When you write a regular blog, there are times when despite all your best-laid plans as to what you are going to write next, something happens that you simply have to concentrate on instead.
My intention had been to use this post to provide a run down of the services that this blog will follow, but then one of them went and had a remarkable Saturday, and it would be remiss of me not to dedicate this week’s musings to the events of that day and this service in particular.
Before I do however, I will at least set out for you which services (or at least some of them) I will be writing about on a weekly basis, and whose performances we will track as a “portfolio”.
So here we go…
- Northern Monkey.
- Chasemaster.
- Jason James.
- Morning Value Service (Lite).
- Pinpoint Golf.
Other than Northern Monkey, these services are all administered by the Smart Betting Club. I intend to write a post on the whys and wherefores of this, which I will do next week, when we discuss what makes a good tipster service to follow (there’s a lot more to it than whether or not it claims to make money, believe me!).
Please do note however, that I’m only revealing the identity of a few of the services I follow on a day to day basis. The portfolio is completed by another four services which will be referred to as “Service A” and “Service B”, etc. as they are private services monitored by the SBC, plus two strategies that use the selections of the tipsters I’ve already mentioned. I’ll go into these in more detail at a later stage.
I average 60-70% total bank growth per year and it’s always interesting to see how progress (or otherwise!) is being made – there are many ups and many downs, and things are never dull!
So, on to Saturday…
Of all the tipsters I follow, I’ve been with Northern Monkey for the longest time. I first joined nearly five years ago, and to be completely honest with you, nearly gave it up after a pretty awful first month! And herein lies the first real bit of advice I can pass on; if you’re going to give a service a go, give it a real go! Had I given up with Northern Monkey then, it would have proven to be a massive mistake.
So what makes Northern Monkey so good? Well, as at the end of September of this year, the official figures for the service showed an overall profit of 490.3 points from 4,926 fully “proofed” bets at a Return On Investment (ROI) of 11.3%.
The longevity of the service is one thing that immediately stands out. I have seen so many bright new things hit the tipping world with an explosion of profit, but which shines brightly for only a limited time before fading away and eventually disappearing completely. You see, it is the ability to remain profitable over the long term that I believe provides tipsters with their biggest challenge. The skill and mental fortitude needed to create a long term ROI of 10%+ over thousands of bets and years of issuing bets is what truly makes a tipster worth following.
This is not all that is impressive when we put Northern Monkey under the microscope, however. The SBC quite rightly places huge importance on how easy it is for the Average Joe (or Josephine) to replicate a tipsters official figures. It’s no good a tipster claiming a 20% ROI over time, if when they issue their selections, the odds crash, and realistically as a subscriber you can only achieve an 8/9% ROI as a consequence. Similarly, issuing bets the night before racing, when prices can be at their juiciest, is an easy way to “boost” official figures – but in the real world, your bookmaker accounts will not last long if you’re making money betting at this time in weak markets. Northern Monkey has the fairest odds quoting policy I know, and bets are released 95% of the time on the morning of racing. For the other 5%, Wayne (the betting maestro/tipster/all round good egg who runs the service) will simply use SP as the prices at which he will record any winning bets, or he will take the average odds available at 8.30am the next day. All his multiple bets are settled to SP. In other words, it should be possible, with just a little effort, to beat Wayne’s official service performance figures, and there aren’t many you can say that about.
Anyway, back to last Saturday. It had been a bad week across the portfolio, but things were about to change…
One strategy that Wayne has introduced to his betting is identifying value in antepost markets for some of the big races and then manipulating his bets in such a way that he has a number of points rolling onto his selection. Naturally, an antepost bet on the relevant horse itself will be advised, but then to get more money rolling onto his fancy he will double it up with certain bets issued in the more mundane midweek racing action.
This way he can potentially cash in big as there can be quite a large stake going onto the big race selection, accumulated with relatively small risk.
This policy had so nearly landed the jackpot a number of times through this summer’s flat season, but the big payout had eluded Wayne and his followers. Read these paragraphs from an email sent to members by Wayne last Friday night:
“As we look back on October so far, it is crazy to think we are over 15 pts in the red given the number of near misses we’ve had…..So Mi Dar was trapped in pocket, finishing an unlucky loser at Chantilly when backed in a double with winner Limato. Leoncavallo was cuffed in the final strides at Pontefract when we were on the verge of landing a Godolphin double, while Lightscameraction threw away his race from a winning position at Leicester this week when we were on for +22.95 pts.
You look at the in running odds in those UK races and we were 90 % likely to collect at Pontefract according to the in running odds, yet lost, and we were 81 % likely to collect at Leicester, yet lost there too.
Over the season as a whole, throw in the Wokingham results, when Brando traded at 2.10 in running (48 % chance of winning us around 50 pts), the Growl result in the Stewards’ Cup (when on for a return of anything up to 150 pts but beaten by trouble in running and the draw) and the Growl result in the Ayr Gold Cup (79 % likely to win 37.5 pts), when we landed place returns from all but, no victory, and you can’t help but look to the skies and wonder when the punting gods will give us a break.”
To my mind these words sum up perfectly the frustrations that serious gambling can bring, but then came Saturday’s Northern Monkey sting.
Wayne fancied a horse called The Tin Man in the big sprint at Ascot, and had advised an antepost bet on the horse at prices between 6/1 and 8/1. He’d also amassed a number of points on the horse by that previously stated strategy of doubling up the bet with horses tipped in other races leading up to the big day. By doing so, NMP subscribers had 6 points rolling onto The Tin Man. When you bear in mind that Wayne’s maximum stake for any one bet is three points, and those are rarely issued, you can see that this was a biggie!So how satisfying/rewarding/exhilarating then, was it to see the race unfold the way it did?
Here are the in running comments for The Tin Man: “steady headway over 2f out, ridden over 1f out, went 2nd inside final furlong, ran on to lead final 100 yards, won going away”.30 points profit bagged, and at last for Wayne, just reward for his doubling up strategy, which is something else we’ll be examining in more detail in the not too distant future.Goodness, this has turned into a long post! Next week, I’ll start to summarise the performance of the portfolio as a whole and do as I intended this week, that is, give a little background info on each of the services in it.
Until then, go well.
