I have just found a group of utterly nonsensical chess books, by the same author, that have obviously fake positive reviews -- and big sales -- on Amazon.
John Carlsen is listed as the author of four chess books, all published in the last two months.
These books have gotten hundreds of reviews; nearly all are five stars.
But the books are totally unreadable, as if they were translated poorly from another language. And many of the reviews are similar gibberish.
Excerpts from the books:
From Chess Strategies:
"Another reason pedestrian is unusual is that if you receive one of the parts of the page, you can announce any part you want."
That is supposed to say something like "Another reason pawns are unusual is that if you get one to the last row, you can make it into any piece you want." Nobody reading that mess could possibly give the book a good review.
From Chess Openings (which, at this moment, is #8 on Amazon's list of best-selling chess books, no doubt because of the fake reviews):
"Champ is picked by whoever unravels the chessboard puzzle. Chess is played on a squared board with 62 high contrast rotating squares ..."
More gobbledygook, and a chessboard has 64 squares. I am guessing that "rotating" is a translation of a word that means "alternating", as chess boards don't rotate.
The reviews are similarly bad. Examples (from glowing reviews for Chess Strategies, supposedly written by people with names that suggest they are native English speakers):

• "Interesting book! I'd like to suggest this booki to all people who are beginners at chees !"
  
• "The transport velocity could be very rapid, the first-class is very good, I love it very an awful lot, the price is likewise excellent, I advocate to buy. "
  
• "There is needed to invest extensive energy and exertion in honing the aptitudes and remembering opening varieties. This book is similarly useful for both the novices just as the old players. This is a decent guide on the most proficient method to catch other player's above all else piece. The writer utilizes hypothetical clarifications to help the peruser study the game."
  
• "I have this book to found out more and it never bombs me."
  

I don't know what is most disgusting: that someone would publish such worthless books, that they would use fake reviews to popularize the books, or that their strategy is actually succeeding.
(I've reported this to Amazon, for whatever that may be worth.)
NOTE: I've made a separate post about more of the worst chess books, with similarly humorous excerpts.

