Annual Review of The Form Analyst (1st Oct-08 to 11th Jan-09)

This is a review I shared with the subscribers of The Form Analyst yesterday and I thought a few blog readers might enjoy the read. I've also updated my P&L for Jan-09 but it hasn't been the best of starts for me this year!

Annual Review of The Form Analyst (1st Oct-08 to 11th Jan-09)

I felt it only right to make this review run right up to the 11th of January simply due to the fact that we haven’t had the best of starts to this year and it’s important that I try to show the true picture of how the service has performed thus far.

All of my figures below are as accurate as they can be although there will always be small discrepancies between my results and anyone proofing my results. However, all of my results are proofed across at racingproofing.com and my results are in line with the results there. All of my selections and finishing positions are also kept on the site and are easily verified by looking at Racing Index.com or Racing Proofing.com.

Around half of my current subscribers have been here since day one of the service and I’ve picked up new subscribers along the way. I’ve also lost subscribers along the way but to my knowledge, no one has left the service after losing money following my selections. If anyone does get to this position at renewal, (a few of you are sitting with a small loss at the moment), I’m happy to discuss a way around this to ensure that people stay with the service whilst getting the opportunity to win back their previous losses. This assumes people have followed all of my selections and staking advice.

The starting point for the review should probably be our P&L graph since inception:



Everyone can see it hasn’t exactly been a smooth P&L curve and depending on when you joined, you could be anything from -12 to +72 at the moment. The majority of subscribers are in profit but I have had a couple of people join at the end of last year and these people are sitting with a small loss at the moment.

I have split the graph into 12 constituent parts and these are described along the bottom of the graph.

The highlight for us would be the 80 points profit we made in at the start of November and that was easily the best time for the service. We have had two very poor runs where we have lost 45 Pts and 29 Pts respectively. I said at the start that everyone should hold at least a 60 point betting bank and for safety, you ideally want to be playing with a 100 point betting bank. Thankfully, no one has lost their full bank if they followed this advice although they may have lost 75% of their bank at one stage which wasn’t ideal.

Apart from these highlights, our profit has been very up and down. My winners and losers tend to come in batches which isn’t ideal as people lose confidence during the poor runs and then go overboard during the good runs. I have continually tweaked my staking as we have moved through the service and by using each-way betting, we have managed to reduce the variance in our P&L I think.

A summary of my results by month is:



Strike rate throughout this report is defined as any bet where we have made a profit. Hence, it is winning bets and not winning selections.

This summary mirrors the graph somewhat but it also disguises the fact that we haven’t been having the best of times during the past 4 weeks. Over this period, we are making a loss but it is hidden by the fact that we had a great start to December. Overall, you can see that we have a strike rate of 24% and a ROI (Yield) of 20.9%.

Interestingly, we have actually had a decent strike rate in January but it is from each-way bets producing small profits which isn’t ideal. A ROI of 20.9% is highly respectable and isn’t far off the best tipsters in the business. In time, I hope to increase this a little though.

One of the things I think is very interesting is my ability to be able to recognise my better bets from my weaker bets. I use a staking plan of 1-5 although we have never had a 4/5 point bet and we have only had ten 3 PT bets thus far, so my staking tends to be very prudent.

Here is the breakdown of our P&L according to the staking plan:



One of the criticisms I have had during my time tipping is that I’m maybe not selective enough when it comes to selections. I have always said that if people don’t want to follow all my selections, then I would suggest they only follow my stronger bets since these are the ones which I obviously think will run better. Anyone who has only followed my stronger bets would be 76.9 Pts in profit and they would have a far smoother P&L than anyone following all the bets.

It may sound easy for people to think that I should stop giving any of my weaker bets and one day, this may well be the aim for this service. However, considering I have only been tipping for just over 4 months if you include my free trial month, I feel like I need the weaker bets to be able to identify the stronger bets. If I only looked for stronger bets, I would struggle to decide how strong a bet it may be and it would reduce my confidence in the stronger bets.

One of the things I can probably do when we get to March is start using my 1-5 Pt staking plan. If I continue to give out 1Pt bets, I should increase my 2 and 3 point bets by 1 point to increase our profits as we clearly have a decent ‘edge’ on these bets.

