Sloppy Bet Placement

Well a £97 profit made on the day started the month of March very well. I wasn't going to post tonight as I didn't have much to say but I realised I normally post on bad days only so thought I should be more positive and let you know when things are going well.

Winners from Equine Main, Systematic and Piecost all contributed to the profit - disappointing day from Herbie, Equine Turnover and Market Examiner.

Profit would've been £60 higher if I hadn't placed my bets in a rush when i got back to my office after being out and about for my proper job. Isn't it always the winning bets that you miss!! Grrr... annoyed at my sloppiness!

On another note sat in on a Formlab webinar this evening which was very interesting indeed - good tuition on how to use the data - just wish I had the time!!

And finally... A nice £10 profit on the financials - seem to be going 2 steps forward, 1.9 steps back but slowly beginning to see the potential!

Forex, Smashing Prices and Rant Potential

No not Castlemaine XXXX - the piss poor australian lager of my youth - which is apparently still going strong in Oz!

But Forex!

I constantly get bombarded with Forex offers and don't pay much heed to many of them but as the year draws to a close I'm looking to spread my wings a bit and diversify away from betting on football and horse racing.

Sorting the wheat from the chaff looks nigh on impossible in terms of systems / trading techniques etc. If anyone has any ideas let me know.

I know I should really be updating my stats etc but I'm writing this quickly between ordering Christmas presents / preparing for meetings / making eggnog etc.... Full service will be resumed shortly.

Anyway on the betting front - today ended up being a good day with Eastward Ho delivering for Systematic Betting at 6/1 for me (13/2 tipped). I mention the prices as Mark, quite rightly grumped about someone smashing into the price on Betfair and getting 10/3 just after the tip was released - bit daft really when the SP was 5/1, BFSP 6/1. I'm not sure why anyone does that - the price on tips for later races always seems to dip sharply soon after the tip comes out and then bounces back relatively rapidly. Anyway each to their own.

Equine hasn't started the new season very well unfortunately and I was slightly concerned when I heard about a new service offered which is producing a number of winners in a short space of time. Will need to investigate before commenting further... but if that is the case then it really does make me wonder what I'm paying substantial subs for...

Scorchio!

Now.. I bet you thought that title related to the hot weather at the moment - I chose a good week to holiday in the UK!

But really I was referring to Equine Turnover form - a 20/1 winner on Thurs and 16/1 winner today! Struggled with odds today though and best I could get was 10/1 rather than 16/1 quoted - more to do with a short delay in getting on for me but I noticed SP was 4/1 so cracking value bet!

A brief post really also to say I've published, read and commented on all recent comments - thanks for input. Worth reading comments if you don't already.

Still on hols - betting been easy to get on in the main although my laptop is now playing up. Visiting family tomorrow so may struggle to get bets on - maybe not a bad thing considering this weeks days of the week topic!

Why do I do this? - Part 1

A while ago someone asked a number of questions as to why I do all this and how I get started. This is my attempt to respond. I'll answer the questions in a series of posts rather than in one long rambling post!

When did your interest in betting begin? 
I've always been interested in betting (well for as long as I can remember of my adult life) but absolutely hated losing money. I was a classic part time punter - maybe going to the races once or twice a year, having a few pints and betting a fiver a race as well as £2 here and there on the football and a bit more on accumulators in the betting shops. Also on occasion you would find me down the local casino betting on roulette with my 25p chips!

I remember being hugely excited when I opened my first internet account with blue square, putting a couple of accas on and seeing potential winnings popping up!!

To be fair sports betting hadn't been on my radar at all as a way to make serious money back then - I was, however, keen to supplement my main income to give me a chance to enjoy a few finer things in life rather than endlessly breaking even month in month out. I'd signed up to a lot of free money making websites and would get bombarded by endless "get rich quick" ideas (scams??) that looked awesome but in the end (thankfully) my cautious nature told me that these were generally too good to be true. Additionally I started selling stuff on e-bay but there's a limit to how much you can buy and sell to make a profit on there unless you have a huge amount of time to devote to it and I ended up buying tonnes of 12" dance records instead!!

