30th Dec, Boyd goes ballistic

Rangers 7 - 1 Dundee Utd

Following on from last nights post, I was without a decent net connection - being in the hospital 'n all. So when I went to the canteen for a cuppa, I perused the nights games on my iPhone and decided to lump my previous nights profit on Rangers.
£44 @ 1.33 - why? Because I wasn't in a place or situation to monitor bloody football games, I thought this was a good one to just 'fire and forget'. How right I was!

Not a great profit but still going in the right way.

(If I was able to monitor the game, I would have gone for over 2.5 goals in the Pompey / Arsenal game).

Please state the nature of the medical emergency...

Aston Villa 0 - 1 Liverpool
Bolton 2 - 2 Hull

Laid Liverpool £30 @ 2.54
Back Bolton £40 @ 1.77

I traded out the Bolton game when they were 2-0 up, obviously I'm very glad I did - but that's the beauty of the Betfair model.

With the money riding on laying Liverpool, we had a minor medical emergency and had to go to the hospital - but I had time to trade out the market for £16 profit. Again, good job I did - in fact I'd like to think I would have done it anyway with the goal coming very late on from El Nino.

Tidy profit but the night wasn't about Betfair....

Best bet of the day!

Even though I'd made £100 on the football today, my best bet was nothing to do with it. It was on who or what would make the number one spot in the 'most annoying of 2009' list on BBC 3, which I made with my daughter. I said it would be Jordan/Katie Price and she argued it wasn't because she was on earlier. I said she wasn't & that entry was just Peter Andre, which showed Jordan. She was bloody adamant, so the stakes were set high.
When the #1 was revealed as being Jordan, I took great pleasure in giving it the double knee slide across the real wood floor of the front room a la Mourinho against Man Utd.
A finger o' fudge was mine from her Xmas selection box and a comedy dance sealed the victory!

28th Dec, trading in the stadium

Forest 2 - 0 Coventry

Backed Forest £80 @ 1.63

Coventry may have won their last 3 games but c'mon, they were against Peterborough, Plymouth and Doncaster. And the Doncaster game they fluked it, so I was pretty confident Forest would turn them over. Turned out that Coventry put up quite a fight traded out after the 1st goal for a £22 profit. Win.

Posh 4 - 4 Cardiff

Backed Cardiff £40 @ 2.28

Cardiff were obviously going to thrash the hapless Posh and I traded out after the 1st Cardiff goal. I was kicking myself at halftime as they were 4-nil up and it probably traded at 1.01 after goal 3. Ah...I would have got a lot more if I'd have waited. Unbelievable that Posh then scored 4 themselves in the 2nd half - but that's the kind of mental sh*t Posh get up to. Traded out for £25 profit. Win


Wolves 0 - 3 Man City

Backed Man City £70 @ 1.88

Just because I'm still sick of McCarthy...and the usual 'new manager bounce' from Mancini. Traded out after the 2nd goal @ 1.03 for a £55 profit.

What a great day! My mate Dave asked me if watching the numbers distracted from the whole matchday experience, no way man, I was like a pig in muck!

27th Dec - clawing it back....

Hibs v Rangers

OK whilst Hibs aren't that far away from Rangers points-wise, I was confident Rangers would turn them over after watching that Demarcus Beasley goal the other day. Anway, I backed Rangers £35 @ 1.98 - Win.

Manchester Utd v Hull

Bah - the previous game had left me tantalisingly close to the £400 mark so I traded a few ticks on this game and took an 80p profit. Win.

Boxing day - anticlimax as usual

After the hedonistic celebration of Xmas day - Boxing day is aways a bit of a buzz kill. And nothing killed my buzz more than a series of losing bets. To be honest, I didn't want to spend all all day listening/watching footy and instead went out and braved the shopping with a bet on Forest. So maybe my lack of attention caused this -- hmmm, D'YA THINK!?

