Well this is more like it, two profitable months in a row.
December was not as rewarding as November but achieved its target profit
levels. I churned the figures on January 1st or 2nd and jotted
down some notes but have never got round to writing up the review. This has put
me in an awkward situation, especially with the tipster ratings, as things are
fluid and January has been quite up and down so far. I have decided to keep the
data as December only but the ratings will encompass events that have occurred
so far in January.
So how did everyone get on:
|
Rank
|
Tipster
|
Staked
|
P/L
|
ROI
|
ROC
|
|
1
|
Football
Investor
|
103.5
|
28.9
|
28%
|
29%
|
|
2
|
Skeeve
|
10
|
7.9
|
79%
|
10%
|
|
3
|
The
Football Analyst
|
138.5
|
6.1
|
4%
|
6%
|
|
4
|
Summer
of Football
|
12
|
1.5
|
13%
|
4%
|
|
5
|
Laurent
Marty
|
18
|
-1
|
-6%
|
-2%
|
|
6
|
Narrow
Victories
|
34
|
-2.3
|
-7%
|
-6%
|
|
7
|
Football
Elite
|
39
|
-9.75
|
-25%
|
-20%
|
Four out of the 7 made some sort of profit, two of them
considerable and only one real blowout enabled me to just beat my monthly
profit target of £2000. In fact, profit was £2110 on a turnover of £31790 at an
ROI of just about 7%. All very good, although at some stages it did look like
the numbers would be even more impressive – but don’t they always!
Overall, and remember this is from the start of this years
football season (August), the table looks as follows:
|
Rank
|
Tipster
|
Staked
|
P/L
|
ROI
|
ROC
|
|
1
|
Summer
of Football
|
82
|
16.5
|
20%
|
41%
|
|
2
|
Football
Investor
|
312
|
36.9
|
12%
|
37%
|
|
3
|
Narrow
Victories
|
129
|
5.05
|
4%
|
13%
|
|
4
|
Laurent
Marty
|
55.5
|
2.15
|
4%
|
4%
|
|
5
|
Skeeve
|
82
|
-9.2
|
-11%
|
-12%
|
|
6
|
The
Football Analyst
|
574.5
|
-18.8
|
-3%
|
-19%
|
|
7
|
Football
Elite
|
100
|
-9.65
|
-10%
|
-19%
|
Overall the combined service has turned over just short of
£120k and generated a profit of £2795 at 2% ROI. ROC is at 6.5%, which for 5
months in not bad compared to most investments, but not what I was hoping for
so far. But given the start, we are now heading in the right direction.
Sporting Value Confidence Rating (last months rating in brackets)
As I have already mentioned, I will try
to keep my comments as relevant to what happened in December, but there a
couple of services that I feel I must expand on given their starts to January.
Football Investor – 3.5 (3.5)
This is now the second month in a row
that one of my top funded services have topped the monthly charts and what a
month it was for Stewboss.
FI managed to make over £2k of the
profit this month, equally split over homes and aways.
|
Row
Labels
|
Count
of Profit
|
Sum of
stake
|
Sum of
Profit2
|
|
Away
|
78
|
5840
|
1235.2
|
|
Home
|
26
|
2440
|
1077.2
|
|
Grand
Total
|
104
|
8280
|
2312.4
|
The Combo bets were the undoubted stars,
but the adapted Strike Zone system that I follow also produced the goods.
|
Row
Labels
|
Count
of Profit
|
Sum of
stake
|
Sum of
Profit2
|
|
Combo
|
36
|
3440
|
1599.2
|
|
Euro
|
13
|
520
|
-7.6
|
|
SZ
|
55
|
4320
|
720.8
|
|
Grand
Total
|
104
|
8280
|
2312.4
|
It is that time of year when the SBC
Tipster of the Year awards need voting for and I decided to back Football
Investor. FI is now in second place overall, and although he has been
outperformed by Summer of Football I couldn’t bring myself to vote for James
given that the bank was blown earlier in the year.
Hopefully Stewboss will be enjoying the
rest of his Aussie break (still providing the selections I might add) and be
back soon to push on to even greater things.
Skeeve –
2.5 (3)
December was a great month for Skeeve
with very few selections, but nearly everything he touched turned to gold. A
ROI of 79% is incredible and the damage to the betting bank done earlier in the
season looked to being diminished. I say looked, as January has been a shocker so
far! This has coincided with stakes going back to maximum levels as well.
Skeeve has taken a bit of a battering in
the blogs after this latest blow out, and a little support, but I thought I
might add my two pennies’ worth!
Since cutting back stakes, the service
has been on quite a good run and to me that is not surprising. Skeeve, by its
nature, is a very selective niche service and you are not going to get a lot of
bets, especially for the money you pay. To get the incredible returns there is
quite a lot of risk in terms of bank size. At first glance an 80-point bank
seems more than acceptable but as most bets are 4 points, this really is the
equivalent of a 20 point bank.
