Before starting, I want to give my account on just part of the relatively short history of matched betting and its recent rise from the underground to the mainstream also this OddsMonkey review blog post turned into a bit of a Profit Accumulator Vs OddsMonkey affair but it certainly does contain valuable information.
If you’re just after the review and not the history, scroll down a bit.
5 MINUTE HISTORY…
It was August of 2011 when Paul (no available surname) founded OddsMonkey. At the same time Sam Stoffel, the creator of Profit Accumulator was matched betting in his spare time whilst at Leeds University studying Cinema and Photography.
OddsMonkey started life as a software company, they created one of the first (possibly the first ever?) close odds matching applications. Paul created the software in his spare time after reading about matched betting on the Martin Lewis Money Saving Expert forum. Anyone could use OddsMonkey´s oddsmatcher for free, however, there was also a paid version that updated odds much more quickly. The software allowed matched bettors to find close back and lay odds. It’s pretty safe to say the OddsMonkey created the first widely used matched betting tool.
OddsMonkey at this point in time provided oddmatching software via their website, that’s it. And that’s how it stayed for 5 years. There was no OddsMonkey matched betting service.
RELATED: Profit Accumulator Review
Come September 2014 a 20 ‘something’ year old Sam Stoffel launches Profit Accumulator, a matched betting service.
Back in 2014 Profit Accumulator used OddsMonkeys oddsmatcher, the tool was embedded in their site. This was phased out over time as Profit Accumulator built their own tools.
Sam more than likely took inspiration from some of the first paid matched betting services, Bonus Bagging and Profit Maximiser. He realised the potential matched betting had and realised not many people knew about it because of its underground nature.
Even in 2014 only internet geeks, hackers, sport betting enthusiasts and a handful of students really knew how matched betting could give you an instant pay rise. It was almost their little secret.
Sam recently explained to calvinayre.com
“I began matched betting while I was studying Cinema and Photography at the University of Leeds, and I was making a decent amount from it. I couldn’t believe more people weren’t doing it. I realised that, if you could simplify the process and educate people about it, it would be very appealing. That’s how Profit Accumulator was born, and the company was founded in 2014.”
Sam made Profit Accumulator a success by taking an existing product and improving it, exactly how James Dyson redesigned the vacuum cleaner and created Dyson, and how more recently Uber shook up the transportation industry with their application. Profit Accumulator re-defined the way the matched betting was presented to people. Matched betting was suddenly being untangled, made accessible and easy for anyone to do.
Older service providers like Bonus Bagging did the job and worked just fine but looked ‘scammy’ despite being completely legit. This is a screenshot of the Bonus Bagging homepage in 2012:
Believe it or not, the design must work to some degree because the site still has a similar look, the below screenshot is from 2017:
Sam’s experience in content creation and video editing coupled with his matched betting experience gave him the skill set required to create high-quality tutorials on matched betting that simply hadn’t been done before.
To successfully bring matched betting to a wider audience you need to have an up to date looking site. A home page with a few key bits of information rather than a barrage text and cheesy money back guarantee stickers. Profit Accumulators site design was in line with modern web design techniques.
Despite having a good product and many positive testimonials the Bonus Bagging site looks like it was made by a 13 year old kid. Something Sam knew he could easily better. The opportunity to improve what was the norm was waiting to be taken.
Profit Accumulators ability to break down seemingly complicated ideas into easy to follow bite size pieces gave an immediate advantage. Essentially an existing product was improved so effectively that much of the UK woke up to matched betting attracting thousands of new customers.
A year passes and Profit Accumulator amasses 10,000 platinum members making Profit Accumulator the world’s biggest matched betting service. Profit Accumulator actually have over 20,000 platinum members today.
Where am I going with all this, how does it relate to OdssMonkey? Well…..The sheer numbers of members Profit Accumulator were signing up naturally got heads turning. Matched betting sites were popping up all over the internet. Some were rip off copies of Profit Accumulator, needless to say most failed quickly. They looked good but most faded away. Others were more original and are still about having gained enough members.
One such matched betting service was called OddsTolncome. They decided to approach OddsMonkey offering to help them adapt the business model into something that resembles Profit Accumulator, they wanted to add a matched betting service to the OddsMonkey offering.
The interesting part here is that Paul, CEO of OddsMonkey didn’t think to make the transition himself. A third party contacted OddsMonkey offering to help.
“At the start of 2016, …. OddsToIncome asked if we could meet up to discuss ways we could turn OddsMonkey into a website that offered a full matched betting service, rather than just the software. They felt we could all work together…..”
Interview with Paul (CEO OddsMonkey) on the OddsMonkey Blog
OddsMonkey launched their matched betting service early 2016, entering the matched betting services market. It made complete sense for them to do so. In the same way, Profit Accumulator now create their own software, OddsMonkey have created their own matched betting service.
By this time Profit Accumulator had already reinvested in software design to create the next generation of matched betting tools ‘Match Catcher’ and Acca Catcher’, tools no one else had.
OddsMonkey’s matched betting service was late to the game, they were on the back foot and so to attract customers they had to offer something that Profit Accumulator wasn’t. They did the only thing they could – undercut on price.
OddsMonkey moved quickly to develop their own versions of ‘Match Catcher’ and ‘Acca Catcher’. They decided to increase their value for money over Profit Accumulator yet again by including their advanced tools in their premium membership. Something Profit Accumulator didn´t offer. They were an additional chargeable service making Profit Accumulator more expensive than OddsMonkey if you wanted Match Catcher and Acca Catcher as well as a platinum membership.
