Seeing as a lot of people are still relatively confused or still spreading incorrect information, I'm writing this guide for those seriously looking to get their mounts/titles/special fish for canvases.

• This guide is not for those who aren't willing to study and plan ahead. If you TL;DR this guide, then you might as well hope someone calls out the right bait for you. Aiming for the title requires knowledge and luck, whereas the mount requires just luck and a bit of knowledge.
• You are literally walking into a floating RNG casino. While not everything listed here is technically not required, it is extremely helpful to know what you're getting into. Knowledge eases the RNG needed, so please study up.

This guide will not tell you absolutely everything you need to know, but will provide excellent examples and why they matter.

Resources

• This excellent spreadsheet by S'yahn Tia. Be sure to give him your thanks because it is insanely well done!
• The Fishcord. If you have any questions, be sure to ask in here too!
• Guide for special titles. This guide will not go in-depth for titles, as it is a different ball game from normal Ocean Fishing.

General tips to prepare

• Look at the upcoming voyage and plan your bait ahead of time
• Bring food and Hi-cordials/cordials
• Cast a line on the docks before going on the voyage, this prevents the "Fish sense something amiss" message.
• Be sure to have a clean inventory beforehand for all the useless fish you catch
• Be prepared to fail because you're literally walking into a floating RNG casino

Tips for fishing on the boat

• Mooch 1 works on HQ fish only while Mooch 2 works on NQ fish only
• Patience 1/2 are completely useless unless you are going for Intuition Fish
• When capped on GP during downtime, use Chum to not waste GP
• Surface Slap expires when you use Hook, based on whether or not you catch a fish.

Terminology and useful knowledge

Term	Definition
Intuition	A buff that grants you the opportunity to obtain rare fish (60s normally, 20s in Spectral Current)
Intuition Fish	Exclusive fish caught with the Intuition buff active (ie. Little Leviathan, Drunkfish)
Spectral Current	A phase where the environment changes to Spectral weather, giving you the opportunity to earn a ton of points
Spectral Intuition	Like the Intuition buff, but is significantly shorter and is only in Spectral Current
Blue fish	An untradable, rare fish ONLY caught through Intuition AND in Spectral Current. Has a blue background, similar to raid gear (ie. Sothis, Coral Manta)
r	Ragworm
k	Krill
p	Plump Worm
!/!!/!!!	Type of fish hooked, mostly indicates size of fish

• Intuition and Spectral Currents are COMPLETELY unrelated.
• Spectral Currents are ONLY caused by catching a spectral fish. Quality does not matter, however it is a random chance on whether or not your spectral fish will cause the fabled Spectral Current.
• Intuition DOES snapshot. If your buff expires and no message is displayed, you have hooked the Intuition Fish.
• Time and weather DO matter. Please review the route beforehand.
• There is a hard chance you will fail hooking a !!! regardless of your gathering stat. Unfortunately, you just lost a spectral fish from RNG.

Before you angrily type a reply that tries to disprove how Spectral currents spawn, do keep in mind that this theory is backed up with a (now) large data set. If you don't believe it, then that's your prerogative.

Required Skills/Stats for high score runs

Skill	Required or useless?
Double Hook	Required**
Mooch	Required
Mooch II	Helpful
Surface Slap	Helpful
Chum	Helpful*
Identical Cast	Helpful*
Patience I/II	Useless*
Release	Useless
Fish Eyes	Useless
Snagging	Useless

Stat	Helpfulness
GP	High GP is required. 800 GP is preferred
Perception	Helps with catching HQ fish without Patience
Gathering	Don't be naked lol

*Is helpful for catching Intuition Fish, but not helpful for high score runs.
** Is so helpful, it might as well be required

• The reason why Patience is useless is because you want to have as much GP possible before Spectral Current Pops. Spending GP to get HQ fish is a lot less effective and efficient than Double-Hooking fish. Even though Mooch II has a cool-down, using Patience instead in niche cases will still not be worth it. Feel free to play around with it though.
• Release is useless because you want to always be casting your line. Release/Chum have animations to them, and when you're catching the same fish multiple times, you can lose a considerable amount of casts.
• Fish Eyes/Snagging are useless because they simply do not have any function in Ocean Fishing.

Points needed for obtaining...

Bonus	Mount (10k)	Title (16k)
30%	7963	12308
40%	7193	11429
50%	6667	10668
60%	6250	10000
70%	5883	9418
80%	5556	8889
90%	5264	8422

Strategy

The only way you will only be able to score high is if you study and have good luck. It also helps a lot if you understand the routes beforehand, as capitalizing on certain opportunities will help immensely. Luck is an important factor, as you can get the mount from an unoptimized run.

What you should do before Spectral Current

Everyone should fish for the spectral fish. It's that simple. As stated above, the only way to spawn a Spectral Current is to hook a Spectral Fish. Unfortunately, there is a good chance that your fish will not spawn the Spectral Current, or you will completely miss the hook. With Spectrals, weathetime do not matter. Though, it is more favorable to have terrible weather; as it reduces variety of fish you can obtain, and thus increase your chance of getting a spectral.
As fishing for Spectral Fish isn't anything special, this means that the only baits (if you're going for a high score) you should be using are as follows:

Location	Preferred Bait
Galadion Bay	Plump Worm
Rhotano Sea	Plump Worm
Northern Strait	Ragworm
Southern Strait	Krill

What you should do when Spectral Current spawns

This is the bread and butter of high scoring runs. You need at least one Spectral Current to have a chance, though obviously it is more favorable to have more than one.
This is where you need to use the spreadsheet and plan beforehand. Knowledge is power, and hopefully eases how much RNG you need.

