Diary of a professional punter

[action man]

really like the falcon side

[redarmi]

Whats your thinking???

[redarmi]

£15 packers in running @ 2.3

[Eso Kral]

Hi Red,
Loving the diary so far!!
A question if you dont mind

As a pro punter using this £1000 bank as a thoeretical figure, over the weekend you staked upwards of 20% of the roll. Is this a regular occurance and is this ok for what you do?

[mondatoo]

When you get a minute could you price these up what you think for me plz as not sure a bookie would have the market:

Newcastle to finish ahead of each of the following:

Arsenal
Spurs
Liverpool
Chelsea

Cheers.

[EvilPie]

Hi Red.

Looks like a great diary.

A friend of mine used to do very similar to this and was very successful at it so I find it particularly interesting.

A question if you don't mind things getting a bit personal and it's along similar lines to Rich's question.

Over the weekend you lost what looks to me like a significant chunk of your roll. Based on your OP you will now decrease your max bets down to 5% of this new figure.

My question is what happens if you lose the roll? Have you got a separate 'life roll' that you would dip in to intending to pay yourself back?

What are your real life circumstances?

Are you single / living with parents?

Are you married + kids?

Sorry to pry but I find it interesting to see how people with different lifestyles cope with the swings of gambling and how your perception of risk has to change dependant on their circumstances.

Feel free to tell me to gtfo if you intended this diary to be purely about your punts

[Eso Kral]

When you get a minute could you price these up what you think for me plz as not sure a bookie would have the market:

Newcastle to finish ahead of the following:

Arsenal
Spurs
Liverpool
Chelsea

Cheers.
a MILLION!!!

[redarmi]

Hi Red,
Loving the diary so far!!
A question if you dont mind

As a pro punter using this £1000 bank as a thoeretical figure, over the weekend you staked upwards of 20% of the roll. Is this a regular occurance and is this ok for what you do?

It would normally be more than that and, theoretically, the optimal thing to do is have as much of it as you can in play but obviously I need to also pay attention to my other rules which are no bet should be more than 5% of bankroll and staking is proportionate to value available.  Also I won't bet unless I have roughly 5% of value or more.  That said on a busy Saturday I can often stake 50% of my bank in a day and am perfectly comfortable with that so long as the bets are there.  It is a pretty simple equation in so far as that the more I bet the more I win.

[geordieneil]

When you get a minute could you price these up what you think for me plz as not sure a bookie would have the market:

Newcastle to finish ahead of each of the following:

Arsenal
Spurs
Liverpool
Chelsea

Cheers.

omg Ray, are your turning all pleno on us?

[mondatoo]

When you get a minute could you price these up what you think for me plz as not sure a bookie would have the market:

Newcastle to finish ahead of each of the following:

Arsenal
Spurs
Liverpool
Chelsea

Cheers.

omg Ray, are your turning all pleno on us?

Funny you should mention Pleno  

[redarmi]

Over the weekend you lost what looks to me like a significant chunk of your roll. Based on your OP you will now decrease your max bets down to 5% of this new figure.

My question is what happens if you lose the roll? Have you got a separate 'life roll' that you would dip in to intending to pay yourself back?

What are your real life circumstances?

Are you single / living with parents?

Are you married + kids?

Sorry to pry but I find it interesting to see how people with different lifestyles cope with the swings of gambling and how your perception of risk has to change dependant on their circumstances.

My real life circumstances are pretty complicated.  I am married, no kids but my wife is in the States and I spend about 50-60% of my time there as my green card application can't be processed until the middle of next year.  The rest of the time I split between my parents in Cumbria and hotels/friends in London.  This is fairly recent and has only been the case for the last year or so really.  Before that I led a slightly less nomadic existence and lived in either Birmingham, London, Leeds, Antigua, Kuala Lumpur or Gibraltar for the previous 12 years affter leaving college.  Mainly working for bookies as a trading director or for betting syndicates with lengthy periods where I just bet on my own account.

