Quote:
Originally Posted by TomG
What is a PPH book? How does this differ from betting offshore or at a casino?
Why would I want to work with a PPH bookie?
How do I find a PPH bookie?
I lost a lot of money, do I really have to pay? I won a lot of money, how do I make sure I get paid?
PPH stands for pay per head. So say you want to be a bookie. You can rent a 'skin' from an offshore bookie, which is a betting website with a log in and password. Youll have 10 or so usernames and passwords that you give out to your customers. You can decide their max bet and weekly credit. Each account is loaded with credit. The week goes from monday to sunday, so every sunday at midnight the accounts reset to 0, and whatever your balance was for the week you meet with your customer to collect or pay in cash.
The main difference is the credit aspect. I think PPHs came on big in the SB world right around the time the whole UGIEA (however its spelled) thing happened and net teller went down. It became a lot harder and more expensive and risky to deposit onto regular sites. And the PPH's really filled in that gap nicely. They combine the ease of an offshore website with the old school feel of betting with a real live bookie.
The advantages are aplenty. The biggest one is simply softness. Lot of these guys dont know ANYTHING about sports betting and dont even know that they shouldnt take a 1H +14, under 17.5 parlay. Or that my max bet should be different for straights and props, or that going from pats -2.5 to -3.5 is a huge move, or that buying through the NFL 7 should be more than 10 cents, etc etc. I can get into the specific exploits I find later on more in depth. The second biggest thing is credit. At my peak I had over a million dollars in available credit. Thats a HUGE advantage when doing scalps and middles of course, as well as just being able to put like 6 figures worth of prop action in on a weekend, 100-500 at a time.
Finding a PPH account isnt as hard as youd think, really. The way I did it was through home poker games. In college I ran a weekly game out of my apt for 3 years and a few kids had PPH accounts. You just get to know them, let them talk a lot, then ask if you can have an account through their guy. Hell usually give his guy your number. He'll set you up small and you just go from there basically. Another way I used to find them was from my friends. Tell everyone you know, if anyone finds me a sports betting account, Ill give you 100 dollars, or cut you in for 10% weekly or whatever. I had friends who worked at car dealerships who got a few from old guys who worked there and they used to be GOLDMINES. The thing you gotta keep in mind is that these guys are always DYING for new accounts and they dont think its possible for anyone to win money at sports betting long term, because theyve never seen anyone do it before. So they want to give you an account and theyre out there. Its just a matter of finding them.
While stiffs do happen, its really not as much of a concern as youd think. Everyone kind of knows everyone else, so once you stiff someone youd be all done. No one would trust you. Bookies almost never do it, they just shut you down. It happens with players quite often, but usually youve made so much from them in the past that you just chalk it up to cost of business and move on. Its why everything is week to week, you cant get hurt too bad.