Ollie Hickmore

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.

Ollie

Kelly Criterion Betting System: Optimising Bet Stake Sizes

Stephanie Sorrell

For tax purposes, Matched Betting is considered a form of gambling, which is tax free for the consumer. Unlike in some other countries such as the USA, where gamblers and lottery winners will have to set aside a large chunk of their winnings for tax, UK customers who win big get to keep the lot.

We’ll break down why this is and how it works in this article, but please do remember that we’re not financial advisors. If you need specialised, professional advice, please speak to a professional financial advisor who can give you the guidance you need.

So, Does That Mean Matched Betting Is Gambling?

Definitely not! Gambling, by definition, is an activity involving risk or chance.

No matter how convinced a punter may be that a particular horse is a sure thing, when they place a non-matched bet on that horse, they are taking the risk that their bet will lose, and that they will come away with nothing.

Gamblers may use betting strategies to minimise their risk, but that doesn’t change the fact that the risk is still there.

A matched bettor is able to calculate in advance exactly how much they will make from a bet, no matter the outcome - this is the beauty of Matched Betting. As the element of risk is removed, Matched Betting cannot logically be considered a form of gambling.

The government and HMRC, however, don’t take into account this distinction when writing tax law, which is to our advantage. Because we are still placing bets with bookmakers, and the number of matched bettors is too small to have their own dedicated category, Matched Betting is grouped along with gambling for tax purposes.

All of the profits, none of the risk, and none of the tax? It’s easy to see why Matched Betting is growing in popularity as one of the UK’s <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/side-hustle-ideas">best side hustles</a>.

Most side hustles are considered self-employment. You have to submit a tax return if you’re earning over £1000, and pay normal tax rates if your total earnings come to over the current personal tax allowance of £12,750 a year.

Meanwhile, if you dip your toes into any sort of investment, your profits are subject to capital gains tax. But there’s no limit to the tax-free profits you can make Matched Betting!

If you’re new to Matched Betting, or feeling overwhelmed by all the information out there, why not give our <a href="https://outplayed.com/user/register#1">free trial</a> a go? We’ll take you step by step through the process, allowing you to make your first £60 of profit completely free.

It comes as a surprise to a lot of people that gambling winnings aren’t taxed. After all, if someone manages to win the Euromillions, you’d think the government would be keen to take a percentage.

The reason for this is the simple fact that gamblers almost always make a loss. For all the big wins they might be lucky enough to get, there will be bigger losses to cancel them out - and naturally you can’t possibly be taxed on your losses.

In countries where gambling is taxed, like the USA, gamblers offset their losses against their wins when submitting their tax returns, but this means the average punter has to keep meticulous records, and it takes thousands of extra hours for the American IRS to administrate.

Until 2001, a tax of 9% was charged to punters either on stakes or on winnings in high street bettings shops (before online bookies really got going), but this was abolished by Gordon Brown, and replaced with a 15% tax on bookmakers instead.

This does mean that the odds you see on a bookie’s website are calculated to take into account the taxes the bookie has to pay, and so result in a little less profit than you might otherwise make as a matched bettor. Nonetheless, this is a much easier and more profitable system for the consumer than having to submit a tax return every year!

What if I make a living from Matched Betting?

For those who know their tax law, they’ll be aware that there comes a point when individual profitable activity starts to be considered a ‘trade’ - i.e. a professional outfit that should be subject to tax.

If people go as far as to make their full time living from Matched Betting (or even from normal gambling), they often wonder if their profits might start to count as a trade. After all, pretty much everybody has to pay income tax, and if you’re Matched Betting full time, your profits are your income.

But the government has been pretty clear about this. Individual gambling activity, even if the individual manages to make enough money to live on, isn’t ever considered a trade. Professional poker players, for example, don’t have to pay any tax on their winnings, no matter how much they win. HMRC advise:

‘The fact that a taxpayer has a system by which they place their bets, or that they are sufficiently successful to earn a living by gambling does not make their activities a trade.’

Source: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim22017">HMRC Business Income Manual</a>

The only things they might have to pay tax on are other services they offer - for example, if they get paid to give talks on their career and strategy, they’d have to declare the fees and potentially pay tax on those.

One other thing you may need to consider if you start making extremely large profits from your Matched Betting is the suspicion of money laundering.

Obviously, what you’re doing as a matched bettor is perfectly legitimate, but gambling is a common way for organised criminals to launder their illegitimate gains. After all, it’s not particularly surprising for someone to withdraw large sums of money from an online bookie, and this is something criminals can take advantage of.

