that can also be used for “arbitrage” betting, which is when the sum of implied probabilities is greater than 100%. This is a rare scenario when placing bets on every outcome would guarantee an overall profit, usually when selecting odds across multiple Sportsbooks. Not sure how implied probability works? We’ll show you how to calculate implied profitability from American odds.

Dutch Betting in Matched Betting

Matched betting relies on a mathematical approach to gambling, using Sportsbook bonuses to guarantee a profit from dutching multiple bets.

These bonuses are ‘risk-free’ which means there’s no loss of money if that outcome fails to win. By adjusting our dutched bets, we can ensure the same profitable amount regardless of what happens in the sporting event.

Check out our free matched betting guide to learn more about how matched betting works.

What are the best events for dutching?

Dutching is a technique that can be applied to any sporting event.

If trying to dutch your bets whilst the event is ‘in-play’, sports with longer games (and time-outs/breaks in play) allow you more time to follow the odds and calculate the appropriate stake.

When match, we want to cover every outcome so it’s preferable to use events with as few outcomes as possible. Thankfully, most sports here in America must have a winner or a loser from just two teams.

Therefore, sports like NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, or Tennis are fantastic sports for dutching because we only need to place two bets to cover every outcome.

We also don’t care about the odds moving, we guarantee a profit before the match has started.

The Alternatives to Dutching

There are plenty of alternative gambling strategies to dutching, although most of these strategies are losing propositions in the long run.

In certain states, it’s possible to “dutch” your bets in one go by using a betting exchange.

Betting exchanges allow you to lay an event which is betting on that outcome not to happen.

For example, in a horse race with 10 runners, you can be on Horse A to win but it would take you forever to bet on Horses B, C, D, E etc. individually. On a betting exchange, you are able to lay Horse A which is equivalent to betting on any of the other horses to win.

Betting exchanges are only legal in a few states, and it’s not a very popular gambling method in the USA compared to other countries. However, if you’re based in a lucky state like New Jersey, they’re a fantastic matched betting tool.

However, the betting patterns needed to maximize guaranteed profits aren’t a welcome sight for sportsbooks.

It’s a rite of passage for any matched bettor when they’re first limited by a sportsbook. Meaning they aren’t able to earn bonuses or place large bets.

If you get limited in too many places, it can be the end of your matched betting profits. That’s why there are a few hints, tips, and strategies that will help keep you under the radar.

Explaining Sportsbook Limits

Quite simply, there are two main types of limitation a sportsbook might impose on customers:

1. Restriction – When a customer is limited to a certain ‘risk’ level for bets, therefore preventing any sizeable bets. I’ve been restricted to mere cents on bets at some sportsbooks.
2. Gubbing – Preventing a customer from accessing promotions and bonus bets.

As a matched bettor, we want to reduce our risk of being restricted or gubbed. However, most people start questioning why sportsbooks feel the need to limit customers at all. After all, we’re just betting on publicly available markets and earning bonuses they promote to all customers.

It hardly seems ‘fair’ that sportsbook are allowed to limit any accounts.

There are two main reasons that a sportsbook would choose to limit an account:

1. Only Betting For Bonuses – When an account is only betting on markets where a promotion is available, you’re actually shifting the expected value of your account into the negative. That is, you’re more likely to win than lose money over a long time. That invariably means that the sportsbook are likely to lose money by taking your bets.
2. Always Taking Value Bets – When matched betting, we are always trying to find close ‘matches’ between sportsbooks. Often, close ‘matches’ represent a scenario where the sportsbook haven’t managed their odds very well and you’re getting good value on your bet. Ultimately, betting on good value bets is why professional sports gamblers get restricted (WaPo). They’re not profitable customers.

Sportsbook limits always come down to profitability. As a business, sportsbooks only want to take money from people who place regular poor value bets. It’s easy for them to profit from these people.

As matched bettors, we never gamble or risk our profits. So, what can we do?

Being Limited As A Matched Bettor

As I alluded to above, it’s practically a certainty that a matched bettor will be limited by a sportsbook eventually. It could be months away, it could be many years away.

