Shameless

Forgive me dear bloggers for the unsightly blemish on my page to the right of your screens. I did tell myself that I would never advertise or try to sell you things, but I have been tempted into betraying my word. Technically I am not committing the worst of sins as this is not my own product, just one which I am a big fan of and I am sure the majority of you have it in your portfolio already. The reason it has now appeared on my page is because I can claim a commission if you sign up through the link and I believe, as I have said many many times before (see older posts), that everyone should be a member. For those who don't know: It is risk free matched betting, whereby the system guides you through cashing out all of the bookmakers' free bet offers for a guaranteed profit. I completed the initial service well over a year ago but have continued to make profits (around £400 this year, and I am currently doing a special new bonus offer of up to £150) and the service continues to improve with videos and written guides to make it easy as possible. Free bets occur all the way through the year, especially when there are big sporting events on, and Mike (the creator) sifts through them all to present you the best and safest ones on offer. There is also a friend referral scheme of £20 each time you recommend someone, so it is just money all round really. If you want further proof of how good the product is, I challenge you to find a bad review of it online, I haven't seen one yet! So, to cut a long story short, do me (a poor, skint student) a favour and sign up through my link. You will make money I promise. Here ends my sales pitch!

The weekend saw a feast of action once again and the big result was at Loftus Road where Wigan obliterated the Hoops' hopes after Remy's stunning goal. Betfair now has QPR at 1.05 to go down, while Wigan's point leaves them 3.0 for the drop and Villa's crucial win at Stoke pushes them out to 5.4. Sunderland are now the favourites for 18th place at just 2.86 for the drop! I still think a lot might change before the end though. Remarkably Stoke, who were once as high as 700/1 for the drop are now just 8.2. Up at the top Arsenal continued impressively with a win away at West Brom, while Chelsea crept past Sunderland and Spurs struggled to draw to Everton. Top 3 prices are now : Chelsea 2.08, Arsenal 2.46, Spurs 6.2. City's win at Old Trafford had the grand effect of pushing United (previously at 1.01) out to 1.02 for the title. Nothing to see here, according to the markets at least.

I was at Aintree on Saturday and had a great day as usual and I even managed to get a bit sun burnt! Betting wise it was a nightmare as the bookies absolutely swept up all throughout the day, particularly in the National itself with 66/1 Auroras Encore winning. I was pleased to see that all 40 horses returned safe and sound however, and I hope the future of the National is now a little safer than it was (not that I really think it was ever at serious risk). Enjoy your week.

2012 Review

In keeping with the tradition on this blog (and by that I mean I have done it once), this post will feature a round up of my progress over the last year. I will admit that I have skim read a lot of my posts from the last 12 months as I needed a bit of reminding about what I was up to this time last year! 2012 was a good year for me on the whole however, as I completed my first full season of trading in good profit, and that has continued into this season.

The first few months of last year I was attempting to continue where I had left off in 2011, by trading each week and looking to take a profit close to the target I had set myself. I was mainly focused on developing my own systems, and I took to making spreadsheets and detailing the trades I made in order to see which was proving the most profitable for me. This was a good move as it is something I still stick to today, and not just when trading, in order to keep my dealings as organised as possible. These months didn't really feature a heavy amount of trading however, not compared to 2011 anyway, mainly due to a lack of funds and a lack of time, as my university year was coming to an end. All the while however, I was keeping an eye on the outright markets and plotting my strategy for the following season. May came and I finished the season in a good amount of profit, something I was extremely pleased with given that it was my first year attempting to do so properly.

The summer months were brilliant for sport. The Euros, Wimbledon and then of course the Olympics all over a few months. I continued trading on a smaller scale over these months, taking a profit from the Euros but not really dabbling in the other sports. This is something which I feel I have really kicked from my game in 2012: gambling on unfamiliar sports. On the whole, I have only traded football and snooker, two sports which I feel comfortable with. Betting needlessly on other sports had cost me a fair amount of money in the past, so I am pleased this appears to now be behind me. I did even have a lucky dabble in the manager markets but this was a one off and not something which I could really repeat. July was a momentous month as it saw the year anniversary of the blog, and a proud moment for me as I had wondered whether blogging would be a fad which I would just forget about after a while.

The new season arrived in August and I embarked on my new strategy, one which I hope I will be able to continue for many years. I won't go into detail here on how it is going because I did so in my last post, so please refer to that if you are interested. On the blogging side of things, the blog has evolved to cover things other than my own personal journey by looking at the markets, the teams and players, as well as bets from various bookmakers. This has been a conscious effort as when I read blogs I am more interested in general betting chat than the personal experiences of individuals. This is not to say that personal experiences are boring however, I think the best blogs I read are ones which integrate personal experiences with context from the betting world too.

One thing which has not had too much of a mention this year is matched betting. I have exacerbated the free bets on offer to me, with the exception of the odd reload free bet, so I have moved on to teaching/advising friends and family on how to match bet. This has provided me with a decent sized regular income (at least by my student standards), which has allowed me to generate capital for my trading and live less like a student this year. I have many more 'customers' lined up as well, so this should continue for some time into the new year.

