Lynsey Thompson

Tennis is an international sport played and watched across the world. It attracts multi-million-dollar sponsorships both for tournaments and players and is estimated to have one billion fans worldwide.

Many people only really know tennis for the four Grand Slams that take place in Australia, France, England and the US each year. But tennis is actually a year-round sport with weekly tournaments that run from January to December at all levels.

What that means for <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/sports-betting-guide">sports bettors</a>, is that there is almost always some tennis markets to bet on. Plus, tennis is an easy sport to track in terms of player form and results as rankings are updated weekly and many of the events are televised too.

There are multiple betting markets for tennis, everything from tournament winners and player performances to individual matches, sets, games and even points. But before we go into the betting markets, let’s take a quick look at the rules and scoring of tennis to understand how to bet on it.

Tennis is a racket sport played by either two individuals in opposition to each other (singles) or two teams of two players in opposition to each other (doubles).

It is played with a racket, a ball and a net and on different surfaces depending on the tournament, which can be grass courts, clay courts or hard courts.

Courts are rectangular in shape and measure 78 feet (23.78 m) long, and 27 feet (8.23 m) wide for singles matches and 36 ft (11 m) for doubles matches. The same court is used for both singles and doubles, however, the court markings indicate the correct playing space for each.

The net is 3 feet 6 inches (1.07 m) high at the posts and 3 feet (0.91 m) high in the centre.

A Chair Umpire oversees each game to ensure the Rules Of Tennis, Code Of Conduct and Tournament Regulations are followed at all times.

In some tournaments, line umpires are also used to judge whether the tennis ball has remained in or out of court lines. However, line umpires have been replaced with line technology in recent years at many events.

A tennis match starts when the first serving player, which is decided through a coin toss, serves the tennis ball into the correct section on the tennis court. If the serve is good then the players send the ball back and forward over the net to try to win the point.

Points are scored when your opponent cannot play a valid return pass. This can be because they can’t reach the ball, their return hits the net or they play the ball out of court. The ball is allowed to bounce once before hitting it, but not twice.

The aim of the game is to score points, to win games, and ultimately win more sets than your opponent.

Tennis has one of the most confusing scoring structures of all sports and no one really knows why. We break it down in detail in our <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/how-do-tennis-scores-work">tennis scoring guide</a>.

It is also made increasingly puzzling by the fact that different tournaments have varying formats.

However, the basic structure is points – games – sets, and we’ll go into this below.

In order to win a tennis match, you must win the most sets. All tennis matches follow the ‘Best Of’ model in that they are usually the ‘Best of 3 Sets’. That means a player has to win two sets in order to win the match.

In men’s Grand Slam tournaments, this is increased to a ‘Best of 5 Sets’ model, meaning players must win three sets in order to win the match.

To win a set, you must win a minimum of six games, however there must be at least a two-game difference between you and your opponent.

You can’t, therefore, win a set by 6 games to 5. There must be a two-game margin, so you could win it at 6-0, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 or 7-5.

If the set is tied at 6-6, then a tiebreaker is required to decide who wins the set. The basic tiebreaker is a simple first-to-seven-points mini-match but there also needs to be a two-point margin between scores.

The only exception to this is when a Super Tiebreak is used which is in the final set of a Grand Slam. This goes up to 10 points rather than seven.

Instead of a simple linear ‘1-2-3-4’ points structure, tennis uses ‘Love-15-30-40-Game’ as its points system, but in effect they refer to the same thing.

If you score one point, your score is ‘15’, two points is ‘30’, three points is ‘40’ and if you win four points in a row you have won the game.

Obviously, your opponent is also trying to score points, so a game that is tied on two points each, for example, will have the score of ’30-30’. A score of zero is given the name ‘Love’.

Often tennis games are straightforward in that one player will win a game by a clear margin. However, in close games, if the score goes to 40-40 (in order words both players have scored three points), then this is called Deuce.

Deuce means that you now have to win two points in a row to win the game. On Deuce, the player who wins the next point is said to have an ‘Advantage’ as they only need one more point to win the game.

