Thanks Mate!

I’m back........

Just wanted to say that I arrived back in one piece yesterday and I’m really looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow…..NOT! The holiday was great and it was nice to get away from work and the blog for a while….

I had a really enjoyable hour or so last night reading the blog posts and comments since I’ve been away and if I say so myself, this is quite an entertaining blog at times! I even had 6 emails from readers complimenting me on the blog while I was away, so Andrew can take some credit for this. lol

I don’t want to discuss any of Andrew’s posts as I don’t want to step on his toes in anyway but I thought it was worth putting my tuppence-worth in regarding the Return on Investments (RoI) that Andrew makes on races. I think he quoted that around 1 in 10 times he’ll select a winner at 25/1 or so and to most people, this obviously sounds like rubbish.

As Andrew clearly stated many times though, his strategy is not scalable and therefore, he is limited in someway by the returns he can make. One point I’d make regarding Andrew’s strategy is that in the majority of races, he will end up with a win bet at the off where the odds that he is getting look nothing like the starting price of the horse.

A horse that starts at 25/1 may have been backed by Andrew at average odds of 60+ on Betfair, so even though its BF starting price may only 36, Andrew will no doubt have got much higher odds from some silly layer when the market was still developing. This is effectively an ‘edge’ that he has created for himself in these types of races and this is why the return on investment is so great.

However, if Andrew started asking for £50 wins on horses that are creeping out in price when the market is being formed, his ‘edge’ would be gone and he would never get the prices that he needs to make the returns on investment that he does. It really is as simple as that.

Over the last 6 months, Andrew has taught me so much about how to earn money on Betfair and how to make my knowledge pay. Without Andrew’s input, I’ve no doubt I wouldn’t have got anywhere on Betfair as I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing in the beginning. In return, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Andrew had his best ever month on Betfair last month (I had my worst incidentally!) and therefore, I feel that by helping me think about the how to make a return, it has helped him considerably also. We both benefit greatly I feel.

A few of Andrew’s posts contain an amazing amount of advice and hints and I would suggest that if anyone is serious about trying to select decent priced winners in horse races, they pay particular attention to these posts.

I can see by the comments that everyone enjoyed Andrew’s posts and I think it worked very well in my absence. If Andrew ever wants to post again on here, I’d be happy with this and I’m sure the readers would also be happy!

I was slightly saddened to read on Leon’s blog that he has stopped posting on his blog. Leon’s blog was the reason that I actually opened a Betfair account and was one of the key reasons I started a blog, so I’ll miss reading his blog.

I think in a way, he has been a victim of his own success. The first 6 months or so of Leon’s blog was a great read as he learned how to trade properly and it was great to track his progress. However, as I found out in the few months where I traded quite profitably, a blog becomes a bit boring when all you are doing is posting up a profit every day and it all becomes too repetitive.

I could tell that Leon’s enthusiasm for the blog was waning in his posts before my holiday, so I’m not surprised he’s stopping the blog. He’s probably outgrown his blog so to speak, but I’m sure he’ll continue to do great in the future with his trading. Good luck mate!

Tomorrow starts the next chapter of The Experiment for me as I start to give out horse racing tips on a daily basis. I’m really looking forward to getting started and I’m hoping that I do well. I know a few of my readers are planning on following my advice daily, so I hope I don’t let anyone down.

Just so everyone is aware, I’m going to be following my own tips also. I’ve decided that I can afford to play £20 a point for next month, so we’ll see how I do. I’ll be keeping track of my profits on the blog as usual and I’ll also track the point’s profit/loss of my tips, so those that are not subscribing to the emails will still be able to see how I do.

I will be using Betfair to place my bets though, so this won’t always match the prices available at the bookmakers, so the points profit won’t match my P&L I assume. If I have difficulty getting decent prices on Betfair, I may open a telephone account with a bookmaker but we’ll see how it goes first.

For those that are awaiting the email tomorrow, I didn’t expect to have a selection but having spent an hour or so looking at the races this afternoon, I have found 2 possible selections but as if often the case, it will depend on how the Racing Post analyst views the races and how the races are priced up tomorrow morning on Oddschecker.

If none of the selections are at ‘value odds’, I will send an email out saying that there are no selections for tomorrow. Depending on how busy I am at work, I intend to issue the email by about 11am everyday. If I have any problems, I’ll use the blog to communicate with everyone, so keep an eye on this also.

I won’t bother doing a review of the month as there’s not much to say. I made a profit of just less than £280 on the month and most of that was from backing 2 winners before I went on holiday, so it was an OK month.

Incidentally, I haven’t given up on trading in any way! With evening racing now winding down, my trading opportunities are limited to weekends, so I will spend more time reading form and more time on my tipping experiment during the week. At weekends, I’ll still be trying to trade.

I think that’s about it. I can see that this is the 44th post on the blog for the month of August and this makes me smile. It must be a part-time job to read the blog, let alone write the blog, but as long as I feel like I’m getting something back from it, I’m happy to continue with this sort of output. The feedback has been great recently, so it makes the blog worthwhile.

Good luck for next month. Fingers crossed I can find us some winners…..