No.7 - You are never alone in a bookies

A friend bet me that I couldn’t get the words ‘vestibule’ and ‘horticultural’ into my blog this week. Well that is that bet taken care of.

This betting week was a week of mixed punting emotions. Like all betting weeks it seems. Last week I decided I was going to only wade into the betting waters with the expert’s -thems who know best. Well it turns out experts are not that easy to find, especially when everybody with a name loosely associated to a sport becomes an expert when a journalist gets in front of them.

It’s how you interpret the expert that seems to be the trick.

On Friday night I went to the Prize Fighter boxing which was live on Sky Sports. Unable to watch a sporting event without some kind of small monetary attachment I looked for some ‘expert’ guidance online. I ended up having £5 EW on David Barnes at 7.0 thanks to some good vibes on the Sky Sports website and the Cheeky Punt blog.

I was in fact very optimistic. This optimism was ratified when David Barnes came out to the song "Tonight’s going to be a good night" By the Black Eyed Peas. I thought this suggested David must have some good feelings about the up and coming evening. But my optimism fell a victim to some very false advertising and hype. ‘Tonight’s going to be an all right, take it or leave it, happy to show up night” would have been more apt.

Instead the impressive pocket sized power puncher Gavin Rees romped home, much to a very merry Mr. Calzaghe's delight. I thought about backing him at 2.5 after the first fight but thought it too short. There is no such thing as too short I’m sure Mr. Rees would have informed me.

I didn’t have a drink Friday night, as the stewards feared we would all get rowdy and bottle the boxers if we took our drinks ringside. I did inform them that I had no intention of bottling a man whose job it is to fight other men. And that even if I did for some crazed reason launch an out of character air strike I doubted a plastic bottle would do much harm or in fact actually reach the ring.

Mr. Steward was not one for negotiation or humour. But I must thank him as I woke up Saturday morning with no kebab on my chin, no sewer mouth, no regrets, no rash late night cash receipts and a general positive outlook on the day ahead. “Today was going to be a good day”.

I rang the Cornerman for his bet of the day. I was having one bet and that was it. Thankfully he came through with a handsome 5 pointer.

Bet: Arsenal vs. Stoke – Arsenal -2 corners on the handicap with WillHill @ 1.66 and Arsenal -3 @ 2.1.

The reasoning was that Stoke take some breaking down. So with Arsenal pushing we were hoping for some Gooner corner action and we got it.

Result: Arsenal 10 vs. Stoke 2

£30 @ 1.66 -2 Corners = £50

£10 @ 2.10 -3 Corners = £21

I left this bet to sit, I couldn’t trade on it so just let it be and went to meet a mate to get some drinks, watch some footy and eat. For these are the ingredients for the perfect Saturday. The other ingredient is having a bet but that box had been ticked.

The said mate was running late. There is only so much time you can spend pretending you are doing something important on your phone before people in pubs just assume you are sat on your own. There was no assuming needed - I was sat on my own.

So I headed to Williams house. If you are comfortable in a bookies you are never far from friends, blue pens and opportunity. I made a mate in an old bald man who when asked which horse he had backed just said “Number 7, I don’t know the horse, I just always back number 7” We didn’t feel we had to take our relationship any further than that but I could tell he enjoyed our little chat. Number 7 lost, and the next race was a 5 horse race so my mate left. I had a time passing £1 EW here and there but nothing worth writing home about.

The mate turned up and then 12 hours later I woke up in another friends house the other side of London. This was the feeling usually reserved for Saturday mornings. Sunday was a water logged pitch, broken floodlight non-event of a day.

So £20 up for the weekend was not that bad. But bad things were around the corner, Leeds playing at home to Kettering in the FA cup replay. This is my number one rule that I always break.

“The if you support that team you should just be happy that they win, therefore do not bet in anyway shape or form on the event.”

I ignored this and had

£9 double on Leeds -1 goal against Kettering and Millwall -1 goal against Staines Town @ 2.69.

If you watched the Leeds game you will know how unlucky I was, going 1-0 up early doors I thought it was nailed on. Leeds then assaulted the Kettering goal with shot after shot, missing all 6,000 attempts. Leeds won 5-1 in the end, which would have been fine, but they decided to cram all these goals into the last few minutes of extra time rendering my bet dead. Millwall did the deed winning 4-0.

Leeds I wish you all the best but our betting days together are over. Until the next time.