Forest to win, £17.75 2.86. Lost. That was my white Xmas money! :-(

For the next game - I had a hunch that Birmingham (top of the form league table) could get a result over a stuttering Chelsea. £10 @ 7. At 80mins I decieded to put a bit more on Chelsea @ 4.0 in case any goals were scored. Unfortunatley none game, compounding the loss. £30 Lost.

What's that, about £50 lost in a day and I'm back below £400!

Well, the weather outside is frightful

Boxing day, and Betfair have paid out on a Glaswegian white Xmas. So that's £13 to me, which hardly seems worth it after waiting all this time. I always think that though, after putting a small winning stake down though - I should just be happy with a profit.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Hungate Rd,,United Kingdom

Feyoooonnoooord v AZ Alkmar

Put a fiver on under 2.5 goals for about 15 ticks in the 2nd half. Why? Because that 85p was enough to take me over £400 - that's why!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

....for purely financial gain!

See, this is how my mind is working right now. As soon as I saw the snow the other day, the first thing I did was to put a fiver on a white Xmas. I was chatting to some collegues today though about what constitutes a 'white Xmas'. Well it turns out that one snowflake has to fall on the weather station on top of Glasgow Cathedral for it to be a white Xmas. So regardless of whether it's a white out on the ground with cars crashing and trains derailing, there has to be a snow fall on the day which seems a little backward.

But anyway - checking Metcheck it looks like it's going to sub zero all week, with a forecast of snow in the very late evening. It's looking like a close run thing - will it snow or won't it?

I backed @ 3.6 and currently it's trading at 2.08/2.48.

Go ahead....make my day.

The sporting fixtures tonight were a casualty to the freezing weather, not just here in the UK but all across Europe. Heck, even the Darts got affected with one of the players walking 3 miles to get to Ally Pally.

So with the hotly anticipated clash of Bournemouth v Notts County postponed, I had to scratch around for something else. In the French 2nd Division it was Metz v Caen - after some careful deliberation I decided to lay Caen @ 4. At which point the market went suspended as this fixture was also postponed! Darn it - I'd checked the webcams around Metz and it was a lovely dusting of snow, so I thought it might be a under 2.5 goals opportunity as well. Typical Metz - crying off when it gets a little chilly.

OK - what else is there. Ah! Heracles v Go Ahead Eagles in the Dutch Eerste Divisie which had already started, had a goal and TWO sendings off. The Eagles were 1-0 up but still at 2.08, so stuck a £50 with a view to scalping a few ticks. Anyway, I let it slide for a while then the betfair "ding!" went off - they'd scored a 2nd and the odd's plummetted. Traded out for nice £50 profit (up yours Chelsea).

Although Betfair are still holding on to my postponed money.....

£50 down the toilet!

After such a good week there was always going to be a downturn.

As Saturday was my daughters party day, I didn't want to be distracted by Betfair. Would you believe it, I had £10 on Pompey to beat Liverpool but I decieded to cancel it. I didn't even put any money on Forest. Also my £10 rage-bet for Burnley didn't pan out neither.

On Sunday, I did back Chelsea to the tune of £50 who ended up playing like a bunch of muppets and only drawing. My fault, I shouldn't have put so much on, probably £30 - £40 with hindsight. Oh well......

Anyway, in a weird twist of fate it turns out I won £50 at work for my 'cost saving' idea - which constisted of sticking a brick down the lav to save water! Yeh, I'm an ideas man, me.....

Waking up to a whiteout!

There's been a heavy dusting of snow this morning, what a great feeling it is to look outside and see it. Obviously, I'm going to have to use my snowmobile (Honda Civic) to get to work so I don't have to hear those sanctimonious twats go on about how they 'struggled' in. Bah!
Betting wise - let's look at a white Xmas. Using Glasgow, as that's more likely due to it being the most northerly, it was 1.34 for 'NO' a fraction of a second before I took this screen shot. I think I'll have a piece of the 'YES' action for 3.5 - I've got a spare £5.

Channel 5 redeem themselves......

After Everton, the 5 film is Enter the Dragon - and I just have to watch it. You can't just watch the first few minutes.

