No qualms

I didn't realise it had been nearly a week since I put up my last post. Not much has been going on apart from the time I've been investing in designing my own rival to the Form Lab Black software. When I say rival by that I mean it's something that I'll be using myself. Some of the programming involved is taking a long time, there are certain tables that can anything up to 4 hours to get right. It's tough work but as I've mentioned before there are several markets that I'm sure will yield profits next year. However, I won't be putting all my eggs in one basket hence the need to have several angles to make profits from, if a couple of angles don't yield the expected profits then the plan is for the other angles to produce the goods.

Here are the results since my last post:

Tipster:	Todays P/L:	Stakes:	ROI:	POINTS Total:
4PA	-3.15	7.00	-45%	95.81
CL	-1.00	1.00	-100%	43.92
EI	-1.00	1.00	-100%	61.02
FBD	0.55	3.38	16%	-2.32
FE	0.00	0.00	N/A	23.77
FI	0.00	0.00	N/A	32.44
MGB	0.00	0.00	N/A	13.31
PJAF	-2.01	11.75	-17%	14.88
SK	0.00	0.00	N/A	64.81
STR	1.20	32.00	4%	-3.90
SYS	-5.78	131.00	-4%	-39.72
AB	0.00	0.00	N/A	1.15
MB	0.00	0.00	N/A	-8.96
TRAM	0.60	0.60	100%	-14.58
TRAS	0.00	0.00	N/A	-1.61
WIFLI	0.00	0.00	N/A	-1.50
Today:	-10.59	187.72	-18.30%
Active Tipsters Total:				278.53
All Tipsters Total:		9522.34	0.71%	22.20
Financial Totals:	This month:	-£326.31
	This year:	-£2,065.65

Here is last month's graph:

That must be the worse case scenario graph I've ever seen and it happened last month. I've seen that some of the services that I've been following have taken a turn for the better more recently which is always good news, but still, I'm happy to have cut the size of the portfolio down. It was unsustainable as it stood, subscription fees were ridiculously high and capital was being spread thinly between the services meaning that when services did make a profit there were times when the profit would be piddly after deducting fees.

I made a decision the day before Football Investor went on its very good run to stop all football betting until the end of the season. It was a tough decision to make but the losing run was becoming psychologically too much, seeing loss after loss was breaking me to be honest. I am in this alone, my partner places the odd horse racing bet, but she has no interest in doing anything beyond that. Being alone means I take all the winnings, but also all the losses and that goes for both financial and psychological. There is a limit to everything.

There were, however, some positives to take from last month: PJA Flat made a tidy 15 PTS profit and Man. Utd. to win the Premier League paid out for Football Elite. Even the Accidental Bets made a small profit. But more importantly I truly awoke to the reality of betting and how it will kick you whilst you're down. When you're looking for that slice of luck and in a desperate situation sometimes it only gets worse. The pitfalls of betting are seriously underestimated and I know that now, so what should I be doing from now on? One thing for sure, as I've mentioned previously, is not to get on with tipsters that have only been proofing for a year or so. The reason being is that one year is not enough for value to show itself, or not, years must be taken into consideration and that's why I've decided to carry on with Equine Investments and Football Elite.

Another area that I have changed slightly is my staking. I have decided to reduce my staking so that no one service affects me anymore. However, my staking is still very high for Champions League Bet and 4 Pronged Attack, I have no reason to stake low, they are proven tipsters in the long-term. Where I have changed staking is for new services. Before, I would stake relatively high from the offset without properly knowing strike rates, potential turnover, average odds, etc. Now, all services start small and work their way up gradually, either based on daily compound staking or compound staking but set at different levels. The good thing about increasing staking gradually is that even when the service goes on a severe losing run you aren't affected. When Pro Bandit went on its bad run I had reason to be annoyed; not only had it been stale for 6 months but the NQs were making losses, subscription is not the cheapest and was due for renewal soon and overall I was at a lowly 19 PTS profit overall. If Champions League Bet had lost all its Champions League advised selections last week I wouldn't have blinked an eyelid; stakes are all 1 PT and odds around the evens mark. At just under £60 a year it's one of the best value tipsters out there.

Oh, and of course, I channelled all the negative energy from last month to produce my own software, no better way of using a negative to produce a positive! Looking at the big picture, I now know how subscription costs affect betting profits in the long-run, if you are to be successful over years and years then spending a few weeks and months to produce your own systems is more than worth it. Where do you start? From one idea and from one stats source in one Excel spreadsheet. Doing that to begin with will undoubtedly generate further ideas and further ways to analyse stats.

Happy punting!

Koda