GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 36 - October 2016

The key to happiness is to get paid for something you’d do in your spare time anyway, according to this affiliate Darren Moore - Betfinder You used to work as a betting shop manager for Ladbrokes. Tell us a bit about that gig — how did you get into it? Did it influence your work as an affil- iate? I have always had a keen interest in horse racing and betting, which I inherited from my father, and I used money from various paper rounds to bet 5p round rob- ins and 50p placepot bets on the Saturday TV racing. My very first job was in the Ladbrokes head office, and I also worked as a cash- ier in the betting shops on evenings and weekends. I then progressed to become a full-time betting shop manager for Lad- brokes in London’s West End. I wouldn’t say it has influenced me that much in my current role as an affiliate, but it has certainly motivated me to work hard so I don’t have to go back to working in betting shops! Although a busman’s holiday at the time, I wouldn’t want to work in one these days, with it all being about the dreaded FOBTs. Working from home is much more my cup of tea. What made you want to become an iGaming affiliate? How did you get your start in this part of the betting industry? Back in the very early days of the Internet I started dabbling with Web design, and eventually decided to try to build a betting website as an experiment to see if I could make any money out of my hobby. That’s the key to happiness — getting paid for doing something you love, or something you would do in your spare time anyway. BetFinder.co.uk launched in 2005. How long did it take you to plan and build the site? When did you get your first payment from it? I already had a rough plan in mind when I purchased the domain, so it didn’t take very long at all for me to set it up. Initially it only displayed odds on the main sporting events, and I actually updated all the betting odds by hand at first. It prob- ably took around six months before I started seeing some regular commissions coming from it. It’s been through a few transformations over the years and will always be a work in progress. Sports betting can be a difficult sec- tor, especially when players are doing well. How volatile are your revenues from month to month? They can in- deed be very sporadic and random, but I have managed to catch a few “whales” over the years, which is always a nice bonus. Sadly, I’ve also had times where all I’ve been working for is to wipe out my negative carryover. I guess it all just adds to the excitement. A bit like gambling itself. You correctly called that the major bet- ting sites were wrong about Britain vot- ing to leave the EU. What do you think of the usefulness of political betting in predicting political outcomes? The bookies often get it wrong with political betting, so it can sometimes pay to back the underdog, however unlikely it may seem. They made the same mistake in the 2015 General Election when going 1/16 about a “hung Parliament.” Their steadfast belief in opinion polls is a common pitfall. However, “betting sentiment” matters, and it has got it right a lot recently — as SNP’s annihilation of Labour in GE 2015, Donald Trump’s Republican candidacy, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership triumph, and the conservative wins in both the 2015 and 1992 U.K. General Elections will testify. What are some of your sites’ unique selling points? Whereas a lot of sites focus mainly on football and “lad culture,” we try to cater to the more discerning sport punters on BetFinder.co.uk , with well-re- searched articles from experienced gam- blers on a wide range of betting events, all backed up by solid stats and reasoning. We are all punters ourselves, too. I’m also starting to look to produce more video content and build up a YouTube channel. GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES 46 W W W . G P W A T I M E S . O R G