The British company Moneyful Ltd – fraud or ingenious business model?

Over the past holidays, the company Moneyful Ltd. increased its advertising activities and approached people with the promise of enabling them to make “easy money”, as reported by the British newspaper The Guardian.

According to the report, experts suspect that the company opens betting accounts with bookmakers on behalf of its customers using a power of attorney. Moneyful Ltd. then indirectly makes deposits into the player accounts using a Visa debit card, which must also be ordered by the customer. Deposits with credit cards, however, are prohibited in Great Britain.

As a financial incentive, each customer receives 100 GBP (approx. 121 euros) for submitting their data and an additional up to 100 GBP for each customer referred. Whether multiple accounts are opened with different bookmakers and with which sports betting providers this happens does not seem to be communicated transparently.

Business model partly unclear

It seems unclear whether the players were aware of what exactly was happening with their data. Experts do not agree on whether Moneyful Ltd. managed the betting accounts itself or made money by selling betting accounts. In any case, consumer advocates would warn against getting involved in such offers.

According to The Guardian, there is a strong demand for “clean” accounts with sports betting providers on social media, including Reddit and the short message service Telegram. Professional players can use this method to pose as new customers in order to carry out so-called matched betting.

What is matched betting?

The growing online gambling market and the resulting strong competition between sports betting providers means that they offer attractive bonuses for new customers. In some cases, these are free bets or a doubling of the first deposit amount.

The bonus balance cannot be paid out directly, however. First, many bets must be placed. However, the professionals do not place these at random. With so-called matched betting, the focus is on finding differences in odds between bookmakers. Bets can often be placed in such a way that there is a guaranteed win regardless of the outcome of the game.

However, such scenarios cannot be used again and again because they only occur in combination with a bonus. For this reason, there is interest in new accounts with sports betting providers who have never made a deposit and can therefore still claim a bonus. However, it should be noted that both the individual and scaled implementation of such practices is likely to violate the bookmakers’ terms of use.

Company believes it is in the right

Moneyful Ltd.’s website is currently offline. But the company’s lawyers emphasize that no information is hidden. On the contrary: Moneyful Ltd. has a positive entry on the review portal Trustpilot and is very transparent about its business practices. In addition, the company is known to the tax authorities, prepares annual financial statements and pays taxes properly.

Publicly accessible data from North Data show:

• The company was founded at the end of 2021 with a capital of 100 GBP and has since changed location twice.
• The business purpose is stated as “Other sporting activities”. How much profit the company makes is not known.
• The founder and director of Moneyful Ltd. is Aidan Lee Bond. It is unclear whether there are other employees.

The UK Gambling Commission, which regulates the betting and gambling sector in Great Britain, has not commented on the current case. However, it generally warns against allowing third parties to use your data for gambling.

According to The Guardian, the company’s suspected practice is not illegal, but bookmakers would quickly take action against matched betting or similar practices in accordance with their terms of use.