New? Start here!
“Welcome, one and all, to the one-hundred-ninety-seventh annual Proving Grounds! As our queen’s Minister of Public Affairs, I am incredibly proud to present my sixth year organizing this prestigious event. This tournament goes back…”
Eve tuned the posh man out, turning left to ask Preston across the empty seat between them, “When’s the fighting start?”
The healer shrugged. “Whenever he’s done with his speech. Not sure why we need all the pomp for day one.”
Eve had to agree. From her vantage high up in the coliseum seating, the overwhelmingly empty bleachers spoke to the unimportance of the early rounds, at least as far as spectators were concerned.
There was a smattering of viewers, predominantly friends and family of the competitors, scattered about the stands, as well as a few higher level individuals that Eve assumed represented the less-successful mercenary groups, but she wouldn’t be impressing much of anyone that day. Hells, the Dragonwrought probably wouldn’t show up until the finals.
A few bookies wandered the sparse crowds, offering bets on the first fight of the day, but few accepted. They hadn’t even seen the fighters yet.
The long-winded speech continued, “As we wind up for the first bout, I’d like to again thank her holiness Archbishop Callandria for her pivotal role today and throughout the tournament.” A gray-haired woman in priestess robes of gold-lined white and a fancy hat stood and nodded. Eve didn’t need to Appraise her to know her class or that her level would only show as question marks.
The minister spoke on. “Without her Cheat Death, we couldn’t hope to present to you all the spectacle that has become so core to Pyrindel’s…”
Where’s Wes? Art’s sending drowned out the emcee’s prattling.
Preston patted the hatchling—who unlike Reginald could pass as vaguely human with a loose-fitting cloak and hood—on the head. “He’s down there.” The Caretaker pointed at one of the dark archways leading into the bowels of the coliseum. “He’ll come out when it’s his turn to fight.”
The buzz of chatter around the arena faded as the announcer finished his speech. “And without further ado, I’d like to welcome out our first competitors! From Pyrindel, a level fifty-six Geomancer, Peter Shind!”
Two people on the far side of the coliseum that Eve could only take to be the man’s parents broke out into cheers and applause while the aforementioned Geomancer stepped out onto the sand.
“From Barrowsted, a level fifty-two Sword Dancer, Priya Estellian!”
Eve had never heard of Barrowsted, and apparently neither had any of the other spectators, as not a single person cheered for the leather clad Sword Dancer. Even so, the stands became a flurry of activity as audience members clambered to place their bets before the fighting started. Unfortunately for Eve, none of the bookies were near enough for her to make her pick.
“Contestants! You may begin!”
Peter got a spell off before Priya could even take a step. With a wave of his hand, a dozen fist-sized stones broke away from the arena floor, rising to the air.
Priya dashed forward.
Peter fired. All at once the stone projectiles shot through the air, homing in on the changing swordswoman.
She sidestepped them all.
The Geomancer was ready though, and another barrage soon followed, each rock’s path curving differently to obscure their destination.
Priya drew her first sword. With a flash of enchanted steel and a cascade of sparks, she swung, knocking the stones away.
Eve watched wide-eyed as the shrapnel flew through the air, her mind not even computing its path until Preston leapt to his feet. In a display of reaction that put her to shame, the Caretaker threw up a barrier of golden light, his Ayla’s Ward ready to intercept the wayward projectile.
It never did.
The air before them shimmered and the stone crumbled as it struck an invisible barricade. Preston lowered his ward. He blushed. “Right,” he sheepishly muttered, “arena’s enchanted for that.”
Eve reached across Wes’s empty seat to patronizingly pat him on the back. “It’s alright. At least you did something. I was about to just sit and watch that rock kill me.”
A flash of golden light pulled Eve’s attention back to the fight just in time to watch Peter Shind collapse to the ground. Priya stood over him, one sword bloodied and another still in its sheath.
“Victor: Priya Estellian!”
“She looks strong.” Eve watched as a pair of healers rushed out to stabilize the fallen Geomancer. Cheat Death might’ve kept his head attached to his shoulders, but it sure as hells didn’t stop the bleeding.
“They’re all strong,” Preston replied. “It’s a tournament for tier 4s and high-rarity tier 3s.”
For his part, Art was too busy furiously clapping his taloned hands as the Sword Dancer took a bow and vacated the arena. Who’s next?
Next, as it turned out, were two plate-wearing juggernauts that spent the better part of an hour bashing their shields against each other until one finally ran out of Stamina. Eve paid the dull exchange little heed, though she did make a note of the victor’s name just in case he managed something more impressive in the later rounds. The party did need a new tank, after all.
Not even Art offered much in the way of applause as the second bout ended, though that changed promptly as the emcee announced a certain Disciple of the Devouring Flame from Nowherested. While the hatchling and Preston cheered in support of their friend, Eve looked over the archer he found himself up against.
“How much you wanna bet that Wes takes an arrow to the face?”
Preston shrugged. “Five silver?”
“Done.” Eve shook his hand.
“Contestants! You may begin!”
The archer nocked an arrow.
Wes erupted in flames. The mage himself became a living inferno as he activated Forged in Flames. He stepped forward. Around him the sand itself caught fire, the blaze creeping outward first in inches, then in feet.
With his second spell, Wes expanded the firestorm around him, spreading the cloak into a massive wall. With her sharp eyes, Eve could just make out his silhouette moving within the flames. As the first arrow flew wide, it became clear that Wes’s opponent couldn’t.
Eve had to admit it was a wise strategy. His Flame Jet couldn’t out-speed a well-aimed Huntsman’s Arrow, so it made sense to hide his position and let the inexorable blaze do its work.
And work it did.
The archer fired shot after shot as he desperately backpedalled from the spreading flames, slowly running out of places to run. Eve watched with a grin as one random arrow flew but inches from Wes’s shoulder, but the Disciple fought on.
It wasn’t until Eve herself felt the heat of the blaze kiss her skin that she noticed the tournament official frantically waving both arms at the emcee.
“Halt!” The air boomed with the minister’s shout. “Competitors, lay down your arms!” The archer dropped his bow.
The fire spread on, carefully climbing the walls of the coliseum. “I said halt!”
All at once the flames vanished, revealing Wes where he stood in the arena’s center. “Did I win?”
“Contestant Wesley Rollund is hereby disqualified for, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, burning the wards.”
“I’m what?” Wes outburst.
In his customary nasally tone, the emcee explained. “Forces beyond our ability to protect the crowd are disallowed in all tournament matches. How a tier 3 came into possession of such is another question. Yern Binne is the victor by default.”
The crowd gaped. Art applauded. Eve dug out five silver from her pocket, paying Preston his winnings.
“Thank you, thank you,” the Caretaker accepted the coins. “Better luck next time.”
“That’s okay,” Eve said, “I can always shoot him myself if I get the urge.”
Only once the enchanters finished repairing Wes’s damage and the next bout was underway did the fire mage emerge into the stands, climbing his way up the stone steps to take his seat between Eve and Preston. “Well, it’s not quite the crushing win I was hoping for, but I’m sure it’ll impress the mercenary companies.”
“You mean all three of them that actually showed up today?” Eve needled him. “I’m sure the bottom-feeders were very impressed.”
Wes shrugged. “Word’ll get around. It’s not often they disqualify someone for being too powerful.”
“Maybe next time you should attack your opponent instead of the wards,” Eve snapped back.
“Speaking of,” Preston interrupted as the bout in front of them ended with a brutal ice bolt to the chest, “aren’t you up soon?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Eve pushed herself to her feet. “It’s not like I have much prep to do.” She gestured over herself, emphasizing that she already wore her armor.
“You should still get down there,” Wes said. “Those tunnels are a damned maze.”
“Alright, damn,” Eve replied, turning to leave the stands. “It’s not like I’m gonna get lost.”
Eve got lost.
After losing some twenty minutes running back and forth down the twisting passages beneath the arena, the Defiant found herself standing in the same archway as her opponent, a brooding berserker-type with more muscles than charisma.
“Whoops, wrong entrance,” she said, “guess I got turned around.”
He grunted at her.
Just as Eve moved to again start searching for her entrance, the emcee’s voice echoed in from outside. “First we have… hmmm… a level fifty-one Emissary from New Burendia, Evelia Greene!”
“Shit—um—sorry,” Eve muttered, running past the dark figure and out into the arena. Her face flushed red as she dashed across the sands to take her place on the opposite side.
“She’ll be facing one of our tournament favorites, a level sixty-three Hewer of Bones from the Salfdir Clan, Roric Ironarm!”
Eve got her first look at her opponent as he stepped into the sunlit arena. He stood six and a half feet tall and what must’ve been nearly three hundred pounds of pure muscle. Eve could tell because from the waist up, every inch of that muscle was exposed to the open air. In each hand he carried a single-edged axe, both of which showed the marks of countless battles fought and won.
He’s perfect. High level tournament favorite or otherwise, Eve couldn’t have asked for a better matchup. Her griffin-bone club outranged his one-handed axes, and she doubted a Hewer of Bones had any good ways to stop her Defiant Charge. She readied her weapon.
“Contestants! You may begin!”
Eve Jetted forward, activating Charge and Mana Rush at the same moment. I may as well end this quick, she thought to herself.
Roric did the same, dashing forth to meet her head on. He pulled back his axes for a brutal two-handed strike.
But Eve’s club was longer, and she made the first attack.
Her heart raced as the griffin-bone swung through the air, her muscles only holding up to their own immense Strength thanks to the Constitution bonus from Defiant Charge. It was exhilarating. Even here, without the direct threat of a painful death, adrenaline pumped through Eve’s veins.
Her attack flew true, the flared tip of the huge bone shooting towards Roric’s head at an unfathomable speed.
Until it wasn’t.
The blow stopped short, striking an impenetrable barricade of golden light. The rebound sent Eve’s club flying from her grasp. For a moment she froze, staring forward in abject terror before she realized her opponent was just as shocked as she was.
It wasn’t the announcer’s posh voice which broke the silence, but the wizened one of a particular Archbishop. “She wins,” the elderly priestess’s words echoed across the arena. “Evelia Greene is the victor.”
“Ramtshit!” Roric bellowed. “That wasn’t Cheat Death.”
“Cheat Death wouldn’t have saved you. Not against that.”
“That’s ramtshit!” The berserker repeated. “Let me fight!”
The Archbishop didn’t reply, simply turning to whisper something into the ear of one of her aides. Said aide carried the message on to the announcer.
With wide eyes and barely noticeable quiver to his tone, the minister addressed the crowd. “Archbishop Callandria has been kind enough to bestow a Divine Intervention to halt an attack that would’ve overcome even Cheat Death. Evelia Greene is the victor.”
Roric raged. “You didn’t even let me fight! I demand a rematch.”
“Roric Ironarm,” the announcer continued, “is eliminated.”
From there, the over-muscled brawler engaged in a shouting match with the tournament organizer. Eve, meanwhile, took the opportunity to collect her club from where it’d fallen and vacate the arena. Berserkers had a penchant for getting angry, after all, and easy as her win had come, she’d prefer not to fight him again without the protection of Cheat Death.
She re-navigated the maze of tunnels with a sly grin. Sure, she had a pissed-off Hewer of Bones to worry about, but Eve couldn’t have asked for a more decisive victory. An Emissary beating a tournament favorite so bad the Archbishop herself had to intervene made for two hells of a story. If her goal was to impress the mercenary companies, this was a damned good first step.
And she still had an entire tournament left.
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“Again,” Roric snarled, climbing back to his feet and dusting the sand off his bulky practice-padding.
Eve twirled her club in her hand. “You know, I’m starting to think I’m the one training you.”
Roric ran a hand over the thick leather that covered the blades of his axes. “Your technique is terrible.”
“But I keep winning.” Eve smirked.
“Because you are fast and strong,” the berserker put it simply, “not because you are a skilled warrior. Your footwork is uneven, your eyes broadcast your every move, you do not even hold your weapon properly. Who taught you to fight?”
Eve shrugged. “I did. A friend helped a little, but um…” Eve trailed off before deciding against telling that particular story. “Yeah it was mostly me.”
Roric spat. “Terrible. If you practice alone, you only reinforce the wrong way of doing things.”
“It’s worked out so far.”
“Because you are lucky. And you have balls. You have found a good class and taken the risks you needed to make it better.”
Eve raised an eyebrow. “What do you know about my class?”
“I know you are no Emissary,” he answered. “If you were an Emissary trained in combat, you would be using skill and good technique to overcome a lack of stats. Instead, it is the inverse.” Roric spoke with a weird stiltedness to his words, as if he were not yet fully accustomed to speaking the common tongue. “No. It is clear you have been depending on your class to do the work for you.”
“I’ve been doing lots of work, thank you very much,” Eve protested.
“The wrong work.”
“I think I’ve done pretty well on my own. I haven’t exactly had access to a combat instructor my entire life.”
“Why not?” Roric looked around the palace training yard. “You clearly have resources, and every city has warriors happy to earn a few silver without risking their lives.”
Eve paused. Shit, she thought. He’s right. Why haven’t I hired an instructor? She had, after all, been sitting around bored out of her mind for over a week in Ilvia with a bunch of gold burning a hole in her pocket. “I guess I never knew my technique was that bad.”
Roric blinked. “Really? Watching you fight, I would think you would be constantly losing your weapon or falling on your face.”
“What? No, that doesn’t…” Eve scratched the back of her head, mind flashing through a slideshow of all the times not even Surefooted had kept her on her feet. “Okay so maybe my technique isn’t great. Can you help?”
