No affiliate links. Ever.
Most matched betting sites earn a referral fee every time you sign up to a bookmaker through them. BetBoffins doesn't. Here's why.
How matched betting affiliate links normally work
When a review site recommends a bookmaker, that link is usually tracked. If you sign up and deposit, the publisher can earn a referral fee. Some matched-betting services state that they use affiliate links to fund their content or tools.
There are two problems with that for you, the reader.
An affiliate payment creates a possible conflict. A publisher can earn more from one signup than another, while the reader needs to compare offer terms, cash requirements, and restrictions.
I have no evidence that an affiliate tag makes an account more likely to face restrictions. BetBoffins does not use affiliate links because the payment conflict is enough reason to avoid them.
What I do differently
Every link to a bookmaker on this site is a plain link. No tracking, no referral codes, no commission. Bookmaker payment never affects an offer's position or the wording of its guide.
That means a few things in practice:
- When the audit found that Sky Bet's qualifying bet dropped from £10 to 5p, that bumped Sky Bet up the list. There's no commercial incentive to keep an inferior offer in a higher slot.
- When a smaller bookmaker like Dabble has a £10 offer that's genuinely worth doing, it gets a full guide alongside the £30+ ones — not buried because the commission is smaller.
- When an offer changes, I record the evidence and update its guide.
How the site pays for itself today
For now, it doesn't. BetBoffins is built and maintained by one person (me, Luke), and it costs me a few quid a month to run on Vercel, Supabase and Resend. It's a side project that I do for fun in the evenings.
I'd like to monetise it one day — properly, so I can justify spending more time on it and build the bigger features that need real money behind them (a live oddsmatcher, in particular). When that happens it will be through something transparent: a Patreon, a one-off paid product, or a non-bookmaker sponsorship. Reader-paid, not bookmaker-paid.
What it will never include is bookmaker affiliate links. That promise stands regardless of how the site evolves.
What this means for you
You can inspect the source status and check date on each live offer guide. The estimated profit follows stated assumptions. No bookmaker pays for a guide or a position in the offer list.
That's the whole differentiator. Everything else on this site — the calculator, the trackers, the offer guides — is just the work.