Not a great week in the run up to Christmas, and if I’m being totally honest I’m quite looking forward to a few days break with no betting at all, before the sport returns with a vengeance on Boxing Day.

Overall, a deficit to the ROI tune of -7.16% last week.

Let’s start with the positive and it was another remarkably consistent week for WinnerOdds Football.  The ROI for the month to date stands at 10.31% which is about twice that I would be hoping for long term, so there’s no doubt that it’s running hot at the moment.  Previously it’s been brilliant weekends that have produced the profit but last week saw weekdays profitable, the Saturday being the only (marginally) losing day before back to profit on Sunday.  I’ll take profits six days of every week though!  Again, by end of the week, we’re at a profit high mark for the month (and in fact, overall too).

Another to reach this milestone yesterday was the various Value Bets, made up of bets on the NFL (very positive yesterday), Darts (the same), Bookings (blank), and Enhanced Specials (break even) gleaned from finding value in the markets through use of the Bookie Bashing tools.  I usually look to utilise the Combo Tracker too, but for some unfathomable reason yesterday, completely forgot!  It must have been looking at how Sp*rs set up to play Liverpool with an injury-hit and inexperienced back four…perhaps Ange, just maybe, look to set up your midfield in such a way as to afford some protection.  Call me a tactical mastermind or something…(Insert Rolling Eyes emoji).

Anyway, I digress.

After WinnerOdds Football and Value Bets though, it was losses all the way.

Small losses in the cases of the Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Tracker and slightly larger deficits (although not worryingly so) for Sys Analyst – which had a second consecutive blank week, albeit from not many picks – and The ValueMachine.

A blank week for me on the Bookie Bashing Golf Tracker and sadly I didn’t back the player put up by Weekly Golf Value who placed.

Like I say, I’m kinda looking to a few days break.

And on that note, may I wish you all who celebrate Christmas a great one, and those of you who don’t, a nice and relaxing end to the year and holiday period.  May Santa bring us winners galore.

Have a good one.

December Figures (stakes normalised):

Early Pay Out Tracker: Staked 588pts, -119.88pts, roi -20.38%, roc -7.99%.

Weekly Golf Value: Staked 539pts, +992.8pts, roi 184.19%, roc 49.64%.

Sys Analyst: Staked 246.4pts, -168.4pts, roi -68.34%, roc -11.22%.

Value Bets (BB): Staked 1,025.79pts, +139pts, roi 13.55%, roc 13.9%.

The Value Machine: Staked 1,800pts, -130.09pts, roi -7.22%, roc -6.5%

Winner Odds Football: Staked 3,332pts, +343.69pts, roi 10.31%, roc 17.18%.

Trial Service: Staked 633.3pts, -241.89pts, roi -38.19%, roc -16.12%

TOTAL: Staked 8,164.49pts, +815.23pts, roi 9.98%, roc 9.05%

A bit of a nothing week or so, and have largely stood still over this time.  After starting the very earliest hours of the month with less a bang than a mahoosive, earth shaking, climate changing explosion, what has followed has been something of an anticlimax.

That’s to take nothing away at all from WinnerOdds Football which has continued its exceptionally strong form.  When making profit with the consistency of this service over the last couple of weeks, betting feels easy.  The last 15 bets have seen 14 wins.  There’s a little voice in the back of my head saying that this can’t last (it won’t, obviously) so enjoy it whilst you can.  So that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Sadly though, the best efforts of WO Footie have merely served to keep the overall P&L on a relatively stable footing.  A bad weekend betting on Cards from the Bookie Bashing xPlayerStats Tool, had acted as a counterpoint to some winning bets gleaned from the Combo Tracker.  The whole thing is encapsulated by the early stage betting on the World Darts Championship where after six bets I’ve made the princely sum of £1.17! The overall 11% ROI made from all Value Bets so far this month, using various Trackers, is pleasing thoughWinner .

The week’s golf betting saw just one player reach the places from the 15 I backed so a losing week there, and unfortunately a blank week for Sys Analyst.

There has been some profit for The Value Machine but not enough to poke a nose above the break even line for the month as yet.  Things had been going swimmingly until the weekend.  Still have every confidence in this though, and am firmly of the mind that this will be a corner stone of 2025’s betting.

So all in all, no progress made, and we keep grinding.

December Figures (stakes normalised):

Early Pay Out Tracker: Staked 532pts, -81.83pts, roi -15.38%, roc -5.45%.

Weekly Golf Value: Staked 418pts, +1,113.8pts, roi 266.45%, roc 55.69%.

Sys Analyst: Staked 181.15pts, -103.15pts, roi -56.94%, roc -6.87%.