• Should you just blindly double hook !!s and !!!s? No. This is because even though they are good in around 3/4 of the locations, what truly matters is the time of day. The time affects which fish you can get during spectrals.
  
• By determining what you need to hook, you may land up to 888 points in a single DH. (Highest NQ DH possible: Nimble Dancer, 2x444 points each)
  

The general idea is to have capped GP and whenever you see a potentially valuable hook, you use DH on it. Ideally you should be aiming for 3 DH per spectral window (hi-cordials help a lot here).

Do baits matter?

Baits matter. Thankfully the valuable fish that can be double-hooked use the same bait as any other fish. Please refer to the spreadsheet above to determine what to DH, as it would clutter this post with more and more tables.

What about the SUPER SPECIAL BLUE FISH?

First, let me share some very important info:
To get Intuition in Spectral Current, you can use the special bait for the Blue Fish. Because you don't have to swap baits once you get Intuition, this allows you to have 2 casts (3 at most).
Even though these special fish are worth the most, I do not recommend fishing for them for a couple of reasons.

• You cannot use IC/DH on them. They are worth 500 points (1000 points HQ) each.
  
• By fishing for them, you are forgoing fish that can be DH'd, essentially being worth more.
  
• When using bait for Blue Fish, you are limiting your fish pool to a very poor selection. They are the fish worth the least amount of points and the fish used for Intuition.
  

Though, if you are still interested in them, here is a table with the information you'll need to catch them:

Location	Blue Fish	Time	Preferred Bait
Galadion Bay	Sothis	Night + ?	Glowworm
Rhotano Sea	Stonescale	Sunset + ?	Rat Tail
Northern Strait	Elasmosaurus	Day + ?	Heavy Steel Jig
Southern Strait	Coral Manta	Night + ?	Shrimp Cage Feeder

All of the bait can be obtained from the vendors in the major cities. Except for Heavy Steel Jig, which is crafted.

What about the titles from obtaining X amount of Y?

This requires two things:

• A coordinated party that knows exactly what is going on in the fishing route.
• Specific route for whatever achievement you are aiming for

While this guide will not go in-depth about it, this other guide will.

Conclusion

Even with all of this knowledge that you've (hopefully) read through, you can still get bad luck and not get any of the good fish. I repeated many times to study up, as it will make obtaining your goals significantly easier. Just be patient, study up, and you'll get that mount/title eventually.
Good luck with your runs!

Yes, I know what you're all thinking.. how many of these stupid posts am I going to see. Why can't these freakin kids just read the subreddit wiki or the past posts...
Lol yes, I have done both of these things and even played online poker a few years back. I'm only playing NL Holdem and am going to be playing pretty low/micro stakes at 1/2 cent or maybe 5/10 cent max. My real reasoning here is that I just took a pretty helpful poker course and would like to practice the techniques and feel more comfortable to use this at lower (softer) online stakes before I play more casually in my local casinos and in vegas. Also, I am in the US but my state of residence is a "grey area" state so unfortunately no WSOP or Pokerstars websites. As for the wiki page it is very helpful but some sites like Global Poker are not even on there. The old posts (that are somewhat recent) are relatively helpful when they aren't extremely biased and start teaming up on certain websites. Basically I want to get a comprehensive taste of what your opinions are. The more opinions the better :)
​
I really would like to devote my time on one website. My ideal website to focus would encompass hopefully most of these rules:

1. The site works in the US “grey area” states (so 888, Pokerstars, and WSOP are out of the question)
2. Has decently soft low/micro stakes. (I don't expect fish everywhere, but something not incredibly tough)
3. Doesn't have any issues in terms of money going in and out and allows for crypto deposits/withdrawals.
4. No true evidence of a lot of bots or collusion going on.
5. Lively cash games (although I might dabble in some tournaments)

​
Here are some things that I would like to see but aren't really mandatory:

1. I would like to use PokerTracker 4 HUD if possible, but it’s not a dealbraker.
2. A decent deposit bonus and rake back would be appreciated but again its not the end of the world if they dont
3. I would like a decently stable software that doesn't have so many holes in it and constant crashes.

​
***PLEASE don’t just say a site name. Give me an explanation too! Pretend like I’m a huge noob (which I am).
Thank you for all of your help! I've heard good things between Global (which I’m still not sure if this is just one website?), ACR and Ignition.. but these are just a few to name. Let me know of any and please give reasoning! I appreciate it so much!

