For example let’s assume that you bet on 4 teams to win with the following odds.

Chelsea 1/2

Arsenal 1/2

Swansea 3/1

Newcastle 5/1

Now if you placed £2.50 on these choices individually and they all won, your profit will look like this…

Chelsea  – £1.25

Arsenal   – £1.25

Swansea – £7.50

Newcastle – £12.50

So, your £10 worth of bets has yielded you £22 of profit, not bad but to predict 4 outcomes and get them all right surely deserves a little more than that. Now let’s assume you had placed an accumulator bet on the same 4 outcomes your profit would be…

£132.50 !!!!

A little different from the measly £22 you’d have won if betting individually. Here is how it works, I will use the decimal odds to make it easier, the odds stay the same but for example1/2 becomes  1.5.

Basically the odds are multiplied against each other like so…

Chelsea –     1.5

Arsenal –      1.5

Swansea –    4.0

Newcastle –  6.0

Which means that to calculate the winnings we do this… 1.5 x 1.5 x 4.0 x 6.0 = 54… 54 multiplied by £2.50 gives us the magic figure of £132.50.

You can of course add as many selections to the accumulator as you wish and whilst the odds for winning go sky high, so does the risk factor, remember that sport is fickle and predicting 5,6,7 or more outcomes is a tricky thing to do, unless you have a crystal ball!

Something I like to do from time to time is to split my bet. Take the example I have just shown you, if you have £10 to bet with it might be worth betting £1.25 on the individual bets, a bet of £5 with a return of £11, and place £5 on the accumulator which will return £66..25. This is a good choice if you have a selection within the 4 that you aren’t super confident about and at least this way if a single team let’s you down then you will only lose a little money and you can cover a bit of your bet. You will kick yourself of course if they all come in and you only win £76.26 (£66.25 + £11) when you could’ve won £132.50 but it is certainly an option to consider.

That in a nutshell is an accumulator, the route to big wins.

If you take a look on the betting tips section of the site then you’ll see some of the strategies that I employ to make as much money as possible online. Now, here is the trick.

Before I begin with any strategy at all I place hypothetical bets for around 2 to 3 weeks, no bets at all online, just on paper. This way I can see and get an idea of the potential success of my brainwave. For instance, when I began doing the in-play bet for ‘over 0.5 goals,’ I spent 3 weeks watching games that I ‘would’ have placed a bet on, I decided that my bet would be £50 and that I would be looking for odds at around 1.4. Each time I saw a 0-0 game that I thought looked like there’d be a goal, I wrote my bet down and watched how it unfolded. After 3 weeks I was hypothetically up by £495, I didn’t need to see any more,  it was time to make some money!

Things to Bear in Mind

In order for this to work there are a couple of important things to remember. Firstly you have to be honest with yourself, before you start decide exactly how much you are going to place on each ‘bet’ and don’t deviate from it. If you start putting down that you’ll place £100 on each bet when it reality you’d only place £20 then, if successful, you’re going to end up being up by far more than you really would be, being up is still good but there will be the temptation to start placing £100 bets when you actually start betting. If you do that and end up having a few bad bets at the start then you’re going to cause yourself problems.

Don’t lie to yourself, if you are confident that the strategy will work (as we always are,) and then if your hypothetical bets prove otherwise, ditch the plan and start again. Remember that this is the point of doing it this way. I started places bets on over 9 corners in-play and after 2 weeks I was down by over £300 ‘hypothetically,’ I was really confident when I started as I was picking games that had at least 5 corners at half time, however after test betting it didn’t work out. So I went back to the drawing board at came up with a new strategy.

It doesn’t take much hard work to do this and it will mean that not only do you have an idea of how successful your strategy will be, but you’ll also know exactly what kind of games to be looking out for when you actually start throwing your money down.

Safe and Small

In recent weeks I’ve started betting in-play at odds of 1.3-1.35 no higher than that unless I really have a strong feeling. I like to start a day at around £20 and stake the full lot on odds of around 1.3, as my pot grows I continue to stake my full pot on similar odds. When I hit £100, I take my original £20 out, this way I will lose nothing but profit if the bet goes wrong.

The bets that I use more than any others are… over 0.5 match goals, over 1.5 match goals, and over X amount of corners. I usually place my bets from the 50 minute mark onwards ensuring better odds, also 50 minutes is long enough to get a feel for the game and 40 minutes leaves enough time for plenty more action.

Here’s what 10 bets look like following this strategy, for the sake of example, I will use odds of 1.33.

