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