Ideally, want it to be more like years than months.

It’s possible to reduce your risk of being limited by appearing more like the gullible, low-risk customers the sportsbooks love. Many of our strategies revolve around that simple insight.

However, a word of caution. These strategies require additional time to follow and result in lower profits in the short-term. They also can’t guarantee you won’t be limited anyway.

• If you focus purely on matched betting and optimize for maximum profit as quickly as possible, you’ll earn big money for a few months but risk any long-term profitability.
• If you focus on maintaining your accounts, you’ll earn profits at a slower rate and spend more time matched betting, but you’ll earn more money over the long term.

I don’t recommend a specific approach, as the choice is a personal one. Think about what you want to get out of matched betting (short term vs long term) and choose strategies based on that preference.

7 Strategies to Avoid Sportsbook Limits

You won’t find a more extensive guide to avoiding sportsbook limits in the USA anywhere else. However, that makes our guide quite overwhelming. Especially for anyone new to matched betting.

To make it easier to digest and pick out strategies you want to follow, I’ve given each tactic 2 ratings.

• Impact: Likelihood of reducing your risk of being limited. High = Good.
• Time: The amount of time required to implement the strategy. High = Bad
• Profit: The possible impact on how much profit you’ll earn per bet. High = Bad.

Nobody knows exactly what systems each sportsbook has in place to identify unprofitable customers.

Instead, these strategies are based on my experience over the last 10+ years and talking to hundreds of other matched bettors. I’m confident that these strategies work, but I can never guarantee you’ll avoid being limited forever.

Start Mug Betting

• Impact: HIGH
• Time: MEDIUM
• Profit: MEDIUM (Potentially HIGH)

The basics of limit avoidance strategy. Simply put, make yourself look like a mug punter. Someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.

This means adding in other bets that don’t involve earning a bonus. For example, you could start betting on your favourite team or the big sporting events happening each week.

There are two mug betting methods, with the options down to personal preference:

1. Matched Mugs: Where you hedge all your mug bets with another sportsbook by betting on the alternative outcome. You’ll expect to lose around 5% of your stake each time you place a mug bet pair.
2. No Hedge Mugs: Math dictates that you’ll lose less money when taking an approach where you actively gamble with your mug bets. In theory, you should only lose the sportsbooks ‘vigorish’ on each bet over an extended period of time. However, if you’re seriously unlucky you could wipe out your matched betting profits.

The general agreement amongst matched bettors is that you should be placing a mug bet for every couple of bonus bets you place. It’s a tight balance between risking your accounts and making more money.

Don’t Always Take the Best Matches

• Impact: HIGH
• Time: LOW
• Profit: MEDIUM

We explained the issue that sportsbooks have with so-called “value gamblers”. People who look for the best possible odds for every event they put money on.

As matched bettors, we do this when we look for close ‘matches’ through software like ProfitDuel’s Dutch Matcher (link to our review!). When we find those great matches that eke out an extra 1-2% profit on our bets, we’re signaling to sportsbooks that we’re smarter than they are.

You’re entering dangerous territory when finding bets that have:

• Anything under 2.5% loss on qualifying bets.
• Anything with more than 80% return with bonus bets.

The sportsbooks know exactly what time you placed the bet, and they know what the odds were across every sportsbook at that time. I have no doubt they have algorithms that judge how much ‘value’ customers are getting.

You’ll make a few less dollars on each bet, but it’s well worth it to keep your accounts open for longer.

Of course, if you just want to churn through the welcome offers quickly and run away with your profits, then go ahead and be patient in finding the best possible matches.

Only Bet on Popular Leagues

• Impact: HIGH
• Time: LOW
• Profit: LOW

When we use matched betting software such as ProfitDuel, their matcher can sometimes present opportunities on obscure markets. I’ve seen 90%+ bonus retention on Korean K League football and been sorely tempted to take advantage before.

However, this will undoubtedly make your account stand out like a sore thumb. Your average gambler has no interest in betting on obscure leagues in other countries.

They won’t have many customers using that market. It would surprise nobody for a sportsbook to review your account after a really obscure bet.