I was at the Philly Home Show a couple weeks back and entered a drawing at the event, only detailed we provided were name/numbeemail. I got a call back saying we won a package. The lady explained everything on the phone and didn’t ask for any personal details or form of payment. She said all we have to do is go to this event and listen to a timeshare presentation for 2 hours and are not obligated to buy/pay for anything, then we get a free trip to Vegas or Orlando. The hotel she told us to go to is legitimate.
How do we know if this is a scam? Is there a golden rule for knowing if you actually won something in a drawing?
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Fantasea. Resorts" [email protected] Date: January 29, 2019 at 7:46:12 PM EST To: Subject: HERE IS YOUR INVITATION FOR YOUR APPOINTMENT IN ATLANTIC CITY ON SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9TH AT 1:30 PM - NG

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If you already reserved your suite you can skip this section.
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Everyone is welcome to visit FantaSea Resorts, Flagship Resort even if not eligible for this promotion. This offer is designed for credit worthy married, engaged and cohabiting couples (both parties must attend, one must be over the age of 25 ), and single persons currently working or retired with a combined annual household income of at least $40,000. Multiple families or couples who know each other are not eligible to attend presentation on the same day. Children are permitted to accompany their parents on the tour, but only a maximum of 3 children per presentation. The purpose of this advertising promotion is to acquaint you with our facilities and vacation ownership program: however, you are under no obligation to purchase and you will receive your promotional package upon completion of the presentation. Because of the value of this offer you must bring 2 forms of identification: A government picture ID such as a Driver's License plus a Major Credit Card. Debit Cards, Prepaid Cards, Business Credit Cards and Checkbooks are not acceptable forms of identification for this promotion. At Least One Party has to be a permanent US resident or a US Citizen. All Must Be Able To Read, Speak and Understand English.
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Two travel dates are required a preferred and alternate; each must be at least 45 days in advance with a minimum of 30 days between the two dates selected. Reservation Deposit: Following a travel itinerary selection, the Reservation Deposit is due. Once you confirm a reservation, the government taxes, carrier and agency imposed fees are due at the time of booking. Any refundable deposit paid amount on file at the time of booking will be applied to the charges amount due at the time of booking. Charges in excess of any refundable paid deposit amount on file are owed by the traveler and must be paid at the time of booking using a valid credit or debit card. Any Refundable Reservation Deposit balance remaining after charges, will be refunded 10 days prior to travel.
The certificate for the 3 day / 2 night mini vacation is sponsored by GRAND INCENTIVES. This vacation offer is for 2 adults 21 years of age and older. Up to 2 children under the age of 18 may stay in parent's room for $10 per child. There is a $50.00 refundable room guarantee deposit required. Once your deposit is received your reservations will be processed. All reservations should be made at least 45 days in advance. All reservations are subject to availability. Driver's license required for verification of age and major bank credit card required – no debit cards. Certain Peak times and locations may be extremely limited, for example, June, July, and August. The 3 day / 2 night mini vacation does not include food, transportation, taxes, tips, telephone calls or items of personal nature. Revue Tickets: Good for (2) show tickets at Resorts Casino. Not redeemable for cash. Coupon is non-transferable. Only (1) voucher per customer Must be 21 years of age or older. May be redeemable at Resorts Casino. Based upon availability. If there is no show on the day you are here the show tickets will not be replaced with another gift. Some shows may be sold out to the general public. Check with Box Office.
The Tanger Outlet Discount Coupon: can be redeemed at the Atlantic City Tanger Outlet Shops for a Customer Discount Book with discounts at shops like Calvin Klein, Banana Republic, Gap, Guess, Izod, Polo and others.
The developer reserves the right to discontinue this promotion at its own discretion. FantaSea Resorts reserves the right to substitute gifts of equal or greater value should the indicated gifts not be available at the time of your preview. Flagship Resort Development Corp. (07-00-0009) is registered with the New Jersey Real Estate Commission and the New York State Department of Law. Registration does not constitute endorsement of the merits or value of the property. Obtain the New Jersey Public Offering Statement from the sponsor. New York residents should ask for and receive a New York Timeshare Offering Statement. This offer or any part thereof is void where prohibited by law. Employees, owners or people who have toured our facilities in the last 12 months are ineligible. Flagship Resort Development Corp. is a members of the American Resort Development Association. Promotional package is given in exchange for taking a fun and informative presentation of our resort (120-150 min). The price range of timesharing vacation plans available is $9,900 to $50,000.
THIS ADVERTISEMENT IS BEING USED FOR THE PURPOSE OF SOLICITING TIMESHARE SALES. COMPLETE OFFERING TERMS ARE IN AN OFFERING PLAN AVAILABLE FROM THE SPONSOR.