£20      – Returns £26.60

£26.60- Returns £35.38

£35.38- Returns £47.06

£47.06- Returns £62.59

£62.59- Returns £83.24

£83.24- Returns £110.71 – At this point, remove the original £20

£90.71 -Returns £120.64

£120.64- Returns £160.45

£160.45- Returns £213.40

£213.40- Returns £283.82

Now you may think that 10 bets in a row is unlikely but I have completed this several times, often with ease. Just remember that odds of 1.33 are incredibly low which mean that it is far more likely to come off. Make sure that you have a good feeling for the games that you’re betting on and once the first 5 bets come in make sure you take your original stake out, that way if you lose, you are still in the same position you started in.

Always try to do these on a Saturday or a day when there is plenty of football on to give you the most choice, and never try to force a bet if you don’t believe in it.

The power of the internet knows no bounds, we live in an age where there is very little that we cannot discover, very few people that we cannot make contact with and very few opportunities that we can’t take advantage of.  For me, one of the best features of the internet is the ability to make and save money from the comfort of your own home with just a computer and a connection. There are countless ways to do this and here are my top 5 methods.

Gambling

It goes without saying that I love to gamble, I take a smart and calculated approach to it and the online world of gambling has really blown up in recent years which means that competition for your money is high. Because of the competition, the companies offer huge welcome offers and daily deals to you and this is where you can make your money. My advice is to use all of the companies when they have deals on, take advantage of free bets, this way you can aim for the most reward with the least risk to your finances. As long as you are not greedy or reckless, online gambling can be a perfect way to add some pounds to your pocket.

Using Coupons

A trait that exists already in the physical (real) world is couponing, collecting money-off or free product coupons from magazines etc. and using them to save money on your weekly shop. The digital version of this practice is huge, plenty of websites have popped up who work with companies and shops to give you great discounts on a whole variety of purchases and services. The popularity of companies such as Groupon UK is staggering and with good reason. They offer daily deals, long term offers and huge discounts on products, days out, services and far more, websites such as these will only continue to grow and as they do, the deals will get bigger so if you haven’t checked them out yet, then do so now.

Cashback

In a similar vein as couponing, there are websites and apps out there that are offer cashback on items that you buy. These are sponsored by companies to encourage you to buy their products and the cashback is given to you via third party website. If you are making a large purchase or going to do your weekly shop then I would definitely check out the website beforehand and see what products can offer cashback, some companies even offer a receipt scanning function which will tell you how much cashback you are entitled to.

Freelance Work

Even if you work full time, there is little to stop you from earning a few extra quid online with freelance work. Several websites out there act as a middle-man between freelancers and future employers with some sites hosting over 100,000 people looking to hire people. The types of jobs you could do are writing, designing, simple admin tasks such as sending emails, proof reading plus some higher skilled jobs depending on what skills you possess. Even if you only know a little about the online world, proof reading a document for a foreign speaker, for example, can earn you some pocket change, do it 5 to 10 times a month and you’ll soon see the difference.

Selling Your Stuff

It has never been easier to flog your stuff online as it is right now, with companies like eBay and Amazon having the worldwide popularity that they possess you can be sure that there is buyer for almost anything. Sites such as those are easy to sign up to, easy to post your listing and even easier to complete a transaction. As well as these sites there are also sites that will simply give you cash for things like old CD’s, DVD’s and computer games, you receive an offer online, accept it and the process of sending your stuff is made very easy by the buyers. Have a root around your house know and see what you can find to get rid of, there is money just sitting there waiting to be cashed in.

Gambling.

It is imperative, and I mean imperative that when you sign up to new bookies that you do whatever it takes to sign up to notifications from the site as they very often contain offers that are invitation only, meaning more money for you.

Birthdays

A great example of this is something that happened to me last week, it was my birthday and I received £55 worth of free bet offers for a variety of online bookmakers. From this money I managed to turn that free money into £218 of well, free money. Not bad eh?

New Year

Just a week later and it was New Years Eve, once again the free bets continued to flow into my email account and I went on to make another £100 from absolutely nothing. All because I had signed up to continue to receive notifications form the bookmakers.

Long Time No See

This is another method that gambling companies use to keep you on the hook and very often I am sent offers by bookies that I haven’t used in a while. They are needy and generous so I advise that you take notice of these emails, many of the offers I have received have been almost equal to the Welcome Offers that I received in the first place.

Most email accounts have separate folders for ‘promotional’ material so the emails very rarely take up much space in your actual in box. There is so much free money out there guys and gals that you’d be foolish not to go against your instincts and check, or uncheck the box to make sure you stay up to date with everything they want to throw at you.