I have only given out ten 3Pt bets and 50% of these have won or been placed. Clearly, this is very good and shows that I do recognise real value when I see it. Hence, if someone wants to only bet a few times a month with higher stakes, this is definitely the horses to do it on. I have only given out one 3Pt win bet and it won after being heavily backed, so most of the better bets are each-way bets and tend to be in smallish fields.

Field size is something that seems to affect my performance. This isn’t surprising as in smaller fields, there are fewer horses to analyse for me and I can read the way the race will be run much better. Here’s the performance by field size:



This maybe isn’t surprising given the way I analyse races but when you consider our best winner was a 22/1 in a 32 runner field, I really do seem to struggle in larger fields. Before we think we are onto something special, we need to bear in the mind that at the end of the last flat season, we had large fields and some very inconsistent results on bad ground. Hence, this skews the results slightly but it is something to analyse in the future again and react to if necessary.

Another thing you should always pay attention to is your P&L backing horses at certain prices. Here are the results by odds of each selection:



This is another slightly surprising statistic and doesn’t exactly make total sense. I was conscious of the fact that I don’t pick many winners around the 9/1 mark as I know this is about my average price of the selections. I do seem to do better at shorter priced selections and longer priced selections but again, it is something to monitor and react to if it continues. It’s far too early to stop giving out selections at any particular odds!

One of the most talked about statistics by me and others has been my record on the AW flat. I openly admit I don’t think the form is reliable and for someone like me, it isn’t suited to my methods. However, during the winter, I have continued to give out selections and tried my best to persevere with it. Here is the breakdown we were all waiting for:



At first glance, it isn’t as bad as many of you thought and being honest, it isn’t as bad as I thought. Clearly, making a loss on any type of racing means you don’t have an ‘edge’ which is disappointing and therefore, it ultimately means you won’t make money. Even by breaking even, all you are doing is reducing your ROI which is an important measure.

The flat results above look very poor also but I would put that down to the fact it was the end of the flat season in October when I started and the results were almost as bad as the AW! I had a 22/1 winner and still only made 14.5Pts profit in total, so it wasn’t the best of times for us.

In my opinion, the true worth of this service will be from March-August and in this 6 month spell, I would hope to really push on and make better profits. Everyone knows my confidence when it comes to turf flat racing and in the summer when the form is holding up well, I will look to exploit that to the max. My methods work best when the form is reliable and I’ve said since day one that I would make far better returns in the summer than I would in the winter.

As everyone knows, I set myself a target at the start of the service and that was to achieve 240 points profit in a year. I said at the time that most of this would be achieved during the turf flat season and I stand by this comment. I hate the AW and I’ve never been very good at the NH game, so anything I’ve did this winter is a bonus. The fact I can make 50 points when I’m not in my comfort zone is only an indication of what I hope I can do when I get an opportunity on the turf flat.

This winter, I’ve managed to achieve these results by a lot of hard work and so far, it has paid off. When we get to March, my expertise on the flat should come to fruition and combined with the work ethic I’ve developed during this service, I think I’ll do something special at this game. Time will tell…..

Lastly, I know a few of you were keen to see my results by course. I don’t think it shows anything too much apart from the fact I can’t wait for the Cheltenham Festival in March!



Overall, it’s been a roller-coaster 3 months for anyone that has been here from the beginning. Anyone who has joined along the way is probably a little bemused by it all as I’ve hardly set the world alight this winter but I’m hopeful people have been given a taster of what I can do and as long as they remain patient, the profits will flow.

If I was asked to give myself a mark out of 10, I would say I’m probably at a 6 after the first 3 months. Pass marks but only just. I still feel like I haven’t shown everyone what I can do and I’m sure everyone is looking forward to Cheltenham in March and beyond.

Thanks for your continued support and I look forward to a prosperous year for us.

Graeme

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.

Painful....

Loss since last update £349.65

One of the reasons I’m keeping this blog going is simply due to the fact it has helped me so much this year with keeping my discipline. When I’ve been through some bad times punting this year, the blog has helped a great deal and after the last two days, I’m hoping to use this to let off some steam tonight as I’m fuming with myself.

As I’d said on the last blog post, my own trading hadn’t been going that well recently and being honest, I hadn’t really been on fire with the tips. I seem to go through good spells and bad spells with the tips and you could easily see that by looking at the graph of my P&L.