It's interesting to see how many computer games 'draw inspiration from' aka rip-off, ideas from this film. Truely ground breaking - you don't have to have a big budget to blow you away (I'm looking at you Avatar!).

Lets have a look at the games it reminds me of:


Way of the Exploding Fist: Lee vs O'Hara, one hit knock downs - the daddy of martial arts games. Still holds up well now. C64 version....obviously!




Mortal Kombat: Johnny Cage seems to be modelled on the John Saxon (Mr Roper) character. The watching crowd of minions, even the gasp after a finishing move - pure Dragon.



Street Fighter: The mysterious fighting tournament, just about everything in this game is a rip off of Bruce Lee! They even introduced a character that looked just like him. Mr Han = Shadowloo. Oh lets forget about the godawful film they spun off with Kylie in it.


Yie Ar Kung Fu: Even the name is taken from Bruces famous hollerin'. I think the hero's name is Lee. Love the different types of character you had to contend with, with their different weapons and attacks, a bit like Bruce in the final showdown of the film. This was one of my favourite games of all time on the Acorn Electron - happy days.

Ooooh flying kick to the face! Just like Yie Ar......

Bate boys

Everton v BATE Borisov

Seeing as they've already qualified, Moyes decieded to put the kids out - fair enough, not the same as what McCarthy had done! I had already backed Everton to the tune of ~£40 @ 1.86 which had come in during the day. When the team was announced though, the odds drifted and I didn't like the look of the youth squad Everton were putting out.
So I traded out for a £1.17 loss and backed BATE £15 @ 3.6, just enough to take me over the magic £400 mark. Even if I lost, the Celtic result would mean I'm up for the night, so jobs a good 'un.

Anyway, BATE fielded their full strength squad which included a few internationals - obviously they didn't want to be shown up by the kids. They pretty much dominated from start to (nearly) finish and it's funny how you notice the pro-English club bias by the commentators when you have money on the opposition.

God, I do find watching Everton boring at the best of times and this match dragged like a sleigh (hey it snowed today!). BATE got the goal they'd been threatening all game in the 75th minute, so I traded out for a healthy profit. I'll have no problem sleeping after that yawnfest.

Addendum: When BATE saw that team, it must've fired them up not to get turned over. I've played cricket against teams that have sported precocious 12 year olds and women, and it made me soooo not to want to get beat. Obviously, 9 times out of 10, we do.

Rapid v Celtic - what a touch!

I read this article from Betfair regarding lumping on the draw - as I switched on, Celtic were 3-1 down. Yeh, right, lump on the draw! As the half progressed I could see that Celtic were getting back into the game and the aformentioned article showed how porus Rapids defence had been previously. So I 'lumped' on £5 @ 10.0. Bloody hell, the wee little ginger ones only went and pulled it back in the 91st minute. I traded out for ~£43 profit, off a fiver. Now that my friends, is a result!

Nottingham news

Forest v Preston: Whoa! Forest are ODDS ON to beat Preston! Live on Sky, Saturday 5.15pm.

Nottingham has been selected as one of the venues for the 2018 World Cup. Amazing! Forest could get a new super stadium to accomodate but will it be a white elephant after the WC? My boy will be 7 1/2 by then, I hope he's a Forest fan (we need 'em). Can't imagine watching the World Cup finals in Nottingham with my boy, whilst sharing a chicken balti pie.

Notts County announce new media guru after the fresh crisis which quickly overshadowed the previous crisis (not counting the Sol Campbell crisis). Poor County - somebody sort it out!

Spurs v Man City

I had backed the over 2.5 goals and I was sat here thinking of how I could write my next blog post, trying to put the positive spin on losing 50 quid. Ouch.....

It was deep in injury time with Spurs 2-0 up, they were fannying around by the corner flag running the clock down. Which is fair enough, that's what you should do. Then Kranjcar nips between a couple of defenders, makes a bee line for the goal and megs Shay Given in the 93rd minute!

Oh crap, this is too stressful. Anyway +£38.

P.S. Well done Burnley getting a draw against Arsenal. Are you watching McCarthy?

The death of competition?

