Month: September 2024

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The satisfaction of finding value for yourself, the importance of sharing knowledge, and being a Fan Boy!

I love following tipsters.  It comes from a very early realisation on my part that I had no skill at all in finding an edge in a sport and being able to exploit it to make money.  And believe me, years ago I tried.  And tried.  And then tried some more.  Had I not been much more than a callow youth, I would hope that my dumb male pride wouldn’t have prevented me from admitting as much to myself.  As it was my lack of humility was ultimately I’m sure, the sole reason for the cashier in the local bookie – who knew I was underage – to always welcome me into the shop with open arms.  Even offered me a job at one point as a ‘Board Marker’.  That’s how keen he was to keep me on the premises!

Then I found tipsters, and suddenly there was light at the end of the tunnel.  The one part of my personality that would have made me a good soldier – and I mean one – is that I can follow instructions and orders, presuming I could see why by doing so I might benefit.

And now having said all that, can I just say how much I enjoy using the Bookie Bashing Tools to search for value in the markets?  I’ve watched all of Tom Brownlee’s videos on his site, many more than two or three times.  I’ve picked snippets up from the Bookie Bashing Podcast.  And putting things together to help me search for +EV bets is really rewarding.  I can recommend it.  Better than bloody Sudoku!

I’ve tried to concentrate on one angle at a time.  Primarily around goal scorers initially, particularly in the Any Time Goalscorer market.  Then it was the Enhanced Specials offered up daily by BetDaq and Matchbook (is it me or is value there just becoming a little less common – more people catching on?).  And now it’s attacking the ‘Player to be Shown a Card’ market.

Tom was talking about how folk had told him how lucrative this has been recently, and seems to be profiting himself.  And although it is ridiculously early days for me as yet, I’ve got off to a really strong start.  Having started last Thursday, I’ve played in 11 matches since, and six of them produced profit.  All told, I’m standing at an ROI of 29.9%.

Now I’m not saying that that sort of figure is any way sustainable.  Truth be told, I’d settle on about 15% of that.  Going to be fascinating to see what happens from here.  I have a suspicion that as more people cotton on, the edge may erode.  Let’s hope not.

And that brings me on to another subject raised by Tom in a recent Bookie Bashing podcast.

Call it plagiarism, cheating, downright fraudulent…copying others work and then seeking to benefit commercially from it by passing methods off as your own is bang out of order.  And my worry is that if this happens, the likes of Tom are simply going to clam up so that they protect their edge.  They will not share their thoughts and processes with us mere mortals, and why would they?

The beauty of Bookie Bashing, I find, is that if you allow yourself to be, you can be properly and very well educated.  I would hate for that to stop, if for no other reason than I find listening to clever people who know more about their specialty than I ever will, is fascinating.  To me, that was the thrill of the SmartBash.  Trust me, there were some very clever people there, very much worth listening to.

And finally, and on the theme of clever, knowledgeable people – if you haven’t already, make sure you listen to the SBC Podcast with Matthew Trenhaille (Trench).  Seriously, is there anything about betting, market making, bookmakers, etc that he doesn’t have a huge depth of knowledge about?  And is there anyone else who can put their thoughts and knowledge across in a more easy-to-understand and entertaining way?  I could listen to the man for hours.

I guess that makes me a Fan Boy.  Who would have thought…?

Big bets at WO Football, a horrible Saturday, and the first 4UP Lucky 15.

After a lot of bets the week just gone ended up more or less even, a few quid in the red but barely anything.  Talk about grinding it out.

Annoyingly, a horrible Saturday for The Value Machine ultimately proved very costly, but more on that shortly.

Let’s start with the positive, and another strong week (especially Sunday which saw 5% bank growth) for WinnerOdds Football.  Some big bets going down on 1.11 bets and similar, but plenty of smaller but successful bets on longer prices too.  If I break down my stats from when I started with the service, bets priced between 1.0 and 1.4 are performing to a negative ROI of -0.46%, and those between 1.4 – 1.6 at -2.04%.  Then come the most profitable categories by far; 1.6 – 1.8 are chugging along very nicely at 6.93% and those between 1.8 – 2.0 at a fantastic 9.42%.

