Small windfall

Things haven't really gone to plan this week, but I'm not too worried as it hasn't cost me too much. As mentioned before, I backed Selby to win the snooker champs but he crashed out in the first round. It was a pretty bad performance from him but it was evident he wasn't fully fit and hadn't had enough practice in the build up to the tournament. £25 loss for that one. I decided not to bet again because it seems a bit of a minefield at the moment, with many top seeds suffering shock losses, not to mention the brilliant Stephen Hendry tearing up the snooker scene like it's 1995. I'll just take a back seat and enjoy the snooker from now.

On the football side of things it was a very poor performance from Newcastle today, but it wasn't a complete surprise as Martinez is performing wonders at Wigan at the moment, as usual just pulling it out at the last minute. All is not lost though as Arsenal could only muster a draw today and the other two play tomorrow afternoon. In other news though, I have finally received the payout from the 'Best of the Rest' bet that I made at the beginning of the season. City cruised through and it was never even in doubt, making me a cool £300.02. It is just a shame that this was the last year that we will get a good price on City.

That's all from me guys, not much else to report on. Paddy Power's enhanced specials have slowed slightly but I did manage to get on one more this week to make about a tenner. Bet365 are doing another of their £50 in-play free bets for the big game on Monday which I will be getting on to make another £30 guaranteed. Other than that though I am not looking forward to Monday (as a United fan), can't help but feel City have the momentum. Good luck everyone and enjoy your weekends.

Paddy 'ell

The last week has featured nothing from me except carefully observing the exploits of Newcastle, whilst regularly checking the Paddy Power Twitter page for more enhanced bets. We shall start with the former. This weekend was a dream in terms of results for my top 4 Newcastle bet, and I am starting to think that they may actually finish in the top 4 (kind of, anyway). They have hard fixtures to come however, starting with an away match against a rejuvenated Wigan side, before a HUGE match away to Chelsea followed by the simple matter of Man City at the 'Sports Direct Arena'. With teams like this (others include Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool) it has always been my greatest concern when they travel away from home to the 'smaller' sides, as they often tend to take their foot off the gas, or even not have the ability to grind out an ugly 1-0. Newcastle's recent very impressive victory over Swansea eliminated this concern for me temporarily, but with no prior results to compare against (for their form this season has been a shock for us all), it is difficult to gauge at what point Newcastle will stop 'doing it'. In spite of this however, I have chosen merely to claim my stake back and leave a £200 green on Newcastle to finish in the top 4, and will sit it out for a bit longer. I have a couple of reasons for doing this; one of them is Tottenham and the other is Chelsea. What I mean by this is that neither of these teams particularly inspire me at the moment and Newcastle look like the only team who really want that top four spot. Chelsea are obviously extremely busy right now with the second leg coming up against Barca, and the F.A. Cup final against Liverpool and, despite what Di Matteo says, they are obviously more focused on silverware this season than reaching the Champions League again. The big game vs Newcastle takes place the Wednesday before their cup final against Liverpool, and I see no reason why Newcastle cannot get something from it. On the other side we have Spurs who have suffered an awful run of form recently. They have a straightforward home game before two away games to relegation-threatened opposition and, having not won away since 27th December, I don't really fancy them to take six points from those. Up the Geordies.

This week has also seen the birth of Paddy Power's ludicrous enhanced odds offer on selected outcomes. If you haven't seen this already, they basically massively enhance some odds (i.e. United to beat Everton to evens) to their Twitter and Facebook followers for a limited time only, normally it lasts about 10-15 minutes. Maximum stake is unfortunately £20 but it is still better than nothing. But laying each outcome on Betfair I have been able to take a guaranteed £8-£13 profit each time and this has amounted to over £60 throughout this week, so a tidy little sum and definitely something to look out for. The annoying thing is though that you don't know when they are going to enhance the odds, meaning you have to be lucky and catch them, but regularly checking Twitter (which I do anyway) solves this problem. Had I left each enhanced bet as a bet I would be down £60 for the week, so it is a no-brainer to lay it! I'm not quite sure how long they will be doing this for, but so far they must have made a packet, so they may continue it for some time!

Lastly, it is that time of year again which I look forward to: The Snooker World Championship. I'm not really sure who is going to take it this time, Judd Trump is the favourite by some distance but, although I do hope he does really well because I like him a lot, the price on him (5.5) is unjustified really. World number 1 Mark Selby is at odds of 11, mainly because of an injury before the start of the competition but it cannot be bothering him too much as he hasn't pulled out, and I have backed him at 11 for £25 in the hope he will cruise through round one and allow me to just take a free bet on him. Ronnie played today having opened at around 11 and is now down to 7s after comfortably taking the lead against Peter Ebdon, so hopefully Selby will follow suit. Mainly though I am just looking forward to watching the spectacle, there are many talented players this year all in with a shout.