I was looking forward to Boxing Day as there is a feast of racing and with me being off work, I knew I’d get some quality time to spend on my analysis and I was hoping for a very good day. I also knew today would be a busy day for me also, so I was looking forward to getting some trading time and picking some winners.

26 trading races later and 17 tips later, not a single winner to show for it and as you can see above, a hefty loss to go with it. A £350 trading loss to go with a 16 point loss to suggested stakes with the tips and it’s pretty much a disaster for me and The Form Analyst.

This is painful to look at but here’s the P&L graph after the last 2 days:



So, where do I start? I’m not posting my BF P&L for today as it shows nothing apart from small losses in most races and a couple of hefty losses. I’ve tried my best to not show shitty P&L shots on here as it does nothing for my confidence and I’m not about to start now.

My worst result of the last 2 days was Twist Magic. On the form book, this was about the greatest certainty that you can get in racing in my opinion as it was 2/1 against horses rated far inferior to it and all it had to do was run to the form it has shown many times on good ground and was in the process of showing last time until it fell in the Master Minded race.

Today, I was using £100 trading stakes on it to back and lay and at the off, I had about £180 riskfree on it to win as it was heavily punted pre-race and it was the easiest horse to trade this year! Just before the off, it started to play up at the start and people started laying it. I then got involved again with a few to take some money in running but I ended up taking £100 IR on it and the horse just never travelled. I knew my fate very early on and it was basically a £100 punt that went wrong and the layers were right to lay it at the start when it played up.

This is the sort of result that has me tearing my hair out in racing. All Twist Magic had to do was run to some sort of form to win the race as the eventual winner and runner-up ran to their best form which was about 20lbs worse than Twist’s form from last time. It really is hard to figure out and I’m left with a sizable bet on a horse that ran poorly. I also gave that out as a confident tip today, so that didn’t do the subscribers much good.

The same comment applies to a horse called Pop at Wetherby which gave a horse an
easy lead and the money I took IR was pretty much lost very early on in the race.
My other bad race today was Newmill in the Irish Chase and I again took some money IR to get out as it usually front runs and travels well. The writing was on the wall very early with this one and another hefty loss here after getting caught out by a drift.

My best bet of the day was Harry Tricker in the last race at Kempton today and it was one of the best backed horses of the day. It was going in a 15 horse race and the horse needed a decent pace. I was throwing things at my TV as they went a crawl and was shouting at the jockey to let it go on and take the lead as it was pulling for its head the whole way at the back and had no chance. It was a never nearer 6th I think at the end but it had no chance as it effectively turned into a 5f sprint which is not what it wanted.

Yesterday, I wanted to be against Kauto Star and as the money came, the more I laid and I was happy to gamble a little IR. Obviously, this wasn’t the best decision I’d made and this went belly up. To make matter worse, I had £600 riskfree return on Alberta’s Run which finished 2nd in the race and I didn’t make a penny from this IR at all.

I could go on and discuss another 20 races where I’ve had small losses or small wins but the wins were few and far between and I struggled all day with horses running poorly. I can barely recall a day where I read so many races badly and this will be on my mind for a while yet.

One of the things that I don’t understand about the last 2 days is that I’ve put more work into my analysis and set aside some decent time to enable me to trade properly. I expected to win a fair amount trading and at the least, expected to have a few winnings tips to enable us to finish off the month very well. No idea what happened today and looking at the results tonight, I’m scratching my head a little as I was nowhere near to finding some of the winners today and it worries me a bit.

So much of this game is about confidence and until today, I’d been very confident that things were going well and I was riding the crest of a wave this month with winning tips. Tonight, I feel down and I can’t believe I’m only around 10 points in profit this month. I was looking at a 30 point profit at one stage and that has evaporated very quickly under my nose and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

There have been various times when I’ve felt under pressure with the tips and obviously, when I had a new subscriber who had 34 losing tips at the start, I felt a huge strain then but I’m probably feeling a bit worse now. I’ve had a few new subscribers recently who joined on the back of decent results and they must be asking themselves why the hell they have bothered no doubt. One guy is about 18 points down after a week and I can’t imagine he’ll be too chuffed with his investment.

