£10 into £2000 in 365 days

hehe. what can i say lads. genius.

 

Day 28:

Balance: £9.93

Schalke left it late but somehow came through with 10 men to win in the 89th minute. We certainly won’t be backing them in the group stages though, horrific defending and really missed Huntelaar up front, despite the quality of Farfan and Draxler (who had an amazing second half), but finally our luck has changed and we’re very almost back where we started.


Champions League Qualifiers Zenit St Petersburg v Pacos Ferreira
28-08-2013 17:00
To Win to Nil
Zenit St Petersburg @ 10/11

Stake: 40p

I initially wanted Zenit to keep a clean sheet as the bet, but on Paddypower that’s 8/11 (5/6 everywhere else, i’d take that if you’re with a bookie who offers that price!). Zenit smashed the first leg 4-1 winning us a bet in the process, although I feel the scoreline flattered Zenit, they were good in keeping possession but the attacks were wasteful for the most part, and they certainly didn’t deserve the scoreline. Pacos rarely threatened the Zenit defence in open play (looked good from set-pieces though). Hubocan was an absolute rock in the heart of Zenits defence and Pacos could not get past him, hopefully we’ll see him start tomorrow and then i’ll be filled with confidence. I’m expecting Zenit to sit back a lot more this game, but I can certainly see them scoring (they’re 1/20 to score a goal..) if both Danny and Shirokov play then the Pacos defence will certainly have problems.



Champions League Qualifiers Celtic v Shakhtyor Karagandy
28-08-2013 19:45
Over/Under 4.5 Goals
Under 4.5 Goals @ 1/6

Champions League Qualifiers Real Sociedad v Lyon
28-08-2013 19:45
Over/Under 3.5 Goals
Under 3.5 Goals @ 3/10

Champions League Qualifiers Zenit St Petersburg v Pacos Ferreira
28-08-2013 17:00
Over/Under 4.5 Goals
Under 4.5 Goals @ 1/6

Champions League Qualifiers AC Milan v PSV
28-08-2013 19:45
Over/Under 4.5 Goals
Under 4.5 Goals @ 1/6

Stake: 60p (as an accumulator)

Great odds for this with a cumulative odds of 21/20. All are decent teams and I can’t see any of these being goal-fests!

 

Happy days in the end there. Have put on tomorrow's bets and used a 50p freebie from PP to back Acuna to score two or more goals tomorrow night at 7/1.

 

How on earth do you acquire these mystical free bets?

 

Zenit have a goal. Providing they don't conceed, the bet wins.

 

Well that went well. Both bets fooked by 7pm!

 

I only managed to get on at about 5 oclock. I rushed and did it naughtily at work so I wouldn't miss out. Glad that I did now.

 

Ah well. I'm actually learning a bit doing this though so it's all good fun.

 

i didnt have a good feeling about these ones last night, so i didnt put them on then. i then completely forgot today. phew.

 

I am just glad I did my own bets on the League Cup games and made up more than I lost.

I am learning from this too, so it's all worthwhile.

 

Day 29

Balance: 8.93

Gutted the Zenit game blew both our bets, if you'd told me Zenit would score 4 and pacos score 2 I would've told you to do one! Didn't watch the game as I was out but will download it tomorrow and watch where Zenit went wrong, doubly gutted as we were so close to crawling into profit!


Europa League Qualifiers Slovan Liberec v Udinese
29-08-2013 18:00
Win-Draw-Win
Udinese @ 10/11

Stake: 75p

Udinese lost the first leg 3-1, but it was a bizarre set of circumstances that lost them the game, they dominated the game and had much better chances. Looking at the stats for the match, Udinese had 59% possession, along with 20 shots (compared to Liberecs 6) with 9 of those on target (compared to Liberecs 4). You can see a few highlights of the match here: http://udinesecalcio.portals.twww.tv/video/0e626e1a1b999ce72a4f27aac2468913.html
Udinese ended up hitting the woodwork at least twice and had numerous other chances. Liberecs goals were down to a mixture of poor defending and some amazing strikes. Now with a Udinese needing to win by 3 goals to qualify, I’d expect Liberec to sit back and try to absorb as many Udinese attacks as possible, but I also believe Udineses attacking talent to be far superior than the rest of Liberecs team. Should expect a 1-0 or 2-0 win to Udinese.

 

1-1 at half time in this one.

 

Day 30:

Balance: £8.18

Well Udinese have well and truely screwed us over there. First half was a mixed bag, they conceded through a counter-attack and Liberec looked lively, springing a few good counters that ended in some good shots and a goal. Udinese were very disappointing, pumping long balls forward which rarely reached their target, and when it did they were surrounded and couldn’t really do anything with it. Second half was a lot better and I was convinced Udinese were going to grab a winner, chance after chance went begging and they were dominating the play. Then they got a red card with 20 minutes left to play, which made any chance of a winning goal diminish quite severely, and it never quite materialised from there. Week 4 writeup will be up later tonight!