Good luck everyone.

Mini Sabbatical

Hello everyone, it has been over a month since I last posted and this is mainly due to a lack of motivation. There are some other factors in there, such as going home for Easter/ having a lot of work on, but mainly I have just not been very interested in trading in recent weeks. I'm not really bothered about this though, I feel as it has been good to take a break after quite a busy year, and I sometimes forget that this has been the first season where I have been trading properly too. I jumped into it quite quickly and intensely and I have been putting all my efforts into improving myself and taking a profit, something which I have done reasonably well up to this point, and a brief break to regather my thoughts and reflect has been good for me. Saying this however, I have not been totally cut off from the betting world, I have been having a small tipple here and there. This has mainly been confined to mobile trading, but nothing too serious or strenuous, mainly just small bets to satisfy my betting urges. Although there have been times where using my phone has had its limitations, either I have been distracted and not been able to complete a trade or my signal/connnection goes and I'm stuck mid-trade, I have been able to turn a small profit over the last couple of weeks. The main income has been the HT 0-0 lays from http://www.thegoalsystem.co/Results.html and has provided me with a slow but steady income over the last few weeks. I am very impressed with his service, and although he had a small blip over the past couple of months he appears to be well back on track. As for my own trading methods, I have not really been doing much on the correct score dutches, or on the 2.5 goal trades, but I think I will keep them in my portfolio but use them sparingly from now on. My main profit has come from my 'Other' category, which mainly involves trading things which I feel are good opportunities in-play (as well as the HT 0-0 lays) and my profit there is now £68.66. Over on the laying technique, I feel my changes since the poor start have really made an impact, and I am now back in profit and starting to get to grips with it. I shall explain it further once I can conclude if it is profitable or not, but I do have high hopes for it.

In addition to having the odd bet I have also been studying the markets as usual, and have taken on board a couple of pointers. Firstly, many people like to watch the games they trade, and others don't, presumably because they want to focus on the statistics and not react to how the match is going. I have mixed feelings on this, I do like to watch the match as quite often you can see trends and opportunities, but on the other hand I have recently found myself too easily influenced by how the match is going. This has particularly been the case when watching the first 10 minutes of the match, as frequently teams are all fired up and the crowd is spurring them on, before they settle down into the match and take it a bit slower. It is very easy to get sucked into this, to back the team on the front foot or the overs markets, before the game slows down and you wish you'd kept your money locked away. So recently I have been allowing myself to only react to the match IF the stats match up with what is happening. So if Wolves began well at Old Trafford for instance, I wouldn't jump in and lay United as the stats suggests Wolves will eventually flounder.

Secondly, I have been gathering info and planning my attack for next season. This year I have proved to myself that I can effectively work with a small or large bank and make small and steady profits, however when I was doing this for bigger profits it was taking a lot of my time up and it wasn't really sustainable in the long term. The majority of trading tends to occur on the weekends as that is when the most fixtures are, yet at university the weekend is when I travel about the country to see the girlfriend/friends/family, meaning that opportunities are limited. In addition to this I will be going into my third year at uni, meaning that I have a dissertation to contend with as well. I'm sure I will still find time for the odd bit of trading, but in-play trading is not going to be my main method next year. Instead, as I have mentioned a few times before, I will be looking towards the long term markets and hoping to build up to a big pay out in May (2013). I will set myself a large enough bank so I can trade markets such as the outright Premier League, to finish in the top 4, etc. This season has been a brilliant example to me of the money which can be made and I fully believe I can take advantage of this next year. Some of the odds produced throughout the year are astounding when you consider how long there is to go in each of the markets. The top 4 market in the EPL has been extremely volatile this year, especially with Arsenal showing a strange pattern of form and the likes of Newcastle staking a claim too. A particularly interesting one was the Bundesliga. Now I am not claiming to be a fountain of knowledge when it comes to German football, and if I was going to bet on it I would do a lot of research first, but after 9 games 7 Bayern wins, 1 draw and a loss, 25 goals for and 1 against, saw them 5 points clear and as low as 1.2 for the title. 1.2?! After 9 games? This isn't Spain. Their form naturally deteriorated and now Dortmund are 8 points clear and unbackable on Betfair. Lesson learned, and that is what I will look to do next year. I will document it as I go along and report to you what I have done and why I have done it. This will allow me to hopefully make a decent amount without having to be glued to my laptop.