In the USA, I always advise people to stick to MLS, NBA, MLB, NFL, and NHL. There are plenty of opportunities within these sports so you don’t have to rely on a Brazilian 3rd Tier Rugby match (for example).

Always Round Your Bets at Sportsbooks

• Impact: HIGH
• Time: LOW
• Profit: LOW

When you’re dutching multiple bookmakers, you’ll often find that the ideal stake at the sportsbook will be a very specific number such as $55.28.

Let’s be honest, it’s very rare that a normal punter would ever bet such a specific amount unless that was everything left in their account.

That’s why I recommend you always round up/down your matched stake at your second sportsbook to the nearest $5. In the case above, you’d bet $55 and accept a slight imbalance between the two sides of your dutched bet.

Over time, these should balance themselves out as sometimes you’ll earn more profit, and sometimes you’ll earn less.

Use a Betting Exchange

• Impact: MEDIUM
• Time: LOW
• Profit: LOW

Betting exchanges are similar to a sportsbook, except your bet gets matched against another customer’s bet. If you win, the funds come directly from that other customer’s bet instead of flowing through a sportsbook’s account.

That means there’s also a slight nuance because you can bet against another person which results in a ‘Lay’ bet. If, for example, there are 3 possible outcomes (win, draw, lose), then you could ‘lay’ the win event and your bet would win if either the draw or lose results occur.

Because exchanges make their profit on a small commission from winnings, they don’t care if you’re winning crazy sums of money. They are very friendly to matched bettors.

You can even place bets on weird figures such as the aforementioned $55.28 and would never have any issues.

Unfortunately, not every state has legalized betting exchanges so you’ll need to check if there are any operating in your state.

Use a Different Username and Email

• Impact: LOW
• Time: LOW
• Profit: LOW

If you’ve signed up to a matched betting service, it’s entirely possible that sportsbooks are also subscribed. They pay a small subscription fee to potentially get access to lots of usernames of matched bettors.

It’s best practice to completely separate the usernames and email addresses you use for these services, from the accounts you sign up to sportsbooks with.

I suspect this is where we’re getting into ‘paranoid’ territory. It’s relatively unlikely sportsbooks are monitoring these social pages and services but if they ever wanted to crack down on matched bettors, it would be a good place for them to start.

Limit Your Withdrawals

• Impact: HIGH
• Time: LOW
• Profit: MEDIUM

Inevitably, you’re going to end up having large amounts of cash sitting in sportsbook accounts. It’s strange experiencing crazy winning streaks all at the same sportsbook, but that’s how the game works sometimes.

Sportsbooks do often review accounts when large, or regular withdrawals are made. It’s also a signal for review when a withdrawal is made immediately after the result of a bonus bet.

Best practice is to keep funds in a sportsbook account for as long as possible, limiting withdrawals for when you really need the money back in your bank account. If that’s not possible, consider leaving some funds behind.

Again, we’re aiming to mimic the behavior’s of a regular customer.

The downside is that we might miss out on some offers because we have funds stuck in sportsbook accounts. We might not be able to start new offers, or place high-odds bets at other sportsbooks without those funds.

Managing where your funds are is a more advanced matched betting skill, commonly referred to as ‘Bankroll Management’.

The Removal of Limits

Many matched bettors have wondered whether their accounts might ever be de-limited. Unfortunately, the short answer is that it’s highly unlikely. Most sportsbooks will never remove restrictions placed on an account.

Even if you request deletion of your account, their systems will always be able to flag if those accounts are re-created.

Some persistent people have reported success on ‘ungubbing’ or getting access back to bonus bets, simply by maintaining some activity at the sportsbook and asking the support team for access to bonuses every couple of months.

I wouldn’t recommend you expend too much energy on this. The chances of success are low.

Stay Unlimited

Hopefully these strategies contribute to your long-term matched betting success.

Each individual circumstance is unique and the strategies that have worked for me, might not be as successful for you. There are too many factors involved for us to control them all.

My advice is to apply the core high impact strategies, and take advantage of all the most profitable bonuses. We’re here to make as much money as possible at the end of the day.

Good luck!