If banks start seeing regular large withdrawals from bookies to your account, it’s possible that they could become suspicious about your activity.

Fortunately, it’s easy enough to prove that you haven’t done anything wrong. We recommend keeping track of your profits no matter how much you’re making, using our handy profit tracker to help, or our <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArvM4YvvNOxQdDk2SFZnTVRhYmlDZ2piQWs0M0RkOWc&amp;usp=sharing">free Matched Betting spreadsheet</a>.

If you start making thousands a month, this becomes ever more important. So long as you’ve got records of all your Matched Betting activity, you can easily prove that what you’re doing is legal and legitimate, and you’ll never have to worry about being suspected of doing anything dodgy.

On a similar note, bookies may ask to see ID to prove you are who you say you are. It can be a bit alarming when you receive a ‘KYC’ request (short for ‘Know Your Customer’), but the documents requested should be easy to supply.

They’ll normally want to see some form of photo ID, to prove your identity and age, and proof of address. Our <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/do-i-need-id-for-matched-betting">detailed breakdown</a> takes you through everything you need to know about ID checks and why bookies sometimes require them.

In short, the average matched bettor making a few hundred a month from Matched Betting doesn’t have to give tax a second thought.

If your profits start to rise high enough to become a full time income, you still don’t have to pay any tax on them - but it’s a good idea to keep full records of your betting, just in case you have to demonstrate where your money’s coming from.

Is Matched Betting Tax Free? Everything You Need To Know 

Paul Trevor

The SP (Starting Price) is the official odds of a horse available to punters at the beginning of a race or at the ‘off’ as it’s commonly known.

The SP can be important to bettors if they chose to take the SP instead of locking the odds in as it determines the winning bet payout.

In this article, you’ll find out how SP is determined along with, the pros and cons of taking the SP and how you can ensure you always get the best possible odds for your bets.

The SP was previously determined by appointed bookies at the race track and mirrored the general consensus of the market just before the start of the race.

However, when COVID hit the nation and the UK went into lockdown in 2020, things had to change.

When horse racing resumed, restrictions were put in place which meant no bookmakers or crowds were allowed at the track. So, the <a href="http://www.thesprc.org/about-us/">Starting Price Regulatory Commission</a> (SPRC) conducted a review.

The review uncovered that only 1.4% of horse racing bets are placed at race tracks normally anyway.

With bettors only using online bookies during lockdown and the vast majority of bets being placed off-course, The SP is now determined by off-course odds taken from a group of bookies who have a significant share of the whole betting market.

Bettors are always looking for the best value and whilst they might get bonuses and offers from time to time, regular punters are on the look out for the best odds on offer day in and day out.

The <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/sports-betting-guide">online gambling market</a> is bigger than ever and with odds comparison sites, it’s easier than ever to find the best odds on an event.

The Outplayed <a href="https://outplayed.com/products/oddsmatcher#what-does-it-do">OddsMatcher Tool</a> provides real time odds updates at over 100 bookies so you always see the best odds on offer.

It does raise a question as to whether there is a need for bookies at the track.

Yet, you’ll still see plenty of them track side in their little betting booths at horse and dog races.

If you are at the races then do you use the bookie there or jump on your mobile and place your bets within seconds?

Now whilst the process is similar, the outcome may differ because the odds offered by a bookie at the track can differ to online odds.&nbsp;

Course bookies determine the odds for a race by the amount of money they take. In general, they aim to make about 10% per race.&nbsp; Once their costs are deducted they will make approximately in the region of 8%.

As an example, let’s say there is a race with only 2 horses running.

The track bookie had a substantial liability on horse A so they decide to drop the price on it to deter any more bettors backing it.

At the same time, they would increase the odds of horse B to make it more appealing, take bets and balance the books a little. The mechanics of it are a little more complex than that in reality though.

Whilst online bookies work in a similar fashion, the volumes are considerably higher as more people are betting online than are at the races.

It’s not a simple case of one is better than the other. More often than not, the online prices will be better as there is far more liquidity (money placed) in the markets.

There will always be times where one is offering better odds than the other so if you’re out for a day at the races, check both before placing your bet.

Logic would push you to think that from the selected bookmakers, an average figure would be used to determine the starting price.

The issue with this is that there could be concerns the bookies could arrange it so that the odds disadvantage the customers and given them the edge.