What this means is that when I have a dirty great big stake going on a 1.11 shot as on Saturday, I find myself checking for the result in a way I wouldn’t with anything else.  Need to stop doing that.

Anyway, all is well as ends well for WO Footie this week.

It’s felt a little while in the coming, but on Friday I had the first four up in a Bookie Bashing Lucky 15 sourced from the Early Pay Out Tracker for the first time this season.  Decent prices too, and that one bet provided a profit equal to 24.7% bank growth, and has pushed the ROI for the month to date up to 37.3%.  Sadly, each and every other day for this strategy was a losing one, but I can live with that when we get winners such as this.

Sys Analyst carried on the good work done this month.  Only in action on the Friday and Saturday, a nice winner at just over 11/1 on the Exchanges and a 20/1 place at a bookmaker ensured more profit.  It’s been beautifully steady this month, and long may that continue.  Actually, “steady” doesn’t do it anywhere near justice.  Bank growth this month is currently 22% and the ROI is 172.4%.  Let’s upgrade “steady” to “bloody spectacular”!

A profitable week too, for the various Bookie Bashing Tools Value Bets.  After listening to Tom in various videos and the Bookie Bashing podcast, I’ve been concentrating a lot more on the Cards markets and to date it has proven to be a good decision.  I’m going to go into more detail in my next post, but suffice to say at this stage that cards bets provided by far the biggest chunk of the profit last week.

A quiet week for Weekly Golf Value which opted not to get involved in the LIV tournament, and with no PGA Tour event that meant there was just the DPWT PGA British Open to go at.  No placed = no returns.

And then we come to The Value Machine.  It was only last week I was talking about how swingy I was finding it on a day to day basis, and unfortunately Saturday was very much a downswing day.  Of 61 horses backed, only six won, and apart from a 6/1 shot, the other winners were priced at 2/1 or lower.  You don’t need to be a mathematical genius to work out that that was only going to end in a pretty hefty loss.  The drawdown from the last high is now the equivalent to almost a third of the bank.  Going to be interesting to see what happens next.  I’m strapping myself in for the ride.

September Figures (stakes normalised):

Early Pay Out Tracker: Staked 855pts, 319.74pts, roi 37.39%, roc 21.31%.

Weekly Golf Value: Staked 492pts, -187.5pts, roi -38.1%, roc -9.37%.

Sys Analyst: Staked 256.8pts, +442.94pts, roi 172.48%, roc 22.14%.

Value Bets (BB): Staked 1,497.71pts, +33.96pts, roi 2.36%, roc 1.69%.

The Value Machine: Staked 6,870pts, -193.73pts, roi -2.81%, roc -9.68%

Winner Odds Football: Staked 5,291pts, +645.89pts, roi 12.2%, roc 32.29%.

TOTAL: Staked 15,282.51pts, +1,063.3pts, roi 6.95%, roc 9.24%.

Since when did nipples have hands?

I enjoy watching Ton Brownlee’s videos regularly posted on the Bookie Bashing website.

In this latest one posted on Monday entitled, “It doesn’t matter if you lose”, Tom talks very sensibly and logically about how losing bets really shouldn’t matter to value bettors.  Providing we’re consistently taking value prices, then over the long term we will make a profit.

Tom recommends adopting a mentality focused more on knowing that by taking prices that mean that to our knowledge, each bet we strike is +EV, then what we are doing is ensuring we lose a bit less during a drawdown than we would otherwise, and win a bit more through the upswings.  I paraphrase, but that I believe, was his point.

I’ve got to admit, I’d never quite looked upon my betting in this way, but it sure does make sense.  I’d like to think – in fact I know – that my mentality and resilience against losing runs has grown exponentially over the years.  Sure, I don’t enjoy losing runs and drawdowns.  Who in their right mind does?!  But “a comfortable acceptance” that they must and will happen is how I’d describe where I’m at nowadays.