The difference in price remained so until around March 31st, 2017. Profit Accumulators platinum members began to complain that `Match Catcher` and `Acca Catcher` were not included in the standard membership and that costs were too high. I would guess that some members also left because of this price difference.
Profit Accumulator must have felt the heat because they responded by lowering their prices and bundling their previously platinum plus tools into the standard subscription. A bit of healthy competition always helps the consumer. It also shows that Profit Accumulator adapt to market change, listen to and respect their customers.
For almost a year (Feburary 2017 to March 2018), OddsMonkey was £15 per month whilst Profit Accumulator was £17.99/moth. Profit Accumulator’s membership included phone support where OddsMonkey didn’t. For the extra money, you know you’re getting access to the world’s busiest matched betting community forum and phone support 7 days a week.
After being a member of Profit Accumulator for a year, prices drop as part of their loyalty scheme.
If you’re signed up to a monthly subscription, your membership will drop from £17.99 to £14.99 after 12 concurrent months.
For the savvy folks paying their membership yearly, they also get savings. After your first year your membership drops from £150 to £125. Which makes your membership roughly £10 a month.
On 21st February 2018, OddsMonkey increased their price to match Profit Accumulators. My guess is that the lower price had allowed them to gain enough members to achieve a decent monthly income. Having done so they increased their price to £17.99 per month.
Long-term Profit Accumulator membership is cheaper due to their loyalty scheme. PA also offer phone support which is very useful to anyone with questions.
That brings us up to date, now onto my Oddsmonkey review.
OddsmMonkey Review
The OddsMonkey premium account offers everything you would expect from a matched betting service, it is pretty obvious they were inspired by the success of Profit Accumulator but to their credit have added their own touch and feel to the way they deliver their information and the tools they provide.
FREE TRIAL
They offer a free trial that includes two bookie offers which will make you around £45. When you log in with a free account there is a list of offers in categories. There is a start here tab and it leads you through the free training and first offers. In the ‘New Account Offers’ tab there are many offers shown but only two are accessible with the free account. They are arranged into categories which include:
Beginner Step By Step Offers
Bet ‘x’ get ‘x’ sign up Offers
Risk Free Signup Offers
PRICE
The monthly price is £17.99.
The yearly cost of OddsMonkey is exactly the same as Profit Accumulator. So if you go for the yearly subscription (recommended) they are identical in price of £150 per year. Because of Profit Accumulators loyalty scheme, an OddsMonkey both the monthly and yearly sub becomes more expensive than Profit Accumulator after year one.
TRAINING
The training offered by OddsMonkey is very good, well written and delivered in plain English. Both videos and textual descriptions are available which you would expect to see. I personally feel that training is one of the most important aspects of matched betting so I was disappointed to see that the first item in the New Account Offers list: ‘Offers To Avoid’ is only available to premium members, I think this is a little strange for a new user to find the first item in the list unavailable, having just signed up. It’s a minor but it bugged me.
‘Tutorial 1 – Matched Betting Intro’ has no associated video and only a textual description. I think this can be improved as videos are a great way to accompany new concepts delivered via text. Surely the first tutorial should include a video?
Every Profit Accumulator training module has an associated video. Although this may not be a problem for many I thought it best to mention it is a difference between the two services.
Despite a couple of niggly items listed above, on the whole the training is great and the videos are well produced by the OddsMonkey content team.
OFFERS
OddsMonkey have a good list of sign-up offers, these are the easiest offers and are where you can make your first few hundred pounds in a relatively short space of time. The way they are categorised is also a nice touch. There is a difficulty rating which can help give you an at-a-glance difficulty level of the promotion. Offers can be marked when complete so the list can be kept neat.
There are not as many offers available as there are on Profit Accumulator which for me is a downside. I won’t list the numbers of offers I counted as they are likely to change frequently. I won’t guess why this is, it’s just the way it is. More offers are available on PA.
There are fewer reload offers too, which is going to impact your profit at the end of the day if you find yourself going in hard and doing every offer in sight. If you are only aiming for £500 a month you won’t find a lack of offers. This may change and I’ll edit this if it does but for now, it’s how it is.
There is an offer calendar which is pretty cool. It’s a great way to easily see what’s going on that day or even over the next few days. There is also a similar section on their blog called Ben’s Diary which shows one man’s daily matched betting journey in a calendar form. You can see that without a premium membership.
You can only access a few initial training modules and two of the offers with a free account.
SUPPORT
OddsMonkey support is getting there but has room for improvement. The premium forum offers access to other users who can help although it is not as active as the forum at Profit Accumulator.
You can email in your questions or use the online web form, fine but you will have to wait for an answer.
The main difference here is that there is no phone line you can call which is a shame as for a beginner it is a huge reassurance knowing that with Profit Accumulator instant support is just a phone call away.
TOOLS
They are the original matched betting tool providers; they have all the calculators oddsmatchers you can ever dream of for matched betting as well as great oddsmatching software.
Profit Accumulator lead the way with the newer tools on the market; Match Catcher and Acca Catcher, however, OddsMonkey quickly developed their own versions of these essential tools that work just as well. Horse Racing Matcher and Acca Matcher are included in your paid membership as standard.
No OddsMonkey review would be complete without a summary:
OddsMonkey offer a solid service and great tools for a competitive price. You can’t argue against that. Their support offering could do with a phone line and their forum isn’t as busy as others. It would seem they have fewer offers than other but there are still plenty to be getting on with. Overall a good service but I still think Profit Accumulator have the edge simply for their ridiculously busy forum, push message offer updates and phone support.
