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.