To avoid this, when the race starts, the odds are shared equally across the chosen bookmakers.

This results in the SP being the lowest odds offered by the bookie in the upper half of the selection.

The below example is the odds being offered by ten bookies on a horse.

They are ordered from highest to lowest odds.

As mentioned above, the SP will be the odds offered by the lowest bookmaker in the top half of the table.&nbsp; In this case, the SP is the odds of 6.5 (11/2) by Paddy Power (shown in bold).

The horse in this example had odds from 5.5 (9/2) to 7.5 (13/2) so the SP of 6.5 (11/2) in this race looks fair. Because the SP rules are set in stone by the Starting Price Regulatory Commission (SPRC), it can sometimes result in an unfair SP without bettors realising.

Here’s an example of when that might happen:

In this case, a fair SP would be 5.5 (9/2) but because of the rules, the SP is 5 (4/1).

When placing a bet on horses or dogs, bettors can choose whether to take the starting price (SP) of take the fixed odds.

Choosing to take the SP can be useful if the market conditions are uncertain and volatile with fluctuating odds as it can give you averaged odds at the time of the race.

It also provides the odds of the overall consensus of the market at the off.

There are times when people will get tips or stable information too.

This can help in that if they know the price is lower than it should be, taking the SP should give them better odds when the race starts.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the SP?

Choosing the SP is pretty straight forward and is generally the same for most bookmakers.

If a bettor deals with a betting shop or on course bookie, they can tell the bookie they want to take the SP. Alternatively, you can choose the SP yourself at online bookmakers.

Below are examples where they might slightly differ.

With William Hill, they display both the current odds and another option to click on the SP.

This then opens the bet slip as above with the SP selected.&nbsp; If you changed your mind and wanted to take the current odds, you simply either click the on-screen odds of 1.15 or click on the 1.15 odds in the bet slip.

Bet365 slightly differ to William Hill in that they don’t have columns for the current odds and starting price. Instead, you would need to click on the current odds to open the bet slip.

Once the bet slip is open, if you click on the 1.14 you‘ll then see a pop up with the option of clicking on the SP.

One thing to mention is when using the William Hill mobile app, you won’t see the current odds and SP columns.

It will display current odds only but once you click on the odds, the bet slip opens and you can chose the SP as you would do with Bet365.&nbsp; With so many online bookies about, some might slightly differ in their layout but the option to take the SP will be available somewhere.

This selection is a good example of where taking the SP might be a good idea. Aurora Vega has extremely low odds so a punter may think the only way these odds will go is up.

If you take the SP and the odds drift out higher, then you’ll make more profit.

Let’s say you decide to place a £10 win bet on Aurora Vega.&nbsp; The current odds are 1.15 but you decide to take the SP and the horse wins.

This case demonstrates how the SP can have a big influence on your profits.

These were extremely low odds but if you imagine a similar scenario with higher odds, you can see how it’s possible to vastly increase your profits.

However, don’t forget it can also work the other way around and your profits could take a big hit in the wrong direction.

This leads to another little gem on offer from quite a few of the bookmakers – Best Odds Guaranteed.

This completely removes the need to even consider whether or not to use the starting price or take the fixed odds.

BOG basically merges the benefits of placing fixed odds bets with a potential advantage of SP bets.&nbsp; In essence, it means a bettor cannot be disadvantaged with their choice of odds.&nbsp; You put a £10 win bet on a horse at fixed odds of 5 (4/1) but when the race started, the SP was 10 (9/1).

This means that if the horse wins, you get £100 back instead of £50 thanks to the BOG being offered by the bookie. You can read more about this with our comprehensive <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/best-odds-guaranteed-in-matched-betting">Best Odds Guaranteed</a> guide.

What Does SP Mean In Horse Racing?

Ben Adams

During much of 2024, <a href="https://outplayed.com/">Outplayed</a> have been hard at work building one of the most powerful betting tools ever available.

A select few individuals were able to use the <a href="https://outplayed.com/products/steam-chaser">Steam Chaser tool</a> as part of the vigorous testing done to ensure its profitability over the long run.

One of these testers made an incredible £86,124 profit over eight months.

Luke (whose name has been changed to protect his identity) has volunteered to share his journey revealing the process he followed to make over £86k using the Steam Chaser.

Before jumping in, keep in mind that Luke has been <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/what-is-value-betting">value betting</a> for many years and has a larger bankroll than most, but you will be able to learn a lot from his story and can use that to emulate his results using your own level of experience and bankroll.