“You are lucky. Your style is similar to what every child of the Salfdir clan learns.”
“Great,” Eve chimed, brandishing her club, “what’s first?”
“First you put that down,” Roric spoke with an awful lot of authority for a man who still had sand in his hair. “You are not ready to be holding a weapon.”
“Tell that to all the things I’ve killed.”
Roric glared.
“Alright, alright,” Eve conceded, stepping away to lean her club against one of the pillars of the arcade surrounding the practice field. “So now what?”
“Now do as I do,” the axeman said, depositing his own weapons on the ground next to him. “Before you can learn to run, you first must learn to walk, and before you can walk, you must learn to stand.”
What followed was definitively the most boring day Eve had ever spent. Even after Roric had poked and prodded at her stance and posture to his satisfaction, he wouldn’t even let her walk. It took two hours of practice before Eve could take a single step forward without the berserker groaning and insisting she do it again with some minuscule adjustment. Even then she wasn’t allowed to walk—first she had to learn to take a step backwards.
It was grueling. As Roric explained, unlearning bad habits required far more work than learning good ones. It wasn’t just about learning how to stand or walk properly, but about overwriting her default movement with the proper form. To that end, even as Roric eventually left for the evening, Eve spent the entire night walking circles around the training yard ever mindful of the little corrections he’d made to her natural posture.
The next morning, Roric addressed all the issues that had crept their way into her practice while he’d been sleeping.
All in all, it made for a remarkably frustrating experience that Eve was all too eager to get over with. If only she were that lucky.
In three straight days of continuous training and practice, Eve only just managed to walk to Roric’s satisfaction, leaving her with a scarce few hours to learn how to run before her next day at the arena. Roric didn’t even bother.
“In normal circumstances,” he said, “I would not let you fight so soon. It will be easy to return to your old habits, and we would lose much progress.”
“I’m not missing the tournament,” Eve stated plainly. “That would defeat the entire purpose of you training me.”
Roric nodded. “We arrive at my point. I cannot stop you from fighting, so I will ask you to keep a mind towards your posture and footing. You are strong enough to win regardless, so afford some thought towards maintaining our work.”
Eve flashed a grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to end it quick.”
“Don’t ‘end it quick’,” Roric snapped back, “end it correctly. At least with correct footing. Maybe by the finals you will be learning how to swing that club of yours.”
“Alright, alright,” Eve said, gathering up her belongings to finally leave the training yard. Confident as she was, she still wanted to get a night’s sleep before her bout. “I’ll see you at the arena.”
“Good,” Roric grunted. “I will be watching.” Before turning to make his exit, he stopped to place a hand on Eve’s shoulder. “You are a hard worker. We’ll make a formidable warrior of you yet. Good luck tomorrow. Fight well.”
Eve grinned as he quoted the dungeon-entrance notification. “Goodnight, Roric.”
He neither nodded nor smiled in response, simply maintaining the same stern expression. With a softly uttered “goodnight,” he left.
As Eve made her own way to her bed, she reflected on the progress of the prior days. It had been slower than she’d hoped, much slower, but she had to admit she did feel somewhat sturdier on her feet, more stable. It likely wouldn’t make a difference tomorrow, but as she faced stronger and stronger enemies, it might someday make all the difference.
The man of the mists was right. There were other ways to gain strength besides leveling up, and Eve hadn’t even needed to win the tournament to find one.
“Contestants! You may begin!”
“Shit,” Eve cursed, lowering the hand she’d been waving in the air. “Damn bookie didn’t see me.”
“Who’s your pick?” Preston asked without looking her way, his eyes fixed on the coliseum floor where a hooded figure threw knives at a man with a giant floating crystal. “My money’s on crystal guy.”
Eve nodded. “Same. Hard for a rogue to accomplish much in an open arena on a sunny day.”
“Damn,” Wes muttered, “I want a giant floating crystal.”
A thunderous crack echoed through the arena as a bolt of lightning arced through the air to strike the roguish competitor. With a flash of golden light, the bout was over.
“Victor: Theodrin Palsk!”
“Damn,” Wes repeated himself, “I want a giant floating crystal that shoots lightning.”
That was so cool! Art applauded furiously, this time joined by the smattering of spectators who’d actually come to watch the second round of fights. I wanna learn lightning magic!
Preston patted him on the head. “Why don’t you worry about learning telepathy first?”
That’s boring!
Preston didn’t bother arguing with the hatchling, instead turning back to Eve. “So what’s your plan for fighting mister lightning crystal there?”
“Same plan as for every mage. Run in and kill ‘em before he gets a spell off. Rogue just stood there throwing knives while crystal guy charged up, what did he think was gonna happen?”
“Heh,” Wes chuckled, “charged up. Cause he’s a lightning mage.”
Eve groaned, her eyes wandering the stands as the next contestants took their places. They were nearly twice as crowded as they’d been for round one, though she still doubted any of the higher-ranked mercenary companies would make an appearance. Eve could only guess how many people would show up to watch the finals.
Roric sat in the front row on the opposite side of the coliseum. She’d offered him a seat with her and her friends, but he’d curtly declined, citing a desire to sit closer to the action. Eve quietly wondered if he secretly didn’t want to be seen socializing with the Emissary who’d so soundly beaten him in the ring.
Eve’s match was the last of the day, likely to avoid delays should the Archbishop need to use Divine Intervention again. Eve didn’t particularly care. Nobody had come to her and asked she tone it down a bit, so she had every intention of bringing her full force to bear against her opponent. The Archbishop had stopped the attack last time, and now she even knew it was coming.
As the bouts progressed, Eve managed to lose a fair bit of silver on questionable bets, until at last she decided whoever came up with the bookies’ odds was way better at estimating outcomes than she was. The fights were still exciting without money on the line, but that didn’t stop Eve from making little bets with Wes over how a given bout might end.
When the day grew long, Eve excused herself from the stands to make her way beneath the arena, giving herself plenty of time to navigate the dark tunnels before her match. The last thing she wanted was to enter from the wrong side twice in a row.
Fortunately enough, after spending an embarrassing amount of time wandering the maze of passages, Eve found herself staring out into the bright sand of the arena from an entryway all her own. Unless both she and her opponent had gone to the wrong sides, Eve figured she was probably in the right place.
“And to round out the day, we have a level fifty-one Emissary from New Burendia, Evelia Greene!”
Taking her cue, Eve jogged out into the ring, casually waving at the midsized crowd. She fixed her eyes on the entrance opposite her.
The announcer continued. “She’ll be facing a level fifty-nine Warden of Storms from Lynthia, Fenric Sen Parillian!”
Nobody appeared.
The applause died down, replaced with growing chatter as spectators whispered amongst themselves.
The emcee called out once more, “Fenric Sen Parillian!”
Still he didn’t show.
Eve watched with a furrowed brow as an aide scurried up to the announcer’s platform to whisper something into his ear.
“It would appear,” the Minister of Public Affairs to the queen of Leshk said with uncertainty in his voice, “that Fenric Sen Parillian has chosen to withdraw from the tournament rather than face her excellency, Miss Greene.”
The coliseum fell silent. Seconds passed. Eve wondered if she’d be given a new opponent. The announcer said nothing. For a time Eve considered breaking decorum to shout her question at the foppish minister, but the man seemed to collect himself in time to make a call.
“As her opponent has forfeited the match, Evelia Greene is the victor!”
The crowd didn’t know whether to boo or cheer or stare dumbfounded. At least they all seemed to agree they were disappointed to be robbed of the final bout’s worth of entertainment.
Eve simply shrugged and left the arena. It wasn’t her problem. Truth be told she understood Fenric’s reasoning. Confident as she was that the Archbishop would cast Divine Intervention in time, Eve wasn’t sure she’d bet her own life on it, especially when all that was to be gained was a near-certain loss.
She was, of course, a bit disappointed herself. She’d been quite looking forward to another showing in the arena, if only for the chance to actually fight with this new footwork technique Roric had taught her. The berserker, on the other hand, was probably jumping for joy that she hadn’t ruined her technique by fighting before she was ‘ready.’
Ah well, Eve thought to herself, two bouts down, eight to go. She stopped for a moment to look where she was going, scowling at the unfamiliar juncture in the dark tunnels before her. Now I just need to figure out how to get the hells out of here.
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I've been meaning to update this guide for a while and add in some elements about Matched Betting that people should be aware of before getting started. Here they are as follows:
(1) You can start with as little as £20 but ideally and for the sake of attaining more profit in a faster time, My Personal Reccomendation would be to start with £100-£200.
(2) If you are careless, you can make mistakes. Like with any task, you must give it the level of precision it demands, a mistake when entering figures will cost you real money. When you read the guide below you will see that the process is very simple, but that means you must take extra care not to become complacent.
(3) If you have a history with Gambling, do not come near Matched Betting. Matched Betting is not Gambling, but the fact you will be using betting websites to facilitate a profit is too much of a temptation- It's not worth it.
(4) Matched betting won't effect your credit rating, however it's common sense that it doesn't look good to have numerous transations to betting sites on your bank statement. Open a seperate virtual bank account for all your Matched betting activity (It only takes 5 minutes, details below)
With that being said, Matched Betting really is a solid way to secure £400-£500 in a very short time, it's the reason I was able to pay my first couple of month's rent when I moved to the UK and to this day still remains a handy way to pay the bills every month. Anyway, Below is the Guide:
​
Starting Out:
I was sceptical as hell about Match betting because a friend showed me the Facebook groups and it just looked like a giant gambling pyramid scheme. It turns out there is a decent chunk of change to be made from it, you just need to follow the guides and never ever actually gamble with your money.
Never ever Gamble? Yes That's right, you are going to be using Gambling sites to complete the various offers, but the whole idea behind match betting is that every time you "make a bet", you match that same bet on the exchange. So for example, if I bet £10 for Real Madrid to Win on the Bookie Site at odds of 2.5, I then also make a Matched bet on the Exchange (This is a separate site such as Smarkets or Betfair) where I bet for Real Madrid not to win at odds of 2.5 (or as close as I can get to those odds). In this way I am covered in all outcomes, and it allows me to fulfill the requirements of the bookies offer (For example Bet £10 and get £30 in Free bets)
What's the difference between the Bookie Site and the Exchange? On the Exchange Site you are basically being the Bookie and just like a Bookie, you have liability. If I bet £10 and my bet wins at odds of 2.5 then I win £25, so the bookies liability for this bet is £15, the extra money that they would have to give me if I win. There are calculators on the Match betting sites which you can use to calculate what Liability you need to enter on the exchange each time you make your matched bet. There is also software to help you find what games have the closest odds on both the bookies and the exchange, which is very important.
What do I do when I get my free bets? It's the same process again, You find a game that has very close odds on both the bookies and the exchange (You can do this by eye or by using odds matching software. A good site with this software is called OddsMonkey). Only this time when you use the calculator to work out your liability, you will set it to "Free bets SNR" so it knows you are not using real money. It will tell you how much Liability to use in the exchange and off you go.
How does this make me money? The fact that you have a free bet to use is what makes you money, For example a £30 free bet at odds of 5.5 in the bookies will win you £135 (30x 4.5, because the original free bet stake of £30 is not returned to you). Now let's say that the closest odds I can find in the Exchange for the same game are 6.0, I will need a liability of £112.50 to match my free bet in the bookies ( I use the calculator on oddsmonkey to work this out)
£135- 112.50 = £22.50 in Profit.
Alternatively if my bet on the exchange wins, I will lose the free bet of £30 (but it's not actually a loss to me because It's not real money) and I will win £22.50 on the exchange. Either way, I make a Profit of £22.50
What about providing card details? You can use a separate, virtual bank account for all your match betting, In this way your main banking information is not shared with any of the sites you sign up to and all of your match betting transactions never go near your main bank account. A good one to use is Revolut or Monzo, both apps are super easy to use and it only takes 5 minutes to open an account. It's also totally free to open.
Revolut: Referral (£15 referral scheme) Non Ref
Monzo non ref: https://monzo.com
​
Where can I learn to do it? There are some sites that you have to pay a monthly subscription to but I found one called Team Profit that is free and has a full guide of all the different offers you can complete.
I worked my way down through the list of offers, nice and handy, and having completed 20 offers at 15 minutes per offer, I came out at £470 for 5 hours total of work.
If you are new to this site and are opening a free account I would really appreciate if you use my Referral (£10)
Here is the non referral link to the page with all the offers: https://www.teamprofit.com/welcome-offers-list
TLDR: You do not need to "gamble" to match bet, in fact by definition, the bet you make is "matched" on the exchange, so it is not a gamble in any sense.
I hope this guide helps and hopefully might even get a few people out of a fix this month with bills, rent etc.
Thanks for Reading.