Online Tipsters

Gone are the days of a man down the pub offering you a ‘dead cert’ horse down the pub that almost always goes on to fall at the first fence, we live in a different world today and after just a quick search on Twitter you will find many tipsters offering free advice, many with great track records.

One thing that many tipsters offer that have a great success rate is their £25-£1000 challenges, they usually aim to achieve this in just 10 bets and normally on in-play markets so it’s best to make sure that you follow them on both Twitter and Facebook and keep checking what they’re posting.

Around Christmas time many of them offer a larger challenge such as £25-£5000 challenges, many of which succeed and give you a great opportunity to make big cash.

A Few Things To Remember

Always remember what you started with, these challenges mean that towards the end you are betting very big amounts to reach the goal, for example bet number 8 could involve placing £750 to return £890 or something similar. As soon as you make a decent pot, take out your original £25, this way you lose nothing. On top of that it is important to consider how much you want to make, of course making £1000 is better than £750 but if you have £750 in your hands and you could really do with it then my advice would be don’t gamble what you can’t afford to lose. Finally, if you lose your £25 on the first challenge, don’t be discouraged, these free tipsters very often complete these challenges and perhaps you got unlucky first time around, my advice would be to try again at the next opportunity, it is very likely that you will make at least your original £25 back in no time.

To Cash Out or Not to Cash Out

This is indeed the question, so how the hell do you approach it. Well you have a few options, you can ignore it in it’s entirety, go old school and place your bets and then don’t even look at the option of cashing out, if they come in they come in, if they don’t then they don’t. I’ve always approached the amount I stake based on how much I am ‘happy’ to lose, this way leaves you with no inner turmoil whatsoever.

You can also fully embrace the cash out, keep your eye on it, this works best in individual selection betting. If you have a team to win and they are leading 1-0, my advice would be to watch the game intently and cash out at the first sign of trouble, not too early of course or you’ll not get a great cash out offer, if it is still 1-0 after 75/80 minutes and the opposition are knocking on the door then take that money and run!

If you are betting on an accumulator then it adds a real trickiness to the cash out process, my advice would be to keep an eye on all of the games on a live update website if all your teams are 3-0 up then you’d be foolish to cash out, keep an eye and hang on for the win. If your selections are taking place at different times and let’s say 4 horses are racing an hour apart, I wouldn’t even consider the cash out until the first 3 have ran. This presents you with a monster problem. If the first 3 horses win and you placed, let’s say £10 with a total return of £1500, you may be offered a cash out of £400-£500 before the last horse runs. My attitude here is always, £500 from £10 is pretty good going, I’m happy with that and I’ll take the money. Of course £1500 would give you immense pleasure if the last horse wins, but sport is fickle and the devastation I would feel if it lost and I missed out on £500 would hurt me more than the £1500 would please me.

Always take the risk versus reward view, I’ve seen quite a few huge dilemmas online where a punter has a potential return of say £40,000 with one selection left and they have a cash out opportunity of £6,500, all from a £10 stake or less. When the potential return is this big then you may consider letting it run, if you do this then before deciding, I would analyse in fine detail the game/horse that is about to make or break you, how much do you honestly believe that it will win and consider whether it is worth staking £6,500 on doing (or whatever your cash out option is.) Remember that you are essentially placing that stake on your final outcome and only then can you rest easily.

One key point to remember is that bookies don’t want you to cash out if they feel that you’ll ultimately lose anyway and very often suspend your cash out at key points in games, notably in the last 5 minutes and after someone has scored, especially if your team is 2-0 up and then the opposition score, they love to take the cash out away at this point, so be smart and good luck out there.

The idea of a betting exchange is that instead of a bookmakers where the bookmaker sets the odds for you to bet on, you are betting against other punters. The way that the exchanges work is that they give you, the punter, an opportunity to bet AGAINST something happening. If you consider it, this is exactly what bookmakers do when they offer you odds on let’s say a horse winning. They say to you that we bet this won’t happen, and that’s how it works on a punter to punter exchange.

Now let’s take a look at an example to better explain it.

Frank lives in Newcastle and fancies Newcastle to beat Leicester this weekend, Frank takes a look at the odds and can see that Newcastle are about 4/1 (5 .0,) Frank heads to the exchange ( let’s assume an imaginary world where absolutely nobody has placed a bet yet just for the purpose of the example.) At he exchange Frank places a £20 bet on Newcastle to win and he selects odds of 5.0 or 4/1, bear in mind that most exchanges use decimals for better accuracy. Now what Frank is doing is asking the whole exchange if anyone wants to bet with him at odds of 5.0 for £20 on a Newcastle win.