But, having said all that, I’ve got to admit that just rarely, on occasion, I can still allow myself to be riled by a set of circumstances surrounding a losing bet or two.  And such an occurrence happened just last night, less than 24 hours after watching Tom’s video.

If you watched or have seen highlights of the Young Boys/Aston Villa Champions’ League match, I’m sure I’ll have your sympathy (or maybe not, maybe you’ll just find it funny) when I tell you I had two bets on Ollie Watkins – one for him to have at least one shot on target during the match, and another as an Anytime Goal Scorer.

I’d secured what I believed to be value prices being offered by BetDaq’s Enhanced Specials, utilising the Bookie Bashing Player xG model and Player xSOT model.

Nothing in the first 40 minutes or so from Watkins other than a fluffed shot that ended not far from the corner flag, when looking as though he had been put through on goal.  But then, what I thought was a ‘Happy Days’ scene.  A Villa attack, ball ricochets out to Watkins off a YB defender, bounces up onto Watkins’s CHEST (!!!!!), before he blasts it into the back of the net.

One shot on target.  One goal.  Two bets landed.

But, ooooooh no.  Not according to the indescribably sh*te, have-no-idea-what-they’re-doing, pityingly dreadful, beyond redemption,  can’t-wait-to-get-involved VAR!!

Handball.

No.  It wasn’t handball, because unless there was a recent rule change as to what constitutes a handball, and that rule states clearly that for a handball offence to occur, the ball doesn’t actually have to hit the hand, or arm, that was not a handball!  I mean, seriously. What the actual?!?

I don’t know.  Perhaps that interminable “discussion point” loved by incompetent and inadequate pundits on TV as to whether the ball hit below or above a player’s T-shirt line…has that handball rule been replaced by whether or not the ball hit below or above the nipple line?

My point is – and I admit I am labouring it a bit now – is that the ball did not hit Watkins’ arm, hand, or anything other than his chest.  But with the goal ruled out, the two winners became two losers.

I consoled myself a little with the knowledge that it wasn’t even half time and so there was plenty of time left for Watkins to perform as needed.  There was time, and then there wasn’t.  He was substituted in the 60th minute.

Ultimately, last night was a successful evening for the various Value Bets I struck.  A total profit of 64 points was made at an ROI of 29.4%.  All ended well.

But I can’t get over the point that it could have been soooooo much better.  Tom is right – if we’re doing things correctly, it doesn’t matter when we lose.  Or at least to me, it doesn’t matter, unless you’ve been robbed by a VAR.

 

Sys Analyst and WinnerOdds Football excel, being down then up, and “boring” profit making!

At the risk of offending one or two, it’s always good to beat Spurs.  I’ll just leave that there.

The last week has felt a bit topsy turvy, but when everything had been settled late Sunday night, the seven days had produced a profit equating to a shade under 3% bank growth at an ROI of 6.9%.  That’s not exactly spectacular, but nor is it too shabby.  The ride to get there though, was a pretty bumpy one.

Let’s start with the positive and WinnerOdds Football.  The vast  majority of the action, as you might expect, came over the weekend and whilst Sunday was essentially break even, Saturday’s profits came to nearly 22% bank growth on their own.  There were some pretty hefty bets in there too, at short odds, but it would take only one or two of them to go down and we’d be looking at a very different picture.  That’s not what happened though, so all good.

It’s going to be interesting to keep an eye on turnover over the next week or so, with my adopting the policy I mentioned last week of not looking to strike bets on matches happening 48 or more hours ahead.  I know this is going to mean missing some fairly sizeable chunks of EV, but am prepared to make the sacrifice in the interest of keeping accounts viable for longer.  This might not work, of course.  It may be I’m better just getting as much turnover through as I possibly can whilst I have the chance, and there is a lot to be said for that approach too.

