End of the road

 

That's the end of this experiment then. I started out with £30 and looked to make £300 and I FAILED! I managed to put some money towards the marvellous new pram (above) but I didn't pay for it out right - bit of a shame really. I ended up with just £150-ish to put towards it, not bad but not great considering all that money I had at one stage.

I think what did it for me was that Rangers game where I lumped on quite heavy and the recent Chelsea loss away at Hull.

I enjoyed the whole Betfair experience and it's a pity it's all gone now. Maybe I might start again with another 30quid soon, who knows? Probably won't have time now the nipper is on his way - who am I kidding, I've always got time for some footy!

31st Jan - Man City v Pompy

Man City 2-0 Portsmouth

Backed Man City £320 @ 1.35 - traded out after the 2nd goal went in. Not a lot to say about this apart from the amount I backed Man City, quite a lot but it's actually a bet farm moment. Paid off for me and I was put in the situation due to the Celebrity Big Brother and African Nations debacles.

Celebrity Big Brother

As I've blogged before, I'm crap at reality TV bets and I wanted to break my duck on this one. I'd backed Vinnie early on £36 @ 3.8 and was very happy with that. After a couple of weeks Vinne had steamed into 1.7 on the 2nd Friday night. So lumped on another £200 before the the evenings episode, what-a-mistaka-to-makea!

That night they showed the fall out between him and Sisko and how Vinne acted like a bit of prat to be honest. His popularity plummeted and Danes odds shortened dramatically. We all know that Alex ended up winning the whole thing in the end and because of a large loss in the African Nations, I was unable to juggle the money to either come out even or with a small loss. So I lost £236 on this bloody programme - here's a picture of Mr Jones waving goodbye to my money - cheers mate, it wasn't emotional at all.

27th Jan - No money for good ideas....

Man Utd 3 - 1 Man City (Carling Cup Semi)

Backed the draw £36 @ 4.6 - didn't work out!

Chelsea 3 - 0 Birmingham

Ok Birmingham were 2-0 down at HT so I bunged a tenner @ 120 for a long shot - I'm still waiting for my Angola game! Didn't happen....

Forest v QPR - the perfect night!

Nights like this come very few and far between. I was pretty confident in Forests ability to turn over a shambles of a club, that is QPR. I mean no disrespect but isn't it 8 managers in 2 years?

I'd backed them at £150 @ 1.8 with a view to trade out when they go up. We got in the ground late, opting to get a balti pie than leg it our seats. By the time I'd finished the pie we were 2-0 up! A classic moment went Earnshaw was placing the freekick for his first, some drongo in the crowd shouted, "Don't bother Earnie, you can't score from the penalty spot!". As the net bulged, I made sure I turned round and gave him some shit!

At 4-0 I was still talking about the 'precarious 4-nil lead....remember Angola!'. Try as I might, the bloody iPhone wouldn't connect to the internet - thanks O2! I was thinking about ringing up the Betfair line but I wasn't sure if they'd take the bet as technically I wasn't putting a bet on but trading out of one with a lay. When the 5th went in, I thought "Ah, f**k it!" and left it on. Heh-heh how risk averse am I?

African nations rumpus!

Zambia 0 - 0 Nigeria (Nigeria go through on penalties)

What a dreadful game this was! If you want to showcase the worst African football can serve up - here it is. So much for the big names in this tourny - Nigera, Ivory Coast and Cameroon were all dreadful in this competition.

On this game I'd backed Nigera £105 and as the game drew to a close I backed Zambia for £15, so a goal in the last 10 minutes would have give me a profit. Alas it didn't come and I lost interest in the competition as whole - which is a shame seeing how t'gypt got on.

New Betfair iPhone app on its way!

Got a call from a Betfair rep wanting to talk about the site, markets etc (and trying to flog me on the casino and poker - no thanks....), he asked me what I'd like improving. I think the iPhone Betfair site, whilst a good idea in principle, it's a little off in execution. It's quite slow and seems to forget your login details quite quickly. I asked him about the possibility of a Betfair app and he said that there is one literally a few weeks away. I did say that I'd really like to have the 'max payout' link in the app, something which the mini site and the old Java app doesn't have. It's very useful for trading out of a market - as you well know and saves the number crunching.

What an awesome job that would be, working on a Betfair app for the iPhone! I keep up to date with the app store so maybe I'll post a review when it comes out.