So a small £10 up for the week and 90.6666% to go. But I am getting there just need to crank up the discipline and dig out them experts. I’m getting good vibes for this weekend though it needs to be an all pot, nerve jangling weekend. But its OK because in the spirit of lyrical optimism from Will.i.am, Apd.de.ap, Taboo and Fergie of the aforementioned Black Eyed Peas. Ive got a feeling...

Bets for the weekend will be uploaded on here on Friday night or Saturday morning. In the 'Weekend Punt' box at the top of the page. You can also follow them on twitter.

If your having a bet this weekend or have a tip you can put it in the comments section and share the love.

No.6 - Usain or Paula Punting?

Like a punting Rocky Balboa I am back in the game, I have dusted myself off from a previously bad betting weekend - stared lady luck in the face and given her a big fat snog. She kissed back.

With a good weekends punting behind me I have that dangerous confident feeling that I can pull this off. Losing is not good for enthusiasm; it really is a lot easier to sing when you’re winning. Hence the particular upbeat vibe to this post.

The reason I have started winning again is because I have stopped betting, I have merely started following. In a moment of rational reflection I decided that the reason the betting industry exists and thrives is because every punter thinks that they are an expert. When only a tiny percent of people actually make money from gambling, so it is folly for me to strut in and think I know something more than the bog standard Billy big time down the bookies.

From now on I am going to be a follower of the well advised. I have decided to let my intuition go for the main and go with those with stats, insight and more stats. I need to follow people who scribe their visions into ‘Red and Black’ Golden notebooks and not people who scribble them on shopping receipts and bear mats. Tis folly to not make the use of such tried and tested resources.

The problem with following good tipsters though is that you have to back every call, you can’t just pick and choose you have to make a commitment. So for the next few weeks, I will up my stakes and stick to the Cornerman’s musings. I will then pad this out with some off the cuff intuition stuff. Quick call Dr. Dre I think I just made a rhyme.

The corner handicaps for the weekend games come out on a Friday. So I will from now on write my bets up on a Friday night for the weekend. Then review the woe or glory on the Wednesday or Tuesday after. Those who know me know the chances of me consistently doing this are quite slim – to put it in horse racing terms about as likely as a 3 legged donkey winning a respectable race with 4 legged competitors. But I will have a good go at sticking to the plan. I am now using twitter as well so if you want a quick update you can follow the Speculative Punt on there. I will not be a 3-legged donkey.

So what happened this weekend just gone? I got on the blower to the Cornerman who gave me two bets he fancied. These were…

1. Blackburn vs Stoke – Blackburn -1 Corners on the handicap with WillHill @1.85

Result – Blackburn 9 v. Stoke 2 (won 8-2 convincing) £10 @ 1.85 = £18.50

2. Man City vs Hull – Man City -3 Corners on the handicap with WillHill @ 1.66

Result – Man City 8 v. Hull 2 (won 5-2 convincing) £10 @ 1.66 = £ 16.67

3. £5 Double – On the two results with WillHill @ 3.08 = £15.4

So armed with swagger and the confidence of an ever slightly growing pot. I tip toed into the Tuesday night football with a little bit of blind ooh look at me I won £25 on Saturday betting. I had a treble on Man Utd vs. Tottenham, Carlisle vs. Hartlepool and Bristol Rovers vs. Exeter.

£5 @ 6.29 = £36.45

This was not completely blind punting although when asked to name a single player for Carlisle, Hartlepool, Bristol Rovers or Exeter I did struggle quite a lot in fact I failed, David erm. Paul ah. Daniel aye. Grant aye don’t have a clue. But I do have my principles, home team advantage is always a big help in accumulators I find, I don’t like putting away teams in my accas. Don’t get too greedy, a treble is a good amount that extra 1.2 Arsenal at home will catch you out. I do have other principles as well, like….No I do, I just can’t think of them right this second.

So all in all things are looking good I am back up to £130 with 91.334% left to go.

This approach though is definitely that of a marathon and not a sprint, I want to have the balls of a Usain Bolt punter but seem to have the gonads of a good old Paula Radcliffe punter. A fine woman that she is, its just this approach is going to take me 3 hours to get there and not 9 seconds. I think my Bank manager would have liked me to have been there already – but he can wait. Keep the faith Clive at the bank we will get there.

Meanwhile if anybody has any good tips, insights, ideas on any punting markets anywhere in the world. Do get in touch, share the love and post them at the bottom in the comments section.

I will be back on Friday with the next weekends speculations.

Cheers, Paula.