I stumbled upon a fun little website yesterday called Centsports. Centsports is a sports betting website, with one major difference: It doesn’t cost anything to bet! It is completely advertiser supported and they give you the money to bet.
When you sign up, you get $0.10 (yes, ten cents) to bet on any of the upcoming events listed on their site. You pick the type of bet you want to make, weigh the odds, and place your wager using a portion or all of your available balance. Next you are given the choice to view an advertisement to get a bonus added on to your winning if you bet successfully. After the event is over, your winnings (if any) are added to your balance and you can place your next bet at your convenience.
Yesterday I bet my full dime on a longshot basketball game, and my reward was $0.14. I well over doubled my money and had $0.24. I then placed a $0.10 bet and a $0.14 cent bet on a couple of baseball games. The dime bet lost, but I earned $0.40 cents on the remaining wager bringing my total up to $0.54. That balance is now spread out on 6 games. One of those bets is a $0.10 bet on a Manchester United soccer game that will earn $1.77 if I win.
Once you reach a balance of $20 dollars, you can request some or all of it as a check. According to the site statistics there have been a few people already that have received $100+ payout checks. Theoretically if you bet your full balance every time on lines with odds that will double your money or better, and win every bet with a good luck streak, you could have over $100 in as few as 10 bets, and over $1500 in 14 bets! And what happens if you have a bad luck spell and lose all of your money? They give you a new dime to start the whole process over again.
And as another bonus they offer a referral program so you get rewarded for bringing new people to their site. If you sign up using my links in this entry, I will earn a reward equal to 5% of what you earn. In other words, when your lucky streak hits pay dirt and you’ve earned $1500, I’ll happily take the $75 they’ll throw my direction.
It will be interesting to see at which point my balance becomes “real” money to me. Right now I’m betting on long shots and having fun because I’m not out anything and can’t yet realize any earnings I do win anyway. Once (if) I cross that $20 threshold will that outlook change?
Update: My estimate above regarding how quickly you could earn vast amounts of money does not work on this site. They have bet multipliers in effect that limit the maximum return on any bid to be $10. Ideally then, if you find and bet your original dime on a line that pays $10 (they do exist) you could still make $100 within 10 bets. However making it to $1600 would not be within reach within another 4 bets.