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.