Eventually my interest in sports betting was pricked when one of these emails advertised a service called Football Betting Data / Sports Statistician (forgive me if the names are wrong). Looked quite interesting and the cost was minimal - £97 or something for the year. I got the emails through etc and made a small amount of money through the service - but with the Sports Stats service you had to do some work and analysis and I wasn't for that - I wanted to make money without a lot of effort clearly.

My interest in trying to make more serious money out of it was sparked in 2006 when I stumbled across the series of Greg Gordon's (of progambler fame) articles that appeared in The Observer. You can find the concluding article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/jun/04/observercashsection.theobserver1

More to follow in future posts.

Living in the sticks

Been away for the bank holiday weekend, hence the lack of activity on the blog.

Managed to get most of the bets on but I was visiting someone who lives in the sticks yesterday with no wifi so missed a few bets despite going to the top of a hill to get a flicker of a reception from Orange!! Betfair mobile on 1G doesn't work very well. LOL. It reaches a point where some days you just need to put the phone down and enjoy a wee break.

Anyhow doesn't look like I missed much. Working through the updates and likely will do my next post on Thursday with a review of August.

Only other thought is multi - tipped horses are doing my head in at the moment - The bells o peover being the latest villian today!! So much for these being gold - more like glue!!

Falling off a cliff....

Thought I'd pop this graph below onto the blog to show what's happened in the last few days...

Quite spectacular - so much so I double checked my figures to make sure the graph was actually right but the numbers paint a picture on their own;

August as a month down over £1500 so far. Last week took £1,040 off the scores.

So where has it gone wrong this month? Simple really - all tipsters bar Equine Turnover and Northern Monkey have performed abysmally. Diversification is all well and good but doesn't work when pretty everyone is doing badly;

Systematic Betting - the drop made worse by me moving to £20 a point of course. But down 46 points since 1 August on the prices I have managed to get on at. Not overly worried about this as things can turn round quickly but painful nonetheless.

Steve Lewis Hamilton - no winners this month so far and down 6.5 points. Typical SLH summer performance unfortunately.

Equine (Main) - minus 5 points. Turnover service is outperforming the main account this year on the stakes I follow which in itself is interesting.

Football Elite - poor start to the season with 4 losers out of 5 bets so far.

4PA - return to form seemed short lived and winnings earlier this month have turned into a 3 point loss.

It's a short term blip probably and this is a long term game but it's really disappointing to give back so much over such a short period.

I'd be interested to get any thoughts on why people think tipsters are performing so badly in August??

I've got a few posts to do in answer to peoples comments including info about bet banks / why i started etc so will try to get to answer some of these this week.

So - lets get back on the horse and earn some cash this week!!

Shaky Ground

Wasn't particularly excited about "Glorious" Goodwood in the lead up and nothing in the last 2 days has really changed my feelings about it!

4PA's dismal run of form continues with a 5 point whitewash on Tuesday and no bets today. Feels like a lack of confidence as well as although Frankel came up as a 4/5 system bet this morning PCB passed on it - seemed like decent value when you see it go off at 8/13 SP. Lets hope things will turn around - really need to as all profit in 2011 has been completed wiped out over the month of July for 4PA and I always bet small stakes on the basic system bets - would be a lot worse without them.

Does feel like 4PA is on shaky ground - while long term profit figures are excellent - and there's a lot to like about the service - it's not overly cheap and 7 months into the year we're in negative - think you should expect more from a premium service. HOWEVER one dog year doesn't make a dog life.

Not much really going my way today with Equine and Equine Turnover both drawing a blank today with a number of bets although Systematic continues to plug away quietly and efficiently.

Disappointing overall though - maybe day 3 will change things......

The bubble has burst

Inevitability is striking again as the bubble of ever increasing profits has been burst over the last few days with three bad days knocking the best part of £500 off YTD profits.

