Morecambe wasn't wise

Well it’s a month into the new season and, hard as it is to believe, I’m in profit. It’s only about £20, but it is so long that I have been in the black that I’m going to make a song and dance about it.

My only win of note has been £200 on my first football bet of the season. Although it was a great way to start, it was equally frustrating because I had halved my usual stake. But rather than heralding a profitable new era in my gambling career, this win has been followed by the usual array of ridiculously lucky near misses.

In summary, since I hit the jackpot, my results have been (and I need to get all my predictions right to make a profit): six out of seven correct; four out of five correct; four out of five correct; five out of six correct: one out of five correct; six out of seven correct; and two out of three correct.

The penultimate loss was particularly galling. The one prediction I got wrong was Rotherham to beat Morecambe. Rotherham were top of the table, having won all four of their home matches. They were averaging almost three goals per game. Morecambe were in 23rd place, having lost all four of their away games, scoring four and conceding 13 in the process. A home win was one of the bets of the day in The Sun and the London Paper. But it was the last selection to go into my bet – and I included it only to bump up my potential winnings.

Morecambe held out for a 0-0 draw. The BBC report read: ‘The Millers [Rotherham] dominated after half-time, with Kevin Ellison twice going close and Danny Harrison having a header cleared off the line.’ If any of those chances has been converted, I would have won £600.

As far as the horseracing is concerned, I have significantly curtailed my activity. I obviously couldn’t continue like I was before I went away in June, rushing home from work every night to log on to Betfair, then sitting in front of my laptop all weekend. It still makes me shake with anger that I lost £6,000 (a third of my total income from journalism for the year) in four months – including almost £400 on a single race. I have yet to resubscribe to the software that I need to carry out my system. I did have a little dabble one afternoon without it, but was soon £60 down.

I have not set any targets for this season. Losing less than £8,000 would be a step forward. But the continual near misses have encouraged me to undertake more detailed research before placing my football bets, particularly as I have a lot of time off work over the next few weeks. My simple aim is to win a four-figure sum three times this season. I am confident I will achieve this.

My bank's holiday

It’s not something I like to admit – but I have failed. And failed miserably, at that.

I find it laughable that when I started writing this blog in August, my aim was to turn £1,000 into £10,000. I’m too scared to calculate the exact figure, but I have actually managed to turn £1,000 into -£5.000. It might be -£4,800 or even -£5,200.

Whatever, it is an obscene amount and I am disgusted with myself.
Over the past few weeks, I have continued to rush home from work to trade on the evening racing, while every day off has been spent hunched over my laptop. Since my horrific losses of April and May, I have been far more circumspect. I have only once lost more than £50 in a day. But I am losing almost every day – for example, in the past 10 days, I have come out in profit only once (and that was just £30).

I still win 90% of my trades, but every day I make at least one serious error, laying a horse that looks as if it is struggling, but then nicks the race in a photo-finish (why is it always a photo-finish?), wiping out all the day’s profits and more. On Wednesday night, for example, I made a profit on 11 out of 12 races. The problem was that I lost £40 on the other race, giving me an overall deficit of £15 on the night.

I must be stupid, but I still think I can make a go out of this in the long run. But in the short term, I am having to borrow £2,000 off my mum to pay a tax bill. And as I can’t tap her for any more, I am having to give up my season ticket at West Ham after 21 years because I can’t afford it – which will give me 19 more afternoons to log on to Betfair when the new season starts.

Anyway, I’m off to Indochina for eight weeks tomorrow – the things I do to escape Betfair. So I won’t be having another bet till mid-August. Or perhaps until I get to Macau. In the meantime, I’ve got one bet still running – I’ve laid Es.sex (my team) to win the LV County Championship Division Two to the tune of a liability of £80. So get on them now – to win it..

Be lucky.

Déjà vu

Since losing £500 in the course of 48 hours a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been overly cautious in my trading. Every time the market moves against me, I’ve been taking a small loss and starting again. As a result, I’m £100 up on the horses over the past 10 days – although six consecutive losing bets on corners have wiped out most of this profit.

That was until yesterday. I was trading reasonably well, but was still making too many mistakes. By the time the evening racing started, I was £1 up on the day. On the next race, the market went against on each of the first three favourites and I faced a £20 loss. But, in keeping with my new strategy, I decided to accept this loss.

On the next race, I laid a horse for £24 at 8.2. I expected the horse’s price to lengthen, allowing me to back it 8.4 for a small, guaranteed profit. But the price shortened. I was convinced that the odds would ‘bounce’, though, so laid the horse for another £24. Within a couple of minutes, I had laid it for £96, leaving me with a potential loss of £650 if it won. But the market had moved against me, and by the time the race had started, I was facing a loss of £30 whichever horse won the race.

As I had just suffered my worst loss of the day on the previous race, I was not keen to accept another one. So I let the bets run, hoping that they would be matched in running and giving me a guaranteed profit of about £5. I expected them to be matched because it was a long-distance race (allowing more time for the odds to move back and forth) and because the horse in question was only the fourth favourite.

Anyway, although the horse was just one of half a dozen in the leading group, for some reason its price started tumbling. From £30 before the race started, it was suddenly a guaranteed loss of £80. Then £100. Then £140. I broke into a cold sweat as the figure increased by the second. What should I do? There were several horses in with a chance, but for some reason, the one on which I had the huge liability had become the favourite. I watched the race for about two minutes, in dismay. Should I take a £180 loss or hope that the horse got beaten. Quick – it’s £200 now. Bearing in mind that the downside was a £650 loss, I clicked on the button – and took a loss of £250.02.

What happened next was too much to take. Within three seconds of accepting such a horrific loss, the horse was clearly struggling. If I had waited just another three seconds, I would have made a £6 profit on the race, as all my back bets would have been matched. Alternatively, I could have cancelled the back bets and let all the lay bets run – and pocketed £96 (which would have been my biggest ever win on a race). The horse trailed home in fifth place.