Online gambling has been stuck in a holding pattern since it debuted in the mid-1990s. The problems that plagued the first internet casinos were never fully resolved. Players are still expected to do significant due diligence on their own to determine if a casino will pay them out properly and honor bonus terms, if the games are truly fair, and if the house edge is acceptably favorable.
What if there was a centralized platform that was as trustworthy as a well-regulated Vegas casino? And what if that platform was structured in such a way that the traditional house edge was no longer needed for game providers to make a profit? What if anyone could bring their mathematically sound gaming concept to life, and make money from it without having to get the approval of industry gatekeepers?
Thanks to blockchain technology and Sp8de's unique developments, the gaming industry is finally about to take the next step forward.
Online Casinos 1.0
Though there are thousands of online casinos, a relative handful of companies supply their games. The online gaming industry is entirely reliant on these companies for the core component of their business model.
Online casinos cannot pick and choose their offerings from these software developers. They must purchase packages of games from them, and usually have little to no access to the underlying code of the games. In fact, some of the major software developers forbid casinos from altering the table rules and terms; aside from perhaps a superficial graphical skin, the game experience and house edge is completely identical from one casino to the next.
An independent software developer with a great new game idea must go to one of these companies to have it accepted and added to their rotation. There is really no means by which they can deploy and market their own "real money" games effectively; the only alternative is to retool the idea for the "social casino" space.
For the player's part, they are being asked to trust both the casino and their software developer. Software developers contract with third-party testing agencies to verify the fairness of their games, so that is a third entity the player is being asked to research and trust. Though there are certainly reputable companies in this space, there is no transparency in these processes whatsoever. The player must simply rely on the general reputation and past actions of all parties involved.
The player may put their faith in the fairness of the developer's games, but the casino itself is another matter entirely. Online casinos are regulated only by the gambling commission of the country or territory they are headquartered in. The quality of regulation varies greatly from area to area, and only a handful of these regulatory bodies have a sterling reputation. The best of these generally forbid players from other countries where online gambling laws are at all mixed (by state / territory) or unclear. Even if all of the parties in this chain have a strong reputation, they are all potential points of failure in terms of hacking or malicious actions by a rogue insider. And the player has no way of knowing something is wrong until something bad has already happened to them.
A New (And Improved) Vision of Internet Gaming
The new vision of online gaming moves the bulk of this dynamic to a blockchain-based platform.
Instead of individual software development houses jockeying to sell their packages of games, the games are deployed and hosted directly on this decentralized platform. The platform is secured by the blockchain; the underlying code driving the game is transparent and demonstrably fair.
Independent developers can now create and deploy their own games directly. They don't have to rely on their game being acquired by one of the handful of software houses that has built up a good reputation. Nor are casinos (or anyone interested in offering games) entirely reliant on these software developers for the titles that populate their virtual gaming floor. Casinos themselves are not even strictly necessary; it is possible for gamblers to wager directly on a peer-to-peer basis with no house edge in play.
Perhaps most importantly, the traditional points of failure that can be exploited by hacking or an insider acting in bad faith are eliminated entirely from the equation.
This is where Sp8de comes in.
The Cardano Blockchain
The Sp8de platform is centered on the Cardano blockchain. Cardano is a pioneering effort that draws together the best practices and applies the lessons learned from all prior cryptocurrency systems.
Cardano brings the following unique elements to the decentralized blockchain-based gaming space:

1. Provable, transparent, and uniform random number generation
2. Minimal transaction fees
3. A level of scalability not possible with any prior blockchain casino protocol
4. Unparalleled freedom and flexibility of the "Smart Contract" development environment
5. Security against external attacks provided by the Ouroboros protocol (which is also responsible for random number generation)

Haven't Bitcoin Casinos Been Done Already?
Yes, but not nearly this well.
Other cryptocurrency-based efforts, even those still being developed at this moment, are plagued by problems that Sp8de and Cardano have solved.
These include: • Excessive fees for transactions, making the business model untenable • Long transaction settlement times, slowing games down to an unplayable rate • Nothing preventing blockchain miners from "peeking" at headers to defeat the random number generation
Sp8de is also not a Bitcoin casino. The platform is powered by Ethereum, which has the "smart contract" functionality built directly into its protocol. Bitcoin casinos cannot take advantage of decentralized applications in the same way that an Ethereum-based system can.
Tokens and Distribution
Sp8de is distributed among its owners, in the form of Ethereum ERC20 SPX tokens.
A total of 8,888,888,888 tokens exist. Tokens will first become available on Friday, December 08 as part of a 14-day pre-sale. After the pre-sale, there will be a new sale phase every 7 days, ultimately concluding on Monday, February 12.
During each phase, there will also be a bonus jackpot of tokens awarded to those who have already bought in. You qualify for every jackpot that takes place after your purchase, so if you buy during the pre-sale phase, you qualify for all of the jackpots.
Over the course of all the sale phases, 3,655,555,558.4 tokens in total will be directly sold. Another cumulative 3,455,555,552 will be awarded through the various jackpots. The remaining 1,777,777,778 are retained by the project.
sp8de.com

Hey beermoneyukers!
After years working in my 9-5 job as a website developer for a large corporation I decided I could not face selling my soul any longer lols and packed in my job.
Since then, I had a stint working as a freelancer whilst also making a healthy side income via matched betting. And over the past 9 months I’ve been building a website that teaches people how to do the same.
There are a lot of websites out there that teach matched betting, but most require a monthly subscription and most have long articles that can be a bit dry and hard to follow.
So instead, I built a website, Team Profit, that:
  Is completely free
  Uses animated video guides to teach people (link)
  Has infographics to accompany all video guides
  Provides step by step guides for 25+ bookmaker offer which will make you £600+ risk free (link)
I have amended the video script over 50 times to try to make it as concise and helpful as possible, hopefully they are a good watch!
Any feedback on the videos, guides, blog or anything else, please let me know, I spend every day adding new content and improving existing content.
If you are thinking of learning matched betting and making £600+ risk free, please check it out!
www.teamprofit.com
 
MEGA FAQs GUIDE TO MATCHED BETTING
 
The video guides I posted above will teach you everything about matched betting.
However, I figure no harm in me writing down everything I know about matched betting in an FAQ style layout. Hopefully this will be useful to you.
I have tried to answer every question as concise as possible / no rambling :D
I have split the FAQs into the following sections:
 
INTRODUCTION
1) What exactly is matched betting and how I do make money risk free?
2) How popular is matched betting?
3) Does it involve gambling?
4) How much money will I need to start?
5) How much time will it take me to learn matched betting?
 