It's been a tough week with bookie restrictions / rapidly falling prices and other pressures preventing me getting bets on.

Today saw a few tipsters covering the same horse - a good thing according to Mr Gekko of SBC with stats showing that multiple tipped horses perform better - well it didn't happen today with Hong Kong Island (tipped both by Equine and Systematic) and Colour Vision (both Equine and Steve Lewis Hamilton) failing to win. Very frustrating.

Hopefully Saturday will turn things round but it's a bumper day of racing and that often isn't a good thing. Really need 4PA to find form again - we haven't had a winning bet since Brown Panther on the 16th June! Thankfully I follow the basic system bets as well which has dampened the pain of the losing streak but I'm still down £317 for the month on 4PA bets.

Nervy about Goodwood coming up as well - last year was a complete disaster and with none of my big guns performing too well at the moment doesn't help the feeling!

Suppose the highs and lows are to be expected and overall the year is still looking good.

Stan James - an update

Well my account with Stan James has now been closed and my balance transferred to my bank account! Think they'd had enough when I won a couple more bets on my restricted level.

Here's an edited version of my chat online with them. The most interesting comment being at 10.57.26pm regarding arbitration and 35%!

10:51:14 PM [SJ] Hello, Welcome to Stan James Live Support, how may I help you
10:51:38 PM [me] Hi - it looks like my account has been cleared of fund automatically - i don't remember making a withdrawal
10:53:20 PM [SJ] your account has been closed by our Traders, we have sent a email to you regarding this
10:53:45 PM [me] I didn't get an email - when was it sent?
10:53:48 PM [SJ] Please check your junk email as well please
10:54:11 PM [SJ] it was sent a few days ago
10:54:52 PM [me] Nope no email in my junk mail either. I had a chat with someone who said you were restricting my account but that was it - why the further change!!!
10:55:14 PM [SJ] the account is closed and can not be reopened
10:55:50 PM [me] Wonderful service. I managed to make £600 from you and you close my account!! Man alive! Not much of a bookie!
10:57:26 PM [SJ] I will be honest with you, you are beating us by 35% and also our Traders believe that you are using the account for Arbitration purposes
10:58:27 PM [me] Well I was on a lucky streak - I certainly wasn't arbing - surely that can be seen by the amounts I bet - thanks for the honest though. I presume there is no way of turning this round?
10:59:08 PM [SJ] I am afraid not....sorry

So there you go!

Stan James - A joke of a bookie

Well it's no real surprise to me after reading a lot of other peoples experience with Stan James that my account was seriously restricted today. The account was initially restricted after a couple of weeks which was unbelievable and then today a could only get £5.70 on a 7/2 shot.

After contacting the live chat function I was told that "traders have decided my account is unprofitable". This is from an account that has been only open for 10 weeks, where I have placed 129 bets, never bet more than £25 in a single bet and made a whopping.... £610.... in profit.

My goodness - I must've brought them to their knees.... £610...

From their website... StanJames.com has become one of the most acclaimed names within the betting industry.

Mmmm.... I don't think so.

Hopefully June review over the next couple of days.

Post Royal Ascot

Well Royal Ascot produced a decent profit over the 5 days - nothing spectacular with a rise of £231 in the overall portfolio - majority of the profit coming from 4PA and (would you believe), Steve Lewis Hamilton who picked a couple of winners in Nathaniel and Veiled.

It could've been a lot better with a couple of mighty odds horses coming close - Bermondsy Bob at 40/1 and Vocational at 20/1 both coming very close to a bumper pay out for me. However if you asked me whether I would've been happy with £231 over 5 days at the start of the year of course I would.

Have to mention that Roger Green Racing has a VERY good Ascot producing 55+ points profit, not that I had any money on... and there were a couple of close calls that could've sent the profit soaring. Fair play to them. Long term ROI much improved but still not of "Hall of Fame" standard - will keep an eye on how things progress.