Meanwhile Axel is in Sutton Coalfield and he sees this bet of Frank’s he says to himself “no way on Earth will Newcastle in” and decides to take Franks bet, so Axel digitally says to Frank, here you go mate, i’ll take your bet. Now… if Newcastle win, then Frank will win £100 back £80 profit and £20 original stake, but guess where that money comes from, you’ve got it Axel’s bank account. However, if Newcastle fail to win, Axel only wins Frank’s original stake as it was him who accepted the odds of 5.0, so Axel takes Franks £20 which leads me onto my next point.

All Winnings On Exchange Sites Are Subject To Commission

Don’t forget this when betting on exchange sites, most exchanges charge 5% but Smarkets only charge 2% and is currently the industry leader on this. Always bear the 2% or 5% in mind, especially if you are the one doing the backing. For example you may see odds of 4.0 on PaddyPower and then see 4.1 on Betfair, get a little excited at your odd finding abilities and place your bet, but once Betfair have taken their 5% then you end up with worse odds than you started with. If you are placing ‘lay’ or ‘bet against’ bets then unfortunately you cannot get away from the commission but it is still worth keeping in mind.

Do The Odds Differ

This is a curious one and the honest answer is yes, and no. The truth is it depends on how you manage it in the main, most favourites and rank outsiders have similar odds on both bookies and exchanges but a great way that I found to tip the odds in your favour is this. Let’s assume you are betting on a football game on the Saturday, hit the exchanges on a Monday and throw up some higher odds on a draw, for example, in my experience, most people change their mind from Monday to Saturday and more often than not I see odds for a draw lower the closer the game gets. One thing to bear in mind is that when bookmakers first throw odds out, they are based on an algorithm of form, injuries, pressure of the game, history between two teams etc. etc. HOWEVER, as the weekend approaches, these odds are mostly dictated by which way the bets have gone. My recommendation would be to take a leaf out of the bookmakers, er, book and throw up some higher odds at the beginning of the week, if nobody wants to bet with you then you’ve lost nothing, if they do, then you could well be quids in.

I think it is completely inadvisable to pick one bookies and stick with them through thick and thin, first because they may have the best odds as an average but no bookies has the best odds on every event, all of the time, so use the websites that are out there which find you the best odds and then go with them.

Another reason that you shouldn’t pick a bookie and set up camp their is because of the host of Welcome Bonuses that are on offer. As an example here are a few of the biggest Welcome Bonuses that are out there right now.

Bet365 – £200

Winner – £200

Ladbrokes – £50

Paddy Power – Bet £10 get £30 free bet

TonyBet – £100

BetVictor – £50

In just 6 options there, you can gain over £500 in free bets, £500!!!! FREE!! Now before undertaking these free bets you need to make these considerations…

Terms and Conditions!!!

Always, always, ALWAYS, check the terms and conditions of the welcome offer, here you will find essential details on gaining the offer and how to use it, if you don’t read them you risk losing money and never triggering the offer which would be foolish to do. Here are some key points you should look for when reading the t’s and c’s.

What Do I Need To Do?

It sounds basic but all bookies offer different requirements for what you have to do to gain the offer. Is it a deposit bonus where you simply need to deposit a certain amount and they’ll match it. Alternatively it could be a first bet offer where you need to place a certain amount on your first bet to gain a free bet. Another option is that they may require you to place X amount of bets of X money and they’ll give you a free bet. Some bookmakers even offer a 50% match on your first bet so work out how much you need to bet to get the most out of it.

Minimum odds?

Imperative that you check the minimum odds for both your qualifying bet and for your free bet, most will ask you to stake on odds of at least 1/2 (1.5) for your qualifying bet and odds of at least evens (2.0) for your free bet/money. This is in general but there are many bookies that require a variety of odds so check them out. This is super important as if you place a bet at lower odds than they ask, you are no longer new, and you no longer qualify for a welcome offer.

Rollover?

Rollover is important, this is where you have to bet the free stake more than once. For example if you gain a £10 free bet and the rollover requirement is 5x free bet you will have to stake your free bet 5 times thus placing £50 in bets.

Free Bet or Free Money?

Free bets are what you’ll usually receive but some bookies actually offer deposit bonuses, the example I gave before about bet365, they will match your initial deposit up to a maximum of £200 which gives you an awesome opportunity to make some risk free cash. Now most bookies that offer matched deposits will have tighter rules when it comes to rollover requirements and minimum odds, so as I mentioned before be very careful, and check your t’s and c’s before starting.