So I had lost £250 – my biggest-ever loss on a race – on a horse that finished fifth. Why is that I usually let the bets run, in the hope that something will beat the horse that I have laid – and I always lose. Yet when I decide to cut my losses, I would have been £346 better off if I had done nothing. Why do I never make the right decision?

Penny pinching

I have pontificated before on this site that my stakes increased exponentially when I started gambling online, rather than in a betting shop. It’s as if it isn’t real money: typing ‘£50’ into a box and clicking ‘OK’ is far easier than handing £50 across a counter.

This mindset was perfectly illustrated last Saturday, when I went racing at Ascot. Although I used to be quite a regular at Walthamstow dogs, this was only my seventh trip to the races. A friend had won table at one of the track’s premier restaurants, which included entry to the course, racecard, four-course meal, free all-day bar – and a complimentary copy of he Racing Post. With a £242 price tag per person, it was well worth sacrificing a visit to the Boleyn Ground to watch West Ham’s inevitable defeat by Liverpool.

Hardly surprisingly, I was the most hardened gambler in our four-strong group, In fact, I probably had more bets on the 7.40 at Wexford the previous evening than my three companions had placed in their entire lives – and I don’t even know where Wexford is.

But with the UK’s top racecourse to explore, as well as the distraction of making the most of the free food and drink, I failed to have a bet on the first race. When I’m home in front of the laptop, and there are more than 40 races ahead, I get frustrated if I don’t have several bets on every race. But on this occasion, I was indifferent. In the second race, after a brief examination of the racecard, I decided to back a horse at about 7-1 (none of those mathematical odds on course – even if I did back it on the Tote). I decided to place a £1 each way bet, but was told by the Tote cashier that the minimum unit stake was £2. As I didn’t want to spend £4 because I’d had only a cursory glance at the form, I placed a £2 win bet. Yes, the man who risks losing more than £200 a race on horses of which he has never heard, at tracks he doesn’t even know which country they are in, in the hope of winning £5, didn’t want to spend an extra £2 during a once-in-a-lifetime day out.

Of course, the horse won without ever being extended. My £2 bet returned £18.20. For various reasons, I didn’t place a single bet on the next three races. I had only my second wager of the day on the final race – £2 each way on a horse that finished fourth. I had the second-fewest bets out of the four of us, spending only £2 more than a bloke who had spurned innumerable invitations to the races over the past 20 years.

Taking into account the cost of my train and Tube fares, I made a profit of 6p on the day – 5p on my gambling and a 1p coin I had found on the Underground first thing that morning. I wouldn’t normally pick a penny up (‘itchy chin’ I can hear those of you who know me well saying), but I was mindful of the adage: ‘Find a penny, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck’. Perhaps I should start trawling the streets of Epping in search of a penny before I log on to Betfair each day.

The only downside to the day was that I didn’t get a chance to place a large bet on Liverpool to win – we arrived back at the pub opposite Waterloo station just in time to see them score their third goal, without reply.

Pride comes before a fool

This can’t go on. On Monday, I lost £200. On Tuesday, it was £310. I have now lost £1,400 on the horses in the past fortnight. Bearing in mind that I have got only five days’ work in May – and lost nearly £1,400 on a football bet last month – such losses are obviously unsustainable.

I must be stupid, but I still genuinely believe that I can make money trading horse races on Betfair. On Monday, I probably placed 200 trades (backing a horse at one price and then ‘laying’ – taking a bet on it – at a shorter price). About 90% of these were successful, earning me on average 50p a time.

It is clearly the remaining 10% of the time where the problems lie. In these cases, the market moves in the opposite direction to which I expect – usually significantly. My options are to take a loss (generally between £4 and £8) or to let the bet carry on after the race has started (this is generally taboo among traders). I take the pre-race loss most of the time, but occasionally let a bet go in-play. If I have laid a horse and placed a bet to back it (at a higher odds) that has not been matched because the horse has shortened in price, I am hoping that it finds itself at the back of the field, which will cause its odds to lengthen. Conversely, if I have backed a horse that has lengthened in price (meaning that my lay bet at a shorter price has not been matched), I hope that it races near the front of the pack, so that its price comes in and my bet gets matched.

In reality, odds can fluctuate wildly in running, as punters react to what they are watching on their TV screens, ensuring that most unmatched bets gets matched.
Anyway, on Monday I was about £50 up coming towards the end of the day’s racing. Not a huge amount, but not to be sniffed at, after my disastrous recent run. I a laid a horse in the penultimate race of the day, but the price had shortened, so I was facing a loss of about £10. As the horse was the third favourite, and the two market leaders were strongly fancied, I decided to let the bet run. As long as it didn’t win, I would make £27 profit on the race – significantly more than the £1.50 I had made, on average, on the rest of the afternoon’s races. The race started and the horse I didn’t want to win raced into the lead. The price plummeted, leaving me with the choice of taking a £60 loss or letting the bet run. I assumed that one of the two favourites would make a challenge – but I was wrong. The horse drew further and further clear and was the easiest winner of the afternoon. I had lost £175.

I was obviously gutted and made a bad trade on the final race of the day. The market moved against me and I was soon £10 down. But I was loath to lose more money, so I again let the race start. Incredibly, the one horse in the field of 20 that I wanted beaten surged into a lead. My loss reached £25 and I decided that discretion was the better part of valour – so I clicked on the ‘greening’ button, which evens out your loss, whichever horse wins. Unfortunately, the greening button failed to work – it fails about one in 50 attempts – and I watched the horse I had laid win the race at a canter. Another £80 down the pan.