Value Bets (BB): Staked 741.12pts, +84.68pts, roi 11.42%, roc 8.46%.

The Value Machine: Staked 1,425pts, -63.18pts, roi -4.43%, roc -3.15%

Winner Odds Football: Staked 2,534pts, +282.05pts, roi 11.13%, roc 14.1%.

Trial Service: Staked 633.3pts, -241.89pts, roi -38.19%, roc -16.12%

TOTAL: Staked 2,773.32pts, +1,089.20pts, roi 39.27%, roc 10.37%

I thought that in the run up to Christmas and the end of the year, I’d write a series of posts within which I’d give my own thoughts as to each of the strategies and services I’ve been following through 2024.  Obviously I know a number of you will have your own choices and maybe one or two coincide with mine, or your portfolio may be entirely different.  But at a time of year when we quite naturally start to look ahead to the next 12 months and to what our betting will look like, I thought that an explanation of and insight into thought processes might possibly be useful. Or, maybe not.  But by jotting a few things down in here, I think I’ll find it useful in clarifying my own thoughts.  And goddammit, this is ALL ABOUT ME, I TELL YOU!  ME!  ME! ME!

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

I feel I’m kinda limping towards a finishing line with this.  And this fills me with sadness as the EP Tracker has been a firm friend to me, producing very consistent profit at a very healthy ROI.  But the best things don’t last forever.  It’s much like a faithful and loved dog reaching the ends of its life and in its senior years.  You love it dearly, but the long, rambling walks that you both so enjoyed in each other’s company are no longer possible as the mutt is getting too old and arthritic to be doing with such nonsense, and instead your walks now are more a slow plod around the block.

The edge has been eroded by the removal of one particular bookmaker’s bonus attached to having all four wins within a Lucky 15.  This can be circumvented by instead backing the four teams – and maybe adding a fifth – in a series of doubles, trebles, and fourfold/fivefolds.  There remains a bonus on these winning bets that can add significantly to the long term ROI.  I may well look to breathe new life into my old dog, learn new tricks, and benefit that way moving forward.  We’ll see.

There is another issue though, and that’s having continued access to the book which easily is the most prolific in throwing up bets on the EP Tracker.  Read between those fairly obvious lines, if you will please.

And moving on from that, and thinking about the importance of “priming” and new bookmaker account that might become available…this is where I see the EP Tracker having continued real value.  Why not use the Tracker to find Single bets on teams in the major domestic and European leagues, and place those bets within a new account?  You would think it unlikely that the profit would be huge unless you happen to be doing this whilst on a particularly hot streak, but over a number of bets you would hope not to lose too much if anything, and the nature of the bets aren’t going to raise the hackles of any traders poring over the record of an account in its infancy.  And during this time, the odd high-EV+ combo bet(s) may just be the ticket.

So it’s unlikely that the EP Tracker will play as prominent a role for me in 2025 as it has in 2024.  But in no way has it been made redundant.  There’s value to be had yet.

It’s been a decent week so far, with betting on Cards using the Bookie Bashing Player Stats Tool proving lucrative.  More on that and a figures update next week.  Until then, have a great weekend!

With some horrible weather brought to the UK by the not-so-ominously-named Storm Darragh, the first week of December was notable for the impact the weather had on turnover.  Let’s just say after a number of race meetings were abandoned, I’m already way behind my turnover target.

I’ll write a post on this in the not too distant future.  Turnover is everything really, and when that is cut, the opportunity to make good profits if impacted.  I’ve also got a few things to talk about in terms of each individual strategy/tipster, and what I think I’ll do is jot these down in a series of posts leading up to and over the New Year.

For now though, let’s summarize what went down last week.

After last week’s huge win, Weekly Golf Value/Bookie Bashing Golf Tracker got December off to the best start possible, but it was a poor week this week.  The tournament in the States didn’t really lend itself to getting too involved, but it did provide the only return of the week with Keegan Bradley at 35/1 finishing in a place position.  WGV put up another to place in Justin Thomas, but no value to be had at any book available to me so I left it.

Great to see the Value Bets derived from the Bookie Bashing site continue in good form.  They started to turn around at the back end of last month and have continued to bring in the profit this.  Betting on Cards in Premier League football is paying well at the mo, as have a couple of bets thrown up by the Combo Tracker.

The real star of the show this weekend however, was Winner Odds Football.  Plenty of bets, a 71% strike rate and a new profit high over the weekend, with Sunday proving to be an exceptional day.  The week prior to this weekend it hadn’t performed so well, but this was a turnaround and a half!

