Horses for courses

At last - a winning day. And maybe it wasn't just coincidence that it was the first time I had eschewed the traditional method of trading (looking solely at the numbers) and based my bets on the information presented in the Racing Post. After spending two hours studying the form before racing started, I had four horses that I wanted to back and half a dozen that I wanted to lay. It was a busy afternoon, trading on every race at six meetings. But the study paid off, with three of my four fancies winning, and all six of my lays losing. Although it did provide me with some nervous moments, as a horse I had a liability of £300 on was backed down to 2.7 as it led until the penultimate fence. Maybe I am not cut out to be a pure trader. I regularly read the market correctly and successfully carry out up to 10 successful trades on a race. But on the stakes I am using (between £5 and £25 per trade), I am making less than a fiver a race. And then one market goes against me and I lose everything I have earned in the past hour. I think that my best option is to incorporate a study of the horses into my trading. The only downside to a very profitable day's work were some losing football bets. My head tells me to stop betting until the form is a little more reliable, but football gambling gives me far more of a high than trading on the horses, so my heart won't let me stop. I also had two unsuccessful corners bets. Both my heart and my head tell me to stop. But I can't. Running total: £868.73

All in a day's work

I've decided that I am no longer going to log on to Betfair at work. I placed a £30 bet on a horse on Wednesday, with the intention of laying it off. But I was asked to do something urgent by my editor, and by the time I had returned to my screen, the race was over and the horse had lost.

It's been a mixed few days. I'm not making as many stupid mistakes, but I'm still making them. I'm slightly up on my trading on Betfair, although my football wagers are struggling.

I had a good day yesterday, which would have been even better had West Ham not capitulated so pathetically in losing 3-0 to Manchester City, as I'd had a decent bet on fewer than 2.5 goals.

Running total: £820

Hitting the crash barrier

I had only one bet yesterday – £20 on a horse at 3.7 in a six-furlong race. As it was traditionally quick out of the stalls, the plan was to lay the horse as soon as the price dropped to about 2.5.

Unfortunately, my computer crashed just before the race started – and before I had placed my lay bet. By the time I had rebooted it, the race was over, my horse had lost and I was £20 poorer.

It seems as if everything is against me at present.

Running total: £740.18

In a tight corner

I thought that I had unwittingly stumbled on the solution to my lack of success. A bet on Essex to win the Friends Provident Trophy (as an Essex Man, more an act of loyalty) came off, while my two short-priced bets on the Olympics were never in danger. And the first four teams in a football sixfold won on Saturday. Just steer clear of horseracing and I’ll reach my £10,000 target by Christmas.

So with a 100% betting record, a great day for Great Britain at the Olympics, and Essex and West Ham both winning, I was in cocky on Saturday night – even if Walthamstow dog track was ‘enjoying’ a last hurrah 10 miles down the road.

But pride comes before a fall – as Sunday so harshly proved. The last two teams in my footie accumulator were Aston Villa and Manchester United. If they could triumph against Manchester City and Newcastle respectively, my bank would be back to where I started a week ago. I thought United were a certainty, given Newcastle’s abject record at Old Trafford. But Aston Villa worried me a little, so I laid them to the tune of £20. Needless to say, Villa won comfortably, while Manchester United could only draw against a Newcastle side they had beaten by an aggregate score of 11-1 last season.

My main fancy for the afternoon was more than 12 corners in the Chelsea v Portsmouth match. I have a bit of a weakness for betting high on corners on live matches, but I genuinely fancied it in this game, with two sides committed to attack. When I saw the price of 3.3, I lumped on. Incredibly, the odds started to drift. Each time the price improved, I had another bet. By kick-off, I was in a position in which I would have made £100 profit if there were more than 12 corners.

I was feeling so pleased with myself when Chelsea notched two corners in the first six minutes, that I treated myself to one of their namesake buns. But by the end of the match, the corner count stood at 11, thanks largely to Pompey’s inability to even get into Chelsea’s half, let alone win more than two corners.

There was only one thing for it – have the same bet on the Manchester United v Newcastle game, but with a higher stake to cover my earlier loss. But the price was poor, so I had only a token £12. I was somewhat gratified that, according to the BBC website, the 13th corner of the game was taken with 20 minutes still to play. That was the last corner of the match – but a win’s a win. Or at least it is until you find out that whoever is updating the BBC’s site can’t count – and the total was, in fact, one short of my required figure. Even more frustratingly, on one occasion, the referee gave a goal kick when he should have awarded a corner.

I consoled myself with some trading on Betfair. I made a slight profit, but only 20% of what I had lost on the exact science (I don’t think) that is corners betting.

Running total: £760.18

Den of iniquity

My alarm woke me up at 3am this morning. But I can't believe I needed it after what I can only describe as the worst day's betting of my life.

I made every mistake possible. I chased losses, overstaked and started gambling, rather than trading. The result was a loss of £100. It could have been worse, as two bets that I failed to lay off won, saving me £50. The reason I failed to lay them off was because I was watching Dragons' Den on video and forgot about them.

