Mark and others,
I have been speaking with someone who worked at one of our leading online bookies about this.
They get reports and profiles about all accounts on a weekly basis and on a daily basis on flagged accounts.
I won't list everything, but there are some tips to keep your account active.
They are particularly worried about exposure and potential winning accounts.
They look at not only the bets and odds, but also your method of betting.
Basically they want losing punters and they can ascertain this from the way you bet and run your account.
They can fairly quickly spot a professional because professionals operate differently to mugs. They do not want professionals.
So here are the tips from the conversation I had.
This person has no axe to grind, he saw my point of view.
1. Never bet in the same way all the time.
If you have a strategy like arbing against betfair or backing firmers from the track, make sure this is masked by lots of other bets.
2. Don't treat the account like a freebie account.
Don't let the account only be used for special offers, they will flag you as a professional.
3. Never withdraw winnings!
Mugs don't withdraw winnings (usually).
Find a race where the bookie price is close to the
Betfair price and have a big bet on something with little chance of winning.
Lay it back on Betfair. Then you have lost big at the bookies but just transferred your winnings to your Betfair account.
Of course, if the horse wins, you've basically had it
4. If you're making a book from differences in odds and dutch betting a couple of their better prices, round off the amounts like $35.00 instead of $32.50 or worse $32.75. Also make your book to an odd amount, instead of $100 or $1,000, make it $125 or $115 or something. Or as Mark said, back the favourite for slightly less.
He went on a bit, but this is the gist of it.