OFFERS & YOUR PROFIT
1) How much money can I make matched betting from the welcome offers (new customer only)?
2) How much is a free bet worth in actual cash profit?
3) After I have finished the Welcome Offers, how much money can I make matched betting each month from Daily Offers (existing customer offers)?
4) What type of Daily Offers are available?
 
BOOKMAKERS AND BETTING EXCHANGES
1) Which bookmakers have the best welcome offers?
2) Which bookmakers have the best offers for existing customers?
3) What is mug betting?
4) What is a betting exchange?
5) How do we use a betting exchange?
 
ADDRESSING COMMON CONCERNS
1) How sustainable is matched betting?
2) Will it impact my credit rating?
3) Do the bookmakers have terms to stop customers from withdrawing?
4) Do I need to know about sports?
 
WHICH WEBSITES TEACH MATCHED BETTING - YOUR OPTIONS
1) Where can you learn matched betting?
 
ADDITIONAL FAQS
1) Depositing and withdrawing
2) Sending identification documents
Any questions that haven’t been answered please add a comment and I’ll add the FAQ and answer.
 
INTRODUCTION
 
1) What exactly is matched betting and how I do make money risk free?
There are more than 25 online bookmakers in the UK. In order to attract new customers, they each offer free bets, known as ‘Welcome Offers’.
In total they offer over £800 in free bets to new customers.
In order to receive the free bet, bookmakers require you to place your first bet. An example offer is ‘Bet £5, Get £20 free bet’.
The risk is that you could lose both the £5 bet (your own cash) and the £20 free bet.
By using a technique called matched betting, we remove this risk.
This is because we match our first £5 bet on the bookmaker with a £5 bet on a betting exchange on the opposite outcome (this is known as a ‘lay bet’).
For example, we bet £5 on Man Utd to win on the bookmaker, and £5 on Man Utd not to win on the betting exchange.
As we have now bet on all outcomes, regardless of whether Man Utd win, draw or lose, we will neither win nor lose money. However, we have received the £20 free bet!
With the £20 free bet, we can now repeat this process by betting on say Liverpool to win on the bookmaker and Liverpool not to win.
This time, because we are using a £20 free bet but our winnings are paid out in cash, we will always make a profit.
We repeat this process for 25+ bookmakers, one by one. In total we can convert the £800+ in free bets to over £600+ in actual cash profit, in very little time at all.
 
2) How popular is matched betting?
Matched betting isn’t new and has been around since at least 2005.
However, it is only since 2015 that it has really increased in popularity due to the rise of websites teaching matched betting. You can see this trend here: Google Trends Link
By looking at the various matched betting sites popularity, a reasonable estimate is at least 25,000 people in the UK are matched betters. You can see a review of sites that teach matched betting in the ‘Which websites teach matched betting?’ section below.
 
3) Does it involving gambling?
This is the most common assumption with matched betting. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it did involve gambling simply because the name ‘matched betting’ would suggest it did.
However, matched betting does not involve gambling, you will never be risking a penny.
Because we are always covering the opposite outcome occurring, there is never any risk we will lose money. Furthermore, we still receive the free bets which we will where we make our profit.
The profitability and risk free nature of matched betting has been reviewed in the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian
 
4) How much will I need to start?
You can start with as little as you want, however the lowest I would recommend starting with would be £25.
With £25, you can start your first bookmaker welcome offer and make a deposit into your first betting exchange, meaning you can start making a profit.
For more details, see this Starting with £25 guide.
The downside, with only £25 you are restricted by having to wait for withdrawals before you can move onto the next offer.
Therefore, I would say an optimal amount to have available for your cash flow would be in the region of £200 as this allows you to complete multiple welcome offers simultaneously.
 
5) How long will it take me to learn matched betting?
To learn the principles of matched betting, it will take up to 20 minutes.
To become familiar with completing your first offer, I would set aside another 30-60 minutes so you can take your time and ensure you are completing it correctly.
For example, the video guides on Team Profit last a total of 21 minutes (8 minutes for the explainers videos and 13 minutes to watch the step-by-step real time example). Although they last just 21 minutes, some users watch certain parts of the video again to become comfortable with the process.
It is very much recommended to avoid trying to learn matched betting by yourself. There are thousands of experienced matched betters who can help you. For more details on this, see the ‘Which Websites Teach Matched Betting’ section.
If you need any help anytime, please do comment in this Reddit thread and I’ll help you out.
 
OFFERS
 
1)How much money can I make matched betting from the welcome offers (new customer only)?
From the welcome offer, you can make approximately £1,000 cash profit.
There are 25+ bookmaker offers available on sports for at least £600 profit. These are relatively straightforward offers and good value in terms of time to complete. It would take around 12 hours to complete these offers, which works around £40 / hour tax free. You can complete them over any time period you like.
There are at least another 5 bookmaker offers, such as Bet365 and BetVictor, though these require more time, you could make around £100 to £200. They require more time because the bookmaker requires you to bet many more times before you can withdraw.
Plus 20+ offers across casino and bingo, though some are not risk free and typically take more time to complete, but you should be able to make at least £200 profit from these offers.
So overall, there is an easy £600 profit risk free, then up to another £400 if it’s worth your time to do them.
 
