50K Betting And Trading Challenge

The second month of the 50k challenge has been and gone. Is 50k profit in a year starting to look realistic?

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

A £850 win right at the beginning of the month gave me a really good start. After that things were pretty steady with runs of small losses propped up by the odd win. In total I completed 61 casino offers. A profit of £1628 was made.

Enjoying these casino offers. As I can set them up and leave them running whilst I do other things that I enjoy. I used to be a quite a big computer game player when I was younger.

Got a good routine at the moment where I put the kids to bed around 19.00. Set up a casino offer and play the likes of Diablo 3, Bioshock Infinite and a few other old games I never got round to playing. An added advantage is the wife can’t moan that I wasting time playing computer games because I am essentially still working at the same time.

Matched Betting – Sports Offers

So the first thing you will probably notice is a large drop in profits right at the end of the month. You might be wondering what happened?

 I fucked up

For some reason I didn’t back the horse First Sitting. This horse went on to win at odds of 19.00 and cost me the majority of my profits on what was already a pretty poor month for matched betting. Not sure why I didn’t back the horse. My best guess is that I got interrupted, thought I had placed my back bet and went on to place my lay bet without double checking.

Got to say this did tilt me pretty badly. I can take losses in sports betting pretty well or cut losing trades when I need to. But such a punishing loss for such a silly mistake super annoyed me. I actually bet £200 on Chelsea to win the FA cup shortly after this mistake. Luckily I stepped away from the computer, took a few breaths. Realised I was acting stupid and traded out of the position.

At the end of the day these losses will happen sometimes. A bookie or casino might go bust holding on to your funds. An exchange might having some unexpected downtime when you have a position open. Or you might just make a mistake which costs you. The one thing that I will do in the future though is double check my back and lay bets especially at the higher liabilities.

At the end of the month I was showing a profit of £91 after 127 offers.

Trading Results

A pretty smooth month with every trade being pre event. The majority of the trades were pre match trades on football. £80 was the biggest total made on one trade in the Arsenal vs Man Utd match with the biggest loss being £30 on Chelsea vs Middlesbrough. 

In total a profit of £426 was made from 28 trades.

With all the main leagues finishing I will not be making much money from the football markets. My plan is to trade the horse racing markets more. My approach is to swing trade and look for the obvious which requires lots of patience. I don’t really scalp the horses at all. I find it super frustrating and prefer to have a longer term view trading the horses.

There is also the Ward vs Kovalev boxing fight coming up and plenty of UFC events. These are normally markets that I do well from so hopefully there will be opportunities to profit.

Quentin Franks Racing – Tipster Service

Quentin Franks managed to grind out a small profit this month. Things were looking good early on in the month with 4 winning trades on the bounce. Then came the losses and they just seemed to continue for the rest of the month with the odd winning bet. Before a recovery was made in the last few weeks.

There were a total of 92 bets this month from Quentin Franks and a small profit of £52 was made.

Sports Betting – Value Bets and Personal Bets

A pretty low volume month for my own sports betting. It was a mix of my own mixed martial arts bets and a few from free tipsters that I liked. There were 17 bets and a profit of £48 was made. Tiny sample size so not really much to say.

I have been thinking about betting more aggressively on MMA as a do have a pretty decent sample size of bets over the last few years. Mixed Martial Arts is a sport that I really enjoy betting on. Because the UFC is entertainment as much as it is a sport the way they hype certain fighters inflates their odds and creates really good betting opportunities. Pretty annoyed that the Bisping vs GSP fight has been cancelled as Bisping as an underdog in my opinion was a case of the above.

Thoughts Going Forward

It has been an ok month but one of the reasons I started this challenge was to give myself an incentive to push on profit wise. The last two months have been pretty similar in term of profit to what I was making prior to the challenge.

Now I haven’t really made any radical changes to my portfolio. Other then increasing the number of casino offers that I took part in. However I am in the process of scaling things up with the matched betting and casino offers.

In my interview with a professional sports bettor one piece of advice really stood out.

“make the most of the best opportunities before the betting landscape changes.”

It makes a lot of sense. I don’t know how many times I have heard/read the following “Poker/trading/arbitrage/sports betting is dead, it was way more profitable back in 2008/9/10.”

In the future I imagine people will be saying the same thing about matched betting and exploiting casino offers. So I am going to be increasing my volume in these areas whilst continuing to bet and trade in the same way.

Summary

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

£1628

Matched Betting – Sports Offers

£91

Trading Results

£426

Quentin Franks Racing – Tipster Service

£52

Sports Betting

£48

Total Made 

£2245

50k Challenge Remaining Target

£45,741

Services Used

Oddsmonkey – Matched betting, Value bets, Accumulator offers

Profit Maximiser – Casino offers, Matched betting

Quentin Franks Racing – Horse racing tips

After a solid first month. Lets take a look at how the first two weeks of May have gone.

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

May got off to a really good start. I hit my biggest win taking £850 from a sign up bonus on the 3rd of May. Its always nice to get a big win early on as I knew then for the rest of the month I would most likely be reusing profits. Overall I have completed 28 casino offers so far this month. For a total profit of £1058.