Man Utd v Wolves was the only game I didn't get into yesterday and there's a hell of a lot of fall out of this game.

Basically the Wolves boss, Mick 'Aye up' McCarthy made 10 changes to the side that beat Spurs away, with only the goalie surviving. It was pretty much a reserve side he put out because he said he widespread niggles and injuries in the camp. Or that's the story he's sticking too! Bear in mind this is a Utd team who just got beat at home, generally are considered not as solid as they once were and Sunderland ran ragged on their own turf.

It's all over Sky Sports News and Talksport - some of the chants last night from the Wolves faithful:
"42 quid, to watch the reserves" and
"Where has our first team gone?".
The mood among the Wolves fans was pretty vitriolic - AND I ABSOLUTELY DON'T BLAME THEM! Spending all that money (in the middle of recession and Christmas!) on the marque fixture of the season, for what? To be short changed, to be sold down the river by your own manager. McCarthy is a disgrace!

Betting-wise, what about the punters who layed ManU or backed the Wolves? It's like a backward version of match fixing. Someone mentioned on the radio that if Hull had done the same against Liverpool and Arsenal they'd have dropped 4 points and got themselves relegated. Imagine a jockey holding back because he's got a bigger race comming up which he's got more chance of winning.

So he's saved he's players for the Burnley tie. To quote Keegan, I'd love it, LOVE IT, it they got beat. He's put the pressure on himself, so come the end of the season and he's in a relegation dogfight there's no way he can complain about any of the top clubs sending out a weakend team against his fellow strugglers.

This is not the same as Arsenal sending out the kids for the Carling Cup as if they get knocked out, no other team directly benefits - there are no points at stake.

Is this what the 'Premier' League has come down to? A closed shop at the top and a race to be 4th from bottom. Where the hell is the competition in that? A lot of pundits having talking about the Championship and how 'amazing' the league is because anyone can beat anyone. Well - DUH! That's how it's supposed to be! If every game is a foregone conclusion, yes, even Man Utd fans would get bored of it. The Championship is how the Premier League or Division 1 used to be until the rule of sharing the gate reciepts was abolished, so the big clubs got bigger and everyone else got trampled on.

I'm off to put a tenner on Burnley for the win - & a win for competition.

Tuesday night Prem action

Birmingham 2 - 1 Blackburn
Backed under 2.5 goals - lost on this one obviously!

Bolton 3 - 1 West Ham
Backed the over 2.5 goals but nothing happend in this game for quite a while, so I then backed the draw. At which point Bolton scored then WHam equalised. Traded out of both markets for smallish profit (~£6). If I'd have waited a little longer I would have got my >2.5 goals. West Ham are looking very vulnerable these days and 6 goals in 2 games from a Gary Megson side, I must be on drugs?!

Man Utd 3 - 0 Wolves
Didn't enter this market as the match odds were too skinny and I wasn't going to put any large bets on after last night.

Sunderland 0 - 2 Villa
Went with £25 on Villa and traded out after 2nd goal for +£50. Nice. Villa starting to show their top 4 credentials and oozing confidence after the win at Old Trafford - Milner could be a super star for us at the World Cup!

Conclusion : Tonight was a decent night, total profit of ~£32. Not sure if I should just pick one game and go with that or spread it around a bit. If I don't lump large amounts on it gives me enough to play with in the bank so I can try other markets, in order to react to changes.
Broke the £300 barrier (again)...this time I want to stay above it!

93 minutes and 11 seconds!!!!!!!

OK the idea to back WBA early paid off as their best player (Boozakky - prob not spelt that right...) didn't make it. So WBA started off at 1.54 so I could have layed off for a ~£7 profit before the ball was kicked. That doesn't sound like me though...

Unbelievably, QPR played really well - taking a 2 goal lead. Holy crap. So my mistake was to overcommit to the tune of £100. Again, this is probably down to overconfidence and greed (typical) on my part. What to do? I could let the game play out and very probably take the £100 loss or put another £50 on the draw. I did the latter after the 1st West Brom goal - I had a feeling they could reign it back. DeMatteo made some really good attacking sub's so I was confident.