I was fuming and hardly slept a wink that night. I considered giving up, but hate being beaten by anything, so decided to put another £500 into my Betfair account. The foolishness of my decision became apparent after the first race on Tuesday. I laid a horse which was then backed off the boards. It was the worst trade I have ever made, and my loss was £30 before the race had even started. There was no way I was going to accept this, so I let it go in-play. You can guess what happened next. Noodles Blue Boy went straight into the lead – and my potential loss was already £90. As the race was only a fifth of the way through, I decided to take the calculated risk that the horse would either get beaten or at least be challenged for the lead (meaning that its price would drift and my losses be reduced). But it couldn’t have won any easier. I had lost another £155.

I did OK for the rest of the afternoon – until the last race of he day. You know the story already: I back a horse; the price shortens; I decide against taking a loss and let the bet run after the race starts, the only horse that I don’t want to win races into an unassailable lead; I sweat it out – and lose £160.

I have just discovered via a YouTube video that features two TV screens showing the same race, that some people are receiving pictures that are two seconds ahead of the standard racing channels. So when the in-running odds are plummeting quicker than the on-screen action suggests they should be, it is because some punters have got an unfair advantage. But this doesn’t explain why every time I take a loss before a race, I would have made a profit if I had let the bets run, while every time I let a bet run, the only horse (often in a field of 20) that I want beaten, invariably wins.

I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but I can’t wait to get back to work.

Lay to waste

Thought it was about time I provided a brief synopsis of the highs and lows of the past 10 days. But, as always, it has been a case of lows and lowers.

After losing every night last week (and more than £100 on two occasions), I had a day off on Friday. I was confident that now I was beginning to get to grips with Bet Angel, I would turn a profit. But I made the usual big mistake and lost £150 on the day. I laid Comeonthehammers to lose £110, which was running so poorly that it drifted to 150 in running. Unlike the football team after which it is named, though, it came good in the end. As a West Ham season ticket holder for more than 20 years, it was particularly galling.

After a busy weekend away from my laptop (although I did manage to lose another £30 on Ronnie O'Sullivan wining the snooker world championship), I decided that Tuesday would be 'make or break day'. I'm more than £2,000 down in the past four weeks, and as work has dried up, I can't sustain such losses much longer. If I couldn't make money that afternoon, I would have to admit defeat. My tactic was to trade, with the occasional small lay in-running. My trading was largely successful, although using an average stake of only £12, I was making only an average of £2 a race. But that is a profit of £2, whichever horse wins a race. I lost a couple of times when laying, but nothing more than £25. The cautious approach paid off, and I made £55 on the day.

Buoyed by the previous day's success, yesterday I told a friend that I was confident of making a real go of trading. I even raised my stake to £20 on Wednesday afternoon. But I made so many poor decisions. Most of my unmatched trades were matched in running, which is more luck than judgement (For example, I might back a horse at 5 with the intention of laying it before the race at 4.8. But I read the market wrongly and the price drifts to 6. I can lay it at 6 and accept a loss or leave it to go in-running. If the horse is up with the pace, its lay price might drop to 4.8 and my bet is matched. But if it is struggling, the lay bet may never be matched and I lose my entire back stake of £20). But I was still £50 down going into the final two races of the day.

On the penultimate race, I laid a horse at 5 for £25. But its price dropped and my back bet of 5.2 was never met. I took a risk and let the bet go in-play. Naturally, it went straight into the lead and the price plummeted. The horse was the easiest winner of the day - and I had lost £100. On the final race, the opposite happened. I backed the favourite for £60 just before the price drifted alarmingly. In-play, it was always at the back of the field. I laid £20 off at a far bigger price than which I had backed it, but the price was soon so high that I couldn't risk another bet. It came almost last and I was another £40 down.

It's incredible how often the opposite to what I need to happen does. When I lay a horse and want the price to drift in running, it leads the whole way. When I've backed a horse and need a bold showing to force the price down so that my lay bet gets matched, it runs as if it's got three legs.

With two losing bets on the Champions League semi-final (can you believe that Arsenal, with all their attacking flair, didn't win a single corner?), I was £210 on the day.

I am well aware that I should be accepting small losses when the market goes against me. It's just that the market goes against me regularly, before often swinging back in my favour. I am not making enough when I win to cover regular small losses, so I let them run. Usually it's a risk worth taking. But when it doesn't pay off, the downside is huge.

Angel fools

On Sunday, I had my worst-ever day gambling on the horses. I should have known as early as the first race, as the short-priced favourite I had backed fell at the final fence when a long way ahead of its rivals, leaving the race to a horse that I had laid.

I’ve been trialling some new software, Bet Angel, which is a complex ‘betting bot’ that should make it easier to make a profit from my betting. But it has so many features, that it is easy to forget to cancel a bet or press the wrong button. This is exactly what happened to me on the second race of the day – and my fast-diminishing funds took another hit.

I was only 10 minutes into the afternoon’s racing and I was already £60. In an attempt to claw back some money, I started blindly backing favourites. It was soon clear that it was going to be a day which would be dominated by outsiders (to put things into perspective, Templegate, The Sun’s acclaimed tipster, had only one winner from 19 selections).

I was more than £100 down when I made my customary shocking decision. I laid a horse, which was running poorly, at 30.0 to lose £240. Within a minute, it looked as fresh as the proverbial daisy and was in third place, and going better than any of its rivals, with thee fences left to jump. I couldn’t risk losing £240, so quickly had £85 on it at 3.0. Of course, only seconds later it was struggling again, and finished third. If I’d had done nothing, I would have made £8 on the race. Instead, I had lost £85.

