Ollie Hickmore

When signing up to bookmakers, Identity or KYC verification is something that you'll encounter often. It's completely normal and not something to be concerned about at all!

Sure, it can be a little bit of a pain to provide documents if you're asked to, but it's a minor inconvenience in your journey of beating the bookies after you <a href="https://outplayed.com/what-is-matched-betting">learn about Matched Betting</a>.

Plus, bookmakers will often verify you automatically, with no need for any further information.

In this article, you'll find out why bookies ask for ID and learn some top tips to help you speed up the process.

 What Is ID verification And Why Might You Be Asked For It?

KYC verification, which stands for "Know Your Customer", is the act of the bookmaker verifying that:

It really is as simple as that - they need to know that you are you!

But why are they asking for this information?

Well, it's actually part of a legal requirement that all bookies in the UK need to meet in order for that bookie to possess a UK gambling license.

Well, the good news here is that it's, a lot of the time, automatic, and you don't need to actually do anything.

Bookies can search against things like the electoral roll and gather the information they need to confirm your age.

You should then be able to deposit and bet, although you may be asked for further evidence of ID when you come to withdraw any funds or if you are looking to withdraw a large cash amount.

We'll now take a look at what you'll be asked for if you're required to manually verify your account at any stage.

Does Matched Betting Affect Your Credit Score?

Bookmakers don’t tend to perform credit checks.

Whilst some bookmakers may occasionally carry out something known as a soft credit check on you (this is very rare), this isn’t recorded and does not affect your credit score in any way.

While the actual documents you are asked to provide will vary from bookmaker to bookmaker, there are some staple things that they ask for. Note that you won't have to send off any original copies, a photo will do!

Now, these are the normal three you are likely to encounter, but don’t be surprised if you are asked for something else; it's down to the individual bookie terms, and they can sometimes be quite “quirky” - like being asked for a selfie with you holding your ID, for example!

Thanks for your email, please find attached requested proof of identification documents.

Don’t be alarmed by ID/KYC verification. It is, as we have seen, a completely normal and legal exercise that the bookie has to carry out.

If you follow the steps above, it should be a quick and easy process.

The time it takes is dependent on the bookie, but it's normally a fairly fast turnaround. They want to get you betting with them as quickly as possible, after all!

Now you know how to quickly deal with KYC requests, you can learn how to disguise yourself as a regular punter to help you <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/top-tips-to-avoid-being-gubbed">avoid being gubbed</a>.

Ollie

Do I Need ID For Matched Betting?

Kelly criterion is&nbsp;a mathematical formula that gives a stake size that will maximise the expected growth rate of your bankroll.

When using methods such as the&nbsp;<a href="https://outplayed.com/what-is-matched-betting">Matched Betting strategy</a>, you'll be laying off your bookmaker bets at an exchange to often guarantee a profit from offers, hence the name Matched&nbsp;Betting.

Ordinarily there's rarely a need to think about how big your stakes should be.

After all, you're balancing it out with the exchange lay anyway, so your risk is minimal. Moreover, most of the offers where you're laying your bets will have a set stake size in order to qualify for the promotion (e.g. Bet £20 Get £10 Free Bet).

This all changes completely when you delve into the world of value betting.&nbsp;For example, if you go for a "No Lay" strategy for <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/extra-place-offers">Extra Place offers</a>, or you know a bookmaker has a selection that is overpriced and you can't/won't lay it.

Here, since you're not balancing out your bets with an exchange lay, the amount you stake on the bet is very important. You don't want to stake so much that you risk rapidly losing your whole <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/matched-betting-bankroll">betting bankroll</a> (and thus don't have the money to take advantage of future profitable bets). But at the same time, you don't want your bet sizing to be so small that you're not gaining as much value from your bets.

This is where the Kelly criterion comes in.&nbsp;It takes into account all the important things: the size of your bankroll, the payout if you win, the loss if you lose, and the probabilities of these outcomes happening.

Within the Settings of the <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/extra-place-master">Extra Place Master&nbsp;</a>(when you have No Lay mode selected), you'll see the option to fill in your bankroll amount and also select Kelly staking.

And that's all the hard work done for you in terms of calculating how much you should stake!

