Friday 2 January 2009

Much more like it!

Profit since last update £498.56

Not really sure where to start to be honest. I’m not going to do a yearly update as I’ll save the conclusion of this trading/gambling/tipping blog until the end of February 2009 as that will be the 12 month Experiment finished. I’d obviously like to wish any readers a Happy New Year and I hope 2009 brings you success in whatever you do.

OK, onto the fact I’m posting a profit and not just a small profit at that. I had a nightmare with the tipping and the trading over the Festive period and it was actually my worst ever day on Betfair the day after Boxing Day. One of the problems with my trading strategy is that when it goes tits up, it can really cost you a fair few quid. I had a good number of horses that day that didn’t shorten pre-race and then ran very poorly, resulting in me not getting any IR lays matched and basically losing a few quid.

As I said at the time, I was very annoyed with myself for the trading and also for the fact I’d tipped so many losers in such a short space of time. I said at the end of my last post though I wasn’t too worried as I’d get it back in the future. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long!

I haven’t quite recouped all the losses for the poor tipping over the Festive period for the subscribers across at the site but I’ve got over half of it back I think, so I’m slowly getting there. I’m slowly getting my confidence back and as someone in the forum said, “my lack of confidence at times makes Sam Thomas look like the Rock of Gibraltar” which is a great quote and for those of you who don’t follow horse-racing, don’t worry about it!

The turning point for me was on Sunday when I tipped Exotic Dancer. I had a nice bet on it and laid off IR fairly early as it was travelling very well about 3 fences from home and closing on the favourite when my lay got matched. Obviously, as luck would have it, the favourite crashed out at the next fence and I was left with £98 on Exotic and £70 on the field! Shame when that happens but I didn’t complain too much as Exotic hosed up and it was a winning tip which was badly needed.

On Monday night, I spotted a horse in a race that had multiple form lines and was a very likely winner in my opinion. I decided it would be my first ever 3 point win bet on the tipping service. It was best priced 9/4 in the morning when I issued the note and my first bet was £400 on at 3.5 on Betfair as I was sure it would shorten. I then laid off at about 3 and then did about 7 other backs and lays as it shortened all day and at the off, I had £509 riskfree on the selection. It was about 2.3 at the off.

It got off to a dodgy start in the race and was available at 3.5 or above for the first mile of the race and I was cursing myself for not greening up at the off. My only lay was £100 at 1.5 and I wasn’t sure it was going to win with a few hurdles left. However, it then made up ground very easily and I had the option to cancel my lay if I wanted as large sums appeared to lay it at about 1.8 but I left my lay in case it fell at the last!

Thankfully, it pinged the last and it was a £450 win for me. I’ve waited a long time to have a trade like this on Betfair this year and it’s nice when it works so well. Obviously, the fact I put it up as 3 points win was a great relief as I was getting quite desperate for a decent winner to help me recoup some losses back from the Festive period.

Yesterday, I was very keen on a horse called Mr Willis and I put it up for 2 points win as a tip. My first bet was £200 at 3.1 and I didn’t lay off until 2.3 and I was pleased when it hosed up as I was so confident, I didn’t even leave an IR lay! Another great profit for me and another winning tip. Easy game this!

I also had a few losing trades on other selections but thankfully, all of these shortened pre-race after my initial bet and I only risked a few quid on each race.

So, all in all, I’ve won just less than £500 in 4 days and it’s a great end to the year and a great end to a very turbulent month for me with the trading!

One of the things I’ve been doing is spending a bit of time analysing my results for the tipping business since the inception. One of the things I’ve talked on here before is the fact I don’t make a profit to level stakes but to my suggested stakes, I make a nice profit.

Obviously, the reason for this is the fact I give out different strength of tips. When I gamble 2 points or more on a selection, I’d class this as a strong selection and when I gamble less than 2 points, I’d class this as a weak selection. Here’s the profit and loss to each type of bet:

Strong selections = 82 points profit
Weak Selection = 26 point loss

I was astonished by this to be honest and it does raise the question of why I’d bother giving out 1 point selections to subscribers. However, in my opinion, the only reason I’ve done so well is because the 1 point bets I give out very frequently allow me to gauge the strength of my better bets and it works very well in my opinion. If I stopped giving 1 point bets, I wouldn’t know the best bets to give out as tips then and I’d be lost I think.

I have started putting some thoughts into ways to expand the service and I’m looking at things like starting a laying service and maybe a strong bets service going by the results above but I won’t be rushing into anything new without discussing it with my current subscribers.

1 comment:

leonthefixer said...

Happy New Year mate - hope it is a good one for you - glad to see the luck is back!