Overall it was enjoyable few days watching the racing on the TV - although I have to say I find Jump racing far more interesting to watch - I've always preferred the jumps to flat - and Cheltenham for me is much better than Ascot.

Royal Ascot - Day 3

Disappointing day yesterday but didn't suffer too much.

A bit better today with 4PA producing the goods today with 2 big priced places and a winner in Brown Panther! Good day for Systematic which could've been awesome had Boomerang Bob won the first - managed to get on at 40/1 (set off at 20/1) and was beaten Bapak Chinta. Not too much pain as Systematic was also on that one as well - another decent forecast bet I missed!!

Been a couple of close calls on the big priced horses - maybe Friday will bring in a 40/1 winner!

Royal Ascot - Day 1

A decent days results on the first day of Royal Ascot so happy with the start. Winners from

2.30 - Canford Cliffs - Tipped in a double with Frankel by 4PA

3.45 - Frankel - see above

4.25 - Power - Systematic tipped at 5/1 (also tipped Roman Soldier at 16/1 who was beaten by a neck!!) Should've had a forecast on as well!

5.00 - Veiled - Steve Lewis Hamilton tipped at 6/1 - a winner on the flat for SLH!!

5.35 - Frederick Engels - won for Roger Green (who tipped at 4/1) - interestingly a 5 point bet winner and if I'd followed my own advice about 5 point bets from Roger Green I'd have put some cash on but I forgot!!!

Decent day overall with a couple of good winners elsewhere from Systematic and Northern Monkey.

Some big odds tips could've made it a bumper day - not often I get tips in for 50/1 and 40/1 shouts!

Anyway took the profit year to date to a new high. Hope for the same tomorrow!

Fazza-tastic

Well three of the tipsters tipped Fazza in the 2.45 at Carlisle and the horse duly obliged! Rare occasion when that happens.

Slightly dampened by the fact Systematic and Equine tipped within 3 mins of each other and the price had crashed before I got a chance to place my bets. 10.11am for Equine, 10.14am for Systematic. So I managed 5/1 best rather than the 8/1 quoted. Although Market Examiner spotted the trend and I picked that bet at the recommended price.

Not complaining but just shows the importance of being able to place bets quickly and not doing something else at the time. When you're working full time thats not possible.

Ascot tomorrow so hopefully not a big meet blow out. Working from home.... racing on in the background....

JP Update

Hi - someone posted a while ago asking me where the post from JP was on the SBC Forum - managed to find it - click here - http://secretbettingclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=385. If

the link doesn't work it's in a topic called "A Blast From the Past".

Worth mentioning there's a decent article regarding Steve Lewis Hamilton in the latest SBC newsletter as well that's worth reading.

You need to be a member to get access to both of these

A great day... by chance

What would've been a good day turned into a great day by chance. I was out and about for most of the day which means I was relying on my mobile to place most of my bets - it's tough at the best of times but when you're with people it's difficult to get the bets on by being distracted by the phone.

I knew I was going to be late in placing some of the bets so I got what I could on and left the rest until about 2pm when I headed home. Unfortunately I was delayed so had to stay on the mobile and the Orange data network wasn't playing ball at all so after half an hour of frustration had to give up getting on for about half my bets... usually this means they all romp home... but today was a different story and every bet I missed lost so I saved myself over £100!!

So finally a bit of luck! Isn't it terrible that we rely on that to help make us profit - but you need breaks sometimes and I got one today!

Systematic Betting and Equine Investments both had good days today, with or without missing bets, so a healthy profit on the day.

Haven't sorted my Equine staking yet as they've moved to £staking rather than point staking and I don't bet the same amount as they recommend as I can't afford to and I know my accounts would get restricted very quickly - case and point being Stan James today who seemed to have got wise to me after having an account for only a month and restricted a 10/1 shot from Systematic to only £10.50!! It went on to win of course... so I will see if they restrict me more tomorrow. I've withdrawn nothing from that account either and have £200 sitting in it and they still restrict!! Unbelievable...

Back to work tomorrow unfortunately...