The London Post

19-24 minutes
By Dr. Shahid Qureshi: –
A young journalist in London asked me "Do you know someone who is working against the national interests of Pakistan?". That was an interesting question from a typical young Pakistani who is loyal and patriotic to the country. I was nearly heartbroken to tell him that there is more and almost everyone who matters in Pakistan is in some way is selling Pakistan cheap to the enemies. Normally people think about spies and agents like James Bond 007 who goes on a mission and meet beautiful girls and come back successful. Well, that is one part of spying and espionage. The way Pakistani agents serving their foreign masters is a bit subtle and sinister. I have discussed some in the upcoming book and exposed them in the articles. People trust journalists more than the spies and agency operatives as they don’t have any loyalties to the sources but journalists do. I have seen many journalists threatened with imprisonment by the state but they did not disclose their sources following the journalistic code of ethics. Most civilized countries have a declassifying system for the official government records and obviously, those who have signed the official secrets act of the country don’t write books or come on TV channels to discuss their missions and details? Only in Pakistan you can do and get away with it. For example, Lt. General Asad Durrani was assigned a task by the President of Pakistan Ghulam Ishaq Khan to counter Benazir Bhutto who was compromised on Pakistan’s nuclear program and Indian affairs. The president ordered to dislodge her without creating too many currents keeping in view Pakistan’s ground realities. It was his oath to keep that secret as ISI chief but he behaved worst than an informant. He broke his oath, violated the official secrets act of Pakistan by giving an affidavit to FIA director Rehman Malik. The only attraction for him probably was to get posting as an ambassador. This is known as the Asghar Khan case currently hanging in the supreme court of Pakistan and no government is sincere enough to put an end to it by submitting the response and call the parties involved.
A few years ago, I was sitting with General Mike Jackson former British Army Chief, I asked him ‘why did you not take control of Sarajevo airport in Bosnia and Herzegovina’? He replied to me very quietly ‘read my book’. Apparently, the American General asked him to take control of the airport and he reportedly refused by saying: ‘I don’t want to start 3rd World War. Now it is the duty of the security establishment to provide training to its officials as to how to live a retired life without compromising national security and if at all they need to write a book, the transcript must be cleared by the premier agency. Let’s imagine a Pakistani agent is tasked to delay the installation of an electricity project to destroy the whole industry and infrastructure of the country. I wrote in 2006, that this load-shedding of electricity in Pakistan is linked with the security of the country. People acknowledge the risk assessment but they could not do anything as the people who were doing all this were sitting in high positions. The dramatic escape of the longest-serving Indus Water Commissioner to Canada is one example. He obtained Canadian citizenship and nobody from the security establishment question his activities. He delayed the Pakistani water projects and facilitated Indian dams on Pakistani rivers. Then we see the politicians from PPP, MQM, and ANP receiving instructions and findings from Indian agency RAW to make Kalabagh Dam project controversial and let the Sindhis drown in floods as well as cause damage in billions to land, crops, properties, livestock, and national infrastructures from rail to road links every year. This project was actually approved by British engineers during the 1930s. so if it was ok then how come it becomes problematic in the 1980s? Well appointing a corrupt and incompetent is also a form of espionage against the country for example during Zardari Rule 2008 -2013 he appointed the most corrupt and incompetent on the highest positions. He introduced another damaging policy of ‘system bypass’. With this policy, he bypassed all the rules, and his men in the presidency were calling direct to the land department junior officials and police station inspectors, or even below to do the illegal tasks. The flourishing of the land mafia was at its peak in the whole of Pakistan, especially in Sindh province. His party members and cronies were directly involved in ‘target killings of security officials’ attacks on government infrastructures. Over 25000 people were killed, billions of rupees’ revenue were lost due to strikes and terrorism in Sindh while PPP and MQM-A were ruling the province, which we know now was happening on the behest of RAW the Indian agency. Both military and civilian establishment is fully responsible, with the support of politicians like British criminal terrorist Altaf Hussain, Asif Zardari, and his team and now Nawaz Sharif and his agents, as well as military dictator like Pervez Musharraf and his team as tons of material and reports were filed to all the above but they chose not to act and remain complicit. A security official said to me a few years ago: ‘sir we can stop these bombings in 24 hours only if we are allowed to respond in kind to the supporters and abettors of these bombings. Musharraf was a megalomaniac and had a delusion of grandeur about himself. I told him that NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance) is a black dot in the history of Pakistan. He admitted to me that ‘it was a mistake’ and said cases were not moving and going anywhere’. I told him that just because something is not working does not mean you need to make it worse? He agreed with the analogy. Let me give you another example of how foreign agents work or operate at high places. Former ISI officer Major Amir disclosed in a GEO TV program that: ‘when he was appointed Director-General Immigration, the Indian embassy in Islamabad was not very happy and asking about me’. He stated: I found out that Indians who were traveling to Dubai could stopover in Karachi and also sneaking out. I immediately stopped this practice it was like giving open access to RAW not only to launch its agents but also brief and debrief them’. The person who opposed this ban was no other but Sharyar Khan foreign secretary of Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif appointed about 80 years old Sharyar Khan as head of Pakistani cricket and Najam Sethi another pro India mole to keep him company. Guess what Pakistan is losing all its important matches to India because all the gambling bookies are being run from Mumbai. Earlier Pakistan had a foreign secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan whose wife was active service head of training in the US State Department. A Central Asian diplomat from Kazakhstan told me that: ‘if I had to marry a foreign national I would have to resign from the diplomatic service’. This joke did not stop here earlier Pakistani Defence Secretary Skindar Mirza had a full-blown affair with Nahid Afghamy wife of Col Afghamy Iranian Military Attaché to Pakistan. He later got married to her and Nahid Afghamy becomes Pakistan’s first lady of President Skindar Mirza and Army Chief Ayub Khan regularly saluted her. That was the worst security breach but that did not stop here Nahid Afghamy give full access of the presidency to her relative Nusrat Isphani (Bhutto) and her husband ZA Bhutto. She was also 2nd wife of ZA Bhutto like her. Since then we had no real oil and gas mining in Baluchistan for the past 68 years. Was that mission of Nahid Afghamy or much more? We don’t know.
During John F Kennedy’s presidency reportedly FBI chief went to the US Attorney General his boss and brother of JFK with the photos of the president with the actress Marilyn Monroe who was also linked with the mafia. He told US Attorney General the FBI thinks this affair is not appropriate. Well, it is a matter of national security who the president of Pakistan is sleeping with Ayan Ali or Nahid Afghamy? Pakistan suffered from sabotage, espionage, and terrorism even before it was fully created. In a 1995 article, `Pearls of Memory’ (Al-Nahal„ Spring 1995), M M Ahmad wrote that: ‘close to independence, l was `designated by Pakistan’ as additional deputy commissioner of Amritsar to take over the charge of the district if it was awarded to Pakistan. One day the British deputy commissioner of Amritsar told him `casually that:’Gurdaspur district is likely to go to India’. The award of Gurdaspur gave India a land corridor to Jammu and Kashmir and so enabled it to Occupy the territory after three months.
A preliminary version of the award was ready on 8th August 1947. The definitive version was with the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten (1.1979) on 12 August. However, Mountbatten informed India and Pakistan on 16 August- after the `process of the Transfer of Power had been completed’. M M Ahmad gives no date when this `top secret’ information was given to him. However, instead of rushing to report the matter to the Government of Pakistan, he traveled to Qadiyan to inform his `khalifa’. This contrasted with I the conduct of Indian officers who immediately reported any sensitive leak or information to Nehru (d.1964) and Nehru took it up with Mountbatten. General Gracey the Army Chief of Pakistan did not send troops to the Kashmir front and refused to obey the order given by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Governor-General of Pakistan. Gracey argued that Jinnah as Governor-General represented the British Crown of which he himself was an appointee. It was the second time Pakistan missed the opportunity to take Kashmir following the ‘partition formula’. Ignoring the legitimate stand of Pakistan and MA Jinnah on Palestine Sir Zafrullah Khan (Qadiyani) was able to say publicly in Cairo ‘in February 1952 that Israel must be ‘regarded as a limb in the body of the Middle East’. He further urged Egypt to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict, in other words, to give up any thought, of liberating Arab and Palestinian lands and recognize the illegitimate occupation of Palestine. After the US-sponsored assassination of Prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan was led into one military alliance after another: a Mutual Defence Agreement’ with the US (May 1954), SEATO (September 1954), and Baghdad Pact (February 1955). After the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy, Baghdad Pact was christened as CENTO (Central Treaty Organization). Although Pakistan had no security conflict in that region, ‘Zafrullah had put the country into South-East Asia Treaty Organization, without consulting or even telling the army. The commander-in-chief, ‘General Ayub Khan, said he was informed only after Pakistan had joined the alliance. The other character was M M Ahmad born in (1913-2002) was reputedly one of Pakistan’s most powerful bureaucrats. He belonged to the elite ICS (Indian Civil Service, later, (CSP or the Civil Service of Pakistan) and was a district officer in 1947, but by 1966, he had risen to head Ayub Khan’s powerful Planning Commission. He helped to shape the Country’s economic as well as defense and foreign policies. Ayub Khan also wished Arab states to join the Baghdad Pact and turn it into a `powerful Muslim forum’, but he understood why they were suspicious of the alliance. However, although he did have foreign ministers like Manzur Qadir (1959-62; d. 1972) and Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (1966-68), both pro-western but also Pakistani, but key policy decision had also to be cleared with a Qadiyani bureaucrat M M Ahmad. Though only the head of Ayub Khan’s Planning Commission, he had come to exercise a veto over political decisions as well. Taken as someone with influence in the World Bank, he could shoot down anything by simply saying it may not go down well with Washington. According to Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, French President de Gaulle had personally told Ayub Khan in 1967 that France was ready to provide `full’ nuclear assistance to Pakistan. In return, he simply asked that France be allowed to mine for uranium in the northwest and share it equally with Pakistan. `Our “friends” may not like it,’ M M Ahmad told Ayub, and in any case, what do we need this expensive technology for.’ Words to that effect. But that is how Pakistan missed the opportunity of becoming a nuclear power at least two decades earlier than it did – and minus all the blackmail and intimidation that knows no end. In an as yet unpublished interview, the eminent constitutional expert and authority on Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah (d.1948) and Pakistan movement, Sharifuddin Pirzada also, told Ahmed Irfan a London based journalist that as far back as October 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle (d.1970) had offered Pakistan ‘full’ nuclear assistance and know-how; the only thing he wanted, in turn, was to he (France) should be allowed to mine for uranium in Northwest Pakistan for a 50% share. In April 1965, Ayub Khan had also gone to Moscow. This was the first-ever visit by a Pakistani leader to the Soviet capital. Ayub Khan came back with the understanding that the visit `might prove a turning point in our relations and that there were tremendous possibilities of cooperation’. The Soviets had actually agreed to give military aid to Pakistan, but writing two years later Ayub Khan had to understate the achievement because the same Qadiyani bureaucrat too had vetoed this. This offer had been made by Brezhnev at a meeting set for recreation and shoot some clay pigeons outside Moscow, but with only Ayub Khan and Pirzada attending. Ayub Khan quit in March 1969 and MM Ahmed (Qadiyani) acquired yet more influence. He emerged as economic supremo of the new Chief Martial Law Administrator, General Yahya Khan (d.1980). After Yahva was forced out in December 1971, MM Ahmad continued as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s (d.1979) economic adviser. But a few months later, he went to Washington DC and joined the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank). There he rose to be the deputy executive secretary of the joint Development Committee in 1974. However, M M Ahmad’s imprint on Pakistan’s fiscal and development policies was to last forever. As Yahya Khan’s ‘finance minister’, he devalued the rupee by 131% percent. As one economist pointed out (Dawn, Karachi, 1st February 2002), ‘that was the start of the deficit finance, inflation and trade imbalance’ from which the country has not been able to free itself. In 1974 Bhutto amended the constitution to clarify the non-Muslim slants of (the Oadiyani creed to which M M Ahmad belonged; yet influence over the country’s bureaucratic and political elite remained unaffected. Many owed their position to his patronage and almost everyone wanted to benefit front his Washington connections’. In 1993, then army chief Abdul Waheed Kakar was looking for a caretaker prime minister to replace Nawaz Sharif. M M Ahmad is believed to have solved the ‘problem. The job went to Moeen Qureshi, who had recently retired as executive vice president of the World Bank; He was given a Pakistani `passport’ on arrival. MM Ahmad kept a low profile, but after October 1999 coup, he seemed to have become the regime’s `holy man’. He was the grandson of the Qadiyani `prophet’, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiyani, (d.1908) and son-in-law of the second Qadiyani `khalifa’, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad (d.1965). Besides being an international bureaucrat, M M Ahmad was all active `missionary’ of his Qadiyani creed. After retiring from the World Bank in 1984 he formally became the `amir’ and missionary in charge’ of the group in the US with headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. While many power holders in Pakistan seemed proud of being `secular’, for MM Ahmad, it was his `religious’ vocation as a Qadiyani that really defined his relationship with Pakistan. The relationship was in conflict with the existence of Pakistan itself. According to a Qadiyani `prophecy’, revealed a few months before the independence of Pakistan, if at all India and Pakistan did separate, it would be `transient’ and the Qadiyanis were asked to try to bring an end to this phase soon. (Al Fzal, 4 April 1947 and 17 May 194’7) We hear of M M Ahmad in another CSP officer, Qudratullhah Shihab’s memoirs, Slihab Nama, (Sang-e-Meel, Lahore, 1991) that the 1965 war with ‘India was ‘a Qadiyani conspiracy’. It was planned by an able (Qadiyani officer, Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik’ and `backed by several powerful people, among them, at the lot of list was said to be Mr MM Ahmad’. Shihab checked this with the West Pakistan governor Nawab of Kalabagh (d.1967) and he concurred.’ That the Qadiyanis have their own particular agenda on Jammu and Kashmir is an open secret. Like the Oadiyani Nobel Laureate, Abdus Salam, M M Ahmad too was opposed to Pakistan becoming a nuclear power. In an as yet unpublished interview, the eminent constitutional expert and authority on Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah (d.1948) and Pakistan movement, Sharifuddin Pirzada, told Ahmed Irfan a London based journalist that as far back as October 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle (d.1970) had offered Pakistan ‘full’ nuclear assistance and know-how; the only thing he wanted, in turn, was to be allowed to mine for uranium in Northwest Pakistan for a 50% share. President Ayub Khan said he would reply after consulting with his officials back home in Pakistan. In the event, the offer was vetoed by M M Ahmad and the army chief Yahya Khan. They warned Ayub Khan that the US would not take it kindly. Pirzada was Ayub Khan’s foreign minister and is a personal witness to the affair. M M Ahmad is also believed to have been a key architect of the split between East and West Pakistan. ‘Planned’ for the economic disparity between the two wings and laid the grounds for an eventual conflict and break. Former cabinet secretary and author of The Separation of East Pakistan (OUP, Karachi, 1995) Hasan Zaheer (d.1998) quotes Brigadier, later Major General, M I Kareem telling him that Colonel Chaudhary, Staff Officer of Lt-General S G M M Peerzada (had) told him that he had read a top-secret paper of MM Ahmed, suggesting that it was time for the friendly separation of two Wings rather than elections and warning of serious consequences for the entire country otherwise’. Peerzada was Principal Staff Officer to President Yahya and Brig. M I Kareem his deputy. For M M Ahmad, however, helping to end the `transient’ was a duty ordained by his khalifa’. Born on 28 February 1913, in Qadiyan, Gurdaspur, M M Ahmad died on 23, Ju1y 2002, Washington DC and was buried, 30th July 2002, ‘in Baltishti Maqbrah’ in Ghenahnagar (formerly Ribwah), Pakistan. The purpose of narrating the history above is to give a background to the young researchers, writers, and journalists interested in Pakistan. It was not like that from the beginning. People were loyal, motivated, and sincere with Pakistan. They were true survivors and go-getters as nothing come in their way once they decided to do something. The current structural breakdown is linked with the corrupt and compromised elite and leadership without vision and strategy. The Americans will never hire someone like Nawaz Sharif, Asif Zardari, Altaf Hussain, or Pervez Musharraf as a manager of a small company but they don’t mind a ‘stupid’ running Pakistan. Sometimes we need ‘stupid’ like him said a US senator to a friend of mine and a Pakistani journalist in Washington.
This is a picture of our ugly bureaucracy. A poor politician corruption is nothing that BROADSHEET is claiming; Bureaucartes knows every penny of Pakistani money and where to move under their umbrella. In a recent example, Azerbhajan offered deferred payment oil, did our bureaucracy let allow it on sacrifices of their millions of dollars commission for the sake of Pakistan. But we have seen their inhumane bureaucracy act made an example without God's fear in the country where Pakistan's creation was based on Islam's Ideology. We all understand Karachi's situation during the 2000-2015 period and why this poor person was absent from his job because of fear of death due to Karachi's law and order concerns. In 2012, the Pakistani leadership sat down to sort out solutions for dealing with the menace of terrorism, and in 2013, political parties unanimously resolved on Monday 9, September 2013, at the All Parties Conference (APC), stating that negotiation with the militants should be pursued as their first option to counter-terrorism.
link to the original post along with attachments (photos)

to keep on pushing.
Many people visit this sub and post after a bad loss. I’ve been there ... we all have. What’s going to happen is after 5-10-20-50 days of not gambling you’re going to feel so accomplished that you’ll have the urge to reward yourself by playing a few hands or betting a couple bucks (or thousands) on the Super Bowl. You need to remind yourself why you are here.
Take control of your future and your finances. When you are gambling the difference between $1 and $1000 means nothing as you are so numb to monetary value. “What’s another $1000 bet considering I have already lost 40 times that?” is something I would say to myself before unloading on another game. I am not a financial advisor, but I have experience in economics, finance, and life and feel I can provide some insight as a recovering addict.
My situation is a bit different so I will give some insight and feel it’s best to explain my situation.
I’m 25 years old and live at home (COVID). I have lived on my own in the Big Apple and have seen both sides of life. One where your parents cover everything and one where you have daily and monthly expenses like rent, utilities, and food. Currently I’m lucky enough where I don’t have expenses, but being the dumbass I was, my expense was paying the bookie. I know many people don’t have the same luxury as I, but it doesn’t mean you can’t still save. I’ve given up the last 2 years of saving and instead gave into this disease.
1) first thing first, personal ban yourself from casinos or online sites. My vice was sports and I had a chat with my bookie and let him know I was struggling. We were able to settle the debt for about half of what I owed. Just ask, it can’t hurt.
2) before you can save you need to pay off whatever outstanding debt you have. Credit cards and fees will continue to build. Once these are at or near $0 you can begin the rebuild. I have (thankfully) never been in debt, but this is certainly where I would start if I was.
3) create a budget. A tight one, to the dollar. Mortgage? Phone? Car? Food? High level looking at the entire month, decide what you can spend and what you can save.
4) CONGRATS!!!! You are debt free. For whats it worth, I will consider phone bills and car payments for what they are, monthly expenses. Factor these into a budget. For some, this step might take 1 month or 10 years. Patience is key.
5) the first exciting part of this whole thing is quitting, the next is clearing of any debts, and now for the grand finale. You can now start to build wealth and add to your future. Depending on your financial security you can decide to add to your savings or opening an investing account (I use Fidelity). Investing in low risk ETFs will continue to gain and gain and gain.
6) if your company offers 401k and match, DO IT. I can’t stress this enough, it’s free money that you can’t touch. Over 3 years of working my 401k has absolutely ballooned. My company matches as well and I can’t withdraw, only add. It’s the perfect scenario for someone still learning how to control their financial future.
7) sit back and watch your money grow. Once you see gains in your investing accounts, you will become invested in learning about different ETFs that it will become a low risk way to “gamble”.
Hope this helps. Be patient. The damage is done and the recovery will take some time. Use your new time wisely, you’ll have a lot of it. As someone who constantly bet on sports, I’d sometimes spend 6-7 hours a day watching college basketball games I normally wouldn’t care about or sweating doing research on how to make back the money I lost. Spend this time to learn new things, pick up a new hobby, and apply to new jobs/opportunities to advance your career and increase your salary.
Most of all, be excited. Be excited about a life without lying to loved ones, chasing loses, owing people or institutions money. Be excited for a life of stability, even if it takes years to arrive at that point. Don’t let the past you define your future. It is never too late to recover. There will be a point where you’ve made so much progress you think you can go back as a changed person. You can’t. Use whatever you can to remind yourself.
One thing I want to add. The most difficult part for me is dealing with the constant regret of losing money. My parents certainly think I’m better off than I am and my bank account could look far better. What helps me is thinking about how fast time flies and how fast you can rebuild if you set your mind to it. Another thing is not comparing myself to others. I always think about how far ahead my friends and classmates are, but in reality everyone deals with different vices. I’m not big into buying material things or smoking, but many people do. These cost money. A lot of it. You really don’t know what other things people are dealing with. I look at gambling as an investment gone wrong.