Sys Analyst had had a quiet and blank week up until the last bet on Sunday which won at 3/1 and meant a tiny profit was made, but it was pretty tough going for the horse racing section.  Because of the weather there wasn’t one The Value Machine bet I could strike on Saturday, and only one on Sunday (bear in mind I am price availability dependent, using the Exchanges).  A poor week for TVM and the same for the service I’m trialling.  I’m currently on the negative side of the variance wave here, but bearing in mind I had a big winning day early on which placed me more than firmly on the positive side, I have nothing to complain about.  It’s here though where a lack of turnover is hurting.  It’s a very high variance strategy and the more bets I can get down to try to level that out a bit the better.  But last week was – for reasons other than the weather too – one I just couldn’t get anywhere near the number of bets down I’d have liked.  Let’s hope this week provides a lot more opportunities.

And finally the Bookie Bashing Early Pay Out Tracker, and here I am experiencing some difficulties.  I rely on one book, and I’m sure I therefore don’t have to go into too much detail about what the problem might be!  I need, and am working, on a solution.

Speak soon.

December Figures (stakes normalised):

Early Pay Out Tracker: Staked 399pts, -125.03pts, roi -31.33%, roc -8.33%.

Weekly Golf Value: Staked 219pts, +1,233pts, roi 563.01%, roc 61.65%.

Sys Analyst: Staked 74.4pts, +3.6pts, roi 4.83%, roc 0.24%.

Value Bets (BB): Staked 260.92pts, +76.96pts, roi 29.49%, roc 7.69%.

The Value Machine: Staked 585pts, -158.17pts, roi -27.03%, roc -7.9%

Winner Odds Football: Staked 1,030pts, +121.89pts, roi 11.83%, roc 6.09%.

Trial Service: Staked 205pts, -63.05pts, roi -30.75%, roc -4.2%

TOTAL: Staked 2,773.32pts, +1,089.20pts, roi 39.27%, roc 10.37%

I was all set up to write a review of November to publish today, and then the weekend happened.  Or more accurately, in the early hours of Sunday morning the golf tournament in Australia came to a conclusion and I had to put those original monthly review plans on hold.

Why?  Because with Ryggs Johnstone – a player I must admit to not ever having heard of – Weekly Golf Value had provided me with a 75/1 winner and by far the biggest return I’ve had from one single bet all year.  The November review can wait a day or two.

There’s quite a story here.  One that I need to remember when things aren’t going well and variance is showing me its more menacing face.

As you know if you read this column regularly, I have started to use the Bookie Bashing Golf Tracker to find my own bets each week rather than blindly following the golfers put up by WGV.  As a rule, I look to get on before the WGV email comes through but only by 30 minutes to an hour or so.  As a result, generally speaking I’ll be on four or five of the golfers that are listed amongst those to back by WGV.  There is always a fair crossover, although I tend to end up backing a few more players in each tournament and covering a greater proportion of the field in terms of win probability (c.20% compared to WGV’s c.15%, give or take).

This week however, after using the Tracker, I’d only found five golfers I wanted to back.  Five golfers who fit into my self-imposed parameters to qualify as a bet.  Parameters that includes considerations of price, level of +EV, etc.  More to the point, the win probability covered by these five players, according to the Tracker, was a mere 5.3%.  Not enough.

So when the WGV email came through, I had a look to see if there were any golfers I could easily add to my list.  As it happens, four of the five I’d identified myself were on the WGV rota too.  Three weren’t.  Checking the Tracker, one of the three wasn’t value at any book I could use, but two were – Victor Perez and…yes, you’ve guessed it…Ryggs Johnstone.

The terms of my Johnstone bet were different to WGV’s who were tipping it at 100/1 and 150/1.  The best value I could secure – and it was considerable value – was at 75/1 but the place terms were more favourable.  Big value, big stake….BIG WIN!!!!!

Did I simply miss Johnstone when I scoured the Tracker first time around?  Or did it become value in the half an hour or so between my search for bets and the WGV email coming through?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that if I’d found more bets on my initial search, I’d not have backed Johnstone.  For once, the Gambling Gods were in a good mood, and had smiled down on me.

With the bet settling in the early hours of Sunday morning, this will go down in my December figures.  Meaning November was a bit of a struggle and a month I found pretty tough going at times.  More on that in the next post though, when I really will get that Review done and dusted.  For now, I’m just going to ask my wife to peel some grapes for me, bring me wine and rare delicacies for me to enjoy, basking in the warm glow that comes from the knowledge that the new month’s golf betting ROI sits at exactly 1000%.

*Added the “(to date)” into the title because, well, you just never know…