I’m so desperate to separate myself from other tipsters out there and I feel like I’ve taken a massive step backwards over the last few days. I’m shell shocked with what has happened and reading JP’s blog tonight makes me cringe when I see all the tips and no winners. Knowing people are losing small fortunes on my poor advice is hard to take and I’m gutted about the last two days.

I’ll no doubt ease back on the tips a little and try to claw my way back into the game but I’m now on a losing run of 19 tips which is another horrendous run. I think it’s one winning tip in about 33 or something and that’s a near disaster for a tipster. Thankfully, I’ve been playing each-way a little and have had a few placed, so it hasn’t been as bad as it sounds but not far off it.

The only thing that keeps me going is I know deep down I’m much better than I’ve shown everyone in the last couple of days. I think I’m much, much better but I now have a lot to prove again. I’ve been here before and I’ll be here again in the future no doubt, so it’s time to stand up and be counted again. Let’s hope I can rise to the challenge.

With regards to my trading, I know I messed up a bit today but I’m not going to be too hard on myself. I’ve done well this year and after last month, I can’t moan too much about a bad month. I’ll get it back next month……………

A Disappointing Post!

Loss since last update £34.77 & Subs worth £130 = £95.23 Profit to P&L

This is a bit of a disappointing blog post to be honest and I’m having to include a few recent subscriptions to even post a profit to the P&L on here.

As I hinted at last time, my trading was starting to suffer as a result of the tipping business and my lack of time to concentrate on my trading. I’ve therefore just been trading the races with my own horses and up until recently, this has been a very good income for me. Unfortunately, I’ve had a few selections that have run very poorly after drifting pre-race and I’ve not had the best of times of it. If it wasn’t for Folio winning yesterday, this would have been a 3 figure loss I’m posting and I’d have been really annoyed with myself.

As it turns out, it’s hardly a disaster considering I’ve been on a poor run with the tips. I hit 12 straight losers again which is the 3rd time this has happened since the inception of the tipping service. Apart from the fact I tend to play at bigger odds than most tipsters, it’s difficult to put my finger on why losing runs happen to me. I guess it’s partly because I’m quite cocky considering how good I’m going to do at this game, so instead of looking for a short priced selection when I’m on a poor run, I just continue on with my big priced selections and I end up putting myself under a lot of pressure to finally pick a winner and end the losing run!

One thing I have been doing recently is looking for more shorter priced selections that I feel may represent value. By shorter priced, I’m meaning more single figure odds and less double figure odds! So far, it’s been going OK although I do think it is much more difficult to make consistent profits long-term from backing shorter priced selections and it’s not something I’m going to do everyday. So far, I’ve been very selective with my shorter priced selections and a few have won this month which keeps the P&L ticking over.

Here’s the latest P&L for The Form Analyst:



As you may have noticed at the side of the blog, I’m now appearing on the proofing tables across at http://www.racingproofing.com. I’m still being proofed on racing index but it isn’t a fair reflection on how well I’m doing as I’ve said before since so many of my winners are punted on course.

At the moment, I’m up 61 points to odds available in the morning. I’m 35 points up to Betfair SP and 25 points up to Starting Price. Whatever way you look at it, it’s a pretty decent profit and considering I’ve only been at this tipping game for a few months, the potential is there for me to do something decent at this game.

One of the things that makes me laugh is when you look at my results to level stakes, I’m basically breaking even to BF SP and SP and I’m up about 20 points to early morning prices. This may raise a few eye-brows and people may say I’m using a staking plan to boost my profits but that’s part of the game I play. Because I give so many big priced selections, I need a staking plan to take into account that not every one of my tips is the same quality. When I have 0.5 Pts on some donkey and 3 points win on a strong selection, it isn’t fair to judge both of these to 1 point win. One of them is 6 times a stronger bet than the other one, so it makes no sense to look at the profit to level stakes.

I’ve lost a couple of subscribers this month but they have been replaced by new subscribers and I’m guessing that’s part and parcel of the game. I now have more subscribers than I’ve ever had and that’s a nice feeling. Obviously, the service is still very small and going by the fact the fees aren’t that large, I’m not exactly set up for life but it’s a promising start. I always knew the first 3 months were going to be the most difficult and now that I’m approaching the end of that with a decent profit in the bank and more subscribers than I’ve ever had, it’s looking promising for the future.