Now facing a deficit of almost £200, I started increasing my stakes on the favourites. But I just couldn’t back a winner – my run of luck was incredible. This was the fate of the horses that started at 5/2 or shorter during the course of the afternoon: 1/3 first, 4/9 unplaced, 4/6 second, 4/5 first, 5/6 unplaced, 5/6 second, 9/10 unplaced, 10/11 first, Evens unplaced, 11/10 third, 5/4 third, 6/4 second, 6/4 third, 6/4 unplaced, 13/8 first, 13/8 first, 15/8 dead-heat first, 2/1 first, 2/1 second, 5/2 third, 5/2 unplaced and 5/2 unplaced. If you had placed a £20 bet on each of these (and I did on all the losers – of course, overlooking a couple of the winners), you would have lost £135.

The afternoon reached a nadir with the 4.55 at Leopardstown. I had read in the morning that a horse called Indian Ridge was being heavily backed. As this is usually a good sign, I had £20 on it. By the time the race had started, it was favourite. But the jockey settled the horse near the back of the field, and as the leaders rounded the home turn, Indian Ridge was about 30 lengths off the pace. In desperation to recoup a few quid, I identified a horse near the back of the field with less chance of winning than my selection. So I laid it for £3 at 26.0. A combination of my hastiness and the poor camera angle, however, meant that instead of taking a bet on a horse whose jockey was wearing yellow-and-blue silks and a stripy hat, I had taken a bet on a horse whose jockey was wearing yellow-and-blue silks and a spotted cap. Of course, the horse I had laid, Majestic, was in second place and within a couple of seconds had raced into an unassailable. Suddenly, Indian Ridge appeared on the scene and chased Majestic all the way to the line. It got within half a length and would have won if the race had been 50 yards longer – or the incompetent jockey had started his run a split-second earlier. If Indian Ridge had won, I would have made £80 on the race. But as Majestic held on, I had lost £85. Quite a difference.

I should have clawed a significant amount back on the final race of the day. But, as usual, I made the wrong decision. I was felling somewhat reckless and decided to back the three shortest-priced horses in the race for a total of £60. Halfway through the race, all three were running fine. Then one of my horses fell, bringing down another. So I had one chance left – and if that didn’t win, I would lose another £60.

Now when I have laid a horse and it moves into the lead, I rarely back at the vastly reduced odds on offer. I just cross my fingers that something will beat it because if I do back it and it fails to win, I have still lost a lot of money. Whereas if it fails to win, as I originally anticipated, I make a profit. But with the boot on the other foot, and my one remaining runner contesting the lead, I decided to lay it for £60. Within a second of me placing the bet, it had pulled clear of the field, and was never in danger of not running. My decision meant that rather than winning £110, I won only £40. Of course, if it had been beaten, rather than losing £60, I would have won £5.

Why is that I always take out insurance on a selection when I needn’t have, and do nothing, when I should be doing something? Another hideous afternoon – and a loss of £280. When is this run of luck going to change?

Read it and weep

I've just suffered my worst weekend, in gambling terms, of my life. I woke up on Monday morning almost £1,700 worse off than when I went to bed on Friday night.
In all honesty, the bulk of that loss was accounted for by a bet that has been running since August (see Villains of the Piece, 8/3/09).

Just to recap, I laid out £2,700 on a bet which I thought was pitting Aston Villa against Stoke and West Brom as to which team would finish higher in the Premier League. In fact, it was which side would gain the most points in matches involving only these three teams. I backed Villa, but if Stoke could avoid defeat against WBA on Saturday, they would finish top. If Stoke lost, I would make £700 profit. But if they drew or won, I would lose £2,700. My dilemma was that I could get out of the bet now, taking a guaranteed loss of £1,300. Although still the biggest loss of my life, it was significantly preferable to losing £2,700. But what if I accepted the £1,300 loss and then WBA won? I would be gutted.

So I spent seven hours on Friday night/Saturday morning looking at my options. Stoke had not won an away game in the top division for 25 years (admittedly, they had been in the lower divisions since 1985, but they had still lost 11 and drawn four of their 15 away games this season), but the way my luck has been, and the fact that WBA were bottom of the league, meant that I could not risk letting the bet run its course. Eventually, I thought I had reduced my guaranteed loss to only (!!) £1,000 by backing the draw and Stoke to carefully calculated stakes. Then I realised that if WBA won by a single goal, Stoke and Aston Villa would dead-heat for first place in the mini-league, which would result in me losing £1,850, rather than £1,000.

At 04.30 on Saturday morning, I decided that the best course of action was to back Stoke in the mini-league and to lay West Brom to win the match. The financial implications would be a £1,320 loss if Stoke won, the match was a draw or WBA won by a single goal, and a loss of £760 if West Brom won by more than one goal.

For the first time in 20 years, I sacrificed going to a West Ham game on Saturday afternoon, so that I could keep an eye on what was going on at the Hawthorns. It was also Grand National day, which is my favourite sporting event of the year. In the end, Stoke scored in the second minute of the match and got a second a couple of minutes into the second half. Although, I was gutted to have lost £1,320, I was glad that I had not let the bet run without hedging (as I had been advised), as losing £2,700 would have sent me over the edge.

I don't whether it was tiredness or the fact that I had one eye on the football, but I made lost of mistakes on the afternoon's racing, laying several favourites and adding another £150 to my losses. And I didn't even have time to study the form so that I could have a bet on the National. All in all, a poor day.

There was plenty of racing on Sunday afternoon, and I was confident that without any distractions, I could make some decent money (with the exception of the previous day, I have made a profit on the last afternoons I have spent trading on the racing). I started well and was well in profit when a 2m 5f hurdles race at Southwell took place. I had a quick look at the form and identified a horse called Nabouko with very poor form. Not only had it not run for 373 days (meaning that it was probably not race fit), but on its four previous career runs, it had been beaten 63 lengths, 29 lengths, 36 lengths and 15 lengths. So I laid it at 26 (25/1) for £2. My hunch was soon proved right, as Nabouko was soon toiling at the rear of the field. I sensed more easy money to be made, so laid it at 70 (69/1) for another £2, before nipping to the toilet.