Putting this out there once more for those who missed it a couple of months ago. Here is a link to the original post which might be useful because of questions answered in the comments section. Like I said before, This guide is a handy way to sort out a month's rent for 5 or 6 hours work, so I really hope it can be of use to someone.
Having done my research and having been able to turn a really nice profit in such a short time, I wanted to make a short guide to eliminate people's doubts and simplify things a little. Since it really doesn't take a lot of time to hit that £500 profit mark, it's a shame not to try it out. Anyway, Here it goes:
I was sceptical as hell about Match betting because a friend showed me the Facebook groups and it just looked like a giant gambling pyramid scheme. It turns out there is a decent chunk of change to be made from it, you just need to follow the guides and never ever actually gamble with your money.
Never ever Gamble? Yes That's right, you are going to be using Gambling sites to complete the various offers, but the whole idea behind match betting is that every time you "make a bet", you match that same bet on the exchange. So for example, if I bet £10 for Real Madrid to Win on the Bookie Site at odds of 2.5, I then also make a Matched bet on the Exchange (This is a separate site such as Smarkets or Betfair) where I bet for Real Madrid not to win at odds of 2.5 (or as close as I can get to those odds). In this way I am covered in all outcomes, and it allows me to fulfill the requirements of the bookies offer (For example Bet £10 and get £30 in Free bets)
What's the difference between the Bookie Site and the Exchange? On the Exchange Site you are basically being the Bookie and just like a Bookie, you have liability. If I bet £10 and my bet wins at odds of 2.5 then I win £25, so the bookies liability for this bet is £15, the extra money that they would have to give me if I win. There are calculators on the Match betting sites which you can use to calculate what Liability you need to enter on the exchange each time you make your matched bet. There is also software to help you find what games have the closest odds on both the bookies and the exchange, which is very important.
What do I do when I get my free bets? It's the same process again, You find a game that has very close odds on both the bookies and the exchange (You can do this by eye or by using odds matching software. A good site with this software is called OddsMonkey). Only this time when you use the calculator to work out your liability, you will set it to "Free bets SNR" so it knows you are not using real money. It will tell you how much Liability to use in the exchange and off you go.
How does this make me money? The fact that you have a free bet to use is what makes you money, For example a £30 free bet at odds of 5.5 in the bookies will win you £135 (30x 4.5, because the original free bet stake of £30 is not returned to you). Now let's say that the closest odds I can find in the Exchange for the same game are 6.0, I will need a liability of £112.50 to match my free bet in the bookies ( I use the calculator on oddsmonkey to work this out)
£135- 112.50 = £22.50 in Profit.
Alternatively if my bet on the exchange wins, I will lose the free bet of £30 (but it's not actually a loss to me because It's not real money) and I will win £22.50 on the exchange. Either way, I make a Profit of £22.50
What about providing card details? You can use a separate, virtual bank account for all your match betting, In this way your main banking information is not shared with any of the sites you sign up to and all of your match betting transactions never go near your main bank account. A good one to use is Monzo or Starling, both apps are super easy to use and it only takes 5 minutes to open an account. It's also totally free to open.
Monzo non ref: https://monzo.com
Starling non ref: https://www.starlingbank.com/
​
Where can I learn to do it? There are some sites that you have to pay a monthly subscription to but I found one called Team Profit that is free and has a full guide of all the different offers you can complete.
I worked my way down through the list of offers, nice and handy, and having completed 20 offers at 15 minutes per offer, I came out at £470 for 5 hours total of work.
If you are new to this site and are opening a free account I would really appreciate if you use my Referral (£10)
Here is the non referral link to the page with all the offers: https://www.teamprofit.com/welcome-offers-list
TLDR: You do not need to "gamble" to match bet, in fact by definition, the bet you make is "matched" on the exchange, so it is not a gamble in any sense.
I hope this guide helps and hopefully might even get a few people out of a fix this month with bills, rent etc.
Thanks for Reading.

We are desiring a platform of exchange of energy and information. Free the knowledge from the creeps who steal your dollar.
Bookies will eat you alive in sports played in non English speaking countries if you aren’t fluent. Even if the sport is a global game.
This is why I’m so successful in Russian and Korean Basketball. I am fluent in English,Spanish, Korean, Russian and Portuguese.
I’m currently tinkering with ideas around Novo Basquete currently as the 3rd league I will do regular tips on (Nearly done with a Russian Super Liga A model)
However, I’m not perfect (surprising right?) and we could receive some help from some more bright individuals.
Anyone is free to post their due diligence. On drugs? Cool, me too we don’t give a shit. I post all the time barred and drunk. You might not understand a word I say, but you know we don’t do bread lines we do fucking Filet mignon lines here.
However, I see some good potential markets for bets just ripe for picking with good info.
Maybe some Brits can help get info for BBL picks? I’m sure there has to be more local information out and about, as there is basically no real game changing info that I can readily find.
People fluent in Chinese for the CBA. This is where I think the gold is honestly, even more so than the KBL, especially if they can get local news about injuries and such first. There is just such a huge barrier between China and the Western world.

