How to build a bankroll for sports trading

Each week I talk to new traders that either want to become professional traders, doing sports trading as a full-time activity or complete beginners that just want to get started.

The most common question I get asked, is how much is enough to get started? Of course the answer to this question is slightly subjective and depends on a lot of factors, but the answer I give out most of the times is £200.I believe that this is a sum that most people can invest for sports trading.It’s not a large sum of money that will put a dent on anyones budget, yet it’s not too small of a sum to not allow any experimenting on the markets and discovering what type of trader you are and what sports are you more inclined towards trading.

But soon after starting out, most of the times I get told that although they see the opportunity of trading the sports markets, the sum of money invested needs to be larger in order to make a significant amount of money to justify the time invested. Although I don’t totally agree with committing a large sum than £200, especially for absolute beginners, since I believe that even with a few hundred pounds, a beginner can learn the basics, and build his bank up to a larger amount in a relatively short time span. But I do understand how some new traders will see a larger bankroll as a way to get them were they want to go, only a lot faster.According to some of the responses I get, a bankroll for trading between £1k and £2k is something new-to-intermediate traders are looking for, but due several reasons, they are either unwilling or unable to commit such a sum for sports trading (or what some people perceive as a gambling activity).

It’s a this point that I suggest the option of matched betting and how it can help anyone create or grow a bankroll for their betting or sports trading purposes.

Without making things to complicated, I’m going try to explain the process of matched betting, and how it can help you take advantage and claim the free bets, bonuses and other continuous promotions that bookmakers have on offer, for new as well as existing customers.

Now, as you might or might not know, most bookmakers have all types of sign-up offers in the form of free bets or bonuses. But there is a catch.Most of  these free bets and bonuses have terms and conditions attached to them, and most of the times, what these terms say is that the free bets and bonuses can not be withdrawn from your bookmaker account, or cannot be claimed, until a certain rollover requirement is met. What this means, is that the money you deposited, along with any free bets or bonuses you received when opening your account, need to be used for betting. During the period when online bookmakers were just starting to make their presence, these rollover requirements were more of a formality. But as online betting became mainstream and online bookmakers started showing up everywhere, bonuses became something punters took advantage of by opening an account, taking the free bets or bonuses and never playing at that bookmaker, ever again.

So what used to be an easy rollover requirement of two/three times the initial deposit plus the bonus amount, at any odds, became more strict requirements with a rollover requirement of anywhere between three to ten times the deposited sum with an extra requirement that only bets placed at odds of evens or greater would count towards fulfilling the rollover requirements. And this is where the betting exchanges came to the rescue and made “hunting” for bonuses and free bets a true possibility through the concept of matched betting.

Before I get into an example on how matched betting works, I want to explain a few more things about free bets and bonuses. It’s important to know that there are certain variations of the free bets and bonuses, depending on each bookmaker. Some free bets and bonuses are first bet free bets (which means that the free bet is usually a percentage of your first bet placed with the bookmaker), while others are deposit free bet and bonuses (which means that the free bet and bonuses are a percentage of your first deposit with the bookmaker). Also know that some free bets and bonuses can only be used one time, and you get to keep only the net winning without the stakes being returned, these are referred as stake not returned free bets.

On this page I will point out some trustworthy bookmakers that have free bets and bonuses, and I will also include a description on what the terms and conditions say for each bookmaker so you know what type of free bet or bonus it is, how you can claim it and what rollover requirements (if any) it has.

Now let’s look at a real example in which I’ll try to show and explain how matched betting works.

Let’s take the Bwin bonus as an example. Bwin has different sign-up bonuses and free bets depending on your location but we are going to use their international €30 deposit bonus, but the method described works just as well for bonuses dedicated to other regions and with other bookmakers.

This is a 100% deposit bonus up to €30 which means that when you deposit €30 you get another €30 as a bonus. This bonus from Bwin has a rollover requirement of one time for the deposited amount and 5 times the bonus amount, at odds of 1.7 or greater, before a withdrawal can be made. That means that if you went for the maximum bonus of €30 bonus and deposited €30, you had to have placed bets totaling €180 before you can request a withdrawal.