Now when you load up the calculator for a selection, it'll give you the recommended stake based on your bankroll and all the other important information specific to that bet.

Before we go into how the Kelly stake amount is derived, it needs to be said that the stake the Kelly formula gives is often pretty brutal. That's to say that the stake that's optimal for growing your bankroll is bigger and therefore riskier than is really necessary.

This is why Outplayed's software defaults to fractional Kelly stakes. It simply takes the optimal stake that the Kelly formula would give and then divides it. The recommended amount is 0.25 (i.e. the stake that will be recommended by the software is a quarter of the optimal Kelly stake).

This will give a much more sensible and balanced stake amount.

So are you throwing away value by not betting with the fully optimal stake amount?

Well, yeah, some.. But the upside is you can stake a much smaller amount and still achieve a similar value in terms of bankroll growth rate. This means much calmer downswings to your bankroll and a much smaller chance of having the doomsday scenario of losing your entire bankroll.

Let's take a look at an example bet with the following info:

The Kelly Criterion maths (which we'll go into more detail with later) gives the optimal stake to maximise the expected bankroll growth as £62.50. This is the stake where the growth rate peaks on the graph below (the green point). It gives an expected bankroll growth rate of 0.74%.

The orange and yellow points show what happens to the growth rate if you go for a much smaller stake of £30 or £15. The £30 stake gives a growth rate of 0.55%, and the £15 stake gives 0.32%.

They do indeed lead to a lower average growth than a £62.50 stake, but are much less risky since they require a much smaller chunk of your bankroll.

The graph also shows that betting more than £62.50 in our example is completely redundant. The growth rate will only get further away from the maximum of 0.74%, and so you'll be taking on more risk for less reward.

Outplayed makes life nice and easy in terms of the <a href="https://outplayed.com/calculators/kelly-criterion-calculator">Kelly calculations</a>. But let's take more of an in depth look at how the stake amount is calculated and how it can apply to other betting situations.

When I say a "standard bet", I mean one that can only have two outcomes: win or lose. Also, in the event of a loss, you'd lose the full stake amount (there's no partial money back going on here).

The formula to work out the optimal Kelly stake (S) is as follows:

This can look a little complicated at first, so let's go through it step by step with an example to show how you take all the information and calculate the stake size. I'll use the same example as the section above:

This would be a great value bet to place if the bookie was offering odds of 5.0, but you believed that the true chance of that bet winning was more like 25%.

Step 1: Subtract 1 from the odds. 5 - 1 = 4

Step 2: Multiply this by the probability of the bet winning. 4 x 0.25 = 1

Step 3: Subtract the probability of the bet losing. 1 - 0.75 = 0.25

Step 4: Multiply by the bankroll amount. 0.25 x £1,000 = £250

Step 5: Divide this by the "odds - 1". £250 / 4 = £62.50

So we now know that the stake size that maximises the expected long term bankroll growth is £62.50. You can now apply the fractional Kelly as mentioned in the previous section.

It'd be as simple as taking the £62.50 and dividing it by 4 (or whatever other fraction you deem sensible). £15.62 is the new stake amount after doing this. It'd be a good idea to round this up/down to £15 or £20 so you don't stand out like a sore thumb to the bookie.

Each way bets work a little differently to your usual bet. They're essentially two bets in one. One of these bets on the selection to win, and the other bet on the selection to place (e.g. finish 1st - 4th).

This leads to three possible payouts instead of the standard bet, which gave two:

This third scenario throws a real spanner in the works when it comes to calculating the Kelly stake. Showing where this comes from and going into detail goes beyond the scope of this article.&nbsp;

It is very much the same concept though:&nbsp;finding the stake value that maximises the expected bankroll growth rate.&nbsp;

You don't actually need to know any of this to apply it to your betting. Outplayed's software instantly does all of these calculations for you and lets you know this stake amount when doing your each-way value betting.

The Kelly criterion formula is a great advanced concept for value bettors. It gives the stake that optimises your long-term expected bankroll growth. And after all, that's the main thing you're after!

When using Kelly stakes for betting purposes, the optimal stake can often be quite large, so using 50% or 25% of this amount can be an ideal balance of risk and growth.