When that equaliser went in, in the 94th minute - I did the baggy boing boing. That was the hardest £17.50 I've earnt in a long time.

Poor strategy from me.....gotta learn some lessons from that.

Cruel on QPR, fantastic for WBA even if they were expected to win but some really top notch goalkeeping on show tonight - reminds me of myself (cough)....

Betfair bank update - £270

After starting the weekend off on £300, I've finished with a £30 loss! Oh well, at least I'm still in the game, which is what I wouldn't be had I lumped my bank on all at once.

Must get round to doing some kind of graph thing like Mets does.

The previous posts haven't been very wordy due to the fact I've just been catching up. I've done 2 weeks worth of blog posts tonight so I just wanted to get upto date. Further updates shall be a little more interesting, well maybe not but definately longer anyway!

Really disappointed with the £300 mark - maybe I have a psychological barrier on that figure as I know thats the amount I need to get the pram for Blanket (names a work in progress).

C'mon you can do it!

Decided to put an early bet on WBA for the game against QPR tomorrow. QPR are in a bit of a state and they got a spanking by Watford (although the scoreline didn't really reflect the whole game).

Liverpool v Arsenal >2.5goals market

Everyone remebers the last time they met, goalfest. The only downer is that Rafa sees fit to only start one striker. Arsenal start 3!
Anyway, after the 2nd goes in I trade out for £40 profit - shame as no more than five minutes later Arsenal score again and I would have got £100. Oh well, a profits a profit and the amount of time I've let money ride only for no goals to come.

+£43 to me.

12th Dec Football bets - not great....

Wow - who would've called the Chelsea v Everton game? I traded on the match odds and got +£25.

Stoke v Wigan - I put the bet on using my iPhone then the missus and I went down town. I didn't realise the game was on today as I'd misread the date, game ended in a draw -£30!

Spurs v Wolves - with 10 mins to go I thought Spurs would pull it back. No they didn't -£60. Ouch!

Oh well, at least I had a laugh at Man Utd v Aston Villa and got a tenner of it.

11th Dec - Brighton v Colchester / Over/Under 2.5 goals

I don't like backing the <2.5 goals market as I see it as negative. Anyway, I got burnt on this one. -£20 out.

At least I didn't bet the farm on this one, so I am learning to curb my greed.

11th Dec - Horse racing and the point was????

In my lunch hour at work, I bet on a couple of horses as I've got this new app from the Racing Post.
Lost £30 on the first, Won £30 on the second - decided to call it day.

9th Dec - Dinamo Kiev v Barcelona

Nice game this and shows off the Betfair model for being the most flexable.

As Barca went 1-0 down their odds went out, so I backed them. Messi won the game late on with a pearling free kick +£25 to me.

8th Dec Champs League night

Chelsea v APOEL - scalped >2.5 goals for +£30

Wolfsburg v Man Utd / Match Odds - Traded for a few quid up

I wonder how many people got burned on the Chelsea result thought?!

Watford v QPR / Over/Under 2.5 goals

Bit of a funny one this. I'd already identified this as a possible winner but 1/2 way through the 1st half it was looking dire. My Betfair buddy Mets emailed me asking about the game wanting to know if he should also get on the >2.5 goals market. I said Nah as it wasn't looking good. 5 mins later and it was 1-1!!! Oooops sorry mate. Anyway, final score was 3-1 and the QPR players had nice scrap in the changing rooms afterwards - ah lovely!

6th Dec - Football Bets

Everton v Tottenham / Match Odds - Backed Spurs and traded out when they were 2-0 up! Everton then scored 2 and the match was drawn. Good job I traded out as that netted me +£53!

Scunthorpe v Coventry / Over/Under 2.5 goals , quick trade +£12

Fulham v Sunderland / Match Odds - +£10

The X Factor 2009 / 9th Elimination / Olly

Bloody X-Factor! Olly stayed and this time Danyl got the boot. £30 loss and the missus wasn't impressed! Although as I told her, you have to speculate to accumulate.

