A little of this, a little of that

A good week's work in all, especially considering I was away for the weekend so missed out on the majority of trading. I wasn't particularly devastated though, as Cup weekends aren't my favourite, especially the later rounds where there aren't many ties but still too many to have a Premier League fixture list. Anyway though, the week went well, and I finished £23.36 in profit, which isn't bad from a bank of £100. The main source came from the 0-0 half time lays, which have not yet had a losing bet (though I conveniently managed to sidestep the losing bets over the weekend when I was away). I realise they won't always be winning, but as long as they're profitable long term like their results suggest, then that will do me.

The tests of my own are going well, finishing with small but steady profits for the week. With the dutching, I am having a bit of trouble figuring out which is the best method for it. At present I am looking to dutch around 4 or 5 results for a total of £5 stake at over evens odds, and usually I look at games which are predicted under 2.5 goals. For the majority of the matches, if it is 0-0 at half time I will trade out for around 50% profit on all outcomes. I'm not sure whether I prefer this, or whether I prefer to dutch matches with a clear favourite, as this allows me to go for a higher profit. Last night I tried backing many outcomes throughout the match so I was covered on most outcomes instead of just taking a small loss at half time like I should have. I ended up 20p in the green, but I didn't like how much red was left on the unlikely (but not impossible) scorelines as it was well over double my original stake. Luckily I didn't lose out on this occasion and I have decided I will not use it again.

My other system is still in early stages. It is just a simple laying method but at the moment it has no real structure but I am slowly developing it. Also this week I have had a rejuvenated appreciation for laying the draw (mainly due to the success of a version of it on my Laytheodds review) and have been dabbling with it a bit. Many people have many different things to say about laying the draw, and I'm still unsure as to whether it can be profitable long term. I know a lot of people are very successful with it, but I also know that many have lost a lot with it, so I am going to test it out for a while and see how it goes. Still only small stakes so it shouldn't hurt me too much. I have also put a small poll on the left of the page to gauge what the most common opinion of it is, please feel free to vote but only serious votes please, and try to only vote if you have a basis for your answer.

Another milestone in my trading life is properly documenting all of my results so that I can see what has been working and where I'm going wrong. Last week I started this and have three different sections; the first is recording my Correct Score Dutches, the second is looking at my Lays, and the third is 'Other'. Each one has a bank of £100 but in actual fact I am only using £100 overall (as you know), so I am just doing this for eases sake, hopefully it won't affect me. Good luck this week, happy trading one and all.

The smallest of updates

Evening all. Not much to tell this week. I was busy this weekend so I didn't get a chance to trade anything, and there wasn't much to trade during the week. This week sees the return of the Champions League however, and this should provide a good few opportunities for some trading. I did manage to trade a couple of games on each system and I am +£1.23 (£14.33 total) for the Dutching and +£4.15 (£5.86 total) for the Laying system. At the moment I am finding my biggest struggle is sticking to these two systems, as it is very tempting to dabble in other markets when I see good opportunities. Talking of this, I have been rummaging through some blogs when I stumbled across this one: http://www.thegoalsystem.co/Welcome_Page.html . I like what he does and I am going to trial his lays with £2.50 stakes from now on. The first lay came in tonight in the Gillingham/Southend match.

The free bet I was working on didn't transpire to reward much profit as the bookmaker had awful odds and it required too many turn overs, but at least I didn't lose anything from it in the end. I have also updated the Soccer Betting HQ review so please check that out. Otherwise not much to tell. Good luck with everything you trade.

A Review of the week

Well what a cold week we have had! Great for an excuse to stay in and trade, but not so good when all the games are being called off! Luckily though we had a full bill of Premier League action to entertain ourselves with, and it was a fairly successful week for me. Things are a bit confusing at the moment though because I am still doing a spot of matched betting, and this really confuses the P+Ls in Betfair. From what I can tell though, both of my systems are in profit for week one of the trial period. System one, which is a lay-to-back technique, had many ups and downs throughout the week as it can be used on nearly every game, but finally finished in profit of a whopping £1.71. This was after betting on 21 games, and using stakes of *on average* £3.50. Not very much I know, but I'm pretty happy that I am in profit in the opening week, especially as I am still working out proper guidelines for myself and looking to establish a bit of consistency with my stakes. My profit could be about £5 better off but for a mistake in the early kick off yesterday which made me pretty annoyed. Basically Arsenal went one up very early against Blackburn, so I layed Arsenal for £22 and was hoping that Blackburn would score. They did, and I could have taken a £5 profit on all outcomes. For some reason though, I was waiting for a couple more ticks before trading out. I waited too long and Arsenal shot back straight away before banging in another 5, leaving me with a loss on Arsenal. Another lesson learnt, trade when you have the chance and don't ponse about trying to make an extra 20p. In addition to this, I took today off as I was out for the Newcastle game (which would have shown a profit) and I try to avoid betting on United when I can (and that would have returned a very large profit). So if I can become more consistent with this it should be able to reward me.

System 2, which is simple correct scores dutching, was much more profitable and brought in £13.10. With these selections I am much more selective, so throughout the week I only dutched 9 games, having 7 winning and only 2 losses. Trading the results throughout the match meant that I experienced lower profits, but it was a much safer way of doing things, as I try to make my maximum loss 50% of my initial stake (similar to how Lambretta does it on http://thoughtsofafootballtrader.blogspot.com/). My biggest loss was £2.44 using this, which is pleasing given that I'm using stakes of £5, (biggest win was £7.09).  

As for the Bonus Bagging, the cogs are in motion and I'm just working on making a hundred or so on free bets. Tomorrow will be another chance to take advantage of Bet365s free in-play bet, where I should be able to make about £30. Not too shabby for very little effort, especially as I made less after a whole weeks work.

My review of Soccer Betting HQ on Laytheodds has resumed and you can find the link on the right of this page. I hope you all had a good weekend, and I hope it gets a lot warmer this week! Enjoy the rest of your weekend.