It's nice to know where the numbers come from, but you don't need to do all the painstaking maths yourself. Outplayed will do this for you on our value betting software, so you'll always be using sensible stakes for your bankroll amount.

Kelly Criterion Betting System: Optimising Bet Stake Sizes

Ever wonder if some casino games are just built to lose more money than others? Well, yes.. they actually are!

What determines how severe this is, and how much of a "house edge" the casino takes, is the Return To Player (often called RTP for short).

RTP in gambling is a measure of how much you can expect to get back, on average, over millions of spins on that game.

Now, of course, you won't actually be playing millions of spins on a game, but this is how the RTP is calculated by a computer when casino games are regulated.

A slot with an RTP of 97% would mean that, on average over millions of spins, for every £100 you spent on that slot, you would expect to get back £97. In other words, the <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-casinos" title="">casino</a> would expect to make £3 profit on average for every £100 you spent. This margin of 3%, is the casino’s house edge.

In a nutshell, you don't want to play a game where the casino has a large edge over you, when you could instead be playing a good game with a higher RTP.

This is particularly crucial when you're doing an offer from a casino. It can be the difference between getting terrific value out of a promotion, or getting no <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/what-is-expected-value" title="">value</a> at all.

The higher the RTP of the casino games that you use, the higher the returns you'll achieve on average.

Remember that this isn't a guarantee for every single spin and every single offer; after all, casino games' payouts can vary a lot on a spin by spin basis. But, in the long run, it makes all the difference.

Let's say you're completing <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/matched-betting-casino-offers-explained-in-a-nutshell">casino offers</a> with Outplayed and you keep having a choice between a 94% RTP slot or a 97% slot for your qualifying wagering.

If you were to wager £10,000 a year (about £27 per day), then the average difference in returns here would be £300. That's £300 extra profit in your pocket just by playing a more favourable game!

I'm sure you can now see how crucial it is to play the highest RTP games available.

It's all well and good that you now know what RTP is all about, but how do you really know if a game's RTP is good in the grand scheme of things?

This is where the terms of the casino offer come into play - if you have a list of 5 eligible games that are available for the promo, there's no point picking a different game, even if it does have a high RTP. You wouldn't want to play a game that doesn't even qualify to earn your free rewards!

In general, table games (e.g. Blackjack or Roulette) have a higher RTP than slot games. So if you can play them for an offer, then you should jump at the chance. They've got a very low house edge and are low variance games (which means your profits/losses won't be swinging around all that much).

Slot RTPs can massively vary from slot to slot;&nbsp;they can range anywhere from 80% to 99%. You're usually aiming for a game above 96% RTP to use for casino offers, but it can all depend on the value of the rewards and how large the wagering is. That's where Outplayed is a saviour since we work out all the fine details of the value and display it clearly.

Here's a table of some of the best RTP games you can play. They're very commonly used for profitable casino offers:

This is just a very small selection of games that are out there. Another thing to keep in mind is that the same slot can have different RTPs at different <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-casinos" title="">casinos</a>; we'll talk more about that later.

Some games will have a portion of the RTP that goes towards a progressive jackpot. This is a jackpot that continues to get larger with every spin anyone does on that slot across all casinos.

Slot providers like Playtech or Red Tiger will only have a small amount of the total RTP going towards a jackpot (around 0.5%-1%). Other games, like Mega Moolah will have a whopping jackpot contribution of 5%+.

You'll want to avoid playing games with large jackpot contributions for casino offers if you can help it, since a sizeable portion of the payouts are going towards a prize that's incredibly hard to win.

Would You Ever Want To Find The RTP Yourself?

First of all, when we post a guide to a casino offer at Outplayed, we'll always give recommendations for games with a high RTP. So for the most part, you won't actually need to go through the trouble of finding it yourself;&nbsp;we do the hard work for you!

There can, however, be exceptions. Sometimes you'll want to find a specific game RTP for yourself. Perhaps it's for an "invite only" offer that you've received in an email, or maybe you just want to try a different game from the ones we've suggested.

Some sites will have an "info" section that shows the RTP before you open the game. Be warned that the casinos don't always get the RTP right on these pages. The RTP found after loading the game will always be the correct one.

