Hey Ho it's all swings and roundabouts but its just annoying!
So the first month of 2012 is over and things are in profit (which is an improvement on this time last year) but I'm just not making money. The final total ending up being £158 for the month. Simply not good enough.
Anyway here are the figures;
And the graph showing the volatility of the month;
So I know I said in my previous post I was wanting to strip further services out of my portfolio and at the moment I see my streamlined portfolio being;
Systematic Betting
Northern Monkey
4PA
Piecost
The Football Analyst
This would mean stripping out;
* Steve Lewis Hamilton - serious problems with the service over the last 7 months and no great shakes since 2009. It feels like a gradual decline and while I'm delighted to see the exchange service doing well it sticks in the throat a bit. Subscription costs are obviously a factor. Still 50/50 on this one.
* Equine Main Account - there's a lot of talk of Equine Main having "run its course". Impossible to get on at odds, relatively poor performance over last couple of seasons and very high subscriptions against my low stakes make this one poor value for me. Similar situation to SLH here with heavy promotion of a new service while the flagship main account goes down the pan. Definitely stopping at end of this season.
* Equine Turnover - I suspect there will be changes to this service in the close season and that subs will probably go up or the turnover account will only run for the summer and not include A/W - this has already been suggested. Makes Turnover expensive if that is the case. We wait to see and again 50/50.
* Market Examiner - I like Market Examiner, it's cheap, the communication is 2nd to none and Sam comes across like a top bloke but the reality of it is that I haven't been able to make it work. I think my timing for joining was wrong - been a long good period and the inevitable losing run kicked in from the start of my subs. It feels like it'll take a while to make the money back and it might be time for me to cut my losses and run. I suspect I will run for another couple of months and see where that takes me.
Think I hold on for too long waiting for the big turnaround with some services and I pay a price for that - my dogged pursuit of Tipping Legends / Roger Green Racing being prime examples of that behaviour.
Anyway I've got a couple of other irons on the fire as well - one following JP's lays on a trial basis and the other working on a wee Forex system that I hope will bear some fruit. Additionally I've always talked about getting trading but that really has taken a back burner for now as I continue to get stuck in to my new job.
9 comments:
I noticed that the start of the decline in the SLH Private service (that did so well in 2008 & 2009 with over 200pts profit in both years) seemed to start when he introduced the Exchange service in late 2009. The 2010 private service effectivekly broke even after costs and 2011, after being 30 pts down at one stage, did raly to finish 50 pts up. As you say, the poor start in January does note bode well for the future. The days of those great E/W doubles have gone and I doubt we will ever see the likes of the successful 1pt E/W win @ 33/1 in 2009 again.
Thanks for your comment - I hadn't correlated the two but you may be right.
The e/w doubles were crackers - I remember screaming at the tv one day when I won over £2k on a double and then of course there was the famous 33/1 shot - which was tipped on the first day of my honeymoon and paid for the whole holiday.
Like you say there hasn't been any of those for a long while.
It is a feature of the service that there are long periods of treading water but this begins to worry me - how long do we wait?
Thanks for the nice comments mrh-beats, it's really frustrating we've hit a dry spell since you joined, but it's just the way things can roll for us from time to time. If history is anything to go by though we really should be able to spin things around very strongly very quickly for you. Let's hope for our sake it's in the next couple of months!
All the best to you and all your services,
Sam
As a member of the SLH Private and Exchange Services I have read yours and others comments with some bemusement.
Bookmakers are increasingly squeezing margins. It seems only sensible to pay the small extra for the exchange option to combat this. Why fight with only one hand?
For me, last week was profitable as was the last month, last year and many years preceding. Also by listening to Steve's race analysis I have increased my racing knowledge and profits along the way.
Most punters lose, I am content in knowing that I am not one of them.
Trevor
PS Can't see how you are 15 points down for last month - I get the Private Service loss at roughly half that amount at both level and advised stakes.
Hi Sam - thanks for your comment. Yeah I jumped in at totally the wrong point. I'm going to continue to follow as I know what you say is right and certainly feeling better now. We'll get there!
Hi Trevor - thanks for your comments. I'm usually a big advocate of SLH and have defended him to the hilt on this blog - in the long run he has always made a profit - I know i have been with him for almost 4 years.
The current downturn is quite exceptional though even for Steve. I am not one to criticise a service unless justified and unfortunately there are a fair few nutters out there who seem intent in barraging this blog with their hatred of all things SLH.
I tend to delete most of these comments but some I have posted have been acceptable in light of the recent run.
I appreciate what you are saying in regard to the exchange service and it is good to see it being a success - but do you not need to be active in the in play markets to make that service work? Thats something I can't do as I work full time.
However I do believe that each individual service offered by a tipster needs to stand up on its own merits or a combined membership should be the only option.
It would be nice to get a few winners on the main service to get the profits rolling.
As for Jan P&L - i have the following - i play to level £50 stakes. (the £25 is for the 2nd half of an e/w dbl where I missed the first bet.
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£25.00
-£50.00
£149.48
£140.01
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£50.00
-£50.00
This is -15.42 points.
Interesting to know what I've missed on here if you know.
Following on from the messages above, I was a member of Steve's exchange service for the first half of last year before ditching it in the autumn. I found it too time consuming even though I can use Betfair on my phone. Steve gives out minimum/maximum odds for his back/lay selections on the betting exchanges at 1pm. However, unlike the private service where I just place the bet as soon as possible to get the best price, on the exchange service you have to keep checking the odds for hours to get a decent price. I frequently got worse prices than Steve advised and found the whole thing frustrating and time consuming. This consequently meant I didn't make a profit and is why I ditched it. I think if someone has time on their hands, is unemployed or retired then great give it a go. But I work 9-6 Monday-Friday and it really did not fit in with my work demands. I agree with your point - the private service should be able to stand alone as a profitable service without losses having to be counterbalanced by wins on another, separate service. By the way, there were some really rough runs this time last year when both services were haemorraging money so the exchange service often compounds the private service losses. I would not recommend the exchange service at all unless you are free all afternoon to fiddle about manually refreshing Betfair every few minutes and are prepared for some of Steve's dodgy lay bets. Also, the way things stand, I am considering ending my membership to the private service at the end of March (after chelt festival) when my subs expire. We're in a recession and I can't afford to throw money away anymore. In terms of profit this year - Steve is about 12 points down to advised stakes on his private service. I think your figure is higher because you bet the same stake for each bet even when some have been 0.5 points. One thing you should be pleased about - at least you are not a member of his all weather service. That really is a shocker. There was a losing run last year of about 25 bets in a row!
I think 'Trevor' is a member of the SLH team. It could be a coincidence, but he has written exactly the same thing which the man in the SLH office said to me on the phone the other day. I rang up to complain about costs/performance and he started trying to sell me the Exchange service and spend yet more money!
My calculations for January are: 16 bets, 2 winners @ 7/2 and 5/2 (My odds).
Level stakes 16
Less Returns 8
Total 8
Appreciate that there may be days when you can't use the exchanges as markets are at their strongest near to off time.
Thanks Trevor - yep agree with 16 bets. I got 4.13 and 3.88 on betfair for those two winning bets minus commission of course so slightly less for first one and more for the 2nd.
..and I stand corrected as I was dividing my total by £25 and not £50 so thanks for that!
Graham - I think Trevor is entitled to his views and like i've said I don't blame SLH for promoting the exchange if its doing well. Would be nice to get the main back in business though.
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