Really good to see Sys Analyst bouncing back and am delighted for Allan.  The trend was started last week, and continued through this.  Three days with bets, and each of them profitable.  A good priced each way place on Friday, and a winner on each of Saturday and Sunday meant an excellent week and the figures for the month to date are something to gaze upon with adoration and admiration in equal measure.  All short term of course, but so good to see the numbers going in the right direction.

The Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Tracker has been the epitome of something “going quietly about its business”.  No spectacular all four up Lucky 15s to boast about, but a couple with three.  Without any outstanding return from one bet, it is sailing along at an ROI of 41.5% this month, and has generated 11.6% bank growth.  If making money from betting was always this easy and smooth, it would likely grow to be a little boring.  I suppose it’s a tedium I could get used to.

Managed to hit a decent number of Value Bets derived from the Bookie Bashing Tools on Sunday, primarily on the Any Time Goalscorer market and some Combo Bets involving Cards and Corners.  And added volume seemed to do the trick with an area that I had been struggling with just a touch this month.  Anyway, almost all the losses have now been clawed back and I do enjoy finding value myself.  Makes me feel useful.

A break even week for Weekly Golf Value with three placed from the three events we played in.  Thought it was four until I realised that I’d taken Alex Fitzpatrick to eight places instead of ten – he finished in a tie for 9th!  One of the placed golfers was at 110/1 which produced a decent enough return and overall, I finished just the red side of the break even line.  Certainly not much damage done at all.

The one service to lose anything like a significant sum last week in the end was The Value Machine, although hardly in any disastrous way.  The first half of the week saw some fairly significant losses, but a fair chunk of these were recouped through the second half, despite my not being in a position on Saturday to put any bets at all down.  I think what I’ve learnt about TVM is that with a large number of bets each day, the bad days can feel pretty darned bad, and the good days pretty darned good.  Losing runs may not last that long in terms of time, but they can hit in a fairly sharp way.  But then so do the winning runs.  I think, what I’m trying to say in a very roundabout, incoherent way, is that it can feel a bit up and down.  Even with the down this week though, TVM has still provided 10% bank growth in just two weeks.  Which is an up.  Not a down.  Just has felt down.  And then felt up.

You get the point.

September Figures (stakes normalised):

Early Pay Out Tracker: Staked 420pts, 174.32pts, roi 41.5%, roc 11.62%.

Weekly Golf Value: Staked 384pts, -59.5pts, roi -15.49%, roc -2.97%.

Sys Analyst: Staked 177.8pts, +343.06pts, roi 192.94%, roc 17.15%.

Value Bets (BB): Staked 533.1pts, -19.35pts, roi -3.62%, roc -0.96%.

The Value Machine: Staked 4,190pts, +200.09pts, roi 4.77%, roc 10%

Winner Odds Football: Staked 2,964pts, +455.21pts, roi 16.89%, roc 22.76%.

TOTAL: Staked 8,398.9pts, +1,095.83pts, roi 13.04%, roc 9.52%.

Thoughts on WinnerOdds Football – unlucky so far.

I’ve been following WinnerOdds Football for 18 weeks.

Nine of those weeks have been profitable, so it shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise that all in, I’m at break even point.  In fact, I’m ridiculously close to break even, with an overall ROI of -0.04%.

Across those 18 weeks, I’ve struck 1,027 bets.  507 have won, 509 have lost.  And this is where it gets interesting.

Using the WO tool that allows us to look at how the “Average User” has fared over defined periods of time, I can  see that over the same 18 week period, Mr or Ms Average User experienced 10 winning weeks and eight losing.

He or she struck fewer bets – 637.  323 of those were winners, 308 losers and the outcome is a positive ROI of 3.35%.

What does this tell us?

That unfortunately, I’ve been the victim of negative variance, but not to any level anywhere near outside of the norm.