I would like to congratulate Alistair across at http://betyourlife.blogspot.com/ regarding the fact that he has made it past the £3k profit mark on Betfair this year. Ali’s blog is a great inspiration to any would-be trader and now that I’m not updating my blog daily, I’d suggest if people want a daily read they give Ali’s blog a try.

I’d also like to congratulate Leon on his blog and the fact he’s past the £10k profit mark on Betfair. As I’ve mentioned before, Leon’s blog was a great inspiration to my blog and was the reason I started a blog. I’m glad he revised his decision to stop updating his blog and I’ve been enjoying his little rants on all things Betfair and the like.

I feel like I’m congratulating everyone today but I must mention JP’s blog and his profit this year. JP uses a portfolio of tipsters to try to make money from gambling and The Form Analyst is one of the portfolio at the moment. So far this year, JP has made over £20k profit from his gambling which is an exceptional return. Obviously, he works hard to get all his bets on and obviously pays subscription fees with no guarantee of success, so it’s great to see someone making money at this punting game.

Lastly, as I said at the end of last month, I’m now past the £5k profit for the year on Betfair. I didn’t show my Betfair P&L at the time as I hadn’t past the £5k net deposit mark due to the fact I’ve used my account for a few friends to have losing bets on Betfair! However, even with my recent loss, I’ve managed to make a withdrawal to make me currently £5,060 up this year which is a nice achievement in itself. I’m up about £150 more but it makes little difference to be honest! I’m happy! :)

Sacrificing my Trading..........

Profit since last update £145.54

I’m sorry to say this but the profit for the past week looks nothing like the P&L for The Form Analyst. However, unlike other times, my own profit is much lower and I’ve struggled with my trading over the past week and finding enough time for it.

When I started the tipping, it was always the case that it would run alongside my trading/gambling on Betfair and I couldn’t see a reason why they couldn’t work in harmony. The past week though has shown me that I need to choose which means more to me and concentrate on that. At the moment, The Form Analyst means much more than my own trading and therefore, I’m happy to sacrifice making money on Betfair to put my efforts into making money for the subscribers.

I’m sure a few of you will read this and think that’s what I am paid for by the subscribers but as I’ve said since day one, the time and effort I put into The Form Analyst far outweighed my return for the first 3 months but I knew that before I started. Therefore, I worked very, very hard trading my own selections as well as lots of other selections which included night racing when I got in from work where possible.

You can see the results on my November P&L and as I said at the time, I was putting an amazing amount of hours into form study and trading and ultimately, it started to take its toll and I ended up in hospital with a nasty infection. Thankfully, it was nothing too serious and I’m over it now but I’ve no doubt that the strain of The Form Analyst and my own trading had taken its toll on me.

Part of me working so hard to make money myself was because the subscription fees were so low and I wasn’t even getting anywhere near the minimum wage for my time and effort. Obviously, with the results I‘ve had, I’ve started to attract a couple of new subscribers and I took the decision to increase prices for new subscribers on Saturday night.

I’ve spent a long time over the past week or so checking out my competition in the tipping market and looking at prices and the profits that they achieve long-term. The conclusion was that I believed I was underselling the service in quite a big way and this led me to have a rethink of the prices. I didn’t see too many services out there that can compete with my results and I’ve increased prices as a result.

I’ve said this to the subscribers but one of the reasons I’m only offering a maximum of 3 months at a time is because I believe I can keep these results going and I’m not going to try to tie people in to long-term subscriptions off the back of good results. In 3 months time if I’m not doing so good, I’ll look to reduce prices a little and hopefully convince people to stay with me. I like the way this model works and the better I do, the more I can charge although I won’t ever ‘milk’ it the way other services out there do. If I can increase my membership, I’d reduce prices and ultimately, the aim would be to reach a level of membership and close the doors on new subscribers. I’m not even half way there yet!

I was looking at one service out there that charges £2,000 a year and from looking at their results, I struggle to see how they can justify this sort of price. That looks to be a case of someone living off past results and I can’t imagine that too many people fall for that sort of thing.