5th Dec - Supplimental Football bets

Lumped on Man Utd as West Ham are poor this year. Traded out @ 1.03 with +£38.

Real Madrid v Almeria / Over/Under 2.5 goals - Traded for +£10.

Deportivo v Barcelona Match odds - Traded for +£8

All in all a bloody good day!

Leicester get torn a new one, I'm in the £££ !!!

After last weeks demolition of Doncaster I backed Forest again as I thought the'd edge it against the Foxes. 5-1 I was not expecting but what a fantastic performance from the boys in the Garibaldi!!!
Interesting market as it was stated as being 'unmanaged'. So it doesn't go suspended when there's a penalty or goal scored - the odds just look after themselves. This seems a lot better - why even bother with 'managed'. Just let the market look after itself! I mean, it's not done any harm with the banking industry.....oh....
Anyway +£56, traded out at 1.01

I'm a celebrity - Kim Woodburn to win???

Nope! Although Gino was a worthy winner. -£15

Another reality TV loser! Ah well, I thought it was worth having a punt on the under dog just in case there is an upset.

Fulham v CSKA Sofia

Europa League fun and games. Traded on unders / overs for a few quid, nothing much.

GB / Leic 3rd Dec / 15:35 To Be Placed

Quinte Du Chatelet - Thommo recommend it on TalkSport so I had a look at it. Decieded to go with the each-way bet as I'm not a massive horse racing fan.

Because I was at work I wanted a way to listen to the race - iPhone to the rescue. Downloaded a radio app (WunderRadio) which can pick up Timeform and job's a good 'un. Horse featured in the top 3 - +£10

Man City vs Arsenal >2.5 goals

I wasn't watching this one and I decided to let the money ride on this and not trade out. Turned out I was lucky as Weiss scored the 3rd with pretty much the least kick of the match.

Both teams have been free scoring lately so I thought it might have been a bit more of a goal fest. +£25 to me...

Man Utd v Spurs - possible upset?

Man Utd to put out a 2nd string XI, this is Spurs chance to lay down a marker and get into a Cup semi-final. Odds on Spurs were an eye watering 8.0.

Turned out they just rolled over and had their bellies tickled by Man U, lost £10.

Blackpool v Preston

Backed Blackpool and >2.5 goals. Turned out to be a 1-1 draw so lost on both counts!

XFactor - Danyl

Continued my abysml form in predicting X-Factor (all reality tv shows really) results by having a bit of a gamble on Danyl to go. He seems genuinely hated by everyone on the forums and I can't stand his nasally whine plus the emphasis he puts on every first word of a line.

Anyway, he didn't go - lost a fiver, never mind.....

Sat / Sun 29th Football bets

Made £10 on the Liverpool v Everton game backing Liverpool, traded out at 1.01.

Made another £15 on Arsenal v Chelsea >2.5goals market after trading out on the 2nd goal.

Backed Barca to beat Real and traded out after the 1st goal - made another £teen's amount.

The idea is not to be greedy and get out when you have greened up. So far so good.

Man City vs Hull >2.5 goals market

After the win against Doncaster, thought I'd put £10 on the >2.5 market for this game.

The thinking was City would whup them quite easily but it didn't happen. Another bloody draw for City but the Jimmy Bullard celebration was quality!

Forest to begin....

OK I'm believing in Forest to turn over Donny and to do it by quite a margin. They are my team and I've been getting impressed by some of the results they've been putting together, I really think that someone (possibly Donny) are going to get a tonking.

£30 on Forest to win - yeh it's a gamble but got to get started somewhere...

Starting with £30

OK here we go again. Taken some time out from Betfair as I've generally been sucking at it.

The original premise was to reach £359 as I lost it all but I didn't make it. Now the reason I didn't is that I got gready again and lost it all. Bloody hell - will I ever learn?

Anyway, got more motivation now - I'm expecting a little boy and he needs a ride. So the pram I'm looking it at is around £300. So, that's the goal - £300 for the pram and maybe some more so I can keep on trading.

Here goes....