I do feel unfortunate, got to admit.  In their FAQ section, WO have this to say on the subject of when it is reasonable to judge their performance, ie. over the long-term:

“At WO, we set the long-term at 1000 bets, because as you can see in the betting history, the chances of being at a loss after 1000 bets are minimal.”

Well guys, I am at a loss.  But don’t worry, I’m not coming for you! 🙂

I’m genuinely not concerned at performance levels thus far.  I’m confident that it will improve, and although we’re obviously talking very, very short term now, September has got off to a pleasing start.  Let’s just hope it’s the start of a sustained profitable period.

If I’m being totally honest, I do harbour some concerns over viability.  I rely on the family’s account with one prominent online bookmaker more than I would ideally like, and the fear has to be being shut down before making a decent profit.  High turnover should help with this, but it hasn’t over the last 1,000 bets!  Do I feel comfortable putting a bet down on a team playing in the South Korean League 2 in a match not being played for five days?  No.  No, I don’t.  Because surely not many Traders are going to turn a blind eye for that long.

But this is doom and gloom stuff, the sort you often read in Discord channels where people who don’t necessarily reveal the whole picture criticise and whinge and generally give the impression something is a complete waste of time because they haven’t won for two days.  A lesson I learnt very quickly was to pick carefully who you listen to or take advice from, and who from their public utterances can be trusted as being fair and balanced.  Outside of that, just do things yourself and draw your own conclusions on something,

Anyway, let’s see what happens next with WO Football.  Hopefully, more of what I’ve enjoyed over the last few days.

As for yesterday’s betting, we had a couple of Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Trackers complete with a resultant small profit.  An overdue poor day for The Value Machine recording a -107.5 point loss. one winner from two Any Time Goalscorer bets sourced from the Bookie Bashing Player xG Tool (Value Bets) in the France match last night, and one losing bet from one for WinnerOdds Football.

Overall then, a loss of -88.33 points across the board, or ROC of -0.76%.

Updated figures below:

September Figures (stakes normalised):

Early Pay Out Tracker: Staked 105pts, 75.74pts, roi 72.13%, roc 5.04%.

Weekly Golf Value: Staked 94pts, -44.5pts, roi 11.39-47.34%, roc -2.22%.

Sys Analyst: Staked 55.8pts, +191.3pts, roi 342.83%, roc 9.56%.

Value Bets (BB): Staked 134pts, -80.21pts, roi -59.85%, roc -4.01%.

The Value Machine: Staked 2,410pts, +308.59pts, roi 12.8%, roc 15.42%

Winner Odds Football: Staked 929pts, +212.85pts, roi 22.91%, roc 10.64%.

TOTAL: Staked 3,727.8pts, +665.77pts, roi 17.85%, roc 5.78%.

The recovery! Sys Analyst with a huge winner, The Value Machine a flying machine, and WinnerOdds Football hits the net!

I’m very aware I still need to write a post providing some thoughts on the Value Bets derived from the various Tools and Trackers at Bookie Bashing, and on WinnerOdds Football.  That will come very shortly, tomorrow with a fair wind.  But for today, I want to bring everything up to speed for the first week of September.

Thankfully, after a pretty ropey July and August, things have taken something of an upturn.  This is good.  We like upturns.  We don’t like what comes before an upturn, because to be an upturn you have to have a down turn.  Down turns?  No-one is a fan, eh?

After my moaning about how the break in domestic football to accommodate international games was having a detrimental impact on turnover, it was fantastic to see high turnover The Value Machine enjoy what can only be described as a ‘stormer’!  Loads of bets each day – at least 30, sometimes 50+ – meant turnover was something I needn’t have worried about.  Not only that, but the results were excellent too.  Up to full stakes from the first of the month, and now 416 points up at an ROI of 21%.

A note of caution however, more to myself than aimed at anyone else.  An ROI of 21% is WAY above what I am hoping for long term.  I’m targeting somewhere between 7 and 9% ROI over time, so clearly the pace set by last week’s performance is unsustainable.  I’ve determined that I should enjoy this rate of return whilst it lasts.