A couple of minutes later, I returned to my armchair, to be met by the jaw-dropping sight of Nabouko galloping past the leader and crossing the winning line in first place. I almost burst into tears as I realised that I just lost £188 - my biggest-ever on horse race.

Despite the fact that I was £100 ahead before the race, I lost all control and started making bad decisions. Over the next 90 minutes, I laid another five winners for payouts of more than £50 each. As usual, by the end of the afternoon, I had won on far more races than I had lost on (23 compared with six). And although there are certainly positives to be taken (when I win, my average per race is up from about £3 to £10, and I would have made a profit on the afternoon but for Nabouko), I lost another £150 on the afternoon.

Mother's ruin

I knew that posting my bets in advance had the potential to make me look like a blithering idiot (OK – more of a blithering idiot). And, for almost the first time during this project, my opinion was right.

Those of you could who could be bothered to check the results will have discovered that my predictions for only two of the six matches last weekend were correct. I can sit here and claim that a couple of the losers were very unlucky and that this was my worst performance of the season. The only upside is that if anyone had took my advice and backed the opposite of what I had, they would have made a few quid.

The following day, I entertained my parents for Mothering Sunday lunch. As I hadn’t been near Betfair all weekend, I was willing them to leave (I shouldn’t have cooked three courses), so that I could have a little dabble on the last few races of the day. Of course, my father fell asleep on the sofa (I knew it had been a mistake to ply him with so much booze).

By the time they were putting their coats on (with my eager help), I had logged on and laid a horse whose name I didn’t like. By the time I had locked my front door, the horse had won and I had lost £20. And that was before I had even switched the TV on.

I had no time to waste. And I wasted no time in throwing money down the train. I proceeded to lay the losers of the next three races for a total loss of £170. Although, I won on the final four races of the day, I had managed to blow £160 in an hour. Perhaps I should decide which horse that I want to lay – and then back it. It would certainly be a more profitable strategy. Mind you, so would asking my two-year-old nephew to stick a pin in the racing pages.

Not so good Friday

Not only do I talk rubbish. But now I'm writing it. In my Cheltenham overview, I boasted how I had made £163 in a few hours on the day after the festival, smugly intimating that this could be the way forward.

Well last night, when most single men were out doing the things that single men are supposed to do (and I can't even remember what they are), I rushed home to try to win a few quid on the racing from Dundalk and Wolverhampton. After making about £4 a race on the first six contests of the night, these were my results on the last four: lost £62; lost £45; lost £17; lost £51. My overall deficit on the night was £150.

I could try to blame it on the fact that I didn't got to bed till 04.30 the previous night. Or I could blame it on the fact that I know next to nothing about horse racing and have got to stop kidding myself that I am ever going to make it pay.

Head on the block time

My bad luck with my football bets is gathering pace. These are the results of the past four: five out of seven (six would have paid £400 and seven £1,500); five out of seven (£600 for six and £1,800 for seven); six out of seven (as the prices were shorter, I made £60 profit, but getting the final one correct would have paid £700); and four out of six (I needed one more goal in one game and for Aberdeen to have beaten a lower-division side in the cup for £430 profit).

It's hard to believe that I'm knocking on the door every week without ever winning, so this weekend, I am detailing my bets in advance. I would like to add the caveat that I am not at all confident this week (of course I'm going to say that). My selections are: Blackburn to beat West Ham (how loyal of me); Bradford to beat Port Vale; and the Spurs/Chelsea, Bristol Rovers/Peterborough, Crewe/Leeds and Swindon/Hereford matches all to have 'more than 2.5 goals'. I have combined them in fivefolds and an accumulator, which means that I will make a profit if any five are correct. If all six come up, I win about £800.

I advise anybody reading this before 15.00 on Saturday to rush down to Ladbrokes and bet on the complete opposite.

Wichita drubbed

I am not really a huge horseracing fan. I enjoy it more than 95% of people, but a ride by Tony McCoy at last week’s Cheltenham festival proved to me that, while I don’t hate it in the way that I do rugby, my interest in the sport is predominantly as a betting medium.

I had laid the favourite Wichita Lineman in the William Hill Trophy because I was convinced that its jumping would let the horse down. I was feeling pleased with myself when it made a terrible mistake at one of the early fences and almost fell. From then on, Wichita would clearly rather have been anywhere else than at Cheltenham racecourse, and McCoy was continually cajoling and whipping it to keep it within touching distance of the field. Despite its apparent reluctance, the horse jumped the last fence in third place. But it was 10 lengths down on the leaders and going the worst of the three. But thanks to an inspired ride by the champion jockey, who was straining every sinew to force everything he could from Wichita, the horse got its head in front in the final stride of the race.

For the next two hours, the presenters on the three racing channels battled to find superlatives to describe what an amazing performance McCoy had given his mount. I admired their professionalism, because they couldn’t all have backed Wichita. But all I could think about was the £50 McCoy had cost me. And I hated him.

I had taken two weeks off around Cheltenham. In light of my huge loss on Stoke, the aim was to win £1,000. At only £70 a day, I didn’t think this was particularly ambitious. Things certainly started well, as I made £150 on the first afternoon and £60 in half an hour the following day, after missing most of the afternoon’s racing, just by laying horses.

But winning small amounts (about £4 a race) by taking bets at long odds on horses to lose hardly sets the pulse racing. And it is extremely risky. Consequently, I got caught up in the excitement of Cheltenham. I bought the Racing Post every day, read all the tipsters’ theories and started backing horses to win. And with only a couple of short-priced winners all week, combined with at least one heavy loss each day after laying a winner for big money, I made a small loss every day of the festival.