In terms of the blog, it continues to grow and I have almost reached 15,000 hits after four consecutive months of over 1000 views (the first time this has ever happened). December 2012 was my best ever in terms of pageviews with 1418, so long may this upward trend continue!

My plans for 2013 are simple: to keep calm and pass Berbatov the ball. Oh wait, no, wrong one. My actual plan is just to continue as normal, keeping things simple and tidy with no need for drastic changes. I have learned a great deal over the last year, but I am still eager to learn more. I will continue to follow the markets, tweaking my trades here and there and if I finish with a profit this season I will be a very pleased man. I will graduate from university in June (hopefully) and I would very much like to go into marketing for a bookmaker or exchange. I applied for the Sky Bet marketing graduate scheme a couple of months ago but I was rejected, presumably because I have nothing which relates to marketing on my CV! If anyone reading works in such a department (at any firm), some work experience in the summer would be much appreciated! Otherwise, the marketing department of every bookmaker can expect a request for experience at some stage this year!

So that was my year, and my plans for this year also. I would like to thank everyone who has been reading over 2012, it is very much appreciated. I hope you will all continue to follow my journey in 2013. Happy New Year.

10,000 Not Out

Today I passed the 10,000 hit mark on my blog and would like to take a minute to thank everyone who has read, promoted or mentioned my blog over the last year and a bit. I would probably still write the blog even if only 10 people had read it, so to have a fair amount of hits is a huge bonus to me. I see the blog as a good way of ordering my thoughts, as well as keeping a good record of my fads and profits over time, and I will endeavour to keep blogging throughout this year. Thank you all. 

The league is finally beginning to take shape now and I always find it strange that after as little as four games the league generally tends to have ordered the top end of the table fairly accurately, in relation to how they will finish in May. After a slow start, Arsenal have settled down and have powered themselves into the top 4, causing punters to slash their price both in the top 4 market and the winners market. Having been matched at a high of 28, Arsenal are now as low as 12 on Betfair to win the title for the first time since 2004. As far as I am concerned, anyone backing Arsenal at that price (or any price at all for that matter) is absolutely mental. They beat the worst team in the league 6-1 and recorded a good victory at Anfield, albeit a poor Liverpool team, but I would not even consider them for the title, particularly not at this early stage. They face Man City and Chelsea in the next couple of weeks and I think we could see a knock back to reality for the Arsenal contingent. Their top 4 price is now at 1.54 but, having layed them at 1.899 (an annoyingly high price as they traded down to 1.75 the day after I was matched), I'm not yet concerned for my money. As I said before, they will play City at the weekend, with Spurs (3 points behind Arsenal) playing QPR at home. If both favourites win those games Spurs and Arsenal will be level on points once again and the top 4 merry-go-round will be truly underway once again. 

Relegation is an interesting market at the moment as we have two contenders odds on (Southampton and Reading), along with Norwich teetering on the edge at 2.1. The price ups are intriguing because if we look at the fixtures these three teams have had, it would appear to suggest that Norwich are the worse off out of the three. Reading have one point from three games, with one in hand, having drawn to Stoke and lost to Spurs and Chelsea, the last two being games they weren't likely to gain points from. Southampton are pointless and look to be struggling greatly, but when looking at their games, there is no real shame in being thrashed at the Emirates and losing 3-2 to United and City, leading in both games. Losing at home to Wigan was a disappointing result, but this is the only fixture to date which they have really stood a chance of gaining any points. Norwich on the other hand have had two home games to mediocre opposition, West Ham and QPR, and drew both of these. These are games which they would have been winning last year, and in my opinion they definitely look set to struggle this year. No goals so far (though I know it has only been four games) from Holt or Morison, two players who were relied upon last season, and although they managed to nab a good point away to the ailing Spurs, the 5-0 loss at Fulham highlighted the look of things to come. The problem they now face is that they now face Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal in succession, whereas Reading won't come up against a top 5 team until December, and Southampton's only big test is Spurs over the next couple of months. I expect Norwich to trade odds on for relegation before long, meaning the 2.1 is still pretty big. I backed them for relegation at 2.547 for £50, and might consider topping up on them soon. With my Reading bet, I jumped a bit too early and traded out at 2.3 after backing them at 2.6. After Spurs' poor start I was concerned that Reading were going to take at least a point yesterday, so I took a small profit after Reading's poor start had already driven the price down. It turned out to be the wrong decision but at least I took a small profit. The more I try out these different trades the more I will learn, and hopefully I will learn a lot on timing of trades over the season. 

In the top 10 market, my back of Fulham has had little movement so far, despite what I see as a very encouraging start from the Cottagers. Two good home wins see them sit in 8th place at the moment, yet there seems to be a large amount of resistance on their price. They remain at odds of 2.38 with the market preferring to side with Sunderland (2.06) at the moment. I haven't yet seen anything to blow me away from three-draws-Sunderland, who finished 13th last season, and Fulham's squad looks superior in my eyes. I may consider taking the best price I can get on a Fulham lay as the market might take a while to side with my opinion. We shall see.

Thank you again for your continued support, I hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.