The same game on a different site won't necessarily have the same RTP. In particular, NetEnt, Pragmatic Play, Play N' Go and Red Tiger slots can vary drastically, which is why it's important to double check before playing! Don't just assume that Starburst has a 96.09% RTP because it did at another casino.

Casino games are required by law to specify the RTP somewhere within the game's settings. However, finding this isn't always easy at first glance. But don't worry, here are some general things to keep an eye on:

Look out for question marks ?, i symbols, "help", "settings", cog symbols, paytable as things to click that might reveal the RTP to you.

Below, you will find specific instructions on how to find an RTP with certain game providers. It's not an exhaustive list of all providers, after all, there are so many of them! But you will find all the main ones, and particularly the game providers most commonly found for casino promotions.

Click the question mark &gt; Scroll to 'RETURN TO PLAYER'.

Mobile: Tap three lines &gt; Swipe to question mark &gt; Tap question mark &gt; Scroll to 'RETURN TO PLAYER'.

Common NetEnt slots for offers: Starburst, Steam Tower, Blood Suckers.

Click HELP &gt; Scroll down to the bottom.

Mobile: Tap HELP &gt; Scroll down to the bottom.

Common Red Tiger slots for offers:&nbsp;Rainbow Jackpots, Blood Suckers Megaways, Cash Volt.

Click question mark &gt; Return to Player

Mobile: Tap three lines &gt; Tap Help &gt; Tap Return to Player

Common Evolution Live games for offers:&nbsp;Infinite Blackjack, Lightning Roulette, Crazy Time.

Hover over cog symbol &gt; Click Help &gt; Scroll down to the bottom.

Mobile: Tap three lines &gt; Swipe to Help &gt; Tap Help &gt; Scroll down to the bottom.

Common Playtech slots for offers:&nbsp;Golden Tour, Age of the Gods: God of Storms, Halloween Fortune.

Click three lines &gt; Table symbol &gt; Click arrows until you find game rules.

Mobile: Tap three lines &gt; Table symbol &gt; Tap arrows until you find game rules.

Common Blueprint slots for offers:&nbsp;King Kong Cash, The Goonies, Fortunes of Sparta.

Click i symbol &gt; Click arrows until you find game rules.

Mobile: Tap i symbol &gt; Scroll down until you find game rules.

Common Pragmatic Play slots for offers:&nbsp;Gold Train, Big Bass Bonanza, Book of the Fallen.

Click Help &gt; Wait for pop-up to load &gt; Click Return To Player (RTP)

Mobile: Tap question mark &gt; Scroll down to the bottom.

Common Microgaming slots for offers:&nbsp;Immortal Romance, High Society, Couch Potato.

Click question mark &gt; Scroll down until you find SLOT RULES.

Tap three lines at the top &gt; Tap RULES &amp; PAYOUTS &gt; Scroll down until you find SLOTS RULES.

Common Eyecon slots for offers:&nbsp;Lucha Rumble, Rebets Splendour, Fluffy Favourites.

Click MENU &gt; Click PAYTABLE &amp; INFO &gt; Click arrows until you find RULES.

Mobile: Tap MENU &gt; Tap PAYTABLE &amp; INFO &gt; Tap arrows until you find RULES.

Common Greentube/Novomatic slots for offers: Lucky Lady's Charm Deluxe, Dolphin's Pearl Deluxe, Book of Ra Deluxe.

Click three lines (this may take a few seconds to show) &gt; Click the i symbol for Rules &gt; Click arrows until you find Game Rules.

Mobile: Tap three lines at the bottom &gt; Tap i symbol &gt; Scroll down to the bottom.

Common ELK Studios slots for offers:&nbsp;Wild Toro, Pirots, Kaiju.

What Does RTP Mean In Gambling?

Lynsey Thompson

Most sports have <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/sports-betting-terminology-101">their own terminology.</a> A vocabulary and language that is only applicable to them.

A googly in cricket, a bogie in golf and a nutmeg in football are some good examples.

However, most sports follow some kind of standard numerical system when it comes to scoring. But not tennis. Tennis not only has its own terminology - ace, moon ball, bagel etc but it also has its own unique and convoluted scoring system too.