 Your point about perception to risk on changing circumstances is an interesting and important one.  The first time I took the plunge and bet for a living was in 2001 when I was single.  Frankly, the thought terriffied me and I remember the very first day I started I woke up at 430am with my mind racing.  Over the next 7-8 months I worked fairly hard and did okay but I was fairly cavalier with regard to treating it as a job and I took long periods of time off and if one of my regular working friends had the day off and fancied going to the punb for the day i can't ever remember saying no.  Whilst i made enough to live and went racing at least four days a week I wasn't really taking it seriously.  Over the next couple of years I met my wife in Antigua and since then every time I have relied on betting for my living I have taken it a lot more seriously but it wasn't until I reached my thirties that I really spent time working on my staking and approach to risk to the point where I am as disciplined as i am now.  Milligan mentioned earlier in the thread that there won't be as many tales of degeneracy in this thread and he is right but, like everyone, I have been through that to a degree and was certainly guilty of having bets for an interest but since I met Lisa I have realised that it doesn't just affect me anymore and I need to be a bit more responsible and treat it like a business.  I am 36 now and, since we have decided to move to the States (mainly for family reasons), I have realised that gambling and bookmaking is pretty much all I can do to any real level and starting again in another business isn't really an option unless I really want to start at the bottom of the tree earning £20k a year so i have a duty to myself and my family to do this right.  To be honest it is a pretty sobering reality.  A bit like some of the young poker players on here I pretty much coasted through my twenties and was making money and doing alright but when you get to your mid thirties and realise that all of a suddden you are too old to get a 'proper' job even if you wanted to and the only real salaried profession you have ever known (bookmaking) is largely illegal and the domain of organised crime in the country you are intending to move to it is a bit of a wake up call!!!!

[geordieneil]

When you get a minute could you price these up what you think for me plz as not sure a bookie would have the market:

Newcastle to finish ahead of each of the following:

Arsenal
Spurs
Liverpool
Chelsea

Cheers.

omg Ray, are your turning all pleno on us?

Funny you should mentione Pleno 

have i missed something??  

but if you were serious about them bets Newcastle would almost certainly have to finish in the top 4 for any of them to happen, Newcastle are currently 50/1 with ladbrokes for that to happen

[redarmi]

On the question of whether I should be reducing a maximum bet to 5% of £830 or whatever my bankroll was at the beginning of the week then theoretically I should be.  In reality the swings are such that in reality i tend to increase or reduce stakes when my bankroll changes by 20% and normally only at the end of the week unless I have a really bad day.  As much as I don't like losing 10-15% of my bankroll  over the course of a couple of days in reality it is a fairly standard swing and doesn't bother me that much.  I tend to have at least one Saturday a year where I lose something like 25 out of 30 bets and wipe out a fair proportion of my roll.  I also tend to have a day where I do the opposite.  One thing i have learnt over the years is that however bad you imagine it can get it gets much worse than that!!!!  Those are the periods where you have to be mentally strong and that tends to be what separates the pros from the rest.

[mondatoo]

When you get a minute could you price these up what you think for me plz as not sure a bookie would have the market:

Newcastle to finish ahead of each of the following:

Arsenal
Spurs
Liverpool
Chelsea

Cheers.

omg Ray, are your turning all pleno on us?

Funny you should mentione Pleno 

have i missed something??  

but if you were serious about them bets Newcastle would almost certainly have to finish in the top 4 for any of them to happen, Newcastle are currently 50/1 with ladbrokes for that to happen

You haven't missed anything 

[redarmi]

When you get a minute could you price these up what you think for me plz as not sure a bookie would have the market:

Newcastle to finish ahead of each of the following:

Arsenal
Spurs
Liverpool
Chelsea

Cheers.

Let me think about these.  My gut reaction is that the 'right' price is somewhere in the region of 10/1 on average but gut instinct tends to be wrong in match bets liek these so let me think about the maths.