The day after Cheltenham finished, I decided to revert to a boring strategy. I didn’t back a single horse to win all afternoon, and whenever a horse that I had laid started advancing through the field, I backed it, so as to reduce any potential losses. The result was 21 winning races and three losers – the biggest of which was only £2.20. My profit of £163 was my best-ever afternoon’s work. Not bad for three hours’ sat in front of my computer – and all tax free.

Horses for (the wrong) courses

Sometimes I feel as if I'm making these hard-luck stories up, just to entertain you (or maybe not). But they are all genuinely true.

My luck reached a nadir on Friday. I had a day off work (OK - I've taken two weeks off work to watch Cheltenham, but that's not the point). During a steeplechase, there was a horse running very poorly in the heavy ground. So I offered an £8 bet at 7/1, which somebody snapped up. The horse was soon tailed off and finished about 300m behind the winner. I had pocketed a very easy £8 and moved on to the next race.
About an hour later, the racing channel I was watching announced some 'incredible news' - that following a stewards' enquiry, the first four horses home in the aforementioned race had been disqualified and that the horse that I had laid had been awarded the race. They then showed a re-run of the race that showed the guilty horses going the wrong side of a temporary marker bollard. Such a manoeuvre would have saved them perhaps 0.25 seconds each, but because they hadn't completed the correct course, they had to be disqualified. So rather than winning £8, I had lost £56.

The following day, I had my usual football bet. You've heard this one many times before, so I'll be brief. I backed seven matches to have 'more than 2.5 goals' each, combing them in fivefolds, sixfolds and an accumulator. True to form, I got five out of seven right, while the other two finished 1-1 (ie one goal short). I won my stake money back, but another goal in the final 50 minutes of either game (they were both 1-1 before half-time) would have netted me £450 profit, while one in each game would have scooped me £1,700. Needless to say, there were numerous chances in each game (three of the four sides hit the woodwork). Why are there only last-minute goals when I don't want one?

After last week's debacle, such a win would have been a much-needed tonic.

Wheel of misfortune

With the Stoke cloud hanging over my head, I received an email from Betfair offering me a free £10 bet on their roulette table. I had vowed a couple of years ago never to play online casinos again, after not going to bed for two nights while chasing losses.

But Betfair must have known I was desperate and, showing pathetic weakness of character, I logged on. I decided to split the stake and have two £5 bets on red. Both spins were, of course, unsuccessful. But rather than log off, I decided that I would continue backing red, increasing my stakes each time, until I had made a profit. And that's what I did, starting with £5 of my own money. On the next 11 spins of the wheel, black came up 10 times and zero once. On the 14th spin of the wheel, I place £90 on red. Winning wouldn't have covered all my losses, but it was all I had left in my account. I won - but only because the table was worried that I would walk away because my account was empty. The result of my 15-minute foray into online roulette had cost me £100.

The next evening, I received an email from Betfair saying that for being such a good customer, I had been allocated a free £20 bet. I backed black. It came up red. What a surprise. I was fuming and fired off the following email to Betfair: 'I would be interested to hear your comments with regard to the fairness of your roulette table. I signed up to your casino (tempted by a free bet) on the evening of 5 March. After some initial success, I backed red on virtually every spin of the wheel. In 19 consecutive games between 23.19 and 23.24 I lost 18 times. I know for a fact that I backed red for the last 13 spins in that sequence, increasing my stake each time (I kept a note). And black came up 12 times and zero once. The odds of this happening are more than 8,000/1. Would this same sequence have occurred if I had been backing black? Of course it wouldn't. If you reply, I know that you'll start talking about random number generators. But we both know that the sequences that occurred are not random (it took Derren Brown nine hours tossing a coin to get 10 consecutive heads - I got 12 reds and a zero in less than four minutes). I think it's short sighted to rig your games to such an extent. I could have been a good source of business for the Betfair casino, but in future I will play on websites that are less obviously fixed.'

Within 24 hours, I got the following reply: 'Every spin on casino is totally independent of any other. The chance of a odd/even or black/red is 50/50 every spin. Betfair casino's RNG (Random Number Generator) is a TRNG (True Random Number Generator). It uses a hardware device for getting random numbers. It does not use a software algorithm (PRNG). The hardware generator derives most of its entropy from shot noise. Hence its entropy source is almost entirely quantum and therefore extremely non-deterministic (ie completely true random). The output has been tested extensively by the most stringent tests available and it has not failed any test for randomness in tests utilizing up to 500 billion bits. The hardware unit has passed Dr. George Marsaglia's battery of "Die Hard" tests.'

What Bruce Willis has got to do with anything beats me, but I still think I've been ripped off.

Villains of the piece

This is the most difficult entry that I've had to write for this blog - and it's taken a week for me to be able to talk about it.

Despite all the near misses and stupid mistakes over the past few months that have drained my bank balance, I've had a 'certainty' up my sleeve which was going to help me redeem a fair proportion of my losses.

I was trawling Betfair's football markets in the autumn and found a market that pitted Aston Villa against Stoke and West Brom. It was an absolute no-brainer as to which of the three would finish highest in the Premier League, as reflected by the price of 1.14 for Villa to win. Still, with interest rates tumbling, there was nowhere else that you could get a 14% return on your money over eight months, so I had a couple of hundred pounds on Villa.

Thereafter, every couple of weeks, when I had a few quid to spare, rather than putting it into the building society, I backed Villa. As expected, West Brom and Stoke were soon fighting a relegation battle, while Villa were challenging for a Champions League place. Incredibly, the price went out to 1.5 at the start of the year, before settling at 1.28. As Villa pulled further clear, I kept plunging on them.

Last weekend Villa were playing Stoke at home. They were 25 points clear of Stoke (and 28 clear of West Brom) with only 12 games to play. A victory for Villa would have made it almost mathematically impossible for them to have been overtaken (in reality, it was pretty much already in the bag, as Stoke's away form read 'played 13, won 0, drawn three, lost 10, for eight, against 29'). So I had a final £300 on Villa, taking my total stake to £2,700.