The other big winner last week was WinnerOdds Football, which after a fairly torrid few weeks enjoyed something of a bounce back.  What you have just read for The Value Machine, rinse and repeat for WO Footie.  An ROI on the week of 26.5% is way outside the margins of expectation, and is an example of very shot term positive variance if ever I’ve seen one.  But after a period of negative variance, it is most welcome indeed.

Despite a chronic lack of bets, the Lucky 15s from the Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Tracker actually produced some profit with, put simply, more teams winning.  None at particularly big odds, but enough to ensure a small pay out on a few tickets and one Lucky 15 saw all four teams win, albeit at shorter prices.  Still, after what has been a pretty testing period, I’m quite happy with a bit of steady if not spectacular.

Finally, just the one player landing in the frame from the one tournament given the treatment by Weekly Golf Value, and due to the number of places available at the bookmaker I was able to get on with, I had to share the place returns on that.  Still, no real damage done on the week.

And in some ways leaving the best until last, a lovely winner for Sys Analyst on Sunday.  Tribalist, running at Longchamp was the 25/1 SP winner, but I was fortunate enough to get 36.0 on the Exchange. Some I believe, were able to get even bigger, but I sure ain’t complaining!  I really hope, for Allan’s sake as well as my own, that Sys Analyst really builds on this now and before we know it, reaches a new profit high point.

The only dark spot last week were the Value Bets, and I managed to exacerbate the non-performance issue by being what can only be described as a 24 carat plonker!  Who didn’t check that Marcus Thuram wasn’t actually in the starting 11 for France’s match against Italy?  Who thought he was taking a great price of 2.11 for him to have at least one shot on target?  Who was stung by Thuram coming on with about 15 minutes to go?  And who was the muppet who clearly had his eyes shut when shooting because he managed two shots in that limited time, but neither of them were accurate enough to trouble the goalkeeper.

Only for one of those questions above, is the answer not, ‘Me’! 🙁

September Figures (stakes normalised):

Early Pay Out Tracker: Staked 75pts, 55.36pts, roi 73.81%, roc 3.69%.

Weekly Golf Value: Staked 94pts, -44.5pts, roi 11.39-47.34%, roc -2.22%.

Sys Analyst: Staked 55.8pts, +191.3pts, roi 342.83%, roc 9.56%.

Value Bets (BB): Staked 106pts, -106pts, roi -100%, roc -5.3%.

Winner Odds Football: Staked 902pts, +239.85pts, roi 26.59%, roc 11.99%.

TOTAL: Staked 3,202.8pts, +752.1pts, roi 23.48%, roc 6.54%.

Weekly Golf Value and Sys Analyst – thoughts.

In this post, some thoughts on Weekly Golf Value and Sys Analyst.

Starting with the sport that ruins good walks.  As far as WGV is concerned, I could just as well simply copy and paste my comments in yesterday’s post around the Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Tracker.  Things are going smoothly if we look at longer term performance and year to date figures just north of 15% ROI.

15% is lower than the long, long term numbers but is a level of return not to be sniffed at.  A service cannot be said to be enduring a disappointing year when it’s performing to a level of 15%!

It would be nice if we could finish the year off with a winner or two, he says, stating the bloomin’ obvious.  A 20% ROI 2024 would be another excellent year.  As for August, it was essentially a break even month, which I think feels worse than it should because for such a period throughout August, it was the one service producing the goods after an early winner.  Unfortunately the profit from that was eroded completely, but as we know, this is all a part of the golf betting game.

It’s a little bit different when it comes to Sys Analyst.

Before I continue, I want to make one or two things extremely clear:

  1. This is a top drawer service that has been churning out excellent profits for a long, long time.
  2. The chap who runs the service, Allan, is a highly experienced bettor and tipster who has seen losing runs come and then go, recovering strongly from each and every one of them.
  3. Because of Point 2 above, he retains my complete confidence.