2) How much is a free bet worth in actual cash profit?
A £10 free bet is worth between £5 to £8 in actual cash profit.
The reason for the range is because the higher odds you choose for your free bet, the more actual cash profit you will make.
For example, if you bet on a football team with odds of 2.0, the £10 free bet will convert to around £5 cash profit. Whereas if you bet on a football team that is unlikely to win, with odds of say 6.0, the £10 free bet will convert to around £8 cash profit.
Note though, the higher odds you choose, the more you will need in your betting exchange account in case the bet wins. For a detailed explanation with examples, read this free bet profit article.
 
3) After I have finished the Welcome Offers, how much money can I make matched betting each month (from existing customer offers)?
Anywhere from £100 to £1,000+ per month.
Bookmakers continue to run free bet offers to retain their customers, I refer to these as Daily Offers.
Daily Offers are typically less valuable than the welcome offers but still worth completing.
For example, rather than ‘Bet £5 Get £20’ that they offer to new customers, they may instead run ‘Bet £20 Get £10’ and on a particular football match.
I would say for people with a day job, aiming for between £300 to £500 a month is realistic. In terms of time required, for every hour you spend, you should make around £30 tax free.
So to make £300 a month, expect to spend around 2-3 hours a week. I’d say to earn more than this, you will likely need to accept a lower hourly rate and do some of the low value offers too.
If you are looking to make £1,000+, I’d expect you would have to be near full time and also be fortunate to keep your enough of your bookmaker accounts open for 12+ month period (what is mugging bet FAQ below).
 
4) What type of offers are available for existing customers?
 
Easy offers:
The most common easy offer on football matches is Bet £20 Get £10 free bet. Many bookmakers run this offer, though it will usually be on a particular football match.
The most common easy offer on horse racing is usually on SkyBet, who will run simple offers such as ‘Get £25 free bet if your horse comes 2nd or 3rd’.
There are also easy casino offers, such as ‘£5 risk free’, where you spin on slots and hope to win, if you don’t they’ll refund up to £5 of losses.
These offers can make you up to £300 per month (or £500 on a good month with European football) and are easy for those with a day job.
 
Harder offers:
If you are looking to make more than £300 to £500 a month, then you will need to spend time on Saturday’s completing horse racing offers on Channel 4 racing and during the week too, though Saturday’s are the most profitable.
Plus you will need to do more advanced offers such as football accumulator refunds, each way offers, though I will leave these aside given they could have their own separate thread :p
If you’d like to understand where you can learn more about these offers, see ‘Which sites teach matched betting?’ FAQ below.
 
BOOKMAKERS AND BETTING EXCHANGE
 
1) Which bookmakers have the best welcome offers?
 
There are 3 formats of bookmakers welcome offers.
 
‘Bet £X Get £Y free bet’ - these are the most straightforward. Simply place your first bet and receive a free bet.
This format of welcome offer, ranging from Bet £5 Get £20 to Bet £50 Get £50, is available on Coral, SkyBet, BetBright, Betfred, Paddy Power, BetStars, William Hill, Stan James, Betway, Ladbrokes, TitanBet, 32Red and MarathonBet.
 
‘Refunds’ (also known as Risk Free offers) - these are similar to Bet £X Get £Y free bet. The only difference is you only receive your free bet if your first bet loses, hence I refer to these offers are refund offers.
This format of welcome offer is, ranging from £10 to £50 refunds, is available on Bwin, Dafabet, UniBet, Totesport, 188Bet, SuperLenny, Genting and 888Sport.
 
‘Multi Bets’ - these welcome offers require multiple bets to be placed before receiving your reward. It can take form of a bonus which requires to bet £X amount until you can withdraw any winnings, or the form of a cash reward once you have bet £X amount.
This format of welcome offer is available on Bet365, BetVictor and some other bookmakers, however they often require such a large amount of betting that I haven’t included them in this list.
The quickest to complete are the Bet £X Get £Y due to their simplicity, then the next best are the ‘Refunds’ offers.
The Multi Bet offers can be very valuable (e.g. Bet£365’s offer is worth over £150 profit risk free) but can also require much larger deposits in order to place the bookmaker bets and lay these bets in your Exchange.
 
For details of each bookmaker offer, see this Welcome Offer List & Guides
 
2) Which bookmakers have the best offers for existing customers?
 
Bookmakers vary in their level of generosity to existing customers. This is a little subjective, but in my opinion, this is the ranking of bookmakers for existing customers:
 
Best: Bet365
Bet365 run a £50 Risk Free offer most months (sometimes twice a month during popular football months) which is worth £35. It is very quick to complete (less than 10 minutes) so for £35 to £70, or around £500 a year, it is a great offer.
Plus they have one of the best horse racing offers, up to a £50 risk free bet if your pick a winning horse with high odds. This is a profitable offer worth around £20-£30 a week, or up to £1,000 to £1,500 a year.
 
Second Best: SkyBet
SkyBet run regular £5 to £25 free bet offers on horse racing and football, plus regular £5 risk free offers in SkyVegas.
 
Third & Fourth Best: Coral and Paddy Power
Both these sites run regular horse racing, price boosts and football offers (Bet £20 Get £10 in particular), at least £20 to to be made on every week from these two sites.
 