Discovering Value Betting And Steam Chaser Success

Like many others, Luke first started his profitable betting journey <a href="https://outplayed.com/what-is-matched-betting">using Matched Betting</a> but now focuses almost exclusively on value betting and has done so for around five years:

“I don’t do much Matched Betting anymore, but if I’m ever offered a free bet of over £10, I’ll likely grab that.

I focus on value betting most of the time and the tools I use the most are (in order):

Since he started using the Steam Chaser around eight months ago, Luke has made £86,124 in pure profit. He did this by turning over £716,541 worth of bets on UK bookies giving him a yield of 12%.

This comes in at over £10k profit per month on average which is seriously impressive. However, placing over £700k worth of bets seems like a huge amount of bets but Luke explains how he achieved this over the course of 2024 and shared some screenshots of his bets and profit/loss statements:

“To place the volume I did, I used nearly 100 different UK bookmaker accounts.

I don’t record bets on an individual basis because it’s time-consuming and all I want to do is try and record a large volume of bets. Instead, I record the starting balances of accounts, end balances, and how much is wagered on each account if the account is eventually stake-restricted.

My average bet size is around £100 on each bookmaker, but I may take a bet multiple times over multiple bookmakers if the bet is particularly high value or the opportunity is around for a while. This means I have placed around 7,165 bets this calendar year, which works out at around 30 bets per day on average.

As I don’t record individual bets it’s hard to say the exact average odds I use but I’d imagine on the Steam Chaser the average odds I take are around 2.5 - 3.0.”

Steam Chaser Filters And Optimising Turnover

The Steam Chaser interface can look daunting at first glance with the wide range of filters and settings available. Luke explains how he sets up the Steam Chaser for his bets:

“In terms of sports I mainly look out for Soccer, but do mix in some Basketball/Tennis/Hockey when I’m using bookmakers I don’t care about losing too much.

I don’t filter by bookie because I think it’s always worth looking for the match on bookmakers I have open anyway.

Some bet selections can often have slightly varied names to the software, so sometimes you need to find them based on kick-off time or by looking for similar names.

On the “markets” filter - I filter out Team Totals, I’m not sure if they will lead to <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/top-tips-to-avoid-being-gubbed">gubbings</a> as I’ve never tried many, but it feels too obscure so I avoid them.

I set the steam % filter to 15% and leave the odds range filter set to min odds 0 and max odds of 4.0.

For the periods filter - I choose the soccer full match only option when using soccer bet.

I set the time until filter to the next 12 hours. I would imagine that any longer than this is going to be suspicious for a bookmaker, reducing this further might be wise for bookmakers that you want to keep for longer.

Any other filters I leave as the default.

In my Steam Chaser settings I also often have .75 and .25 “spread intervals”, “totals intervals” and “show team goals” turned off to reduce the clutter on the page.”

Luke goes on to explain how he’s been able to optimise his turnover by forward planning and a professional office setup:

“I have multiple bookmakers always loaded and often hit the same selection over multiple sites when possible. I also plan ahead when big sports events are taking place and work as many Saturdays as possible when there are lots of soccer matches taking place around the world.

I also have six monitors. I’ve always thought that investing in additional monitors is one of the easiest ways to increase your betting volume, as it becomes much easier to monitor bookie's odds vs the Steam Chaser as well as allowing you to use other betting strategies at the same time.

The best time to place bets is always Saturday in the build up to kick-off times. I get down around five times more volume on a Saturday than on a Monday for example, and the days leading up to Saturday get increasingly better. Sunday is often not bad for football when there are lots of matches taking place.”

Dealing With Variance, Account Limitations And Best Bookies

Using value betting tools such as Steam Chaser requires a long-term focus and the ability to deal with inevitable periods of downswings in profit. Luke describes how he has learnt to manage this over time:

“I’ve been gambling for a living for over ten years now from poker, high-risk casino and now mainly value betting and have had multiple large downswings, but you eventually remove yourself from both winning and losing.

After numerous years of value betting, I know the strategies are working, the results are out of my control, and downswings are inevitable. I advise anyone starting always to bet a maximum of a quarter <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/kelly-criterion-betting-system">Kelly staking strategy</a> and to adjust their bankrolls in line with this when on down/upswings.

The most prolonged losing period this year has been around two months; in previous years I’ve had 3 - 4 months before I was back to the previous peak, but fortunately, nothing as severe this year. As I say, I don’t record individual bets, but if I had to guess, my biggest downswing using the Steam Chaser this year was around £7k.”

