Diary of a professional punter

[redarmi]

£15 Farrag to beat Haskins @ 5/1.....Paddys

LOL price....he should be half that price at least...but their limits save them!!!!

[redarmi]

Managed to get another £15 @ 5/1 on Betfair on Farrag

No doubt he will be tired but I was thinking 2/5 Haskins 5/2 Farrag.

[kukushkin88]

Excellent job today and a welcome bit of run good too after the Armenia debacle (still can´t believe that o.g). I´m admiring your work.

[redarmi]

Winning £86.91 since last update.

Bankroll stands at £918.36.  If anyone spots any ricketts in my maths let me know as I am doing it in my head and quickly and tallying against my normal betting accounts but I am not averse to making errors.  Bear in mind I pay roughly 3% commision on Betfair wins.

Thought we might be getting some wages for a while there with Broadhurst but Haskins was clearly the class act and at least I had the discipline to take the silly price about a man I didn't fancy.

[KarmaDope]

Erm...after reading the posts about getting accounts banned, would it not be a good idea to change your forum sig which appears to have your name in it?

[redarmi]

Yeah Tighty mentioned that earlier too.

[redarmi]

£10 Australia to beat South Africa T20  @ Evens Stan James

Pretty marginal stuff to be honest this one but I think Australia just about deserve to be faves with ABV injured and Kallis and Steyn rested.  If I can I might even trade out of this for a small profit but will almost certainly do this in running so decent starting point.

[redarmi]

£10 e/w Chris Kirk @ 66/1 Corals (5 places)

I don't bet much golf at this time of year and only glance at the tournaments normally but Chris Kirk stands out here for me.  Bit gutted to have missed the same price with the extra place with Ladbrokes. 

[SirPerceval]

Great diary. Now I won't know whether to read this one first or Eso Kral's.

Quick question if you don't mind:

From your theoretical £1,000 BR, how much would you look to increase it by/take out in a week/month/year, and do you have an average past result?

[Eso Kral]

Great diary. Now I won't know whether to read this one first or Eso Kral's.

Quick question if you don't mind:

From your theoretical £1,000 BR, how much would you look to increase it by/take out in a week/month/year, and do you have an average past result?

Defo this one as you will find more winners here!!! 
Thx for the Tranmere tip.

[Eso Kral]

Was going to ask a similar Q to Percival on this today

Obv we dont know your B/R but lets use the £1000 at the end of the year what would you expect it to be sat at ie what % profit?

Also if someone followed your tips blindly and didnt get on at the best prices as you will have those will the said punter be a small loser or break even punter?

PM sent also
Thx

[redarmi]

Great diary. Now I won't know whether to read this one first or Eso Kral's.

Quick question if you don't mind:

From your theoretical £1,000 BR, how much would you look to increase it by/take out in a week/month/year, and do you have an average past result?

I have had an ROI on an annual basis since I started betting of between -2% and 15%.  The lower ends of the scale have tended to be when I have been specialising in Asian handicaps and lower margin stuff but with higher volumes and often for other people as well as myself.  On the kind of business mix I currently have I would expect to make between 5% and 10% on turnover on about 100 bets a week so if we say an average bet of £20 then that is a weekly profit of between £100-£200.  Everything being equal it is probably at the lower end of that estimate and the amount you make on an annual basis is quite dependent upon the order your results come in because if you start well and your bankroll goes up immediately then so do your stakes and vice versa.  I also have periods when my number of bets go down fairly significantly.  If I had to be tied to a number though I would be fairly confident that on the basis of a £1k bankroll I could triple it on an annual basis.

In terms Rich's question.  It is a tough one.  I honestly believe that sports betting is 10% selection, 20% bankroll management and 70% getting the prices.  It is literally ten years since I have been able to get the absolute top of the market prices ie. a full range of accounts with the ability to get on with firms like Sportingbet, Skybet, Boyles, Bet365, Stan James.  Off the top of my head there are a couple of bets where I have put up a price and know that there is better available in the market but I kinda know it is a waste of effort to try and get on so I just don't bother.  I would imagine you could probably just about make a profit betting a price below but at the prices that the selections go off I would be fairly surprised.  As a general measure (a kind of sports betting equivalent of the all in EV measure on HE manager if you like) I expect to beat the midpoint price on Betfair at the off of a race/event on about 75-80% of my bets with maybe another 5-10% being roughly at that price and only a handful of drifters so it would be fairly hard to win and I would imagine you would show a small-ish loss if you were price insensitive.  If you were just a regular punter betting them you would have access to a lot of offers/bonuses/free bets that i almost never get though which could easily add a couple of percentage points to ROI.

[doubleup]

..... 5% and 10% on turnover on about 100 bets a week

It amazes me that there are so many "mistakes" in odds compiling.  Is your value usually found in individual errors in one book or widespread errors eg most compilers missing a major factor?

[redarmi]

A combination really.  Some of the bets come from simple mistakes of a single odds compiler.  The bet yesterday on Haskins was a good example of that.  Coral were 7/2, Every other firm was 9/4-2/1.  There are some bets which come from systematic problems with the system like bad e/w races and some of the NFL teasers.  The multiple bets on unders in NFL games in regions where there is bad weather would be another example of this kind of bet.  Some bets come from having the ability to incorporate information better or quicker than markets.  Examples of that would be some of the bets on horses made on the draw at Newcastle the other day (wrongly as it turned out).  Some come from superior information.  I am definitely not as strong on this front as some others.  Some comes from simple probability modelling I have done.  A couple of years ago the big bookies were pretty poor on this front but they are much, much stronger now and I would expect my understanding of probability to present pretty much no opps within a couple of years. 

[ACE2M]

are you scared by the thought that in 10 years or less all bookies will have the same prices?