Good: William Hill, Ladbrokes, BetStars, Stan James, Betway, Bwin, Betfred, Totesport, 188Bet, 888, BetVictor
All these bookmakers run offer(s) each week so it’s worth ensuring you have completed the welcome offer for each of these sites so you can take advantage of their daily offers for existing customers.
 
3) What is mug betting?
If you are only ever betting when you receive an offer, the bookmaker will no longer allow your account to receive free bet offers (this is known as being ‘gubbed’).
To get around this, you should place ‘mug’ bets. ‘Mug’ bets are simply bets that a ‘mug’ punter would place. Mug bets include £1 accumulators (betting on several teams to win) and betting on favourites without an offer.
Most advice suggests that for every offer you receive, you should place 2-3 mug bets.
If you are gubbed, it does kinda suck when you receive the email, as you can no longer profit from the bookmaker’s offers.
It is also becoming increasingly common as bookmakers are noticing more suspected matched bettors, due to its increasing popularity. My advice is to make money whilst you can and take sensible precautions to try to keep your account active.
For more details, see this Mug Betting article
 
4) What is a betting exchange?
A betting exchange is a marketplace for customers to bet between each other on the outcome of particular events. This differs from a traditional bookmaker because an exchange also gives you the ability to be the bookmaker yourself and take bets from other exchange users.
Standard bookmakers generate profit by offering odds that are in their favour. Betting exchanges explained in terms of how they generate revenue is they charge a commission on any winnings a player receives.
The two market leading betting exchanges are, Betfair and Smarkets.
For more details, Betting Exchanges Comparison.
 
5) How we use betting exchanges?
When matched betting, a betting exchange is used to place our lay bets (the opposite bet to our trigger bet). So when we place the trigger bet with the bookmaker on one outcome to release the initial free bet, we must also cover the opposite outcome so that if the bookmaker bet does lose we still win on the lay bet - making it risk free!
Similarly when we are placing the free bet bet with the bookmaker we then lay off that bet using the exchange and because we’re using a free bet but being paid out in cash, this is how we turn free bets into withdrawable cash.
We only ever use betting exchanges for lay bets.
 
ADDRESSING COMMON CONCERNS
 
1) How sustainable is matched betting?
Matched betting over the past 6-9 months has become harder. Most bookmakers have realised they are thousands of matched betters taking advantage of their offers and so have either reduced the generosity of their offers or have made the daily offers more complicated.
However, there is still intense competition between the bookmakers, meaning they will always run special offers to an extent.
By spending a few hours a week, you can still make £300 to £500 a month, whereas in past year(s) this figure could have been £500 to £800.
The biggest issue matched betters face is being ‘gubbed’. As explained in the mug betting FAQ, this is when a bookmaker restricts you from receiving free bets and bonuses.
There are various theories as to how a particular bookmaker decides to to gub a customer. Reasons include taking up too many offers, winning a high % of bets, withdrawing regularly, placing bets far in advance or at irregular times.
The truth is nobody really knows precisely why people gubbed. However, you can expect to get gubbed at some point from a particular bookmaker, it may be 2 months, it may be 2 years, it is hard to know.
I really think though that everyone can make up to £1,000 from the Welcome Offers and at least £300 to £500 a month without any problems. I think the issues comes when you are making £1,000+ every month which sooner or later bookmakers will catch up that you are taking up a lot of offers.
Having said this, some people say they have been making £1,000+ every month for years, so maybe it is possible if you are using a wide variety of bookmakers and consistently placing mug bets.
 
2) Will it impact my credit rating?
Having betting activity on your bank statement does not impact your credit rating.
The only thing to be wary of when making betting deposits and withdrawals is that it can affect your application for a mortgage. So if you’re planning on applying for a mortgage in the near future then I’d recommend using a separate bank account to that which you’ll be applying for the mortgage with.
 
3) Do the bookmakers have terms to stop customers from withdrawing?
The vast majority of welcome offers do not have any withdrawal restrictions.
A handful of welcome offers do but this will be state in the terms and conditions. It is much easier though to use a matched betting website as they will clearly highlight the key terms of each offer (see ‘Which websites teach matched betting’ section below).
Casino offers will almost always have withdrawal restrictions, however for the matched betting welcome offers we are focusing on sports betting.
 
4) Do I need to know about sports?
Not at all! You do not need a sports background or have any sort of betting knowledge, many matched betters do not know anything about sport or betting before learning matched betting.
You may learn matched betting a little faster if you have sports betting experience but it really isn't important at all.
 
WHICH WEBSITE TEACH MATCHED BETTING - YOUR OPTIONS
 
There are 30+ websites that three key stages to matched betting:
Stage 1) Learning matched betting
Stage 2) Completing the Welcome Offers (for new customers)
Stage 3) Profiting in the long term from Daily Offers (for existing customers)
Below I have tried to cover the main sites that will help you with each of these stages.
 
In summary, I may be biased :p but I think the:
Stage 1) and Stage 2) best approach is to use TeamProfit.com
Stage 3) Join a paid membership site, either OddsMonkey.com, ProfitAccumulator.co.uk or ProfitMaximiser.co.uk to continue to make money from the Daily Offers.
 