Even some of the most hard-core sports fans can sometimes struggle to get their head around tennis scores - which can cause trouble when <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/sports-betting-guide">betting on the sport</a>.

So, for anyone not sure what love means (in a tennis way, of course) or think deuce is something to do with the number two - here’s our simple guide to tennis scoring.

Let’s begin by looking at this in terms of a basic points system.

Tennis matches are played in sets, with each set comprising of at least six games.

To win a match, you need to win either two or three sets, depending upon whether the tournament is a best-of-three or best-of-five event.

What does all that mean, though? Let’s take a closer look.

In order to win a set, you must win at least six games while also winning two games more than your opponent. (Tennis!)

So, for example, you might have won six games but your opponent has won five. You don’t win the set until there is a two-game margin between your scores, i.e. 7-5.

You can win the set with six games if your opponent has won at least two fewer games, for example, 6-4 or 6-3. If it finishes 6-6, a tie-breaker is required to decide the set.

How many sets you need to win a match depends on the tournament you’re playing in. In most cases, it is the best of three sets, so the winner needs to win two sets, to win the match.

What Is The Basic Scoring System In Tennis? 

To win a game in tennis, players must win at least four points. In a simple points structure, this would be 0-1-2-3-4.

When it comes to tennis, though, rather than a straightforward linear points system, each of these points has either a numerical value or a name instead. These can be seen below:

In the above scenario, with one player winning every point, assuming that player was serving, the score system would look like this:

GAME (End of game, not end of match)

Surprisingly, in tennis, this scenario can happen a lot, especially if you have a player who has a dominant serve. However, most games are more competitive than that.

If both players have won one point each then the score will be 15 - 15 and if they have both won two points each it will be 30 – 30.

In the most competitive games, two additional scores are introduced - Deuce and Advantage.

When a tennis game is very competitive and the scores are more even, it can result in Deuce and Advantage coming into play.

These can be described as a mini tie-breaker for the tightest games.

If a game reaches 40-40, then this is called Deuce. You might think that the next player to win a point would win the game, but you’d be wrong (except in some doubles events). Remember this is tennis, and it revels in the confusion.

The next player who wins a point actually has ‘Advantage’. This is marked by an ‘A’ on the scoreboard and you will hear the umpire say “Advantage” followed by the player's name.

If the player with the advantage then wins the following point directly after that, then they’ve won the game. So in effect, when it goes to Deuce, a player must win the next two straight points in order to win the game.

If the player with the advantage doesn’t win the next point, then the score returns to Deuce (40- 40) and the process starts again.

Some games can return to deuce several times, with one or both players gaining and losing the advantage over and over again before returning back to deuce. It can make for an exciting watch!

This is just tennis terminology meaning a player is one point away from winning a set or a match.

It can happen several times through a tennis match, where a player is just one point away from clinching a set or from winning the match altogether and then the opponent fights back.

Tennis commentators will also use the term Championship-Point if the player is one point away from winning the whole tournament.

Tennis great Roger Federer famously lost two Championship-points in his last Grand Slam final at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Wimbledon_Championships_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_singles">Wimbledon in 2019</a>. He had two chances to clinch what would have been his ninth Wimbledon crown and 21st career Grand Slam title and he lost both, with the title going to Novak Djokovic instead.

In tennis, they say the last point is the hardest to win.

Tennis is unlike a lot of other sports in that there isn’t a home player and an away player to structure the scoring system. Obviously in football the home team’s score always comes first.

In tennis, the player who is serving has their score put first. So 15-LOVE means the serving player has won the first point. And LOVE-15 means the receiving player has won the first point.

Each player takes it in turns to serve and on each serve, they have two attempts to get it into the correct section of the court, otherwise known as a legal serve.

An ace in tennis is basically a serve that is not touched by the receiver at all, and therefore wins the point for the server.

Usually, aces are seen on the players first serve as they can take some chances, go big and hit with maximum force. If it works well, they get an ace, if it doesn’t, they have the second serve to fall back on.

For any fact fans out there, American tennis player John Isner holds the record for the most aces in one match which was 113 in his 11-hour battle with Nicolas Mahut at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships.

