DietBet Review

DietBet is a unique new online weight loss community that lets its members earn money by betting on their future weight loss. Here’s our DietBet.com review.

What is DietBet?

DietBet is an online weight loss community where members can earn money by entering or hosting a “DietBet”. These DietBets involve betting a certain amount of money to join a pool – say, $25 to $40. Then, you try to lose weight and compete against all the other “players” in the pool.

When you first place your bet, you bet that you’re going to lose a certain percentage of your body weight – say, 3% or 5%. You can enter multiple pools at the same time.

You only earn money back if you actually achieve your goal by the end of that particular bet. You don’t win more money the more weight you lose: you win the same amount of money as every other winner who achieves their weight loss goal.

The site doesn’t promote any particular diet plan or exercise routine. Use whatever diet plan and fitness routine you like.

Don’t expect to get rich playing DietBet: there’s no “number one” winner in each pool (the site doesn’t want to encourage dangerous weight loss practices or force people to starve themselves for money, that’s just cruel). Anybody who loses their target weight by the assigned period is considered a “winner”. You’ll earn anywhere from 15% to 50% on your bet amount for being the winner.

So if you bet $50, then you should expect to win back around $75 total (that amount includes the initial amount you bet).

How Does DietBet Work?

With DietBet, you can either join an existing pool or team up with your friends to launch your own pool. There’s a big Game Directory where you can browse through the list of games currently available to join.

Games all fall into one of the three following categories:

— Kickstarter: Winners lose an average of 9 pounds over these games, making it a good option for those who want to lose 4% of their body weight over the course of 4 weeks.

— Transformer: Winners lose an average of 24 pounds, or 10% of their body weight, over the course of the 6 month game.

— Maintainer: Although not officially released yet, Maintainer promises to help you maintain your current weight over a long period of time and reward you with cash for doing so.

If you’re overweight and want to make a large transformation in your body, then the Transformer game is a good option.

If you’re just a little bit unhappy with your weight and want to slim down, then the Kickstarter is a good option. Obviously, it’s not a good idea to join the Transformer plan if you’re already pretty close to a healthy weight.

The process of actually joining DietBet is straight forward:

— Step 1) Sign up to DietBet using an email and password, or just login through Facebook

— Step 2) Verify your account with a verified weigh in. To do that, you’ll need to submit 2 photos to DietBet’s team of Referees. The first photo needs to be you in front of a full-length mirror in “airport security attire”, which means you can’t wear shoes, socks, or a belt and your pockets must be completely empty. You need to be standing on a scale in this picture. If you don’t have a full-length mirror, then you can get someone else to take a picture of you. The next picture needs to be you with your scale’s readout. DietBet will send you a unique word that needs to be written on a card next to your scale.

— Step 3) The DietBet Referees are surprisingly fast at verifying your account. Many reviewers claim they had their pictures approved in about 5 minutes. After approval, you’re ready to start joining weight loss challenges. Those challenges begin on different dates, so make sure you pick one that works for your schedule. Throughout the weight loss challenge, you’ll be able to post comments and photos on the walls of your challenge. You can also check the other members of your challenge to see if they’ve met their weight loss target yet. You’ll receive additional weight loss tips every day in your inbox to remind you of your challenge.

— Step 4) After your DietBet challenge is over, you have 48 hours to submit your final weight. You’re only required to submit a final photo if you’re a winner. Once your winner status has been verified, DietBet will credit your account with your earnings. You can then apply those earnings to another bet or transfer them to PayPal.

What Kind of Equipment Do You Need for DietBet?

DietBet requires a few basic pieces of equipment, including:

— A scale (DietBet prefers digital scales)

— Pieces of paper on which to write your secret weigh-in and weigh-out passwords

— A digital camera or a smartphone with a good camera

— A full-length mirror or somebody to take your head to toe picture for your weigh-ins and weigh-outs

What Happens if Everyone in the Pool Wins their Bet?

The way DietBet works is that your winnings come from somebody else’s losses. The fewer people achieve their bets in your DietBet game, the more money you’ll win.

So if everyone achieves their goal, then nobody makes any money. What’s DietBet’s solution to this? They actually explain it on the official site:

“New No Lose Guarantee”

This guarantee ensures that if you win your dietbet, you won't lose money. Most winners make money (about 1.5 to 2x on average) but in the event that your game has an unusually high percentage of winners, we'll forfeit our cut in order to ensure that nobody loses money. So the worst case scenario is that you'll end up losing weight for free, which is still a big win. ”

What’s the Catch with DietBet?

Getting paid to get healthier sounds too good to be true, right? Well, DietBet will genuinely pay you real cash in exchange for losing weight.

But there’s got to be a catch. You know there’s a catch. Here are the “catches” involved with DietBet:

Cheating May Be a Problem

Many people are suspiciously good at losing weight. When you join a weight loss challenge, don’t be surprised to see that the majority of participants have hit their target weight just a few days into a 30 day challenge. “Cheating” a challenge like this doesn’t even have to be difficult: just eat a massive meal immediately before you weigh in. As one reviewer said, “I logged into DietBet on day 2 of my game and over 200 people had already hit their weight loss goal. Let’s say you’re a 145 pound woman. That’s 5.8 pounds overnight! I couldn’t figure this out, but it left me feeling like some players weren’t honoring the spirit of the game.”

You Don’t Win That Much Money

DietBet charges a 25% fee on bets under $100. That means they get a huge cut of your winnings (if you win anything). That fee drops to 10% on bets of $500 or more, although such bets and games are rare. You can view a full list of their fees here.

As an example, one blogger joined two pools in January 2014 and achieved her weight loss targets in both. The first pool requires a bet of $30 and had a pot of $55,620. That blogger ended up winning $43.01. The second pool required a $25 bet and had a pot of $34,450, leading to winnings of $38.85.

Keep in mind that these are total winnings including your initial bet. So she earned $13.01 on the first bet and $13.85 on the second bet. If you’re looking for a get rich quick scheme, earning $27 for 4 weeks of work isn’t going to help you get there.

Of course, some people will argue that a 48.8% return is a better investment than most things in the stock market.

Money is Sent Through PayPal

This isn’t that much of a problem, but it chips away at your winnings even further. PayPal charges about 2.5% for each transaction. If you want to keep playing DietBet, then you can also apply your winnings to another bet with no additional fees or charges.

How Much Does DietBet Cost?

Signing up for DietBet is free. You only pay once you’re ready to start a challenge. Here are the average bet amounts:

— Kickstarter: $30 average bet
— Transformer: $25 per month, or $125 paid upfront (six month challenge)

You can cancel your bet within 7 days of signing up and receive a full refund. Once this honeymoon period is over, however, then you’ll lose your money once you quit.

You can also buy DietBet tokens for $20 apiece. These tokens get you one entry into a random prize draw each month. So if you have money left over after entering some challenges, then you may want to buy some tokens (although you’re unlikely to win when you have a large pool of participants).

Conclusion: Who Should Join DietBet?

For some, money is the ultimate motivator. Others, however, find that the small amounts of money placed on most DietBet games aren’t that much of a motivator.

As one reviewer said:

“The very first thing I discovered is that $35 is not enough money to motivate me to lose weight. I almost immediately forgot about it.”

Nevertheless, you can join multiple games at the same time. If you’re planning to lose weight anyway, then you might as well maximize your earning potential.

For that reason, DietBet can be as useful as you want it – or as useless as you want it. It’s up to you to decide how much of a motivator money is for you.