One thing I quickly realised in this game is that you are only as good as your last few tips. When I was on a losing run a few weeks ago, people were saying that we were in the shit again and yet, we were up over 30 points in 2 months. I know people get frustrated at losing runs as do I but I would never judge anyone in the short-term at this game. I’m a great example of what can happen in the short-term and why it can be misleading. I’ve had two horrendously bad losing runs in the short-term but bounced back each time.



As you can see, it’s a fairly easy decision to spend less time on my own trading/gambling and I’ll put all my efforts into The Form Analyst now. I reckon I may have been spending 120 hours a month on everything and when you consider I work full-time, it’s not too surprising I ended up in hospital.

I’m going to reduce my trading time considerably and I won’t be trading all of my own selections now. Being honest, I was a bit annoyed in the past week as I’ve hit a fair few winners and all of them have shortened a fair bit pre-race and if I was taking the trading seriously, I could have won over £1k but something has to give. I’m sacrificing my trading.

A few of you may be shocked at this considering the strides I’ve made this year on Betfair but the skill I’ve developed will always be with me now. I will continue using Betfair when I’m in the house and have some spare time and I will continue trading some of my own selections but I can’t go flat out like I was doing for 2 months.

Hopefully, with the increase in prices, this will ensure I feel like I’m being paid for my time now and I won’t need to trade like mad to make additional money. One reason for trading my own selections so much was to prove that I can make money at this game. I had to prove it to myself first and foremost and I have done that now. I know I have a strategy that I can use to earn consistent money on Betfair and it’s a great place to be in. I now need to try to conquer the tipping world…………

I’m currently up 60 points since the inception of the service in October. Lots of people mocked me on this blog when I said I would attempt to make 240 points a year from the tipping game. I can understand why to be honest as very few tipsters in this game would aim for that and even if they aimed for it, very few would achieve it or even look like achieving it. I’ve got a long, long way to go before I get anywhere near that target but the great thing about that target is that it is a big target. If I was to end up with 230 points profit in year one, would that be a disaster? Would 220 point be a disaster?

There are some services out there that would consider 60 points a year a great year. If I hadn’t started off so well with this service, maybe I would have saw 60 points a year as a great achievement but not now. I’m bang on target for my 240 point target and that’s the aim. It’s about 1.01 that I don’t make it but I’ll work my ass off to try to make it.

I hope everyone is doing well and I hope you are having a good time on Betfair and the like. Going by my blog hits, I doubt anyone is still reading this but I’ll continue updating it weekly until The Experiment finishes and I’ll pull everything together at the end and calculate how much I’ve made this year and what it has meant to me.

A frustrating day!

Profit since last update £129.52

I’m trying my best to find time to update the blog and after the day I’ve had, it felt right to do it tonight!

The profit is from this week as I had a couple of trades on Thursday and Friday but most of it is from today. If I traded today again 100 times, I can guarantee you 100% that the least amount I’d win on the day is the amount I’m posting but sometimes, I have to live with the fact that things don’t go my way when I’m trading.

I gave out 7 tips today, 3 winners at 9/2, 5/2 and 5/1 and 2 placed horses at 22/1 and 10/1. Two of the tips were unplaced.

By following my staking plan, you made around 20 points profit on the day and being honest, if you were playing on Betfair, you could have made more.

Clearly, this looks the sort of day made for me but unfortunately, things didn’t quite go according to plan. I made £100 on the first race and then £30 on the rest of the day although I was trading on my Betfair Mobile for much of the day and as I’ve said before on here, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone but it suits me when I’m Christmas shopping.

My errors today were much my own making and I seemed to miss the winners and back the losers but thankfully, I made a decent profit on the day and many of the subscribers probably had a very good day today also, so all in all, I’m not going to complain one iota.

I started off with Fabalu in the 11.40 race and it was very weak on Betfair which got me in a spot of bother and I had to take £40 IR on it. I got out a bit of the bet fairly early on and greened up very early also as I wasn’t sure it would stay the trip in that ground and a £100 green win on the race for me. Taking £40 IR on a 6 chance and winning £100 isn’t a bad result but sometimes, I get myself in a muddle on these drifters and I’d have been really annoyed to lose £40 by 11.45am on a Saturday!