Villa took a 2-0 lead in the match, but Stoke, who had scored only eight times in 1,356 minutes on the road, scored twice in the last four minutes to secure a draw. Not that I was too bothered because the bet was still as good as won (as it had been since day one). So I logged on to Betfair expecting to see Villa's price having dropped to 1.01. But to my amazement, Stoke were now favourites. A huge knot developed in my stomach as I realised that the market was not who would finish top in the division, but who would win the most points against the other two sides.

After a little research, I discovered that Villa had beaten West Brom twice, but lost at Stoke in September (to a last-minute goal). Stoke had beaten West Brom at home, but had still to play them away. So even though I had misunderstood the market, if Villa hadn't surrendered their 2-0 lead, I would still have won. Instead, two last-minute goals (in the matches at Stoke and at Villa) meant that I was staring the biggest loss of my life in the face. It's hard enough losing, but it's the nature of the defeats that gets me down. Not only were both matches decided by last-minute goals, on doing some research, I discovered that Aston Villa are the only side in the division that Stoke have secured four points against. So if they had been matched against any one of the other 18 sides, they would have lost.

Anyway, the upshot is that I can get out of the bet now and accept a loss of £1,250 whatever the outcome of the West Brom v Stoke match next month. Or I can be brave and hope that West Brom beat Stoke (and remember that Stoke haven't won an away game all season) and collect my £750 profit. But If Stoke get a draw or win, I lose £2,700. What a dilemma. Any advice?

Drawing a blank

In poker, they call it a ‘bad beat’. It’s a situation in which you should win, until some outrageously bad fortune scuppers your chances.

As regular readers (assuming there are any) will know, I have had some hard luck this season. In fact, it’s hard not to describe my life as one bad beat after another at the moment (check out Love Ain’t In The Air for further proof).

But even taking this into account, the events of Saturday evening were hard to stomach. I had placed a £20 accumulator on six teams to win and one match to have more than two goals. By 17.00, the first six of my predictions had come up.

My one remaining selection was Leicester City to beat Oldham. Leicester had won six of their previous seven games (including a 4-1 away victory four days previously) and were 10 points clear at the top of League One. Oldham were in sixth place, but had lost their last two away matches by an aggregate score of 0-7.

I’d had a profitable afternoon on the horses (I made £50 and it would have been my first thee-figure profit in an afternoon if Gold Cup winner Denman had not been beaten at odds of 8/11) and was feeling quite bolshy. If Leicester were to win, I’d have made almost £600 on the day. But instead of laying Leicester (taking bets on) for £100 at about 1.65, to ensure a decent profit whatever the result, I laid only £25. I also laid the 0-0 draw at 11.0 for £6.

Leicester dominated the first half, hitting the post and having a shot cleared off the line. But the half-time score was 0-0. I considered laying Oldham again, but was still reasonably confident, as Leicester had failed to score only twice since October.

Within five minutes of the second half kicking off, I was punching the air with delight. The Oldham goalkeeper was sent off for a foul on a Leicester striker and a penalty was awarded. Even better, Oldham didn’t have a substitute keeper on the bench. So overweight, 38-year-old forward Dean Windass, who wasn’t even an Oldham player (he was on loan from Hull) went in goal. Up stepped Matty Fryatt, the top goalscorer in the whole country with 25 goals (I’m not making this up) to take the kick. He could have placed it anywhere, as Windass wouldn’t have been able to dive. Instead, his shot went three yards wide.

Leicester piled forward for the next 40 minutes. But Oldham’s 10 men held firm. Windass even made a couple of decent saves. The match finished 0-0 and instead of winning £550, I had won £5 (the £25 I had laid on Leicester minus my original £20 bet). Then I remembered that I had laid the 0-0 draw. So I was £55 down on the day’s football betting. That penalty miss had cost me more than £600. I said earlier that Leicester had failed to win only one of their previous seven games (a 0-0 draw at home to Brighton). They cost me £200 that day as well.

The following day, I had plans. The only bet I placed was a £4 lay of the 0-0 draw in the Spurs v Arsenal match at 13.0. I lost another £48. There were five matches live on TV over the weekend. I laid two of them to be 0-0 draws. Only two of them finished 0-0. A pattern is starting to emerge here.

Flogging a dead horse

I’m going away to Cornwall for a few days tomorrow, which is probably a good thing for my sanity and my finances. I’ll have a small accumulator on the weekend’s football matches, but will not be able to spend hours logged on to Betfair.

This is just as well, as not only am I getting carried away – but my luck is incredible. Yesterday afternoon at work, things were a little quiet. So I logged on to Betfair and laid a horse to lose. It was about the fifth favourite of the 10 runners. But it won – and I was £34 down. So I started to chase my losses. During the course of the afternoon, I backed six favourites to win – four finished second, one third and one fourth. I was £80 down. Quite unbelievably, I did exactly the same thing this afternoon, and although I backed one short-priced winner, I laid two others to the tune of £70. Another day, another £50 loss.

I’m afraid that this project has started to take over my life. Not the dream of turning £1,000 into £10,000 because my stake money has long gone. But making sitting in front of At The Races on my laptop the focus of my weekend – particularly when it’s costing me money. My Betfair account is now empty and I’ve got a tax bill due next week that I can’t pay.

I genuinely believe that I can make a profit on any horse race that I watch. Although this is clearly a misapprehension, I am less than £100 down on my betting on the racing over the past 10 weeks (it’s my football betting that is putting me in danger of going skint). So I have been arranging my life around getting back to my computer before the first race of the day. No time to go to the gym today. Can’t stay for lunch, mum, I’ve got things to do.