Part 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - Final
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I thought I’d planned everything out so perfectly - so precisely. But still something went horribly wrong, and I have no idea how to fix it. I don’t even know if it can be fixed. I may have just doomed us all to the worst possible fate imaginable: A world without a future.
Maybe I should introduce myself before I explain how I got here. My name is Maximilian Darby, and ever since I was a child, I’ve been able to cast my consciousness back in time exactly one week. However, I am unable to use my power again until a week has passed and I return to the time I jumped back from, meaning I cannot travel backwards indefinitely. While I can essentially relive a single week over and over, once I use my power, the moment I go back to is the farthest into the past I’ll ever be able to reach.
Over the years, I’ve used my power liberally to enrich my life, but I stuck to doing things that wouldn’t draw too much attention to myself. I mainly would go back and bet on sports, only putting down enough to make a decent profit without raising any eyebrows or pissing off the bookies. Occasionally, I’d play the stock market when there was a big earnings surprise, but again, I never bought enough shares in anything that would cause anyone to take note.
For a long time, I’ve lived quite comfortably and had plenty of fun. But recently, I’ve noticed some disturbing changes during my trips back in time. Normally, the deviation of events during my excursions are limited to the activities directly involving me, as one would expect. Then, a few months ago, I was reliving a week in which I made a stupid mistake when a news story online caught my attention.
I’d specifically remembered seeing a similar story the first time through the week, except now, the events had apparently played out differently. Originally, it was about how a strange explosive device had been discovered at a mall about an hour from where I lived, but it had failed to detonate, and authorities were puzzled as to its origins. Concerning, but at least nobody had been hurt. This time, however, the story was about an explosion at the same mall that had resulted in a number of casualties, and the authorities were investigating the incident, but no immediate cause could be found.
I’d hoped this was just a fluke - a situation where random chance had for whatever reason gone a different way while I was reliving a week, and not an indication of something worse. After all, it was possible that other things had been different during my previous trips to the past, but were of such trivial nature that I would have never noticed, like someone turning left instead of right at a street corner, or ordering a Big Mac instead of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese at McDonalds.
Still, the incident gnawed at me. I’d spent years making money betting on underdogs and major upsets, many of which came down to a fluke play or a string of good or bad luck, and they had never turned out different. Surely I would have encountered a change at least once before, even if it was rare. Unable to push these thoughts from my mind, I decided to perform a test.
A little while later, I pre-chose a specific date I would jump back to, and as I lived through that week, I made certain to pay close attention to every single detail as I went through each day. I even took notes, as even though I wouldn’t be able to refer back to them, I’d hoped doing so would help sear the specifics into my mind. In particular, I read as much news as I could stomach, especially anything that seemed like it could have easily played out differently and involved numerous moving parts, like a political protest involving armed participants and authorities.
After jumping back and going through the week again, I was aghast at just how many things were different the second time through. The kind of things that I was certain had never changed before in the past. The first thing I saw was that results from a number of football games showed different scores, and in some, entirely different winners and losers. I’m used to having to keep track of those sorts of things, so it was easy for me to spot immediately. There were other obvious changes as well - a celebrity I was very fond of died three days later than he had previously. But more importantly, there was another explosion.
I hadn’t seen any stories about undetonated explosive devices before I made the jump, but the blast was front page news this time, so there’s no way I would have missed seeing it before. This was definitely a change. It was also unsettlingly similar to what had happened at the mall near me - an investigation could not determine the exact cause, but authorities were continuing to look into the matter. I don’t know why, but I felt a responsibility to figure out what had happened. Maybe because a part of me knew that if I hadn’t traveled back in time, it wouldn’t have occurred.
When I finished reliving the week, I did something I almost never do - I jumped back to go through the same week a third time. I’d memorized all the pertinent details concerning where and when the explosion would happen, and prayed that it wouldn’t detonate sooner this time. The explosion was set to happen at an office building in a city several states away, but if the event occurred like it did previously, I had about a day to get there and stop it from going off again.
*
I arrived at the Gregson & Lyle Building a bit before noon, so there were plenty of people milling about on their lunch break that I was able to blend in with. The news story about the explosion had indicated that the blast was believed to have originated on the seventh floor, which is where I decided to begin my search for the device. As I was riding up the elevator, it stopped on the fourth floor where two men in dark suits stepped in to join me.
I don’t know exactly why, but their presence made me feel uneasy. They remained silent the entire time, and their rigid posture reminded me of the way a snake looks just before it strikes. By the time I got off on the seventh floor, I gasped for air, not realizing I’d been holding my breath since the men got on. Fortunately, I glanced back and let out a relieved sigh to see they hadn’t followed me.
Looking around, the floor looked to be a typical business office, filled with cubicles, copy machines, filing cabinets, and haphazardly-stacked papers littering the many desks throughout. It was eerie, though; I didn’t see a single other person in sight. I immediately set to work searching for the explosive device, rummaging through the cubicles, checking behind cabinets, and even opening up the electronics to see if something might have been planted inside one of them. My hunt was proving fruitless until I’d exhausted every option but the corner office that belonged to one of the executives.
Pushing open the door labeled “Michael Thompkins - Executive Vice President of Marketing,” I entered the darkened office and reached out to find a light switch. When I flicked it, nothing happened. Not a great sign. It dawned on me a moment later that I was both incredibly stupid and incredibly lucky, as that easily could’ve been hooked up to trigger the device, so I resolved not to touch any more switches, instead pulling out my phone to use as a flashlight.
As the white light cut through the shadows of the office, the dust particles in the air created a haze within the beam, and I swung it around the room, hoping to see something that stood out from the rest of the decor. When my eyes fell upon a plain brown cardboard box that had been pushed towards the inside wall, my heart began racing. Moving closer, I inspected the outside for a shipping label or writing that would indicate it was being used to store something, but there was nothing on it. Very carefully, I pried open the top, trying not to move too fast and shining the flashlight underneath the flaps to check for any sort of wiring.
When I finally got the box open and peered inside, I let out an audible gasp. I couldn’t say for certain it was a bomb, but it certainly didn’t look like it belonged in an office. It was a spherical metal object about the size of a basketball, and there were a number of strange-looking lights and wires covering its surface. The most unsettling thing about it, though, was a single large black lens at the center of the device that almost felt as if it were staring at me. I got lost in my thoughts as I looked back at the “eye,” not hearing the voice behind me until it was too late.
“Freeze!”
I twirled around in surprise, nearly ready to make a dash for the door when I realized I was staring down the barrel of a gun held by a police officer. This was definitely not good.
*
“I don’t think you realize how much trouble you’re in here, Max,” the detective running the interrogation said in his rough, growling voice that was really starting to grate on me. “First we got a call about a suspicious package seen on the premises, and then when we arrived to check it out, building security told us that they’d spotted someone lurking around on the floor where it was located after the order had been given to evacuate. When we showed up, you were caught red-handed with the bomb. Right now, the only thing that could help you is to start talking to us and telling us your side of the story.”
“It wasn’t my bomb,” I vehemently insisted. “I told you already, I was trying to stop whoever did actually put it there.”
“Because you’re a trained explosive ordnance disposal expert? You work for the police department? Come on, Max, enough with this nonsense! People don’t just go looking around a random building for a bomb on a hunch, much less when they don’t know the first thing about how to diffuse one. Not to mention this thing wasn’t your standard homemade job - our guys didn’t have the first clue as to how to diffuse it, so they were forced to perform a controlled explosion to get rid of it. So, why were you really there? Was it in revenge for the company not hiring you? Making a political statement about their overseas operations? Who else are you working with? Because I don’t buy that you cooked up that thing on your own.”
“I think I need to talk to a lawyer,” I said.
“Yeah. I think you do,” the detective concurred and slammed his file folder down on the table before leaving the room.
While I sat there alone, waiting for the poor public defender who’d be thrust into a situation they had no chance of even understanding, I considered my options. Now that I knew exactly where the device had been planted, I could just wait out the remainder of my week in jail, stonewalling the investigators to buy myself the time necessary until I was able to travel back again and doing the smart thing this time - call in an anonymous tip to the police and let them handle everything. Clearly I was way out of my depth on this one, and I figured that so long as nobody was hurt, my conscience would be clear and I could just forget about this whole affair.
I was startled back to reality when the interrogation room door slammed open and two men in dark suits entered. My heart sank when I realized I’d seen them before - they were the same ones I’d seen back on the elevator in the office building. This was absolutely definitely not good.
“Wow...am I really in so much trouble that they decided I needed two lawyers just to have a fighting chance?” I said, hoping to sound more flippant than I probably came off. The man on the left allowed himself a slight smile, cluing me in to the fact that he’d clearly sensed the fear in my voice. Still, I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me squirm, so I continued with the charade. “You might need to get at least one more in here. They seem to think I’m part of some kind of terrorist group or something, so we’ll need all the extra help we can get on this one.”
“You are Maximilian Darby,” the suit on the right stated. And it was a statement, not a question.
“Well, at least you know my name already. Saves me the time of introducing myself. I’m not really up on the full roster of local public defenders, though, so you’ll have to go through the trouble of telling me your names.”
“Bob,” said one.
“Bob,” said the other.
“Great. This won’t be at all confusing,” I remarked. “So, how do you guys want to handle this?”
The suits looked at one another a bit too long just to be a glance acknowledging they were in agreement on the matter, almost as if they were having an actual conversation without speaking out loud. When they returned their attention to me, the one on the right said, “You will come with us.”
“Um...I don’t know if you’re a bit new at the whole lawyering thing, but I don’t think the cops would be cool with you just taking a potential terrorist out for an unsupervised joyride. They tend to frown upon losing track of suspects after they arrest them.”
The Bob on the left leaned in towards me menacingly, and this time he didn’t try to hide his cruel grin. “The police cannot help you, Max. You will not be going to prison.”
Normally, being told I wouldn’t be going to prison would be a major relief, especially with what I was being accused of, but in this case, I was far more afraid of the alternative these guys had in mind. Flashes of what they might be planning ran through my mind, and none of them were the least bit pleasant. I pictured them as being the “inflict as much pain before putting you out of your misery” types.
“Hey, detective!” I called out as loud as I could, “I’m ready to confess now! Anytime you guys wanna come back in here and take my statement would be great! The sooner the better!”
Bob laughed. I couldn’t tell you which one, not that it mattered. They’d both begun to circle me like a shark closing in on its prey. “Yes, detective. Come back in and take Max’s statement.”
For one brief moment, I looked hopefully towards the door. I don’t know why I expected anyone to come through it. Bob’s laughter cut through the room and gripped my heart with fear. I was all on my own.
“Get up,” one of the suits said as he pulled me to my feet with a surprising amount of force considering he was just using one arm. “We are going now.”
The Bobs pushed me back out into the station, and I looked around frantically for any sign of life. There wasn’t a single other soul in sight. Computers were still buzzing, their screens looking as if everyone had just gotten up in the middle of whatever they were doing and walked away. Half-drank coffee mugs littered desks covered in paperwork, and even some jackets were still slung over the backs of chairs or on the coat rack. As we made our way outside, it was more of the same. No people, but plenty of evidence that they had recently been around.
I was marched down towards the street in the direction of a black SUV with dark tinted windows. As soon as we hit the sidewalk, though, one of the Bobs shoved me to the left, nearly sending me flying against the door of an old beat-up rust-colored sedan.
“Get in,” he said.
I climbed into the backseat of the car and the Bobs slammed the door behind me before getting into the front. Just to check, I pulled on the door handle, but as expected, it wouldn’t open. They pulled out onto the street and I peered around, noticing that the entire area seemed to be deserted, despite plenty of automobiles lining the side of the road. When we rounded the corner after a traffic light, I saw a number of cars just parked in the middle of the lane, as if they’d been abandoned in the middle of driving. We had to weave in and out to avoid them as we headed north.
Just as I was getting used to this surreal experience, the sound of a roaring engine caught me by surprise, as it was distinct from our own. I turned to the side just in time to see a pickup truck come careening down the cross street as we were going through an intersection, and a moment later, it crashed into us at full speed. The truck made impact with the right side of our car near the front tires, sending us spinning out as glass shattered and metal groaned all around us.
My mouth was bleeding from where my face had smacked into the headrest of the seat in front of me, and I could see cuts and swelling up the side of my arm. The two Bobs looked like they’d been pinned in by the car’s frame collapsing from the crash, but they weren’t immobilized for long. As they began pulling pieces of the metal apart and bending the frame back to free themselves, there were two loud cracks before what was left of the windshield erupted into tiny fragments. Dazed, I squinted my eyes and looked out to see a figure standing in front of the car, sliding what appeared to be a gun back into a holster slung across his shoulder.
The man hurriedly moved around towards the backseat door and yanked it open, revealing a knife in his hand. I recoiled as he reached for me, but he simply cut my seat belt and pulled me out of the car. Up close, I could see he had a fiery look in his eyes, and his coal-grey unkempt beard and disheveled hair looked like it was matted with blood.
“Let’s go kid,” he growled in the husky voice of a lifelong smoker. “Bullets to the skull don’t keep these fellas down for too long.”
My savior ushered me towards a white sedan parked across the street and nodded at me to get in. He jammed something that I was pretty sure wasn’t a key into the ignition and started the car, hitting the pedal so hard that our tires screamed as we peeled out onto the street. Once we were about a block or two away from the crash site, I felt a rush of heavy air around me, and my ears were suddenly inundated with the familiar cacophony of a city street.
“What the heck is going on?” I asked incredulously. The cars on the road were driving like normal now, and people were packed along the sidewalks in every direction.
“You’ve just been drafted into a war, kid,” the man stated. “What’s your name?”
“Max Darby,” I replied numbly, still trying to comprehend the situation.
“Nice to meet ya. I’m Jonah Wexler. I’ve been fighting these S.O.B.’s since I broke out of their facility back in ‘09, but things have really hit the fan since they got their hands on those Time Bombs.”
“Time bombs? Aren’t those pretty common?”
“Not time bombs. Time Bombs,” he repeated, this time emphasizing the first word. “Like that device you found. They create a temporal fluctuation wave when they explode, changing the way things play out moving forward. Most of the world never notices, since their memories change, too, but a rare few people like you and me are different. That’s why they’re after us.”
“Who?”
“Tempus. Group of crazies who’ve spent decades trying to control time. They haven’t quite got it yet, but they’re damn close.” He spared a quick glance in my direction and asked, “What do you do? Can you see the future, like me?”
“No,” I responded, shaking my head. “I can send my mind back in time a week and relive it over again.” At this point, I saw no purpose in lying to Jonah. It was odd, because I realized he was the first person I’d ever admitted that to.
“No wonder they sent the big guns to grab you,” he said. “You might be the final piece they need to finish their project. Even with foresight, Time Bombs are still messy and hard to control what outcomes are changed. But with your power, they could alter things with surgical precision. I need to get you to the safehouse fast. We need to talk to the General.”
As we sped off towards the safehouse, I took stock of what I knew: I was probably now wanted for escaping custody and being a possible terrorist, there was some super-secret organization hunting me down for my power in order to control time, and I’m pretty sure I wet my pants at some point between being abducted by the Bobs and getting counter-abducted by Jonah. He apparently noticed as well, because his nose wrinkled up and he gave me a look of disgust.
“We’ve got some extra clothes at the safehouse. But you’re gonna need to toughen up fast if you wanna survive this thing.”