But by placing bets, you take the risk of losing your bonus as well as your deposit money, especially when some free bets and bonuses from bookmakers have a deadline for the rollover requirement. The Bwin deadline for the rollover requirement is two months after you have received your bonus.

So here is where the betting exchanges come into place. Continuing with the Bwin bonus example, you now have €60 in your account (your initial deposit plus the bonus). Here is how matched betting works. Image there is a tennis match between Federer and Nadal with the odds being the following:

At Bwin: Federer vs Nadal 1.97 – 1.97

At Betfair (or another betting exchange): Federer v Nadal 1.99 – 2.00

You place a back bet at Bwin with the full amount of €60 on Federer at 1.97 and then you place a lay bet on the same outcome (Federer) at one of the exchanges at 1.99 . In case Federer wins, you have €118.2 in your Bwin account and lost €59.4 from your Betfair account, but the important thing is that you already made a rollover that counts towards meeting your rollover requirement. (four more times – 4*€30 or €120 staked and you can make a withdrawal). If Nadal would have won then you would have had €0 in your Bwin account and had €60 extra in your Betfair account; €60 extra, ready to use for trading.

Keep in mind that it’s hard to find matching odds for the bookmaker and the exchange, since the exchanges do tend to have larger odds, so you will lose a small percentage of your bonus, but since it’s free to start with, it should not matter that much.

One last tip regarding matched betting is that you can also back both events in a tennis match, and use two bookmakers for matched betting instead of a bookmaker and an exchange. You can accomplish this by backing one player at one bookmaker and the other player at another. But since the main idea is to create a bankroll for sports trading, using the exchanges is much easier and convenient method that can be used for any sporting event, given that is fullfils our matched betting requirements.

So the key to matched betting is to find a outcome of a sporting event that has similar odds at both the bookmaker and the exchange, and back that outcome at the bookmaker and lay that exact same outcome at the exchange.

Hopefully by now you’ll have understood the general idea and see how though matched betting, you could be claiming and adding up these bonuses and building a relatively sizable bankroll. Now, let’s take a look at the free bets and bonuses that are offered by bookmakers and exchanges.

Betting exchanges

The betting exchanges are one of the main reasons why matched betting has become a real options and why it has grown in popularity during the last few years. So the first free bets and bonuses to take advantage of, come right from the betting exchanges themselves.

Free bets and bonuses from bookmakers

After claiming the first free bets from the betting exchanges it’s time to start claiming the free bets and bonuses that the online bookmakers offer.

I tried to make the list above as accurate and up-to-date as possible, but keep in mind that bookmakers can change the value of the free bets and bonuses at any time and without any prior notice. But most of the bookmakers listed above have a good to very good reputation, and rarely chance their bonuses and free bets. All the bonuses above have a total value of ~£/€ 500. There are several other bookmakers that do offer free bets and bonuses that can compliment those on this page and raise the total value to over £/€ 1k, but the listed bookmakers are the ones I can recommend even to my closest friends or family because I know they respect their clients and there are rarely any issues with them. Over time, I might add more bookmakers, so my recommendation is to check back each week. When I do add a new bookmaker to the list, I will highlight for one full week, the fact that it is a new listing.

When you start claiming free bets and bonuses I suggest you make a list of all your accounts and claimed free bets, either in an Excel spreadsheet or in a Google Docs spreadsheet. Being organized is a must, not only for claiming these free bets and bonuses, but for sports trading as well.

Also, one more tip would be the use of online wallets like Skrill (better know as Moneybookers) or Neteller to move your money around. But I do have to give out a word of caution, in relation to these online wallets, and that is to never keep large sums of money for more than a couple of days, because a lot of people, myself included, have had their online wallets account closed with significant sums of money never being returned. Also, many bookmakers exclude you from their promotions if you use online wallets for your deposits. Neteller is especially useful since it can offer you a real as well as a virtual Mastercard, which is accepted at most online bookmakers. Moneybookers have this option as well, only is has much larger fees.

That’s about it. As far as I can tell, I covered about everything that needed to be covered in order to be able to build a bankroll for sports trading. If you have any questions or feedback you can either contact me, or preferably leave a comment below.