However, if they don’t score the next point, it goes back to Deuce. This continues until one player scores two points in a row to win the game.

Players take turns to serve in tennis and when they serve it is seen as a big advantage.

Firstly, by serving they can decide where to place the first shot, how much power to put on it and ultimately try to dictate the game and make it as hard as possible for the opponent to return it.

Secondly, an ‘Ace’ is basically a serve that is not touched by the receiver at all, and therefore wins an easy point for the server.

Because players are expected to win the games they serve, when they do, this is called a ‘Hold of Serve’. However, if they do not win the game that they have served, they have had a ‘Break of Serve’.

Tennis betting markets are available all year round and they are as wide or as intricate as you want them.

As well as pre-match bets, tennis can be a very good sport for in-play betting. This is because tennis is known for momentum swings so the odds can change regularly and they have quite a lot of player breaks in between games which allows for more time to place in-play bets.

Here are a few of the most common tennis betting markets available:

This is a simple bet on which player or players (in the case of doubles) you think will win the match. As usual, the favourites are the player(s) with the lowest odds.

You can place a bet on what you think the final match score will be in terms of sets. In the recent Wimbledon final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, which was a ‘Best of 5’ match, you could bet on the following markets.

You can place bets on what you think the individual score in a particular set will be. As each set has a minimum of six games, the potential bets would be:

Alcaraz or Sinner to win 6-0, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, 7-6 (tie-break) in Set 1, 2 or 3.

This is a bet placed on which player will win a specific set, e.g. Set 2 Winner.

You can place a bet on what you think the total games in a match will be, which is usually an under/over bet. You can also place bets on whether the total number of games in a match will be odd or even, or how many games will be in a certain set.

This is where one or both of the players is given a virtual lead or deficit in scoring to make betting odds more equal. For example, Carlos Alcaraz handicap betting at -1.5 would mean he would have to win the match by two clear sets in order for this bet to win.

Tournament winner bets are usually available before all major tennis tournaments. This is an overall bet on who you think will take the trophy. In the biggest tournaments, such as Grand Slams, you can often bet on who you think the quarterfinalists or semi-finalists will be as well.

Because tennis is ideal for in-play betting, you can place bets on the ‘Next to win’ markets. These are bets you can place during a live tennis match on things such as - next to win a set, next to win a game, next to serve an ace or even next to win a point, if you’re super quick!

An important factor when betting on any sport is to secure the best odds you possibly can.

The better the odds you take, the more value you're going to get back.

You can use a betting odds comparison site such as <a href="https://www.oddschecker.com/tennis">Oddschecker</a> to find the best available tennis odds at any bookmaker.

Oddschecker shows the odds you can use at various online bookmakers so you can quickly see which site is offering the best tennis odds on any given bet.

The best odds are shown in bold allowing you to easily identify the best <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/what-is-expected-value">value bets</a>.

You can search and compare a whole range of tennis betting markets too.

Now you know what tennis betting markets are available, let’s look at the different tennis events that you can bet on.

Tennis is made up of a tournament calendar for both male and female players. Each tournament has a ranking in terms of their size and importance to the player with regard to prize money and ranking points.

The four Grand Slams are obviously the biggest and this is where you’ll find the most betting markets. These are followed by ‘1000’ events, which usually have wide betting markets too. These events are good to bet on as the bookies are often competing with each other to provide the best odds.

The smaller 500 and 250 events have fewer markets but will usually have individual markets for each match at most bookmakers.

The men’s game in tennis is governed by the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) while the women’s game is governed by the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association).

The global governing body for tennis is the International Tennis Federation (ITF), which organises team events. The Grand Slam tournaments and Olympics have their own organisation structure, as does the Laver Cup, which is essentially an exhibition event.

Tournaments take place across the world on a truly global scale and many of the events have been running since the beginning of the sport itself.

Some of the biggest tournaments of the 2026/27 season are as follows:

The Ultimate Tennis Betting Guide 2026

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>.

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