5th October 2009
I have decided to resurrect my gamblog and figured that here is as good a place as any in the forum for it to reside. Now that I have given up poker (at least for now, see my poker diary for details) I need somewhere to keep all my thoughts and so on. I find that keeping some sort of diary/blog really helps me focus my thoughts. I get so much more out of something when I write things down. Putting things into words such that others may understand them too helps me understand them a lot better; I am forced into unravelling uncertainties so that it all becomes clear in my mind. Hopefully there will be odd snippets in here that will be of interest to at least some of you.
For those of you that don't know me or my circumstances that well let me start with a brief introduction. I came to gambling 6 or 7 years ago with a keen analytical mind and that's the approach I have tried to continue ever since. I barely know one end of a horse from the other but knowing I am a gambler I still get friends asking me for racing tips. That's not my specialist subject at all. I'm more the type of person to analyse stats and staking plans to try and get that extra little bit out of a system. I couldn't design or build you a car but I could retune the engine to make a car more powerful if you want an analogy for what I do. I gave up my job as a software test manager back in August due to a combination of ill health (which continues to dog me to this day but which I don't plan to discuss here) and boredom/frustration. I am currently unemployed with gambling as my only source of income so if that makes me a professional gambler then that's what I am. However, what I make from gambling isn't anything like a living as I am still a small stakes punter. I experience daily swings of about £100 meaning a good day can see me win around £100 and a bad day can see me lose that sort of amount. I am trying to build the banks and increase the stakes to increase the income from gambling but I am naturally risk-averse and prefer banks to grow organically rather than being artifically boosted as I always fear that when I boost a bank and increase the stakes a losing run will wipe out the profits I had previously accumulated. However, I am starting to recognise that you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and am preparing to start taking a few more (controlled) risks to build the banks I use for the systems I follow.
My betting portfolio at the time of writing consists of:
- 5 x flat win systems
- 2 x flat lay systems
- 7 x NH win systems
- 2 x NH lay systems
- 4 x mixed racing code win systems/methods
- 5 x mixed racing code lay systems
- 7 x football systems
- 1 x darts system
- 1 x NFL system
- 2 x general sports systems
I have dabbled in spread bets, trades, poker, dutching, multiples, exchange games and casino games over the years but these have all been dropped from the portfolio at this stage. I plan to reintroduce poker to the portfolio at some point in the future but I'm not sure when although it won't be for a while yet.
I am the type of person who picks up a nugget of an idea and runs with it for a while until something more interesting comes along. While working on something though it becomes almost like an obsession for me but my hard drive is littered with half-completed ideas and projects I have been working on over the years. I'd like to revisit some of those if I can as often they are good ideas that I just haven't see through far enough to reap the benefits of. Knowing this weakness of mine I tend to have plans that I try to stick to but often revise on a regular basis. I rarely put dates or deadlines on these plans as I don't like to put pressure on myself, and I know there is little point as I will often change my mind and the plan long before any of the tasks on that plan are due. You'll probably see throughout this thread my plans changing left, right and centre but I'd like to think I won't change them too much as I know some of the things I am planning are great ideas that I should see through.
As an unemployed bum I need a source of income that isn't my girlfriend's salary. Any money I win from gambling stays in my betting banks so I am not drawing an income from that. This isn't so much of a problem at the minute as I don't actually have all my betting banks in my bookies/exchange accounts - quite a bit of it sits in my current account and I spend it as necessary. But as far as I and my betting spreadsheet are concerned the betting banks are all present and correct and I can call on them at any time I need to. But it is better that the 'float', the portion of a betting bank that isn't invested on a regular basis, sits in my current account earning me a few pence in interest rather than being lodged with a bookmaker where it is earning him interest. Anyway, I am trying to get to the point where my betting banks are such that I can keep them pretty much constant (or growing slowly) and use them as capital which effectively earns me an income from being invested (gambled). I want to be able to make a proper income from gambling and to do that I need bigger banks, successful systems and a balanced portfolio.
Why a balanced portfolio? I'm sure you know the saying about having all your eggs in one basket and gambling can be like that too. Sometimes the NH form just goes out the window and your NH systems won't hit a winner regardless of how much you pray for one so it is important that you have other systems you can rely on to see you through these bad times. I picked NH as an example there but the same applies to flat racing, football and so on. Balance is important so that if performance in one area drops off other systems can pick up the slack. I admit now that I don't know a lot about balancing a portfolio. I think I have the mix of horse racing systems about right but there is room for one or two more win systems as I have quite a lot of lay systems and they tend to lead to regular small profits punctuated by some killer losses at times so lay banks rise steadily and undramatically. It's win systems that provide the big winners and the large jumps in bank balances so I am looking to add some more of those to the mix at some point.
I have 25 horse racing systems and 11 other sports systems. I like racing systems as there is racing every day so there is always something to bet on, which isn't always the case with football unless the systems you have cover lots of obscure leagues, which mine don't. But there is English football on most days - certainly 3 or 4 days most weeks so there are plenty of opportunties for bets to be struck there and this is an area I plan to focus on initially. I am good with stats and numbers and feel confident that I can find a few profitable football systems that I can add to my portfolio so that is where I plan to start. I have a lot of data to work with a a lot of ideas on what to do with that data. There is an international weekend coming up in the football calendar so my short-term aim is to have a profitable Premiership football system ready to go by the time the Premiership starts up again after that international break.
In my mind I have rough parts of a short-term, medium-term and long-term plan developing but as I don't have timescales for any of these plans I can't really say what is short-term, what constitutes medium-term and how long long-term really is. As an aide memoire and a line in the sand though I will say my plans currently include the following:Those last couple of items on that list may never come to anything but they are potential revenue streams I have considered in the past and ones I would (probably) like to investigate in the future, even if it is just to rule them out as not being suitable for me.
- football systems (short-term to medium-term)
- portfolio balancing (short-term to medium-term)
- poker (medium-term)
- horse racing system development (long-term)
- greyhound systems (long-term)
- forex trading (long-term)
So there we have it. The start of a very open, very honest gamblog. I plan to update this on a regular basis with news of my progress to date and any changes to my plans for the future. Feel free to chip in with any comments or thoughts at any stage and to ask any questions. I will do my best to respond in a timely manner and to help out where I can. But right now I'm going to start crunching football data...