I hadn't seen Miles in fifteen years when we bumped into each other at the grocery store. Back then, we'd gone separate ways. He'd dropped out of high school to start learning a trade, and I'd gone to university. Our lives diverged and we fell out of contact. But our recognition was instant, and after a few minutes of conversation he invited me to his house.
It was on the way that we caught up in broad strokes. I was married; he wasn't. I had a kid; he didn't. I worked for a corporation in a mid-level office job; he was self-employed. When I asked him what he did, he smiled a little mischievously and said, "I'm a bookie, but you could say I'm a bit of an employer myself these days."
When I asked what he meant, he said I'd see soon enough.
What I saw first was that his splendid two-storey yellow brick house was situated deep in the suburbs, and seemed decidedly too big for a single guy in his thirties. Nevertheless, I was impressed he could afford it. My wife and I didn't have our own house yet. "Renting or owning?" I asked as we approached the front door.
"Owned," he said. "I've had a good run these last two years."
Although the house had looked normal from the street, when we got closer I noticed that the front doorknob was odd. It was shaped like a human hand.
Miles was carrying groceries, so he motioned for me to do the opening. "It's not locked?" I asked.
He smiled just as I touched the doorknob—the warm, living doorknob!—for it didn't just look like a human hand; it was a human hand!
Obediently, the front door swung open, and huddled in the triangular space between the door and the wall was a hooded, black-clad figure whose gold-painted fingers I had just touched. Without even raising its head, the figure shut the door behind us and replaced its hand into the door hole.
Miles paid the figure no mind and continued to the kitchen, where another similarly dressed figure stood motionless by the light switch. Miles set down the groceries, clapped his hands and the figure turned on the lights.
By now I had to ask: "What is—"
"Look, I get that it may seem a little weird," he said, "but hear me out. These are people who owe me money. They're unemployed and they can't conceivably pay it back anytime soon."
I followed him to the living room, where another figure turned on the lights, illuminating several pieces of human furniture.
"So they're working off their debts."
Miles whistled, and yet another figure appeared, this one holding two imported beers. Miles handed one to me before setting the other on his nude female coffee table, who / which reacted instinctively to the cold glass bottle by momentarily arching her / its back.
"It's perfectly consensual," he added, anticipating my concerns. "And what would be the more humane alternative, breaking their knee caps?"
By now my initial discomfort was turning into a chilled fear. I kept remembering how the doorknob-hand had felt in mine. Ostensibly both were human hands, but the gap in—
"Dignity," I said, then repeated the word in a whisper so as not to let them hear. "Don't you think they lack dignity?"
He chuckled. "See, even your natural reaction is to treat them as if they're invisible. As for dignity, they most definitely had it. Because they mortgaged it, and now they're working to earn it back. I didn't force them to gamble. Now they're house servants, that's all. Are you opposed to house servants?"
I admitted I supposed I wasn't. "But this is such a strange form of it," I said, starting to stammer like in my elementary school days.
By now the stress of being in this bizarre place combined with the mundane act of drinking beer was twisting me psychologically in ways I couldn't understand. I wanted suddenly out, but the most I could tactfully bring myself to do was ask about the location of the bathroom.
"Just down the hall," Miles said.
I stepped with dread.
The bathroom was large but felt immediately cramped by the presence of two figures: one wrapped entirely in bath towels, and the other kneeling by the toilet, its hooded head down and arms up, holding a roll of toilet paper as if it were the idol of a long-forgotten god.
Of course, I couldn't go in these conditions, so I waited uncomfortably for a minute, listening to the figures breathe, before washing my hands.
"Are you OK?" I whispered to them.
No response.
"Do you need help?"
Silence.
I shut off the water faucet, turned—
And nearly fell back against the bathroom mirror as the towel-wrapped one rubbed his / her / its moisture-absorbing material / body against my wet hands. "Please, don't," I begged quietly, escaping backward into the hall.
Miles was casually drinking his beer. "Did you try to save them?" he asked.
I nodded.
"They don't need saving."
He gestured for me to follow him, and I did, down the hall and up the stairs to a bedroom. But it wasn't Miles' bedroom. "I had it prepared just for you," he said, "in case you wanted to spend the night."
The room was spacious and clean, decked out with an array of speakers, a large TV and a human night table flanking a queen-sized bed, freshly made and topped with a beautiful handmade quilt, on which rested a mattress-long body pillow, its linen case rising and falling gently with the breath of the human inside it.
I wanted to back out, but Miles caught me by the shoulders. "Remember when in high school you told me I wouldn't ever amount to anything?"
His grip was firm.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Don't be sorry. You were wrong, that's all."
"How long do they work for?" I asked, watching the body pillow shift slightly on the bed, desiring more than anything to change the topic. But also curious, genuinely and morbidly curious.
"However long they want. Eight hours, twelve hours, twenty-four hour shifts. It's really not a bad gig, lying in a pillowcase on a comfortable bed for twice the minimum wage."
He nudged me forward. "Go ahead. Try it."
I didn't want to, but there was a menace in his voice, an unpredictability that made it feel safer to obey than disagree. He may not have been threatening me directly, but the threat was in the air, invisible and atomized like a perfume.
I got on the bed.
Miles watched my every uncomfortable move.
"Like it?"
"Yes," I said, "it's a very nice mattress."
For a second, I imagined that the mattress was filled with people and I was lying on top of them, crushing them—but as I shifted my weight I felt the more familiar support of springs, and I could breathe again.
"Try hugging the body pillow," Miles instructed me, the coolness in his voice betraying how used he'd gotten to being the boss.
I didn't want to do that either, but I did it anyway, not only pervasively conscious of the army of servants Miles had amassed, which he could turn against me at any moment, but wanting desperately to feel even a fraction of the power he wielded over them. Inching closer to the body pillow and turning over onto my side before lightly placing an arm on top of—
It squirmed, bony, warm and human underneath the crisp linen case.
The person inside was a man.
I wondered who and what he had bet on and how much he owed and whether it was really so bad what Miles was doing and if it would have been better for the man to be working two or three part-time jobs, probably labour, probably more tiring and dangerous, than being paid to be this objectified: this passive: this utterly domesticated.
"Nice, right?" Miles asked.
"Yes."
"You can get up now."
I got off the bed, smoothed my clothes and followed Miles wordlessly into the hall, down the stairs and into a spacious gym. He was so confident that not once did he look back; he knew that I was behind him. Although we didn't go inside, on the way we had passed a room outfitted with cameras, lights and a circular padded stage, and my imagination was running wild with thoughts of the recordings made in there—
The gym lights flashed cold and bright.
I squinted.
Arranged before me was an impressive collection of weights, workout gear and exercise machines, but it was the object occupying the centre of the room whose existence sent an electric shock down my spine. A leather heavy bag hung ominously from the ceiling.
Miles passed me boxing wraps for my hands, then began wrapping his own. "I know this is a lot, and I know how it feels, the pressure building up inside you right now. Believe me. Jealousy. Disgust. Maybe even anger: at me, the world, your own fucking life. When I get that way, I come down here and work those emotions out. It's not healthy holding them in. Whatever you do, you can't let them grow inside you."
When he was done with his wraps, he handed me a pair of training gloves. I put them on, constantly eyeing the heavy bag, which was swinging now ever so softly from the steel ceiling mount.
"Give it a shot," he said.
I stood frozen in place. I knew there was someone in there.
"I can't d—"
"Of course you can," he said, then pulled his arm back and delivered a wicked right cross to the heavy bag. It responded with a dull thud followed by a reverberating groan. "Just like that."
"It's a person," I said, my voice rising.
"Which makes it even easier. Just ask the person if you can hit her."
Her.
"Do you want to get hit?" Miles asked the heavy bag.
"Yes," a muffled voice responded.
"See? She wants you to do it. If you don't do it, you're deciding for her, and how condescending would that be—for a man to tell a woman what she can and can't do."
"Hit me please," the heavy bag mumbled.
I made a fist and threw a light jab. Just enough to feel the bag: the padding, and the contour of the person hanging inside.
"Come on, man."
It made me sick to my stomach.
But as I lifted my hand to my mouth to keep from retching, Miles put in a thudding left hook that lifted the bag on impact. I could hear the stifled pain within.
"She gets paid by the punch," Miles said. "Ask her if she wants another."
I didn't want to, but the answer came anyway:
"Hit me."
"One thousand dollars off her debt if you give it all you've got," Miles said.
"Do it please," the bag begged.
I planted my feet, exhaled—once, twice—loosened my shoulder, and put all my weight behind a looping shot that connected sickeningly with the side of the bag, my mind frantically trying to decide where I'd connected, face, ribs, hip, because I was sure I'd felt bone, as the bag bounced, the ceiling mount screeched and the woman inside moaned in pain.
For a while: silence.
Then, "Thank… you," she whimpered.
"Nice one! What do you say, another grand?" Miles asked with a smile.
"Again please."
So I got her again, and again. And again. Each time connecting with everything I had; each time shaving a thousand dollars off her debt. Good deed followed by good deed—until Miles himself grabbed my arm and pulled me away, and I realized, over the pounding of my beating heart, how much anger there was in me. "Easy, easy," he repeated.
After I'd calmed down, I felt the horror of it: of what I had done. I had beaten someone, a woman, and all her begging and thanking couldn't convince me it was right. Not that she was speaking now…
Miles unhooked the heavy bag and laid it reverently on the floor as I took off my gloves and undid my wraps.
He unzipped the bag.
"Do you remember our prom?" he asked as if out of the blue.
"Vaguely."
"You went with Rashida Parker," he said.
I did remember that.
"Who did you go with?" I asked.
Miles had pulled a body wrapped in a thick, bloodied sheet from the unzipped bag. He picked it up and cradled it. She looked small and fragile in his arms. For a second, I thought that maybe she was dead, but then she murmured something swollen and incomprehensible, and I knew I hadn't beaten her to death.
I had almost forgotten my own question when, "No one," Miles answered. "I was supposed to go with Rashida, and she'd even said 'yes' to me"—he had unwrapped some of the sheet, revealing a tangle of black hair, and I thought, No, it couldn't be, but it was: she was—"when you asked her and she said 'yes' to you. After all, why would she go with some skid who smoked cigarettes by the railroad tracks, a future deadbeat whose parents worked in a factory and who couldn't read Shakespeare, when she could go with someone like you?"
He unfolded the remaining sheet from Rashida's body and laid her on top of it. Her eyes were swelling shut but she could still see, and all I could do was avert my gaze as she slowly pronounced my name, each syllable willed into a hurt existence, before thanking me repeatedly with her fattened lips. Although she looked barely like the girl I'd fallen in love with, it was unmistakably her. After she could speak no more, she crawled forward, reaching pathetically for my legs, her broken body a coloured patchwork of various stages of bruising, as I backed instinctively away.
I was scared and I was ashamed.
"You'll appreciate the irony," Miles said. "She lost her money betting on mixed martial arts."
He laughed.
There was something about that laugh, something devilish and deep, something true that made me lunge for him—for his despicable throat! But even that did not stop the laughter, which resounded through the gym as we fought like boys on the padded floor. And still he laughed when his hooded minions arrived and pulled me off him, swinging wildly at the air. I'd bloodied his nose but nothing more, and as they dragged me away, up the stairs and to the front door, Miles followed us with a monstrous smile.
"I am the way the world is," he said.
Then I was out the door and it was closed and it was dark and suburban and I was sitting on the concrete front step, staring at the golden doorknob-hand jutting profoundly through the hole in the door of a yellow brick house. I got to my feet and descended the steps to the street, all the while trying to act cool and not make a scene, because that seemed like the worst thing imaginable: drawing attention to myself. My fighting spirit had evaporated. I was a coward once more.
I buried my hands in my pockets and kept my head down, walking briskly through the cold night air, but when I reached the nearest intersection I turned and started to run.
On both sides houses flew past at a blur. Illuminated windows. Imagined conversations. I knew Miles wasn't behind me, but because I lacked his natural confidence I kept glancing back—yet the only thing which followed were his words, I am the way the world is, and when I stopped to catch my breath, I looked directly upon a lighted window: several silhouettes gathered around a table. Was it a family or a group of hooded servants waiting on their master? I couldn't tell, but they must have seen me too because suddenly the curtains were drawn and the illumination ended.
I am the way the world is.
He was wrong. I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. Miles was the anomaly—the evil—and in every other house, behind every other beautiful brick wall, there were normal people with normal needs and normal relationships. They desired normal things and they worked normal jobs, just like me.
In my stillness I felt suddenly the autumn cold and took out my phone, and almost without thinking I swiped toward the Uber app—
That's when I understood.
I smashed the phone against the sidewalk.
Faces looked out.
Miles was right, and I walked home for hours that night, terrified of myself and of every house I passed in which uncounted silhouettes passed silent and unseen.