Icelandic Matches KF Fjallabyggdar v Volsungur
30-08-2013 19:00
Handicap Betting
KF Fjallabyggdar (-1.0) @ 11/10

Stake: 40p

This is a good value bet in my eyes, Volsungur are dire, I mean really bad. They’ve played 18 games, won 0, drawn 2, lost 16. Of those 16 games lost, 13 of those have covered the -1 handicap. KF are by no means a good team themselves, finding themselves in the relegation spot alongside Volsungur, but with a huge difference in points gained (KF have managed to scrape together 15 points from 18 games, compared to Volsungurs paltry 2). The previous fixture between the teams ended 2-1 to KF, but with the win odds being 4/11 (too low for us to take), i’m prepared to take a risk on the handicap, and hope that the home advantage will cough up the extra goal that the handicap requires, should hopefully end 3-1 to KF.

German Bundesliga 2 Matches FSV Frankfurt v Greuther Furth
30-08-2013 17:30
Win-Draw-Win
Greuther Furth @ 11/10

Stake: 40p

Would normally have this down as a slightly higher stake (60-75p for the sake of the challenge), but since today is a 2 selection day and the first bet is a little risky, i’ll play it safe and go for a 40p stake, this means that as long as one of the bets wins, we’ll end up in profit. I’ve mentioned Greuther Furth a few times on here already, I reckon they’ll easily go up as champions and will be backing them as long as as the odds stay decent! Frankfurt are stuck in mid-table 5 games into the season, and I reckon they’ll be a tad higher towards the end of the season, provided their main striker Kapllani keeps banging in the goals, he was their top scorer last season and they’ve retained his services this season, and so far he’s scored 3 goals in Frankfurts first 5 games. Frankfurt have a couple of problems though, if Kaplllani doesn’t score, Frankfurt for the most part don’t score (think Benteke and Villa!), he’s scored 50% of their goals this season. The other problem lies at the back, they’ve conceded a few goals in their opening fixtures (4 goals in 5 games), and against a team of Greuther Furths quality, this could be their downfall. I expect Greuther Furth to take Kapllani out the game, and subsequently go and take advantage of Frankfurts vunerable defence. 1-0 or 2-0 win to Greuther Furth.

 

£2000 is looking a long way off.......

 

Sadly yes. Still hoping for a decent chunk back at the end though, just need a break, the last week (actually 2 weeks..) has been so horribly unlucky. Doing the week 4 writeup now, should be up in 10-15 mins or so.

 

Is this normal for you? I mean, to me, this is how I expect betting to be. Over time, the bookies gradually clawing our money off us.

 

Not normal for me. Usually have a 65% strike rate (which at the odds I usually go for = profitable), according to my spreadsheet i've got a strike-rate of 42.9% for the duration of the challenge so far.



Week 4 write-up:

We ended week 4 with a 65p weekly loss, a majority of which was the poor Heinz bet, in which we lost 53p, won’t be doing one of those again until the balance is a lot healthier! Zenit also screwed us out of a lot of profit, by both conceding and by ending as a goal-fest (which was very surprising!), some people questioned putting Zenit in both bets, which was understandably a large risk. But without the Zenit under 4.5 goals, the treble would have been odds of just over 4/6, with the Zenit game bumping it over the evens mark. I could have replaced the Zenit game for the other qualifier (Plzen vs Maribor I think it was), however the first leg of that finished 3-1, so it certainly had the potential for goals, whereas I watched the whole of Zenits first leg (which finished 4-1) and the scoreline flattered Zenit a lot, they didn’t deserve to score 4 and definitely had luck on their side (the free kick that bounced off the bar onto the keepers back before bouncing in is a great example!), so I (regrettably) went for the Zenit game.

Annoyingly we’ve now lost a total of £1.45 on the under 4.5 accumulators, which is pure madness, before I started the group they were a mainstay of my bets, and i’d usually lose 1 in about 4 or 5 accumulators placed (which at evens or slightly above is a good return), but as usual, i’ll keep doing them, our luck has to change, as i said in my first write-up, profiting from betting relies on 4 things, equally split. Good bets/knowledge, discipline, money management, luck. I believe I have good knowledge (the bets seem fine to me, same sorta thing i’ve always done), so we just need to keep discipline, keep with our staking plan and hope the luck aspect changes! The weekend looks good, i’ve already planned the bets and down the writeups up until Sunday, so I can start researching now ready for next week (before the odds are released as well for most leagues, which is always an advantage), fingers crossed for week 5 to take us into profit.

 

A friend of mine said something similar the other week, how you win some, but then lose some more, win some, lose some more (like reeling in a fish), but that's not the case with gambling on sports (it is on the casino games they offer though!), since it's your choices and selections that choose how well you do (rather than a random number generator). The right choices and selections = profit.

 

I'm still with you Reids, at least until a new Messiah comes along.

 

I've had a lot of time this week to research a lot and be a bit more in-depth with my writeups, so hopefully that pays off!