Lastly on the football front, I got on Newcastle at 11.5 last week to finish in the top 4 for £25 after being surprised (as many have been) at their form this season. I don't mind admitting I considered them for relegation at the start of the season after they lost the likes of Barton and Nolan, but I was horrendously wrong (luckily I didn't put my money where my mouth is) and now have developed quite a soft spot for the fantastic effort both the team and Pardew have done. They are now down to 5.8 and I could lay right now, but with a home game next for them, an away for Spurs and Chelsea playing Barca-Arsenal-Barca, I think I'll stick in there for another week and see how it goes. I also layed Spurs at 1.22 because I had some green on them already and thought that there was still quite a while to go in a contest so tight, and was (somewhat flukily) rewarded by a Canaries win at White Hart Lane, and traded out at 1.7.

I was at Aintree yesterday for a brilliant day of racing. The National was a superb race, I personally had Cappa Bleu (4th) and West End Rocker (Fell) but enjoyed the spectacle all the same. I made a small bit from the place there but the rest of the day was superb, as I had 3 winners and 3 places in the other 6 races. I didn't bet much as I don't know much about racing but I was pleased to get a few winners, and love the rush from watching it live. I would love to go to Ascot or Cheltenham one day. Anyway enough jibbering, good luck with your trades this week people, stay green.

Evening all

Evening all, I hope you have enjoyed the action from Cheltenham today. I tried to keep up with it throughout the day (in between lectures and seminars) and, although I'm not properly betting on the races, I will be looking to make a few quid over the course of the week. The big festival has meant that the bookies have gone free bet crazy, meaning our good friends at Bonus Bagging have been working hard to siphon out the best bets on offer. Luckily most of the bets are reloads, meaning they are for everyone, even those with an account already. Admittedly this does take out the fun of the festival slightly, but I am looking to make money really and I don't need to bet to enjoy the races. Saying this, I did allow myself to place my £5 free Ladbrokes bet on the 5.15 (it lost). Next month at Aintree is when I will be really throwing money away (because I will be there), so I can look forward to that.

Onto football matters then, and it has continued to be profitable and I am up around £15 since last time I posted. Not too big a profit this time, mainly because my trading has been patchy as I have had a lot of work on recently (which is now all completed). The CS dutching has been a bit scarce recently, due to lack of time and lack of games I really fancy. As I have said before I have found it difficult to pick out my games, mainly due to my cautious nature. The laying system also hasn't seen much action recently, but the games it has been used on have been a lot more promising, thanks to my more refined selection of games. Hopefully it will be a sign of things to come.

Those of you who have been pleading with me to forget laying the draw will probably be glad to hear that it has finally taken a turn for the worse, and has started to lose me money. Three fairly hefty losses in a row meant that the entirety of my profit was wiped out and I am now starting to see the pitfalls of the system. I haven't given up on it completely however, I am still monitoring it but only by paper trading it. It is extremely frustrating for me to admit that the system is not any good, particularly as there are so many games where you *just know* that it will not finish 0-0, yet if the goal comes too late then it is useless for the system. Apart from laying the 0-0 scoreline, which I wouldn't do due to the high prices, I cannot think of any real way to profit from games like this. I'm not really a fan of the overs markets, mainly because if there hasn't been two goals or one early goal by half time then you will find it hard to make a profit. One goal in the first half on the 30th minute is not really good enough, especially as the price rises dramatically up until then. Despite this however, I have decided to try playing the 2.5 market using £5.00 stakes and trading out for a profit/loss usually at half time. So far the results have been typically up and down, although the unders have been significantly more successful than the overs, be interesting to see if this continues.

The half time 0-0 lays have been up and down also, so not too much to tell there. They are straightforward bets so the stats speak for themselves. One thing I would like to add is that I feel my discipline has been improving immensely over the last few months, and I have particularly noticed it in the last two weeks. On a few occasions recently I have missed out on trades because I was waiting for specific odds, this happened twice actually in successive Arsenal games (AC and Newcastle). I was waiting to pile into the overs markets and refused to take the pitiful pre-match odds and duly paid for it, as both games saw early goals. I was fuming, and in another life I would have piled into the overs regardless, but I kept my cool and waited to see if any realistic trade opportunities came along. There is always tomorrow after all. 

Enjoy the Scouse derby tonight and the rest of the racing week. I hope it's a green one for you.