I think my only concern here is that it feels like the number of bets has dropped in more recent times.  Looking at the latest results spreadsheet that was sent through on July 29th, I can see that there were 753 bets issued between July 28th 2023 and July 27th 2024 – exactly one year.

Through the previous 12 months, there were 1,218 bets.

My feeling is that one likely cause of this trend is Allan’s desire to provide the best possible service to his clientele.  He is – and has always been – keen to ensure that the prices he is quoting his bets at are realistically achievable, and this has meant targeting higher quality racing carrying more liquid markets, plus tipping at a time when the markets have matured and bookmakers are less likely to have their hackles raised by someone sticking more than a tenner down!  Let’s not forget too, and this is vital, Allan is tipping in a way that allows those that use the Exchanges to profit.

I’ve seen this pattern before, in old favourite The Value Bettor, with Andrew there being equally as conscientious as Allan is now.  He too altered his service to target exclusively the major races and meetings.  It means that turnover drops, and therefore the individual or service becomes more susceptible to losing runs lasting longer (in terms of time), simply because they take longer to recover from.  I have an inkling this is what we’re seeing with Sys Analyst.  I could be wrong, but to me anyway, it makes sense.

Next post we’ll explore the Bookie Bashing derived Value Bets, and WinnerOdds Football.

August review: a mediocre month, but room for optimism?

What a month!  Not enjoyable.  At all.

And just when you think we’re entering a time of year when turnover could be reasonably expected to really pick up, we have an international footie break, bringing the top European leagues to a grinding halt.  To be fair, with Winner Odds Football, a lot of the picks are in minor leagues around the world, so the interminable interlull shouldn’t have that much of an impact.  I certainly hope not.  But with the Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Tracker, that’s a different story.  A lot of the teams I back in my Lucky 15s are sourced from the EPL and other top level European leagues, and that’s not going to happen until proper football is back in two weeks time.  As if to emphasise this issue, Monday and Tuesday of this week have seen me able to get down just one – yes, one – L15.

I hate international breaks.  With. A. Passion.

Let’s take a look at the August figures:

August Figures (stakes normalised):

Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Tracker: Staked 630pts, -132.7pts, roi -21.06%, roc -8.84%.

Weekly Golf Value: Staked 904pts, -16pts, roi -1.76%, roc -1.06%.

Sys Analyst: Staked 492.7pts, -230.7pts, roi -46.82%, roc -15.38%.

Value Bets (BB): Staked 691pts, -40.77pts, roi -5.9%, roc -2.71%.

Winner Odds Football: Staked 3,455pts, -259.97pts, roi -7.52%, roc -17.33%.

TOTAL: Staked 6,741.75pts, -605.26pts, roi -8.97%, roc -8.07%.

What I want to do is write a series of posts that explores each of the above separately.  Being honest, with one or two of them I do have some slight niggles.  Nothing at this stage that would make me think about dropping them.  But it should be a good exercise in noting the sort of things we should be always looking out for that might raise some real alarms and provide serious pause for thought.  At the very least, double checking that there are no real warning signs about a service, strategy, or tipster, is always good practice.  A constant and ongoing audit, if you like.

Let’s start today with the Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Tracker.

In terms of alarm bells, there are none.  It is as simple as that.  I’m convinced that all that has happened here is that we’re a victim of variance across a very small data set.  The ROI for the year remains north of 15%, which is around about where I would set the target for the Lucky 15 strategy anyway.

The season has not yet really got underway properly, a point exacerbated by the dreaded interlull, and so the aim of getting four to five Lucky 15s down per day has proven to be somewhat ambitious.  This will change, of that I’m sure, and when it does I’ve no reason to think that results won’t continue to be strong.

It should be noted too, that the deficit for August is nothing that wouldn’t be totally eradicated (and then some) by one good Lucky 15 return.  In terms of concerns, there really is nothing to see here.

The next Bet Diary post will look at Weekly Golf Value and Sys Analyst.

Back soon with that.