It’s time for another chance to meet the team!
For those of you who don’t know Peter, he’s the Director of Product Development. He’s in charge of making OddsMonkey better and better. He looks after customer service, future products and features and…he’s my boss!
Meet the team: Peter
Hi Peter! So tell us about yourself!
Whereabouts in the UK are you from?
Hi Buschra! I have lived in Stockton-On-Tees in the North-East of England for all of my life apart from the 4 years I was at University in Leeds. I live here with my wife and two boys aged 14 and 10.
What did you do before joining OddsMonkey?
I qualified as a Teacher of PE and Maths from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2000. I went straight into a teaching role and moved around the local area teaching mainly PE until around 2010 when I moved into solely teaching Maths.
When did you start Matched Betting?
I remember a friend of mine telling me about it on a night out in 2007. Like most people, I thought it sounded too good to be true, but he directed me to the guides on MoneySavingExpert. It made sense to me quite quickly and I was able to grasp the concept using spreadsheets and pen and paper in the early days. We had just had our first child at the time and the extra money came in very handy!
How did you come about joining OddsMonkey?
I am a huge advocate of matched betting and the benefits it can bring people. Once I had started making money matched betting I spread the word to friends, family, colleagues. Basically anybody that would listen. I found that I was just repeating myself. In fact, I thought it would be easier to create a webpage explaining the process. However, as I had no knowledge whatsoever on how to create a website, the plan stalled there for a few years!
In 2014 I had a meeting with two friends, John and Jimmy (who are also still involved with OddsMonkey), and decided that between us we had the skills to create a website to teach people how to match bet and went about creating our first website ‘Odds to Income’. At the time, OddsMonkey was solely a match betting software solution website which ‘rented’ out its software. We integrated the software into the website and launched in the spring of 2015.
After realising how popular the website was becoming, we started to chat about how we could possibly grow the business and fulfill an ambition to turn it from a bedroom business into something which ultimately would allow me to leave teaching in schools to teaching people to make money matched betting.
Late in 2015 we met with Paul (The Founder of OddsMonkey) and discussed turning OddsMonkey from a software only service into a fully blown matched betting website. We finally launched OddsMonkey as a full-service matched betting service in April of 2016.
Do you have any other ventures?
I don’t currently, although I have had in the past. In 2003 myself and a business partner bought a Subway franchise. We opened one of the first Subway restaurants in the North-East of England. It wasn’t for me however, and I sold my share around a year later.
I also started up a Maths tuition business, but quickly found that wasn’t going to be for me as it was taking up valuable family time when I had a very young family.
What is your favourite part of your job?
On a daily basis the team that we have at OddsMonkey always put a smile on my face. I have made friendships that will last a lifetime.
The stories that are posted from matched bettors explaining how they use the extra money however, gives me the greatest satisfaction. Whether that be holidays, cars or helping to supplement income to live to a comfortable standard, I love reading every story.
Where do you see matched betting in the next 10 years?
Bookmakers are always going to need to give out incentives to attract and retain members. With the current and future tools on OddsMonkey I am confident there will be plenty of money to be made from matched betting in 10 years time.
What would you say to someone who is yet to start matched betting?
Start up with a free trial and learn the basics so that you are comfortable with the process. Any questions that you may have can be easily answered by experts who are on hand to help in the Facebook community or once you are a Premium member, the OddsMonkey community forum.
What do you do in your spare time? Do you have any hobbies?
My two boys take up most of any time I would get for hobbies! I coach my youngest son’s football team which takes up a lot of my spare time and my eldest son participates in Athletics and is a First Dan at Karate. So ‘Dad taxi’ is my biggest hobby!
With any free time I do get I love watching many levels of Football and I also try to get on the Golf course a few times a year.
And that’s it from Peter. If you have any questions you’d like to ask him, just post in the comments below.
Or if you’re ready to give OddsMonkey a go and see how you could make money from matched betting, start your Free Trial today!