A Poor Blogger

My apologies for being absent over the last week or so. I have been rather busy with university work and have thus been unable to update as much as I would like to. I had intended to post about an hour or two ago, but I have been somewhat waylaid by the discovery of Betfair exchange games. If you aren't familiar with them, they are basically traditional games such as roulette, poker, blackjack etc. but in the style of their exchanges. Now, obviously I am not stupid enough to play around with these using my own money, but I was taken to the roulette table as they have a £5 risk free bet offer on at the moment. I won with my free bet and played around with my winnings (eventually losing it) but I was impressed at the innovative slant on the old-school casino games. Well worth a look if you haven't already, though I wouldn't go as far to say it is well worth a bet! Doesn't seem any more safe to me.

Onto real trading then, and I have been trading as much as I can over the last couple of weeks. It has been reasonably profitable, but areas have worked out better than others. The dutching has been very up and down and the wins aren't really building up too much, despite still being in profit. At the moment I am having trouble deciding upon a time to trade out, but that is something I will hopefully amend in the coming weeks. Since my last post I am +£2.29 after 8 trades, not too great but better than a kick in the teeth.

Over on the laying side of things, this has been far less productive and I have decided to change my approach slightly. There isn't really much else I can say at this point as I had realised this would happen after a short while, but I am hoping my improvements over the weekend will help to restore some profit. Since my last post I am -£19.60 after 14 trades.

Lastly, it has been very interesting to hear your opinions and votes on the subject of laying the draw, please continue to vote and contribute! The general consensus so far appears to be that, in the long run, laying the draw is not profitable. I know that there are people that make a lot of money from this system however, so shall continue to conduct the test of my own until I reach a definitive answer. At present, I have traded 11 games with the system with 9 wins and 2 losses, with an average loss of £5.99, and average win of £3.19. Obviously it would be ridiculous to make an informed decision after only 11 games, but if I can maintain these figures I would only need to win twice for every one loss in order to break even, something I feel is very achievable indeed. We shall see though.

The HT 0-0 laying has had a good week, with only one loss it is in profit of around £22 using £2.50 stakes. Though I must admit it is difficult having to check the website constantly right up until kick off to see if there are any bets for the day. I do follow him on Twitter but it is easy to miss if I don't check it regularly enough, and a couple of times I have come into the bet around the 20th minute (luckily there were no goals, and I actually got a lot better lay odds). I can't really complain though because this guy does an excellent job for free, so I will just have to try harder to check the website in time. In total for my 'other' section I am +£37.34 since my last update.

The weekend ahead looks good, with a large number of trading opportunities, particularly in the big games. If the matches between the 'big 5' (or 6 or 7 or whatever it is nowadays) continue in the same form, then we should be in for some firecrackers. Have a fantastic weekend people.

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.

Back in the Game

Hi all. It's been a while.

After what has felt like a lifetime, I am finally back in the gambling world. Unfortunately I have lost everything on my laptop though after it was wiped and had the hard drive replaced. I guess it serves me right for not backing things up, but in fairness to me I didn't think my hard drive would fail after less than a year of having it. Not to worry though, because it means I can start afresh and having a little break has given me a chance to form a few ideas. I have decided that despite making money, I have had my finger in a few too many pies, so to speak. What I mean by this is I have been trying out too many techniques, systems etc. and not really sticking with them long enough to see if they really work out. I think I was a tad too keen to be making money and to be reaching my targets so I am going to temporarily abandon my targets whilst I look to find a couple of new systems which will help me in the long run. I have given myself a bank of £100 and will be using small stakes to begin with. I will be trying out two techniques, one is a type of dutching the CS market - nothing really new or interesting there, the other is a laying technique I have come up with myself, so we will see how they both go.

Not really been doing much trading throughout the Christmas period, odds bits and bobs, mainly just compiling data for a few things and a bit of punting, didn't end up with any significant losses or gains though. Over the last couple of weeks I have been continuing with Bonus Bagging to get myself a bit of capital. The guy who runs it has added a few more bookmakers which is good, and I have made about £40, with another lump in the process.

Not much else to tell to be honest as it has been a quiet month with no laptop and all, I'm just glad to be back for good. Just wanna say well done to Novak who continues to be phenomenal and wins me money on the way (not that he cares), Nadal did alright too. Some excellent pictures from the match, particularly here: (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/australianopen/9047366/Australian-Open-2012-Novak-Djokovic-edges-Rafael-Nadal-in-mens-final-epic-in-pictures.html?image=14)  I loved seeing the passion and desperate ecstasy in his face at the end, I can only imagine how that feels.

Watch this space.