Serving in tennis gives the player the upper hand. When you serve, you have the benefit of being able to lead each point and put your opponent on the back foot. You can also make aces, meaning you can play your opponent out of the point before it’s even really started.

Because serving is such an advantage, games are often referred to as ‘on serve’ if both players are ‘holding their serve’. In other words, players are expected to win their service games.

However, if a player fails to win a game on their serve, then it means the other player has ‘broken serve’. This would be similar to a turnover in rugby union, a steal in basketball, or a short-handed goal in ice hockey.

But with tennis it is even more significant, because you cannot win a set outright (i.e. without a tie-break) unless you break your opponent’s serve at least once.

Although most great tennis players are admired for their serving skills, being a formidable returner, like Andy Murray and Andre Agassi in their heydays, is just as important, if not more so. Most tennis players can win on their service games, but having a great return is what wins tennis matches.

If a tennis set is tied at 6-6 then a tie-breaker comes into play.

The tie-break rules have changed a little in recent years and Grand Slams now operate a Super Tie-Break on the final set. However, for the sake of simplicity (and our sanity), the basic tie-break is a simple first-to-seven-points mini-match. (So, they choose now to implement a standard numerical points system!)

After one player has an initial single serve, the players then take it in turns to have two serves each until one player makes it to seven points. Just to add a little extra complication, there still needs to be a two-point margin between scores so they will continue playing until there is. Eventually the player with at least seven points and a two-point advantage wins the set.

Meanwhile, the Super Tie-Break that I mentioned earlier is basically the same system as above but going up to ten points rather than seven. This is used in the final set at Grand Slam tournaments.

Final set tie-breaks never used to be a thing in Grand Slam tennis until that epic 11-hour first-round match I mentioned earlier at Wimbledon in 2010. It used to be thought that if a tennis match was so tight, it wouldn’t be fair to finish it off with a quick tie-break.

However, poor John Isner and Nicolas Mahut just could not be separated, and their match ran over three days with a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8759545.stm">final score of 70 - 68</a> games in the last set. That’s games, not points!

How Is Grand Slam Tennis Scoring Different?

The men’s tennis tour, led by the ATP, and the women’s tennis tour, led by the WTA, is a year-round schedule of tournaments.

Many casual tennis fans only really take notice of the four Grand Slams - Australian Open, French Open (Roland Garros), Wimbledon and the US Open.

However, tennis goes on all year round with various events of different levels across the world. The standard scoring system for both men and women on the tour is the best of three sets.

Grand Slam tennis is different, but only for men. In Grand Slam tournaments, men are required to play a best of five set system while women remain with the best of three.

Call it strange, call it pretentious, but whatever you think of it, tennis scoring is certainly unique.

The even weirder thing is that no one really knows why it's scored this way. There are lots of theories of course. Some believe the scoring system actually started out as 15-30-45, going up in increments of 15, but then for some reason the five got knocked off to make it 40.

Others believe it was based on a clock with the four main points set at North, South, East and West used as the scores. But that doesn’t explain 40 instead of 45 again.

It’s been proposed that the word ‘love’ being used for zero could be linked to the French word l’oeuf, meaning egg, which is the same shape as the number 0. But, again, this is just an unproven theory.

Some written text from as far back as the 1520’s had one Jan van den Berghe questioning the same as everyone else: “What was not explained was how players can win fifteen points for a single stroke. It is, after all, a little curious that they count or win more than one point for a single stroke… Why is not one point given for one stroke, and two for two strokes?”

If they have been asking the same question since the 1500s, I’m guessing we’ll never get to the bottom of it, so we might as well just embrace the madness.

In summary as mentioned earlier, tennis almost has its own language which can be incredibly confusing.

Here, you'll find the most common terms as a handy quick-reference guide:

Ace – An untouched serve.

Advantage - The next point won after deuce. Should the player at advantage win the next point, they win the game. If the opponent wins the next point, the score returns to deuce.

Bagel – A set won to love – i.e. 6-0.

Break – A game won by the non-serving player.

Break-Point – When a player is one point away from earning a break.

Championship Point – When a player is one point away from winning the tournament.

Deuce – When the scores are 40-40 and neither player has Advantage.

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