Using long-term strategies like value betting you also need to be able to handle when bookmakers limit your betting accounts. Luke sticks to a set of rules to help him prolong the life of his accounts:

“I place bets close to kick-off and mainly stick to soccer bets. I also avoid handball and volleyball on most sites even where there are available bets showing on the software.

I’m extra cautious with the bookies that provide most value, these can change often, but over the long run if I had to pick my top three I’d go for Bet365, Sky Bet and 888sport.

I tend to not use Betfair Sportsbook and Paddy Power anymore as they seem to limit bets very quickly in my experience. I also avoid using Steam Chaser on some bookmakers and use a different strategy to begin with like 2UPs, for example. This helps keep the account open for much longer than hitting the Steam Chaser straight after the account set-up.

The lesser-known bookies that I don’t use for anything else will always just get used straight away to hit the Steam Chaser as I'd rather extract as much as possible in the shortest time possible and then move on to the next opportunity.”

The Steam Chaser and value betting is not for everyone and you do need a certain level of experience, bankroll and time to begin. Luke describes how he has learnt to manage this over time:

“I would start with at least around £2000 - £3000, but I would try to heavily avoid spending this bankroll and let it grow, preferably mixing in things like low-risk casino/sports Matched Betting offers to get this building up as quickly as possible. Money makes money, and at the start of value betting, the difference in hourly rate vs using a larger bankroll size will be massive.

I place value bets full-time but “work” more/less during busy/quiet times. If you have a relatively big bankroll and don’t mind big swings in profit, then only having Saturdays available would still make value betting very worthwhile, but of course, the more time you put in, the more you’ll get out.”

Luke’s results are quite extraordinary and it's great to see how they are broken down to see exactly how he achieved them using the Steam Chaser tool.

At Outplayed we’re looking forward to seeing more amazing results from<a href="https://outplayed.com/products/steam-chaser"> using the powerful Steam Chaser</a> and if you have any questions or if you want to share your own results please do <a href="https://outplayed.com/contact">get in touch</a>.

How I Made £86,124 Using Outplayed’s Steam Chaser Tool

Lynsey Thompson

Roulette is one of the most iconic casino games of all time and has mass appeal to casino players both in person and online.

Named after the French word meaning little wheel, Roulette has everything you want in a casino game – simplicity, speed, anticipation, excitement and decent payouts. It is also lots of fun too.

Many people play Roulette like a guessing game, picking their favourite numbers and moving around the board trying out different bets. However, others apply strategy and mathematical processes to try to maximise their payouts.

Either way, Roulette offers the chance to do both and has multiple variations to keep things interesting too.

So, let's take a look at Roulette in more detail; how to play it, what variants you can find, what the house edge is and which strategies you can use when playing.

In a standard single-zero roulette game there is a wheel with 37 different segments, or pockets as they are sometimes referred to, and a corresponding board.

The wheel segments are numbered 0 – 36 and each has a colour. Almost half of the numbers (18 of them) are red, another 18 are black and the number ‘0’ is green.

Before the wheel is spun, players place bets on which number they think the wheel will land on. They do this by placing casino chips on the board and there are various bets they can choose to place.

We’ll go into this in more detail below but, as an example, you can choose specific numbers, whether it will land on a red or black number, whether it will be odd or even, or if it will fall within a number range laid out on the board.

Once all bets are placed, the croupier spins the wheel in one direction and throws a small ball in the other direction around the tilted track on the outside of the wheel. When the wheel stops spinning, the ball will land in one of the numbered pockets and this is the winner.

Let’s look at a standard European Roulette board in order to understand the different bets that can be placed.

As you can see from this image, a standard Roulette board, which can be referred to as the ‘layout’, has a green cloth background and includes the green, red and black numbered segments which correspond exactly to those on the wheel. You will also see other boxes where specific bets can be placed.

Roulette bets are split into two different types – inside bets and outside bets. Inside bets are those that are more precise, which means they are harder to get right but pay better when they land.

Outside bets are less precise and give you a better chance of winning but pay much lower when you do.

Here’s a list of the main inside Roulette bets you can place, where to place your chips and what payout you can expect.

Because inside bets involve you focusing your predictions on anything from one to six numbers, the payouts are higher ranging from 5-1 for a Double Street Bet to 35 – 1 for a Straight Bet.

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