August has not been a kind month. Prior to it, and even halfway through, I was flying. And then the worst drawdown I’ve seen so far in 2025 hit, and as I type, I’m still sitting at the lowest point.
Let’s go through each service, with some brief thoughts on each.
SharpBetting Football: Staked 6,151pts, -140.96pts, ROI -2.29%, ROC -9.39%, Current Drawdown -411.74pts, Max Drawdown -549.09pts.
I mentioned in the post the other day that it feels a good while since the last profit high had been reached. A poor last week of the month did for August as up until Monday/Tuesday it was sitting on about 5% ROI and 100 points of profit.
Slight tweak this month in the way I’m following. I’m going to try to get down as many of the David’s Daily selections as I can, which is viable bookmaker account dependent (for example, I can’t get anything more than pennies on at the Betfair Sportsbook, which is a firm DD uses a fair amount), but hopefully with the odd multiple hit, the ROI will at some point rise above it’s current 2.81%. With the same aim in mind, I’m going to start putting on some of the longer priced bets from the Tracker. I was tending to concentrate on those selections between a price of 1.7 and 3.5, but I’ll get rid of these arbitrarily drawn parameters and just get on anything that comes up at the bookmakers I can still bet at.
The Value Machine Exchange Profit: Staked 1,700pts, -526.07pts, ROI -30.9%, ROC -35.3%, Current DD -898.6pts, Max DD -898.6pts.
This is the service I have most concern about. Another two Saturdays, and I’ll be able to get on Saturday and Sunday issued bets, which I’ve not been able to do since April and I appreciate this will have had some impact on my P&L.
Up until this point, I’d been using a mix of bookmakers and the Betfair Exchange to get the bets on at. The former if the quoted price was available at a bookmaker I had access to, or on the latter if not and I could get the required price in the five minutes leading up to the off. With my list of available bookmakers getting shorter by the week, I’m going full Exchange on these moving forward. This is a theme I’ll write more about later this week. Yup, those restrictions are biting again!
Tilt The Odds: Staked 595.8pts, +325.04pts, ROI 54.55%, ROC 21.66%, Current DD -47.25pts, Max DD -417.07pts
The one shining light of August, largely thanks to a winning Trixie and a Double that came home at decent odds.
The one issue I have with TTO (other than the declining number of bookmakers I can bet with) is that I’m not really in a position to get a lot of bets down and I know I’m understaking as a result. Being free at weekends will help here, but I also feel I need to do something to make up the deficit in overall staking. I have a couple of ideas on how to do this which I’ll reveal shortly. It’s all about making your betting bank work efficiently for you, and try as I might, I can’t quite get there with TTO. So for now, and until I have no online bookmaker to bet with, I’ll keep plugging away with TTO and squeeze out of it what I can for as long as I can.
Weekly Golf Value: Staked 1,295pts, +1,031.4pts, ROI -16.68%, ROC -14.4%, Current DD -398.72pts, Max DD -398.72pts
WGV remains my most successful service to date for 2025 despite a losing month that had no winners. As you can see too, I’m at the deepest point of drawdown so far this year, but it should be noted the actual amount lost remains fairly minor. We can expect a lot worse with any golf service. One good win, and the loss will be eradicated and we’ll be at a new high point. We weren’t far away this weekend gone with Sami Valimaki finishing in second. We know the winners will come, it’s just a matter of when.
WinnerOdds Tennis: Staked 16,854pts, -7.7pts, ROI -0.04%, ROC -0.38%, Current DD -569.61pts, Max DD -677.34pts
If ever a service showed the so very fine lines between success and failure, it has been this one. It was absolutely flying, and then a couple of weeks ago a couple of very heavily staked bets at 1.08/1.15 area lost, and 40% of the profit I’d made was given back within just a few days.
It is so very tempting to just ignore the bets that come through at very short prices. You can’t help but ask yourself why you’re risking almost 200pts on a 1.08 shot. But the WO advice is to just keep on taking the bets. They all hold +EV, they all contribute to a growing pot over time.
The other challenge for me is that it has cost me a few accounts already, and that has had a knock on effect in terms of following other services. This month, I’ll be using WO to help me squeeze as much juice out of one particular sports book as a I can. That firm has already stopped me betting on eSoccer, has restricted me to pennies on horses (although not on multiples as yet), but still allows me to stake unrestricted on tennis and golf. It’s only a matter of time though before I can’t get on these sports either. Going to be interesting to see just how long it does last. Watch this space.
Finally, I need to update the Each Way Golf Doubles figures which I’m running as a sideline trial. Nothing doing last week, nor this week as the PGA Tour in America takes a breather. I need to pick up a (minimal) return from a couple of weeks ago though, and as yet I’m not entirely sure how much that will be for.
I’ll leave you with the total portfolio figures for the year to date. Later this week, I’ll talk about the looming issue I’m facing (losing accounts) and how I intend planning to make another shift towards Exchange and shop betting. I’ve made that journey before, and before long, I’m going to have to make it again.
Tune in for that.
2025: Staked 82,609.15pts, +4406.89pts, ROI 5.33%, ROC 55.08%, Current DD -1,395.55pts, Max DD -1,395.55pts