I have now been limited by Spoils and Sly

The bloke at Spoils assured me that it "wasn't me" that the limits were on but the games I was interested in when I asked if I'd have to phone through every bet now. Had only got as far as my second freebie too, which is on the weekend golf.

Sly limits not too bad, but that was before I won there last night ...

I feel I have now become a fully fledged member of the matched betting community

best bet for spoilsports is do complete the WR on the nags. Footy bets here only lead to one end.... gubbing

Thanks - I was thinking of that but as yet have only stuck on small £10 bets so as not to be caught out too much by any Rule 4 deductions that occur. Will have to have another look and see how tricky it is.

Hey dingling,

Congratulations?! (or !)

I got limited at Sky after perhaps half a dozen bets but they seem to be the only bookie that actually raise the limits after you've continued to bet for a while at their limited rates. Well, that was the case for me anyway but worth keeping in mind maybe... or just leaving them until they have some juicy offer on or other.

I think the limits were around £300 max win when I first got limited but then after I'd had maybe 4 losses in a row the limit seemed to get lifted back up so I could win up to a max of £1k eventually... am now actually limited again after having a few more wins though... hopefully the limit will go back up again and they won't just can the account.

Cheers.

you dont mean you have been doing the boyles bet basket with £10 do you? they match up to average or min stake £50. Boyles do apply rule 4 deductions so it is wise of you to keep an eye on this. Usually quite a good quick indicator is to look at the other nags in a race to see if their odds are also out of line... if so chances are the books hasnt been remade.... if not... seems you have found an arb!

I've never had any issues with Rule 4 deductions over 1800 or so bets apart from on one occasion when I ended up getting paid more, not less because of the deductions (Betfair took less off me on a horse I'd laid than the bookie side deducted for rule 4).

I would say don't worry too much about rule 4 deductions and certainly don't let it put you off horses, just use some common sense when placing bets is all - most important thing to check is that you're backing a selection on a properly formed market (ie check to make sure no horses have been withdrawn from the race but the bookie hasn't updated their prices yet which is easy to do using an odds comparison site like bestbetting). Also if your horse price is 14 or over, rule 4 doesn't get applied if your horse wins at most bookies (I think it's 14, check the bookies rules to be sure).

Other than that if a horse is withdrawn you'll only be affected by rule 4 if your horse actually wins - and like I say even then you might end up getting paid more, you might end up getting paid less. Either way it's not worth worrying about too much ... only my humble opinion only of course!

no - had been using a couple of £10 qualifiers elsewhere on the horses. I got fed up with the website today and withdrew my money for now - I couldn't even get a tenner on any of the weekend footie matches I tried on the website. I thought I'd be able to use the money more wisely elsewhere for now.

Thanks for your help guys - much appreciated

I know how you feel, every time I'm curious just to see how my limits are at Bet365 it's really depressing as well... only allowed a maximum win of £10 there, same with Betfred now as well

I found the bet basket impossible to do on the footie. The only footie bets I could get a £50 stake on were matches with odds of less than 1.1! I eventually completed the bet basket using mostly tennis. Never got one bet stopped but again tried to keep the odds below 1.1 wherever possible. I think it is mainly the football they seem to have a problem with. Horses wasn't as bad but still got anything over 8.0 stake reduced. I did find that at least the £50 free bet could be split and didn't have to be placed all in one go. The only thing in their favour is that there are no minimum odds. That said, I won't be wasting my time with them anymore. I'll just add them to the list of Ladbrokes (limited to £25), Sportingbet (limited to £7.51) and Casinored limited to £0.53p). I'm just hoping Bet365 won't be added to the list soon as I recently took over £1000 off them on a horse at 29.0!

Boyles: Account totally useless
Sky: Closed - wasn't even limited, straight from hero to zero

And best of the rest:

Stan/BD: Limited heavily on AH markets, seemingly not on 1X2
BlueSq/888: Limited to about £30-£40 above evens, depending on the size of the league, and how far above evens. Above 3.00 is normally around £10
Fred: Some limiting, but don't tend to bet much there anyway, unless there are good offers on.

Forgot to mention Bet365 gave me a free £5 bet the same day thanking me for my loyalty!

Crap macaroons I managed to get on £50 at sportingbet today which is a bit of a shock, was quite limited there last time I was on.

I have actually had a snail mail letter from old slappy kindly stating that my account has been closed because of a "business decision" ... a couple of big winners on a monday and tuesday meant about 4k coming out from slappy after picking about 9 consecutive winners with big stakes and the account was gubbed! to date is still my only totally closed and thus useless account.

Argh Betfred is another one where I'm severely limited to around £10 win

I really regret the way I played some of these early bonuses... well not regret but if I had my time over I'd certainly reconsider my strategy and make sure I underlaid to the point where I made no profit if my horse lost but a much much larger profit if it won... really squandered a lot of profit away on those early books - bet365, betfred, victor chandler.

Still when you're starting out it's just nice to know that no matter what the outcome you're making the same profit. If someone had said to me back then 'don't make any profit if your selection loses' I don't know if I'd have listened anyway!