Whether you are a large well-funded syndicate supported by hundreds of highly skilled Quantitative Analysts and Data Modelers or if you are just a punter with an eye for a ‘value’ bet it seems that everyone shares the same struggle: ‘getting on’.

People looking in from outside the industry often find it hard to believe the notion of the bookmakers restricting you to a tiny bet, never mind full blown refusing to even look at the action you would love to send them. The sad fact is that getting real bets away with the vast majority of the UK books is a near-impossible task. Any hint of a chunky bet or a selection that moves a couple of points renders your account next to useless.

Sadly I can only see the liquidity in the UK getting tighter over the years to come. Bookmakers are investing more and more resources in trying to get ahead of the sophisticated proprietary modelers betting to the value they find from formulating their own more detailed pricing models. In the cross fire will be a lot of unsuspecting losing regular punters who have been auto restricted by an arbitrary computer system, with qualitative human decision making disappearing from the industry all together.

Thankfully we all know that there are options outside of betting with the household names to be able to get our bets on. Far away from the FTSE listed companies desperate to keep their shareholders happy with smooth FOBTs backed profits, lie a selection of other outfits that can fill the liquidity gap. I am talking about brokers, private layers, betting exchanges and a very small amount of online bookmakers with a higher appetite to take risk.

The best place for your action really does depend on the sort of business you are trying to get away. For instance if you are arbitrage trading then the vast majority of the online bookmakers wouldn’t be interested in just accepting your top price business, but there are other options available. If you are an API driven high execution trader then there are also numerous options to make sure you are maximizing your volume; same applies if you are looking to seed markets.

On the flip side if you are just a punter who likes to have a big bet but has been knocked back by the ‘traders decision’, then there are options where you will get treated with respect and also looked after to a level that the rest of the industry just cannot match up to.

Getting £500k+ on an NFL / MLB game and £1m+ on a top tier Soccer Asian Handicap are all very possible, you just need to look in the right places for those reliable robust firms who are willing and able to take the action.

If you need help finding new outs or are looking for introductions into specific bookmakers just get in touch and I will be happy to help you where I can.