It turned out well and got me in the mood for the rest of the day……

I traded a few of my early races in the house and I lost £16 on Lordsbridge and that annoyed me a little. I knew the way it ran and I just should have taken my medicine pre-race as I was struggling to get out but I ended up taking a little more IR than I wanted to gamble and the whole £16 was lost.

I was very sweet on Pause and Clause and backed it to win against the Nicholls hotpot when I should probably have just laid the 1.3 favourite. I couldn’t get anything out IR and it was another £12 loss and I was a bit annoyed at this point. I’d backed Free World to win in between for £10 and this was pipped by Aruldar on the run-in and at this point, I wasn’t too pleased.

I then struggled to get any money on Polar Gunner as it was too strong in the market and I ended up with £3 on it. Obviously, when one of mines is heavily punted and I can’t get a penny on it, it wins. That pissed me off a little more and I agreed to go out at that point to do some Christmas shopping.

Before I left, I backed Wingman to win and left a lay which wasn’t matched and it was another £12 loss when I checked when I got home.

My biggest error was in the 3.35 where I put up L’Aventure each-way and backed it at 23 on Betfair before I left the house. I knew I’d make it to the bookies in town to watch the race and I thought I’d put in a lay on my phone when I got there. Unfortunately, I missed the start of the race, played around getting up Betfair Mobile, couldn’t be bothered putting in a lay as my phone was pissing me about and watched the race. I had £8 on at 23 and it traded at less than 2 I heard and finished 2nd. I was really annoyed then and was fuming with myself.

In the last race, I’d put up Chiles Cross and backed it this morning. Thankfully, it shortened pre-race and gave me £260 riskfree and I left a lay on my phone to make £60 profit and that turned an OK day into a good day for me.

Some people may read this and think it’s not a great return but as I said last week, I live with the fact I don’t make as much as gamblers when the horses win I tip.

I was really chuffed with the tips today and how they ran and I know a few of the guys made a few quid. JP had an exceptional day as you can see on his blog and the run for JP just goes on and on. I know a lot of people are very sceptical about paying for tips and whether you can really make a portfolio of tipsters pay for you in the long-term but I’d direct them to JP’s blog and ask them to have a look at what he does and how he makes it pay.

I was glad to hit a couple of winners for the guys today and I was on a sticky wicket after my recent run, so as usual, I tend to do better with my back against the wall and feeling like I need to find a winner urgently. I just need to find a way to find winners when I’m doing well! :)

Strange end to a great month!

Profit since last update £239.77

I wanted to do a post to round off the month of November since it was the best month of The Experiment so far. Being honest, if someone had told me at the start of the year that I could have won this amount from trading/gambling on Betfair in one month, I wouldn’t have believed them.

I’ve came a hell of a long way since the start of March and amazingly, 9 months down the road, I’ve made £5.3k. When I think back to my first 2 months on Betfair when I made pennies trying to scalp the markets, it’s a very long way in a relatively short space of time.

£5k of the profit is from Betfair and a little bit is from subscriptions at the site. Unfortunately, my honesty across there has appeared to annoy a few of my subscribers and when they read this post, I can’t imagine they’ll be happy for me but I’ve been honest since day one on here and at the site and I’m not going to change now.

On Saturday, I put up 4 selections as tips and not surprisingly going by my current run of form, they all lost. However, in two of the races, I backed a couple of others. Due to the fact I knew I was going to post the profit on here when I got around to it, I mentioned it in the daily email on Sunday that I’d cocked up and tipped the wrong horses in two of the races.

I’ve admitted this to Andrew and I’m sure some of the guys who subscribe will read this but I should have really given the other 2 as tips. I went for High Chimes in the Hennessy which was the right decision regardless of where it finished but I should have given Madison Du Berlais as a smaller bet for 1 point win. It was 4th in the race last year and I was going to give Character Building as a point win simply because it was 3rd in the race last year. When that became a non-runner, I made a poor judgement call and dropped the idea of a second selection and it cost the guys a 25/1 winner (was 33/1 in the morning!).

In the other race, Andrew was a massive fan of Helen’s Vision and that was going to be the tip. I then looked at the race, saw the form with Khyber Kim and talked myself into Khyber Kim in a big way. I even backed it to win the Champion Hurdle!