I hadn't seen Miles in fifteen years when we bumped into each other at the grocery store. Back then, we'd gone separate ways. He'd dropped out of high school to start learning a trade, and I'd gone to university. Our lives diverged and we fell out of contact. But our recognition was instant, and after a few minutes of conversation he invited me to his house.
It was on the way that we caught up in broad strokes. I was married; he wasn't. I had a kid; he didn't. I worked for a corporation in a mid-level office job; he was self-employed. When I asked him what he did, he smiled a little mischievously and said, "I'm a bookie, but you could say I'm a bit of an employer myself these days."
When I asked what he meant, he said I'd see soon enough.
What I saw first was that his splendid two-storey yellow brick house was situated deep in the suburbs, and seemed decidedly too big for a single guy in his thirties. Nevertheless, I was impressed he could afford it. My wife and I didn't have our own house yet. "Renting or owning?" I asked as we approached the front door.
"Owned," he said. "I've had a good run these last two years."
Although the house had looked normal from the street, when we got closer I noticed that the front doorknob was odd. It was shaped like a human hand.
Miles was carrying groceries, so he motioned for me to do the opening. "It's not locked?" I asked.
He smiled just as I touched the doorknob—the warm, living doorknob!—for it didn't just look like a human hand; it was a human hand!
Obediently, the front door swung open, and huddled in the triangular space between the door and the wall was a hooded, black-clad figure whose gold-painted fingers I had just touched. Without even raising its head, the figure shut the door behind us and replaced its hand into the door hole.
Miles paid the figure no mind and continued to the kitchen, where another similarly dressed figure stood motionless by the light switch. Miles set down the groceries, clapped his hands and the figure turned on the lights.
By now I had to ask: "What is—"
"Look, I get that it may seem a little weird," he said, "but hear me out. These are people who owe me money. They're unemployed and they can't conceivably pay it back anytime soon."
I followed him to the living room, where another figure turned on the lights, illuminating several pieces of human furniture.
"So they're working off their debts."
Miles whistled, and yet another figure appeared, this one holding two imported beers. Miles handed one to me before setting the other on his nude female coffee table, who / which reacted instinctively to the cold glass bottle by momentarily arching her / its back.
"It's perfectly consensual," he added, anticipating my concerns. "And what would be the more humane alternative, breaking their knee caps?"
By now my initial discomfort was turning into a chilled fear. I kept remembering how the doorknob-hand had felt in mine. Ostensibly both were human hands, but the gap in—
"Dignity," I said, then repeated the word in a whisper so as not to let them hear. "Don't you think they lack dignity?"
He chuckled. "See, even your natural reaction is to treat them as if they're invisible. As for dignity, they most definitely had it. Because they mortgaged it, and now they're working to earn it back. I didn't force them to gamble. Now they're house servants, that's all. Are you opposed to house servants?"
I admitted I supposed I wasn't. "But this is such a strange form of it," I said, starting to stammer like in my elementary school days.
By now the stress of being in this bizarre place combined with the mundane act of drinking beer was twisting me psychologically in ways I couldn't understand. I wanted suddenly out, but the most I could tactfully bring myself to do was ask about the location of the bathroom.
"Just down the hall," Miles said.
I stepped with dread.
The bathroom was large but felt immediately cramped by the presence of two figures: one wrapped entirely in bath towels, and the other kneeling by the toilet, its hooded head down and arms up, holding a roll of toilet paper as if it were the idol of a long-forgotten god.
Of course, I couldn't go in these conditions, so I waited uncomfortably for a minute, listening to the figures breathe, before washing my hands.
"Are you OK?" I whispered to them.
No response.
"Do you need help?"
Silence.
I shut off the water faucet, turned—
And nearly fell back against the bathroom mirror as the towel-wrapped one rubbed his / her / its moisture-absorbing material / body against my wet hands. "Please, don't," I begged quietly, escaping backward into the hall.
Miles was casually drinking his beer. "Did you try to save them?" he asked.
I nodded.
"They don't need saving."
He gestured for me to follow him, and I did, down the hall and up the stairs to a bedroom. But it wasn't Miles' bedroom. "I had it prepared just for you," he said, "in case you wanted to spend the night."
The room was spacious and clean, decked out with an array of speakers, a large TV and a human night table flanking a queen-sized bed, freshly made and topped with a beautiful handmade quilt, on which rested a mattress-long body pillow, its linen case rising and falling gently with the breath of the human inside it.
I wanted to back out, but Miles caught me by the shoulders. "Remember when in high school you told me I wouldn't ever amount to anything?"
His grip was firm.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Don't be sorry. You were wrong, that's all."
"How long do they work for?" I asked, watching the body pillow shift slightly on the bed, desiring more than anything to change the topic. But also curious, genuinely and morbidly curious.
"However long they want. Eight hours, twelve hours, twenty-four hour shifts. It's really not a bad gig, lying in a pillowcase on a comfortable bed for twice the minimum wage."
He nudged me forward. "Go ahead. Try it."
I didn't want to, but there was a menace in his voice, an unpredictability that made it feel safer to obey than disagree. He may not have been threatening me directly, but the threat was in the air, invisible and atomized like a perfume.
I got on the bed.
Miles watched my every uncomfortable move.
"Like it?"
"Yes," I said, "it's a very nice mattress."
For a second, I imagined that the mattress was filled with people and I was lying on top of them, crushing them—but as I shifted my weight I felt the more familiar support of springs, and I could breathe again.
"Try hugging the body pillow," Miles instructed me, the coolness in his voice betraying how used he'd gotten to being the boss.
I didn't want to do that either, but I did it anyway, not only pervasively conscious of the army of servants Miles had amassed, which he could turn against me at any moment, but wanting desperately to feel even a fraction of the power he wielded over them. Inching closer to the body pillow and turning over onto my side before lightly placing an arm on top of—
It squirmed, bony, warm and human underneath the crisp linen case.
The person inside was a man.
I wondered who and what he had bet on and how much he owed and whether it was really so bad what Miles was doing and if it would have been better for the man to be working two or three part-time jobs, probably labour, probably more tiring and dangerous, than being paid to be this objectified: this passive: this utterly domesticated.
"Nice, right?" Miles asked.
"Yes."
"You can get up now."
I got off the bed, smoothed my clothes and followed Miles wordlessly into the hall, down the stairs and into a spacious gym. He was so confident that not once did he look back; he knew that I was behind him. Although we didn't go inside, on the way we had passed a room outfitted with cameras, lights and a circular padded stage, and my imagination was running wild with thoughts of the recordings made in there—
The gym lights flashed cold and bright.
I squinted.
Arranged before me was an impressive collection of weights, workout gear and exercise machines, but it was the object occupying the centre of the room whose existence sent an electric shock down my spine. A leather heavy bag hung ominously from the ceiling.
Miles passed me boxing wraps for my hands, then began wrapping his own. "I know this is a lot, and I know how it feels, the pressure building up inside you right now. Believe me. Jealousy. Disgust. Maybe even anger: at me, the world, your own fucking life. When I get that way, I come down here and work those emotions out. It's not healthy holding them in. Whatever you do, you can't let them grow inside you."
When he was done with his wraps, he handed me a pair of training gloves. I put them on, constantly eyeing the heavy bag, which was swinging now ever so softly from the steel ceiling mount.
"Give it a shot," he said.
I stood frozen in place. I knew there was someone in there.
"I can't d—"
"Of course you can," he said, then pulled his arm back and delivered a wicked right cross to the heavy bag. It responded with a dull thud followed by a reverberating groan. "Just like that."
"It's a person," I said, my voice rising.
"Which makes it even easier. Just ask the person if you can hit her."
Her.
"Do you want to get hit?" Miles asked the heavy bag.
"Yes," a muffled voice responded.
"See? She wants you to do it. If you don't do it, you're deciding for her, and how condescending would that be—for a man to tell a woman what she can and can't do."
"Hit me please," the heavy bag mumbled.
I made a fist and threw a light jab. Just enough to feel the bag: the padding, and the contour of the person hanging inside.
"Come on, man."
It made me sick to my stomach.
But as I lifted my hand to my mouth to keep from retching, Miles put in a thudding left hook that lifted the bag on impact. I could hear the stifled pain within.
"She gets paid by the punch," Miles said. "Ask her if she wants another."
I didn't want to, but the answer came anyway:
"Hit me."
"One thousand dollars off her debt if you give it all you've got," Miles said.
"Do it please," the bag begged.
I planted my feet, exhaled—once, twice—loosened my shoulder, and put all my weight behind a looping shot that connected sickeningly with the side of the bag, my mind frantically trying to decide where I'd connected, face, ribs, hip, because I was sure I'd felt bone, as the bag bounced, the ceiling mount screeched and the woman inside moaned in pain.
For a while: silence.
Then, "Thank… you," she whimpered.
"Nice one! What do you say, another grand?" Miles asked with a smile.
"Again please."
So I got her again, and again. And again. Each time connecting with everything I had; each time shaving a thousand dollars off her debt. Good deed followed by good deed—until Miles himself grabbed my arm and pulled me away, and I realized, over the pounding of my beating heart, how much anger there was in me. "Easy, easy," he repeated.
After I'd calmed down, I felt the horror of it: of what I had done. I had beaten someone, a woman, and all her begging and thanking couldn't convince me it was right. Not that she was speaking now…
Miles unhooked the heavy bag and laid it reverently on the floor as I took off my gloves and undid my wraps.
He unzipped the bag.
"Do you remember our prom?" he asked as if out of the blue.
"Vaguely."
"You went with Rashida Parker," he said.
I did remember that.
"Who did you go with?" I asked.
Miles had pulled a body wrapped in a thick, bloodied sheet from the unzipped bag. He picked it up and cradled it. She looked small and fragile in his arms. For a second, I thought that maybe she was dead, but then she murmured something swollen and incomprehensible, and I knew I hadn't beaten her to death.
I had almost forgotten my own question when, "No one," Miles answered. "I was supposed to go with Rashida, and she'd even said 'yes' to me"—he had unwrapped some of the sheet, revealing a tangle of black hair, and I thought, No, it couldn't be, but it was: she was—"when you asked her and she said 'yes' to you. After all, why would she go with some skid who smoked cigarettes by the railroad tracks, a future deadbeat whose parents worked in a factory and who couldn't read Shakespeare, when she could go with someone like you?"
He unfolded the remaining sheet from Rashida's body and laid her on top of it. Her eyes were swelling shut but she could still see, and all I could do was avert my gaze as she slowly pronounced my name, each syllable willed into a hurt existence, before thanking me repeatedly with her fattened lips. Although she looked barely like the girl I'd fallen in love with, it was unmistakably her. After she could speak no more, she crawled forward, reaching pathetically for my legs, her broken body a coloured patchwork of various stages of bruising, as I backed instinctively away.
I was scared and I was ashamed.
"You'll appreciate the irony," Miles said. "She lost her money betting on mixed martial arts."
He laughed.
There was something about that laugh, something devilish and deep, something true that made me lunge for him—for his despicable throat! But even that did not stop the laughter, which resounded through the gym as we fought like boys on the padded floor. And still he laughed when his hooded minions arrived and pulled me off him, swinging wildly at the air. I'd bloodied his nose but nothing more, and as they dragged me away, up the stairs and to the front door, Miles followed us with a monstrous smile.
"I am the way the world is," he said.
Then I was out the door and it was closed and it was dark and suburban and I was sitting on the concrete front step, staring at the golden doorknob-hand jutting profoundly through the hole in the door of a yellow brick house. I got to my feet and descended the steps to the street, all the while trying to act cool and not make a scene, because that seemed like the worst thing imaginable: drawing attention to myself. My fighting spirit had evaporated. I was a coward once more.
I buried my hands in my pockets and kept my head down, walking briskly through the cold night air, but when I reached the nearest intersection I turned and started to run.
On both sides houses flew past at a blur. Illuminated windows. Imagined conversations. I knew Miles wasn't behind me, but because I lacked his natural confidence I kept glancing back—yet the only thing which followed were his words, I am the way the world is, and when I stopped to catch my breath, I looked directly upon a lighted window: several silhouettes gathered around a table. Was it a family or a group of hooded servants waiting on their master? I couldn't tell, but they must have seen me too because suddenly the curtains were drawn and the illumination ended.
I am the way the world is.
He was wrong. I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. Miles was the anomaly—the evil—and in every other house, behind every other beautiful brick wall, there were normal people with normal needs and normal relationships. They desired normal things and they worked normal jobs, just like me.
In my stillness I felt suddenly the autumn cold and took out my phone, and almost without thinking I swiped toward the Uber app—
That's when I understood.
I smashed the phone against the sidewalk.
Faces looked out.
Miles was right, and I walked home for hours that night, terrified of myself and of every house I passed in which uncounted silhouettes passed silent and unseen.

I known a family friend insider who in a drunken evening told us quite a few interesting details, believe me if u want to and do not ask me to disclose the identity of the person:
The main source of income for underworld is 1.) Drugs 2.) Prostitution 3.) Hawala 4.) Betting
Mahesh Bhatt is handler of drugs money, he and his brother are drug barons.
Even Shatru Shotgun’s family is heavy into gambling. Also there is a mysterious connection between the Bhatt family, the Shotgun family, and that of a certain gentleman called Shashi Ranjan. They do somethings which are mysterious and shady. It is a sub group looked over by Arbaaz the bookie (Salman’s brother) which eventually is reported to Dawood.
That Shashi Ranjan's wife Anu Ranjan is the president of the tv association I think. She is one obnoxious person again. Speaks like a total woke with Swara's akal and uses filthy language on television debates. Also, Rajdeep's favourite.
If you check on who is Alia Bhatt’s BFF then you will see that it is some chick with the last name “Ranjan”. That is Anu’s younger child and they are childhood friends but, it’s the parents background connection that’s interesting.
Which eventually leads to Sonakshi getting the work. It is also a fact that she is always on standby for when Salman calls her and tells her to fly out to Dubai to give company to his “business partners”.
That there is a mole in the parliament whose daughter seems to be working with a guy who may have links to Dawood and whose brother runs an IPL betting syndicate while they white wash money under the NGO name?
It’s no secret that Dawood and boys rooted out Lalit by placing Bollywood folks as buyers of these IPL teams. Not only did they kick him out by showing him as the criminal but also extorted 1000 crores from him.
2.) Aditya Pancholi belive it or not is a pimp, I know this must be shocking but it is well known in the Industry that Pancholi supplies young girls
Karan Johar runs the hawala racket and Arbaaz Khan the betting syndicate along with Bunty Sajdeh and Sohail Khan
and the KINGPIN OF ALL THESE SECTORS : SALMAN , u seriously do not think the Industry fears him because he is a "huge box office star."
The Nadiadwala, Tendua Shroff are also involved in this nexus.
Believe it or not Sridevi was murder and if u lot are old wnough to remember an actress called Divya Bharti, she too was bumped off.
Want to where Divya Bharti and Sushant Singh Rajput's body were taken for Post Mortem : Cooper Hospital.
Why else do u think Papa Johar adopted Alia bhatt and treated her like daughter, looking out for one of his own,
and this is why the son of chief lieutenant Sooraj is close to him.The person’s child is so well protected by Salman because he is being groomed to run the drug and women side of business in the near future.
And all the others he launches, notice there are shell companies registered under them
like that Nikhil Diwedi or Dia Mirza, they are for money laundering