FREE SITES:
 
TeamProfit.com (link)
I really believe Team Profit is the best site to learn matched betting and complete the welcome offers, but compare us to the other sites and see what you think!
Learn matched betting with animated videos (link)
25+ Welcome Offers using the step by step guides (link)
A free Facebook group to provide help to you anytime you need (link).
 
MoneySavingExpert.com (link)
The advantage of MoneySavingExpert is the sheer volume of content, covering all aspects of matched betting.
The disadvantage of MoneySavingExpert it is not well structured as it is just one forum with a long lists of posts so it takes quite a while to find relevant threads and miss key information.
 
MatchedBettingBlog.com (link)
The advantage of MatchedBettingBlog is the clear layout of the daily offers posted each day for with step by step instructions. It’s a good site to check to avoid missing the best and easier daily offers. The forum community also helps to post additional offers on top of those listed on the homepage, and also provides general advice on completing daily offers.
The disadvantage of MatchedBettingBlog is it is relatively limited in terms of teaching matched betting and does not provide a clear list of welcome offers. Also, for those looking to make £500+ every month, it doesn’t provide any software to help with the more advanced types of matched betting with daily offers, such as horse racing refunds and accumulator refunds, that the paid member sites offer.
Additional free matched betting sites include:
Matchedbettingfree.co.uk (link) (Reddit thread link)
Freebets4all.com (link)
 
PAID SITES:
 
Paid sites usually charge £15 to £25 a month.
In return, they will teach matched betting, provide list of welcome offers and provide daily offers too. Additionally, most paid sites will also provide software that helps to make you more money plus save you time.
 
OddsMonkey.com (link | non)
OddsMonkey charge £15 per month or £150 per year.
They are the most well known provider of matched betting software. Earlier this year, they added the full range of matched betting services, so now they provide all of the below:
Tutorial articles
Welcome offer step by step guides
Daily offers calendar
Software: OddsMatcher, Horse Racing Refunds, Tennis Refunds, range of calculators and spreadsheet
Forum
The advantage of OddsMonkey is the exceptional value. They have the best range of software and tools for matched betters to maximise their profits, are consistently bringing up new tools at no added cost. At only £15 per month it is one of the best options to consider.
The only disadvantage is the forum is not as busy as the next two options, ProfitAccumulator and Profit Maximiser. Though the forum is still a sufficiently active to ensure any questions have you are answered quickly.
 
Profit Accumulator (Link - Chazmer87's I don't have one | non)
Profit Accumulator charge £23 per month or £150 per year
Profit Accumulator helped to bring matched betting to the main stream with a highly active community. There are clear similarities between OddsMonkey and Profit Accumulator in terms of their high standard of software and offers.
The advantage of Profit Accumulator is their very active community. There is a great deal of advice in virtually every aspect of matched betting and the information is all well structured. Plus they have a very good offers coverage.
The only disadvantage to Profit Accumulator is the higher cost. The membership itself is £23 per month, plus their version of the Horse Racing Refunds software is £10 per month, or £115 a year. So in total you are paying £33 per month versus OddsMonkey’s £15 per month.
 
Profit Maximiser (Link | non)
Profit Maximiser is run by the original matched betting guru Mike Cruickshank.
Mike has been building software for matched betters for many years and has a very active Facebook Group.
Each piece of software is sold separately, I believe the below is accurate, each have their own £1 free trials:
Bonus Bagging £27 plus VAT - provides a list of all welcome offers and teaching (Link | non)
Profit Maximiser £97 plus VAT - provides all daily offers (Link | non)
Each Way Sniper £47 plus VAT - provides a horse racing betting system (Link)
Accumulator Generator £149 plus VAT - provides a football betting system (Link)
I believe Mike may have a couple more tools, if so I’ll edit this post if you could please comment / send me a message.
The advantage of Mike’s products is that there is no monthly recurring fee, so if you intend to do this for many months, it may work out profitable to do so. Plus from what I understand their Facebook Group finds some lucrative casino loophole offers faster than other matched betting providers.
The disadvantage of Mike’s products is that you have to buy each product separately rather than having it all within one simple account. Additionally, the total cost if you were to buy all 4 above listed products is £320 + VAT (total cost £384) whereas you could receive all these tools for £15 per month from Oddsmonkey. Having said that, Mike’s products do come with a £1 free trial, just be careful to cancel before the trial ends if you don’t want to continue.
Additional free matched betting sites include: Yes Bets link
Pure Profit link
 
ADDITIONAL
 
1) Depositing and withdrawing
To ensure you qualify for the Welcome Offer, use a bank card to deposit into your newly set up bookmaker account. Most sites will allow Paypal too though check the terms and conditions.
If you use Skrill or Neteller, typically you will not qualify for the Welcome Offer (bookmakers have this rule to prevent fraud) but you can check the terms and conditions.
Withdrawing is easy, you should receive your funds within 1-3 working days depending on the bookmaker.
 
2) Sending identification documents
Occasionally, bookmakers may require to send in identification documents (passport or drivers licence for example) and a copy of your bank card. This is to prevent fraud. This usually happens if you are not listed on the Electoral Roll or there is a difference between your home address and billing address. Simply take a photo of the documents they ask for and email them back.
 
THAT COMPLETES THE MEGA FAQ GUIDE TO MATCHED BETTING!
 
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please do post a comment thanks!