How to succeed and do nothing!!

I read an article today on the BBC website called "How to succeed in business by doing nothing". Read it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13213667. It made me think of a couple of things - both my betting portfolio and one of the services I follow Systematic Betting.

The article basically talks about how people react too quickly to change and try to change things to counteract that change and that causes further problems. That's exactly what I've done with my portfolio - whether it's dropping services too quickly that became profitable (Prosystems Daily Bargain being an example last year) or changing stakes at the wrong times before a drop in performance (Mr Gekko and Systematic Betting recent stake increases). But the other side of the coin is that some changes I've made have rebalanced my portfolio for the better. So change isn't necessarily bad but I generally agree with the principles of the article - if things aren't going well then don't automatically start tweaking and changing services or dropping them automatically. It's worth waiting and taking time before re-evaluating.

This rule absolutely applies at the moment to Systematic Betting who are having a terrible run -in the last 7 days the service has dropped 47 points and April I'm down 40 points in total - pretty bad timing for me increasing my stake to £15 per bet!! Now it would be easy for me to panic and drop my stakes again but the sensible thing to do, based on past evidence, is to do nothing and ride it out. Looking at Systematic website there are stats that show this has happened before. One month dropping 39 points followed by +86.3 points the following month or a 3 month drop of 72 points followed by a long winning run that added 462 points!!

So for this I'm doing nothing and riding out the run (7 out of 7 losers today was painful though)!

Rational Thinking

After yesterdays shocker i really was quite annoyed about it all. But woke up this morning thinking a bit more rationally and if things need to change I am in control of what I need to change.

I also looked through my old spreadsheets from 2008 and 2009 and pretty much what I was saying in my last post is true - a few stalwarts have produced profit consistently and I should probably stop trying to chase the next big thing.

I've made some decisions and drafted down some thoughts and plans and I'll share those with you over the coming days.

Oh and today was another poor day unfortunately - although Northern Monkey had a stonker with two good winning bets! Nothing happening elsewhere though - Systematic Betting not having a great time of things lately - 14 bets today with only 2 winners. Down 27 points in the last 7 days. They can turn things round pretty quickly though so not overly concerned.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse...

Well today really was a stinker. Worse day of the year by far - losing £426 all in and in day 102 of the year I am now well back into a negative position.

Everyone comments about how bad the racing was today in terms of quantity over quality - perhaps we can say the same about the tips!! 39 bets today and 4 win!! I went to Musselburgh yesterday and watched 7 races and got 5 winners!! I know it's a long term game and I would never be able to sustain it but this is beginning to do my head in. It's just a joke.

Here's my current "Hall of Shame";

* Roger Green Racing: not had a single winner since 9 April (28 bets) - 5 places admittedly but not good enough

* The Nagman: 10 losing bets in a row wiping out pretty much all of the profit made earlier in the month at the prices i get.

* Mr Gekko Bets: £500 down for the month. A short term blip but some blip!!!

When I started this in 2008 I signed up to Mathematician and Steve Lewis Hamilton and then joined Equine Investments in 2009 and through those 3 tipsters made the best part of £10k in 18 months. I thought this was an amazing way to make money but conscious it was important to diversify so I signed up to a whole host of other tipsters towards latter part of 2009 and its been a pretty hard slog ever since then - last year I didn't make enough to cover all the subscriptions and this year isn't looking any better.

The message is pretty loud and clear that it isn't working so I'm going to have to take a step back and make some changes. It's perfect timing as things are changing at work as well so I will need to fit my betting in with that as well. I think I know what I need to do but just need to go through a proper thought process.

Time marches on

Can't believe its been a week since my last post. Been busy this week and had little time to update things and now have 7 days worth of bets to log!! Never good as it takes so long.

Not sure how things have been but know Mr Gekko has had a horrendous week but will keep you posted once i've totted everything up.

Had a great day at Musselburgh races today winning 5 of 7 races and making a healthy profit and enjoyed beautiful sunshine - if only every betting day could be like this!!