This does not rankle with me for the
Asian handicap selections, as they are usually priced at or below even money,
but for the doubles, it does seem too high. The odds at this staking level can
go over 3.00. I know the doubles have an outstanding record but 519 points
staked is not an amazingly large sample, given that some bets are 4 points. In
fact in 2013, only 21 4-point doubles were placed. Having read Joseph
Buchdahl’s “How to find a black cat in a coal cellar”, there is a chance that
the extraordinary profit is due in part to luck as well as the undoubted skill.
It is quite surprising to me as my notes
written at the start of the month are very positive with every hope that things
will turn around in the much heralded second half of the season, but I don’t
feel comfortable staking so much of my bank on these doubles. I have already
cut back my TFA bet sizes for similar reasons, i.e. the proportion of my bank
going on each selection, but Graeme’s service provides the number of bets to
make this a viable option.
I am now asking myself, and this is
literally while I am writing this as I was not expecting to be so strong on
this issue, where I go now with Skeeve. Do I change to half stakes for the
doubles and risk missing out on the great turnaround or carry on regardless?
Not sure yet, to be honest, but the upgrade from 2.5 to 3 last month has been
returned to 2.5.
The Football Analyst – 3.5 (3.5)
December was solid and at some points it
looked better than that but there is still a tendency for a boom and bust ride.
Really I need Gordon Brown to declare that these days are over but not quite
sure if they are yet. In fact I must say the boom days of early January (listen
to me it is still only the 15th!) enabled TFA to completely
eliminate the considerable deficit from earlier in the season and push into the
black, but alas last weekend was another bust.
|
Row
Labels
|
Count
of Game
|
Sum of
stake
|
Sum of
return
|
Sum of
Sacrifice$
|
Profit
|
|
Bsq
Prem
|
8
|
1360
|
1651.2
|
-342.4
|
291.2
|
|
Championship
|
15
|
1680
|
2220.4
|
80
|
540.4
|
|
League
1
|
11
|
1040
|
704
|
0
|
-336
|
|
League
2
|
23
|
3080
|
4682.4
|
-346.8
|
1602.4
|
|
Premiership
|
19
|
3200
|
1848.4
|
256
|
-1351.6
|
|
SPL
|
7
|
720
|
462.4
|
0
|
-257.6
|
|
Grand
Total
|
83
|
11080
|
11568.8
|
-353.2
|
488.8
|
|
0
|
League 2 has been on an incredible run
and if it wasn’t for a considerable loss in the Premier League, the figures
would look even better! The Championship also produced solid results.
|
Row
Labels
|
Count
of Game
|
Sum of
stake
|
Sum of
return
|
Profit
|
|
Away
|
51
|
5440
|
6540
|
1100
|
|
Draw
|
8
|
1120
|
545.6
|
-574.4
|
|
Home
|
24
|
4520
|
4483.2
|
-36.8
|
This month, it was definitely the aways
that produced the bulk of the profit and draws did not really help out with
returns, maybe just balancing out the variance, as they should!
Looking at these results, I suppose I
have been a bit hamstrung by the design of my portfolio as the double homes and
the addition of aways have limited profit growth, but they have been doing the
business at other times, so no complaints here.
Summer of Football – 3.5 (3.5)
Another steady month, culminating in a
small profit. Solid if unspectacular but after reading the season review, that
is a good thing. Given that the service blew the bank with a poor run from
January to July, it still ended up in profit and a lot of that is due to a more
selective and conservative approach. Obviously it is now January so lets hope
history doesn’t repeat itself but I detect a return to the old confidence
without trying to overdo it.
Laurent Marty – 3 (3)
A slight losing month, which should have
been a break-even one as I missed a bet on Boxing Day when out with the kids at
Blenheim Palace. I didn’t trust myself to get the iPhone out while on roller
blades – don’t ask, it was bad enough without trying to bet!
There is a slight feeling of a service
drifting as it is rare to get a run together but it is not losing money at the
moment so shouldn’t complain.
I suppose I would be unlikely to
subscribe fresh, especially at the prices that Betadvisor charge, but I still
have about 4 months left so hopefully Laurent can convince me to keep with it.
Betadvisor have not had a good press in the last month, led by Joseph Buchdahl and
also on SBC forums so I need to look into this going forward. I also have my
doubts as to whether rugby needs to be part of my portfolio in the long run,
but I will go into this further later on.
Narrow Victories – 3 (3)
A slight loss on the month, but given
the way these types of bets were going down mid December I think I was lucky to
be where I am. At one point the Premier League was down to 44% from 54% on my
figures and although it picked up a little at the end of the month, I was not
on the right ones!
What I do want to look at is the effect
of other tipsters on my selections. As you know I am a relative novice compared
to the behemoths of TFA, FI and Football Elite and while I tend to have a
shortlist at the start of the week, I tend to wait for all others to make their
picks and then see what is left.
To be honest, I do go against Football
Elite’s Vulnerable Home Favourites without a second thought but the other
selections, well rarely so. So this week I decided to look at how we compared
going head-to-head.