I'll repeat that. I was watching Dragons' Den on video and forgot to lay them off. And I've got pretensions of becoming a professional gambler. What a joke.

My desperation to win back some of my money saw me log on to Betfair at 3.30am. I had £20 on cyclist Bradley Wiggins to win gold in the Olympic 4000-metre Individual Pursuit (at 1.08) and £12 on Great Britain to win more than 10 gold medals (at 1.1). If both bets are successful, I will make a profit of £2.80 (less commission). The phrase 'clutching at straws' springs to mind.

Fortunately, I'm off out for the day (I'm joining the march to save Walthamstow greyhound stadium and am then heading to the Boleyn Ground to watch West Ham take on Wigan). It's probably just as well, because the way I am performing at the moment, the betting bank could be empty by the end of the weekend.

Running total: £808.20

Beginner's luck?

As it was my last day before going back to work, I decided that another afternoon of trading on Betfair was in order.

Once again, I won on far more races than I lost, although the losses are still always bigger than the wins. That is something that needs to be addressed. But luck was on my side today, and one horse that I backed then decided against laying off won at 3.8.

With no football to sidetrack me, and a little more discipline, I managed to claw back more than £30 from the weekend's losses.

Running total: £942.26

Under starter's orders

Things couldn't really have started a lot worse. I backed 'under 2.5 goals' in the Scunthorpe v Leeds game on Saturday lunchtime, with the intention of laying it off a few minutes into the match for a small profit (to the uninitiated, this is known as a 'green screen' - when price changes have ensured that you make a profit, whatever the outcome). The problem was that as the game wasn't live on TV, it wasn't being traded in play. So I layed 'under 2.5 goals' and accepted a small loss. I blame it on jetlag.

I spent the afternoon trading on the racing and watching that consummate pro Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday. It felt like groundhog day as I made a profit on the first 10 races of the day, before the market went against me on the 3.30 at Ascot. Rather than be professional and accept a small loss, I switched the TV over and watched the race. Strategic Mount was treading water at the back of the field, so I laid it at 22, to try and recoup some of my losses. Needless to say which horse won by a neck, costing me a loss of £60.

All my profit had been wiped out in two minutes. And I panicked. I started increasing my stakes and betting when I shouldn't have been. A couple of insignificant wins were interspersed with a couple of heavy losses.

Even Hartlepool's most famous fan's new toy (a James Brown model that he makes sing 'I Feel Good' every time his namesake scores - and he did, twice, in the first 14 minutes) couldn't relieve my depression. Particularly as my fixed-odds bet on the footie was another loser.

The following day, things were very similar. Small wins on most races, wiped out by one bad trade. On one race on which I was going to lose after failing to lay a horse at a shorter price than I had backed it at, I backed another animal in the final couple of furlongs at 1.5. It came second. I also had an 'interest bet' on 'more than 2.5 goals' in the Nottingham Forest v Reading match. It finished goalless.

Not an auspicious start. But as I long as I heed the lessons of the weekend, it will have been worthwhile. Do not have bets for the sake of it (why bet on the first games of the season, when there is no form to go on?), do not be afraid to accept small losses when the market goes against you and don't watch the racing in the hope of back winners. That is gambling - I am (supposed to be) trading.

Running total: £909.07

Life's a gamble

I've been gambling since I was 15. I used to pop into my local Coral and have a 50p accumulator on 15 football matches every Saturday afternoon. Of course, I never won.

I got a job in a betting shop when I was 18, and by the time I was 22, I was a relief manager for Ladbrokes, covering 35 in shops in north-east London, Essex and Hertfordshire, settling up to 700 bets a day.

Over the past 25 years, I have placed thousands of bets. Football is my main passion, but I used to be a regular at Walthamstow dog track (RIP), and have also gambled on everything from tennis to Big Brother.

From fixed-odds betting in the days when you had to make a minimum of five selections if you included a home win, and tax stood at 10%, I started dabbling in spread betting, till Ipswich's fifth place in 2001 cost me £1,500. I was a late starter on Betfair, but over the past 12 months, I have started trading, with a degree of success.

As the years have passed, I have spent an ever-increasing amount of time studying form, thanks (or perhaps not) to the information online.

But although last season was my most successful ever (including my first four-figure win), I still went into work several times a week and greeted my colleagues with 'I was unlucky yesterday...', after a last-minute penalty miss by some Division Two striker cost me several hundred pounds.

It is to save my friends and families from my continual moaning that I have set up this blog. All my hard-luck stories (and, hopefully, a few good-luck ones) in one place.

The aim is to turn £1,000 into £10,000 over the course of the 2008-2009 football season, via fixed-odds and spread betting, and trading on Betfair. I will not be detailing every bet, but will be discussing some of the more interesting ones. I will also provide a running total for anyone who can't be bothered to read my rantings.

With my track record, it is an exceptionally tall order. But as Del Boy likes to say: 'He who dares, wins.' Or goes skint.