 

I've met plenty of skint gamblers but never a rich one yet (although having put £10 on Watford to win every game plus a couple of doubles so far this season I am £37 up)

 

You know the wrong people then! I only started taking it seriously a year ago, and made over 3.5k profit in that time. I also know a 20 year old who's up over half a mil through gambling on football.

 

Never met one either. I have a mate who always bangs on about big wins but fails to mention the amount he loses. I'm about £60 up this season though. Accumalator on watford Brighton and Reading to win tomorrow. About 8/1

 

£250k a year in profit if he's betting legally. How has he done it in such a short period of time? Has he had a big accumalator win?

 

i made a few grand once though bonus bagging, but that is essentially the complete opposite of gambling.

 

Nope, doesn't touch accumulators. Goes through good and bad periods like everyone, lost around 80k in January I believe, but is up over 60k this month. He does it all in-play and is VERY good at what he does.

 

Greuther Furth 1-0 down at HT.

 

Aye, they've dominated the game and had the best chances, no idea where the full back was for the goal though, allowed the winger to smash in a volley and the far post, poor defending.

 

Day 31:

Off out now, so posting tomorrows bets now, Greuther Furth don’t look like winning despite dominating and having the best chances, just some poor defending by the right back that looks like letting us down, hopefully KF can come through and give us a day of profit.

French Div 1 Matches Evian Thonon Gaillard v Lyon
31-08-2013 13:00
Win-Draw-Win
Lyon @ 5/4

Stake: 50p

Lyon have been some very good prices so far this season, winning us money in both of our bets involving them, hopefully they can make that 3rd time lucky here. Lyon started their campaign very strongly, winning 4-0 and 3-1 in their first 2 games, last weekend they played Reims and lost 1-0, watching the game back, I have literally no idea how Reims won, it was one of the most one sided games i’ve ever watched, time after time Lyon fluffed chances, and even put a penalty over the bar. Reims had 2 shots on target according to the stats, and i’m not sure the goal counts for one of them (it was a blocked cross that looped over the keepers head). One of Lyons star players Samuel Umtiti was banned for that game, he’ll be back for this game though, and is a key part of Lyons team this season (despite only being 19). Hopefully we’ll see Gomis back for this after some clarification of whether he’ll be moving or not, if he still doesn’t play a part though, Lyon have a decent replacement in Lacazzete who’s scored 3 times in the league already this season and very much impressed me at the recent U21 Euros. Onto Evian TG now,who find themselves bottom of the table, picking up just 1 point in their first 3 games, looking at the stats and some videos of their home games this season, it looks as if they try to dominate games, being largely dominant on all major stats, I feel they look vunerable on the counter though, and the times i’ve watched Lyon this season, they look very good on the counter-attack (in-fact they only look threatening on the counter for the most part), i’ll chalk this up as a 2-1 win to Lyon.

English Championship Matches
Birmingham v Ipswich
31st of August 2013 3:00 pm
Over/Under 3.5 Goals
Under 3.5 Goals @ 2/7

Football Matches
English Championship Matches
Blackburn v Bolton
31st of August 2013 3:00 pm
Over/Under 3.5 Goals @ 1/3

English Championship Matches
Leeds v QPR
31st of August 2013 12:15 pm
Over/Under 3.5 Goals
Under 3.5 Goals @ 3/10

Stake: 50p (as a treble)

No heinz this weekend due to the poor showing last weekend (my bad) and the stake limits some bookies impose, we’ll re-visit those as the challenge progresses though, for the time being, i’ll use this account booster which I think is great value for the cumulative odds of just between 6/5 and 5/4. Only 10 Championship games have gone above 3.5 goals so far this season (out of 47 played)

 

Reids - When you get back. What's your opinion on doing a large number of outrageous 10p accumulators? You know, choose 20 or so teams so the odds come out at 85,000/1 or something. If one eventually comes in, then you'd get £8,500 back.

It seems to me that with shocks, bad refereeing, red cards, dodgy penalties, teams' 'off days', keepers' playing a blinder and lots of other random factors, that predicting football is incredibly difficult. I see teams with silly odds of 1/8 on and more lose heavily almost every day. I think a while back I lost an in play accy thanks to a 1/200 shot going down (some stupid Aussie team who were 3-0 up with 15 mins to go and contrived to draw 3-3).

So what's your view on this strategy? I've been trying it and got, well not exactly close, but 13 right out of 20, things like that. It might come right one day and you're only staking 10p a time.

 

Odds on those Championship under 3.5 goals had been slashed by the time I looked. 1/4

 

Anyone know what the score was in the game in Iceland?

 

3-1 win for our boys.

 

I don't think it's a viable strategy really, there's a good reason why bookies will take those sort of accumulators and risk losing 8.5k for your 10p!

 

Interesting little stat just before the kick-off for the Lyon game which shows how unlucky we've been.

When we've bet on teams to win, we've had 12 losing bets over the course of the challenge so far, out of those 12 losing bets, 8 of the games ended a draw. So unlucky it's unreal.