Online betting works exactly the same as regular betting in a bookmaker shop(bookies) but for those of you that have no experience with placing bets, I will start from the beginning. The concept of betting is simple. It involves a person (known as a punter) offering money to a bookmaker with the agreement that the bookmaker will return the money along with a profit if a certain outcome of any event occurs. The is the entire concept of betting. Now the way the bookmaker makes money is placing odds on each outcome of events. This means that depending on how likely or unlikely something is to happen the bookmaker will return a different profit to the punter, giving higher odds for less likely results. So to simplify, the less likely something is to happen the more the punter will make on the bet but it also has a lower chance of happening. If the outcome is then different to what the punter chooses the punter will lose the bet. This means that the bookmaker keeps the money placed by the punter and this is how the bookmaker makes his money.
What are odds and how do they affect betting?
Now what are odds and how do they work. Odds are the way bookmakers make profits. They are a numerical value placed to represent the chance of something happening. If something is very likely the odds will tend to be very low, for example the odds on a team that is very likely to win a soccer match might be 1/10. This team would be described as having odds of “one to ten”, or “ten to one on” giving rise to the phrase a team is “odds on”, to win a game. This means that if you placed a bet on that team to win with a stake of €10, you would get back €11 from the bookie if the team did win i.e you would get back your original stake of €10 plus your €1 winnings (your stake x the odds – €10 x 1/10 = €1). But if the team lost (the bet lost) the bookie keeps your stake so you get nothing back i.e you lose €10. In this instance your profit is relatively low as you have to place €10 to win just €1, but on the other side your chance of winning is high.
Then on the other side if something is unlikely to happen the bookmaker will offer high odds. This means that should your bet come off (win) you will receive a much higher payout from the bookie. For example if a horse was a massive outsider to win a race, the odds for that horse to win could be 50/1 (fifty to one). This means that just like in the example above if you bet €10 on that horse, you would receive a payout of €510 ((your stake x the odds)+ your stake) if it won. On the other hand the only reason that bookies would place such high odds on a horse is because they are very sure that the horse will not win. As I said before this is how bookies make their money.
How do bookies use this to make money?
By having lower payouts for more likely outcomes the bookmaker will keep his losses down. Although a very important point on this is that many short odds bets also lose. To encourage punters to place bets on outcomes which bookies know are unlikely, they will give certain outcomes lower odds than they should get. When a punter then sees the low odds they will automatically presume that that outcome has a good chance of winning even though it has just has lower odds than it should. This is one reason why so many “favourite” bets lose and why bookmakers can afford to have massive advertising the world over. One other thing before we move on, no matter what bookmaker you try and gamble with over the course of time 99.9% of you will have lost money. I won’t get into the maths of it all yet but the reason for this is that every odd that a bookie gives will be skewed to favour the bookie. In other words they will always have the statistical edge – the house always wins! (well unless your a matched bettor of course! ???? So please don’t start gambling, because you will lose. Instead take your time and make consistent risk-free profits with matched betting.
What is the difference when I place bets online?
Online betting is no different at all from what I have outlined above. If you choose to place your bets online, this is what you will be doing when matched betting, you simply go onto a bookie website and register a username and password. You will then be able to place bets and receive winnings. To pay for the bets online you can use a debit card, a credit card, a skrill account, a paypal account or other similar online money transfer systems, depending on the site you are on. You can also rest assured that betting sites online are some of the most highly regulated on the internet and any betting sites you will be using for matched betting will all be well known, established businesses – the likes of paddypower, boylesports, betfair etc. When your bets clear (the thing you bet on is completed) and you want to withdraw the winnings back to your bank account, you simply click withdraw, select the amount, and enter. Withdrawals usually take 3 to 5 working days to clear back into your bank account.
Will I have to pay tax on my extra income?
And just one last bit of brilliant information, matched betting is completely legal and all winnings you make from gambling in Ireland and the UK are completely tax free, meaning once you get going at matched betting you will be making thousands of euro tax free.