For those that haven’t been over to
Narrow Victories, I like to back sides priced under 1.7 to win by 1 or 2 goals,
if their record shows they are the type of team to do so on a regular basis. I
pretty much stick to the big European leagues, although my range is extending
all the time.
First of all, Matt over at Football
Elite and I clashed on 19 matches (2 recommended bets and 17 VHFs). Of those NV
would have won 13, FE 3 and 3 were won more than 2 goals, meaning none of us
won.
Now obviously I do not publish many of
my selections so people may claim that I am committing the betting sin of
aftertimining, but I have no intention of selling these tips or denigrating the
tipsters I am comparing with. I am purely working out if I should hold back on
my bets, hold their relevant ones, or back both!
With Football Investor, most of the
matching selections are due to my portfolio backing Top Flight Elite teams when
the price is 4.00 or over. This season there have been 14 clashing bets. NV
would have won 7 of them and FI two. Interestingly, NV would have made just
under 1 point profit (6% ROI) whereas FI would have made 1.75 points, due to
the relative prices for 12.5% ROI.
Finally TFA has had 5 matches, all in
the Premier League. NV would have won 4 of them, one was a draw and TFA nought.
Now obviously this is a miniscule sample and just one winner would make his
selections profitable, but I did miss out on 4 winning bets!
So is it time to be bold and place the
bets before the others play – certainly the evidence would point that way. And
if I did what would I do when they selected opposing bets? Certainly I would
have to be brave to ignore these big priced possibilities.
I suppose Man Utd vs Swansea summed up
the situation perfectly last weekend. The NV data highlighted a better than 50%
chance of Man Utd winning by less than 3 while there also seemed to be value in
backing Swansea, especially as they beat them the week before! Tricky decisions
to be had, I think I will try to look in more detail on the sister site.
Football Elite – 3 (3)
Now this is a service that really needs
a break! December was horrible, even after a good start it is getting quite a
rollercoaster feeling to it. Both in December and now January one week can do
tremendous damage and we have yet to have an equivalent up-swing to match. Most
weeks FE can pootle along picking up the odd point but then it will drop 9 or
10 over a weekend and be back to square one.
|
Row
Labels
|
Count
of Selection
|
Sum of
Profit2
|
|
DNB
|
16
|
138
|
|
Win
|
23
|
-1308
|
|
Grand
Total
|
39
|
-1170
|
December was characterized by a failure
of the win only selections, those priced at 3.5 or less. While the DNBs did OK,
they dropped just over £1300!
This is another service getting bad
press at the moment but I think I will carry on a bit longer, but we do need
more consistency and one of those weekends when everything wins!
Other Services
I questioned earlier whether rugby
needed to be part of my portfolio, and while need is not the right word, I do
wonder if it spreads me too thin. Two of my main loves in life are sports and
stats and I know you are not supposed to become emotionally involved in your
betting, but I like to know what is going on and roughly why I am betting.
Football I get because I spend most of my time following it, rugby less so but
living in the Cotswolds people love to talk about it! I have also started
following GT Tips Premium just for the American Football but again without the
detailed understanding and interest.
What I am trying to say is that I find
myself put off these bets much easier if I do not have either an emotional or
intellectual stake in them. Some might say this a good thing, but from my point
of view, if I want to take things into my own domain in the long run I have to know
the markets. I cannot see myself getting inside every aspect of these two
sports so I am thinking that we should part ways at some point.
To be honest the sport other than
football that I want to become more involved in has to be tennis. Back in 2001
myself and my wife ran a couple of websites about betting on Tennis and F1 and
while they were great fun and profitable from a betting point of view, we did
not see the business angle and I had to go and pursue a real career. 9 years of
teaching maths and I feel I have gone full circle!
Anyway my point is that I have looked to
get tennis into my portfolio, so for 2014 I have subscribed to Tennis Ratings
tips, which I am glad to say have got off to a good start. In a way I would
have loved to use Sportyy but find the cost prohibitive and their record since
going all mathematical – which I am all for – does not justify the fee. Tennis
Ratings is predominately a trading advisory service, something I am not quite
ready for, but is also offering tips with great statistical analysis and
detailed explanations for the bets. I will keep you informed of its progress.
With regards to Football Form Labs, I
still haven’t decided whether it gains a permanent membership as I can still
forget to check if any bets are up, especially on busy weekends. The quality
seems to be there but if their investment arm, Fidens, strike the odds can go
fast. Maybe I should just give them a wad to invest for me!
Bookie Update
No closures this month, although Toe
restrictions becoming tighter. What is surprising is that Betfred restrictions
are getting looser! Betfred has never closed an account, just reduced it to
single figure bets but I have slowly been upping stakes and getting away with
it! Balalnce was up over £2000 before TFA last weekend. Maybe it is a good
thing I gave them back a bit, might extend my betting with them a bit longer.
The other interesting bookie angle is
that I am using Betbutler for a fair few of my Narrow Victories bets as their
English Handicap draw odds nearly always beat their rivals and certainly the
winning margin prices. There have been issues with payment in the past so will
keep a watchful eye and will update as and when.
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