What Does "Gubbed" Mean?

Gubbed. It doesn’t sound nice, does it? It sounds like the kind of thing that might happen to us if we were urchins in a workhouse. When using the term “gubbed” in the world of matched betting, the effect might feel oddly similar to begin with.

You see, online bookmakers don’t like punters making money off them. Quite the reverse, in fact. Matched betting is basically a way to make legal tax-free profits off bookies. If you are “gubbed” it means the bookies have cottoned on to your matched betting activities, given you a figurative clip round the ear and told you to be on your way.

In fact, it’s rare that they will actually serve you with a complete ban. Though bookmakers’ terms and conditions do state that they reserve the right to withdraw their services, they still want to take some money off you. They are in the business of printing money, after all.

But they will restrict the bets you can make and refuse you from any promotional activities, like reload bonuses. Seeing as how these bonuses are the way to make real profits from matched betting, it effectively rules out that bookmaker from our matched betting strategy. If we are gubbed our best strategy is to withdraw the funds from the gubbing bookie’s account and either spend it on something nice or plough it into our betting exchange accounts.

The Dreaded Gub Email

Let’s say you have started matched betting, followed all the tutorials over at OddsMonkey on how to complete matched bets and you are going great guns. You have a Betfair account, an Smarkets account and you have completed all of the bookmaker free bets from signing up and are branching out on reload bonuses. You’re creaming tax-free profits hand-over-fist. You’re starting to think about quitting your job and doing this for a living.

And then comes the gub.

The first bookie to send you an email restricting your betting activities feels like the first time you were dumped at school. Things were going so great. And then, out of the blue, she’s gone and gubbed me! But, like those first loves, you’ll soon realise that there are plenty more fish in the sea.

Remember we said that there are hundreds of bookmakers out there? Don’t fear the gub email. Shrug it off and go out and get back on that horse. Go out and get yourself a rebound bookie.

But on the same front, those first loves back in high school might not have been the ones we ended up with. Maybe after several relationships we realise that we might be better off out of it altogether. On that note and for these reasons, Yesbets definitely does not advocate you quitting your job in an attempt to make a full-time living from matched betting.

Reasons We Get Gubbed

There are certain flags for which online bookmakers’ trading teams keep an eye out when they monitor our betting accounts. Yes, Big Brother is watching you. Whoa betide you should you start to make money off them.

Key reasons we will get gubbed are:

• Placing bets on obscure markets. You live in Coventry and your first bet is on a Norwegian second division game? Really?
• Lapping up the Reloads like a dog eating hot chips but turning your nose up at regular bets.
• Placing low odds qualifying bets and high odds free bets.
• Swanning in with a bet on the 14:50 at Doncaster on a rainy Tuesday in March.
• Avoiding high value bets like Price Boosts, Featured Bets and Accumulators.

It makes sense when you think about it.

You’re a new customer at a bookie. You live in a random town in middle England. From nowhere you land in with a £25 bet on a Wednesday night Serie C match between Siena and Como. If this was an actual betting shop the bookie is not only going to raise his eyebrows, the piano player is going to stop and the whole saloon is going to gape at you agog.

The good news for us is that if we are sensible and strategic and just think about what we are doing we can avoid being gubbed and can continue to cream the tax-free profits we can make from matched betting.

If ever there was a time for common sense, this was it. But don’t worry. You don’t even have to rely on that. Yesbets gives us plenty of tips to help us avoid being gubbed and make the most of our matched betting adventures.