I also made sure I backed Helen’s Vision but didn’t tell the guys to do likewise. Khyber Kim traded at 1.06 but lost it on the run-in to Helen’s Vision and due to the fact I lay off low on all my bets, it won me about £140 but lost the guys 2 points. Obviously, I can’t be held responsible for a horse getting beat at 1.06 I tipped but it didn’t help the guys feel too good to hear that I felt I should have tipped Helen’s Vision.

On the Saturday night, I was looking back at the race to understand why I didn’t back Helen’s Vision and I found out I’d misread the form a little with Khyber Kim. I knew it had a big weight turnaround but it was something like 21lbs for 24 lengths or something and I’d somehow misread this and thought it was 10lbs for 24 lengths or something. I honestly can’t remember but if I had read it the way it actually was, I would have tipped Helen’s Vision as it was 3 times the price of Khyber Kim.

Anyway, it’s water under the bridge now but I held my hands up, said I made a couple of poor errors and cost the guys a 25/1 and 11/1 winner. I expected a bit of stick but I think a few guys mistook my admission of guilt as me gloating I’d backed the two winners and a few words were exchanged in the forum about it.

I maybe got a bit on my high-horse about the fact I’m not really a tipster and I hate to be judged like a tipster and it’s not my fault if my tip loses and my two dangers win. Things have settled down into a reasonable debate now and I’m happy with that.

I’ve said this on here before but it’s vitally important that people separate me from The Form Analyst. TFA is getting judged on how good he is at selecting a horse to win a race and he will be judged on how many points he can win his subscribers.

I’m someone who doesn’t really gamble on the horses but who trades to get a riskfree bet on lots of races (far more than I tip a selection in!) and I make money that way. My P&L won’t match what happens with the tips and when I do well at the tips, I won’t do as well on Betfair and vice-versa.

Earlier this month when I was picking lots of winners, the gamblers were doing great and I wasn’t doing that great from trading my own horses. However, I made it clear on here that I live with the fact my betting strategy will allow me to win consistently small amounts and assuming I don’t mess up the trading part too often, I’ll make money at this game.

I’m sure a few of you must be wondering how the trading is going. Basically, my trading skill has probably plateau’d to a great extent and I’m about as good a trader as I’ll be. However, that still means I’m good enough to get in and out of most markets to enable me to get a riskfree bet on the horse I want. When it doesn’t go to plan, I take a bit of money IR and lay at various odds to get my stake back and then look to eventually make a profit.

Every 30 races or so, I’ll get involved on a huge drifter that I’ve backed and it becomes a case of minimising the damage. It can get a little bit hairy at times but I live with this. It would make a conventional trader pull their hair out if they tried what I do but I live with the fact I’ll lose a decent amount every now and again.

One point to make here is the amounts of money I am discussing. Since I mostly trade horses in double figure prices, I only use stakes of between £10 to £60. Obviously, I’m not looking for 1 tick movements but swing movements. If I can get £10 on a 80 shot and it shortens to 50, I get £300 riskfree on it. Obviously, that’s equivalent to £6 for a conventional trader but I take the £6 free bet.

If I can get that on a front-runner, I’ll leave a lay of £20 at 10 and maybe £30 at 2.1 and if it runs well, I’ll get £20, I’ll get £50 if runs very well but doesn’t win, and £65 if it wins.

That’s an easy example but you get the picture. If it runs crap, I move on to the next race and since it was riskfree, I didn’t lose anything. Conventional traders may say I lost £6 but I’d disagree. The £6 was never mines, so I didn’t lose it. We could argue this point until our hearts are content but as I’ve shown in November, when my horses win, the money soon adds up. Why would you green up at 50 if that’s the wrong price of the horse?

Every 30 races, I may take £50 IR on a donkey I’ve backed but that’s life. As I said, I live with it. Taking money IR on a horse you think will win can work for you as well as against you. Looking back over the year, most of big wins (£100 +) have come from backing drifters and either shortening pre-race to get me out riskfree or getting out IR. All of my biggest losses have come from backing drifters also, but by using smaller stakes, I manage these better nowadays.

Overall then, a great month for me, an OK month for The Form Analyst and an OK month for the subscribers. It should have been better for TFA and the subscribers but I lost a bit of form at the end of the month and I’m not on a poor run again with the tips!