And in the week, although I am not turning down nights out, I am not arranging anything if there is an evening meeting on – and there is every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Leave work, rush home and on with the laptop.

If I was making money, it might be a sacrifice worth making. But as I’m not, it isn’t. So when I get back from Cornwall on Sunday, I will be knocking the trading on the head, topping up my accounts and focusing on my football betting. Watch this space

Happy new year – for some

I have been doing well on my racing trading, regularly making £60 in an afternoon. In fact, I was £300 up on my betting on the horses in the last three months of the year. Whether it was the effects of going to bed at 04.30 I don’t know, but all my good work was wiped out in the space of two disastrous hours on the afternoon of New Year’s Day. A horse with no previous form sprouted wings in the final furlong of an all-weather race to catch the leader on the line. As the commentator said: “There was no way you could have predicted that.” It was little comfort to me, as I had lost £150 in 90 seconds.

Then I started chasing losses – and managed to back five consecutive losing favourites. The horse that was generally regarded as the “bet of the day” fell, while another was overhauled in the last 100 years of its race. In desperation, I decided to lay the next favourite. It won, of course. I was lost for words. And my bank balance was £250 lighter.

One of my friends has started asking me to tell her what I am going to back, so that she can do the opposite. It’s hard to argue with such logic, at the moment.

Hell-Bent on going skint

Since Black Sunday, things have got little better. As I can’t afford to continue my strategy with goals and corners, I am selectively backing matches that I fancy. But I am still getting far more wrong than right.

There were three live matches on last Sunday (Hibernian v Hearts, Wigan v Spurs and Man Utd v Chelsea), providing me with six opportunities to follow my strategy (total goals and total corners). I made five of the six bets – they all lost. The only one I didn’t do (“more than two goals” in the Man Utd v Chelsea game) was the only winner. Another £100 down the drain. Someone up there doesn’t like me.

Yesterday, there were four matches being played. As I was going to West Ham v Fulham, and had lost £200 on the previous afternoon, I decided not to have a bet. When I returned after West Ham’s facile victory, I discovered that the first three games of the day had all featured “more than two goals”, meaning that I would have been quids in had I followed my usual strategy. So I had a large bet on “more than two goals” in the Tottenham v Portsmouth match. It finished 1-1, with David James making several outstanding saves and Darren Bent missing an open goal from two yards.

I also had £12 on a horse in the last race of the day, with the intention of laying it off in running for a profit of a couple of quid. But I became engrossed in the football, and by the time I had remembered about the race, my horse had finished second last and I had recorded yet another losing bet. My luck has to change soon.

A kick in the teeth

You’ll have to excuse my lack of communication. It’s not that I’ve stopped gambling. Far from it. It’s just that I had a couple of terrible days that made me question whether I should be losing so much money (and then bringing it back to mind by writing on it).

The date was Sunday November 23. As you may remember, I was about £300 down on total goals betting and £150 down on total corners on live football matches. The strategy was to back more “than two goals” in every live match, increasing my stake each time that I had a losing bet to cover my previous losses and turn a small profit. It was the same deal with “more than 12 corners”.

The first game of the day was Spurs v Blackburn. I fancied an attacking game with plenty of goals and corners, so I had £60 on each outcome. Despite Spurs taking an early lead, the game finished 1-0. There were 12 corners – one shy of the number I needed.

At the same time, I was trading on the afternoon’s racing. It was soon the usual story. After several small wins, I laid (took a bet on) a horse to win at a long price, as it looked as if it would struggle to get round the course, let alone come home in front. But somehow it did – and I had lost £120. Rather than slowly recouping my losses, I started backing favourites to win. I had soon lost another £100.

The second live match of the afternoon was Sunderland v West Ham. Now I have had a season ticket at West Ham for 20 years and have been to hundreds of matches. So I feel that I am well positioned to predict their results. And I fancied Sunderland to win a drab match. But because of the strategy I was following, I felt that I had to have heavy bets on lots of goals and corners – even though I didn't fancy it. So I had £85 each on “more than 12 corners” and “more than two goals”, as well as £40 on Sunderland to win. West Ham’s 1-0 victory, with only seven corners, cost me another £210. Yes, Sunderland were unlucky (they should have had a penalty and had enough chances to have made two of my bets winners), but being “unlucky” was becoming too familiar a story. In exasperation, I had £50 on Barcelona to win that evening at 1.25. They drew (it was the first time they had failed to win at home all season) – and I had lost £560 on the day.

The most ridiculous aspect of the situation is that even if my two larger bets on the Sunderland match had come up trumps, I would have recouped very little of my losses (I would still have been £260 on my total goals betting and £80 down on corners). Instead, I was £445 and £295 down respectively.

My losses were almost rendered insignificant only three days later. After a lengthy study of the midweek fixtures, I fancied four teams to win and five matches to have “more than two goals.” I combined them in sixfolds (for 25p), sevenfolds (60p), eightfolds (£1.10) and an accumulator (£12.50). My outlay of £63.80 was almost twice as much as I had ever placed on such a bet before. But I was unusually confident.

And my confidence was soon looking justified. From the very first minute, goals started hitting the net in all of my games. I was watching the scores on Sky Sports and was getting more excited as the minutes ticked by. With a few minutes to go, all four of the teams I had backed were winning, and at least three goals had been scored in four of my five games. If either side scored again in the Hartlepool v Brighton match, I would have a full house. I logged on to the BBC website and started watching the live text feed. The score was 1-1 (as it had been since the 25th minute) and Hartlepool were piling on the pressure. But the game ended without further score.

Hartlepool’s previous 11 home games had averaged more than four goals each. The BBC report the next day started: “Hartlepool were made to pay for their wastefulness in front of goal…” I won £244. But one more goal from either side and it would have been more than £3,200. One of these days…