My plan was to really increase my volume of casino offers. However I am pretty much on track to match last months volume. I think that big win at the beginning of the month probably slowed me down a little. Its tempting to be content after a big win but there is no real reason for me to not push a bit more going forward.

On a side note. I have been talking to someone that wants to get into these offers but in the past lost money on slot machines. They are worried that they might get into that habit again.

If you understand that playing casino games without a bonus is a long term losing proposition. Then really there should never be any reason to play them. I understand that the sounds, visuals and presentation of these slots may attract some people.

My advice is to make them as boring as possible. Turn off the sound, Use an auto clicker or autoplay, if there is a mini game where you have to get involved manually, follow the same pattern every time. Just keep in mind that these slots are designed to take money off people and without an edge there is no reason to touch them.

Matched Betting – Sports Offers

Wasn’t really hitting many offers early on in the month. But a steady stream of winners in the horse racing added some profit. 

In total I took part in 69 offers. A total profit of £326 has been made so far this month. Not much to be said here. Most of the money came from the horses and with football coming to an end soon. I expect the next few months will rely heavily on horse racing offers to make a decent profit.

Accumulator Offers – No lays

Barely did any accumulator offers this month. At this stage of the season a lot of sides have nothing to play for. So i did cherry pick a few accumulators at the beginning of the month. But will leave them till the start of next season now.

3 accumulator bets were made. A total profit of £15.40 was made.

Trading Results

So far I have made 21 pre event trades this month. The majority of these trades were on the football markets. However the biggest profit was actually made on a boxing match. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez took on Chavez Jr in a huge fight between two big names in Mexican boxing.

I had some profit going in to the day of the fight from trading but there was also a huge arbitrage opportunity on fight night. A lot of money came in on Chavez Jr a few hours before and most European bookmakers didn’t change the odds. It meant that there were 5 or 6 bookmakers offering between 6.0-6.5 whilst a lay was available at Matchbook for 5.2.

Although not strictly pure exchange trading I have added this to the graph.

A total profit of £256 was made.

Quentin Franks Racing – Tipster Service

 

Quentin Franks got off to a really good start with 4 winners in a row to start the month. Unfortunately though over the next two weeks that profit has been given back to the bookmakers. 

There have been 44 selections from Quentin Franks this month. A total loss of -£12.2 was made.

Sports Betting – Value Bets and Personal Bets

At the end of April I was sitting on a profit of £119 and two weeks later overall profit is at £133.5.

A huge £14.50 in profit has been made from 9 bets in May. There were 5 bets on mixed martial arts and four bets on football.

I have been reading a lot about sports betting this month. I went back and read a lot of posts from the Daily25 blog (Where an Aussie attempts to make $250 a day on average from sports betting.)

Also Rowan Day from the secret betting club published his annual profits from his bet diary. He made a 58% return on his capital. Now a 58% return is great but obviously in monetary terms for me personally it wouldn’t be huge (10k starting bankroll). However with say a 100k bankroll that return looks a lot more impressive.

One thing these blogs really show is that you need a long term mindset when approaching sports betting.

When I think of long term I think maybe 3 or 4 months but unless you are hammering a huge volume it really need to be longer.

For example Steve from Daily25 has made a total of  $284,890.00 from his betting. But in 2016 he had a losing year. A whole year where no profit was made. That really does seem like a long time.

I don’t think matched betting and advantage play opportunities will last forever. But for as long they are around they will be my main focus. My plan is to build up a large enough bankroll to the point where I can take a much longer term approach with sports betting as an investment.

 

Summary

Here is a breakdown of the first two weeks of May.

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

£1058

Matched Betting – Sports Offers

£326

Quentin Franks Racing – Tipster Service

-£12.2

Accumulator Offers – No lays

£15.4

Trading Results

£256

Sports Betting

£14.5

Total Made 

£1657.7

50k Challenge Remaining Target

£46,328

Services Used

Oddsmonkey – Matched betting, Value bets, Accumulator offers

Profit Maximiser – Casino offers, Matched betting

Quentin Franks Racing – Horse Racing Tips

April has ended and the first month of the challenge is in the bag. How did it go?

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

This month I have got through 57 casino offers. There has been a mixture lower risk offers such as bet £25 get £5 free on blackjack. With a mix of higher risk sign up offers where you have to rollover several thousand pounds.

My biggest single win was £379 from a sign up bonus. Biggest loss was -£100 also from a casino signup offer. In total a profit of £885 was made from casino offers this month.

I would like to ramp up the amount of casino offers I do in the future. These offers have the highest EV out of everything in my portfolio. So it would make sense for me to put more time and effort into them. Pretty happy with the overall results, no major drawdowns. As my bankroll increases I can can get a bit more aggressive with the higher risk offers and use larger stakes.

Matched Betting – Sports Offers

That’s a nice looking graph right? With matched betting it should never really look much different to that. Lots of small losses with occasional spike in profit when you trigger an offer.

In total I took part in 185 matched betting opportunities. A total profit of £787 was made.  

The majority of the profit came from horse racing offers and William Hills 4 means more offer. There were a few sign up offers I took part in also.

Overall I think profits look alright. Could I have done better? Yes. There are a lot of small offers that I pass over. It’s laziness on my part but I don’t want to deposit money at a bookmaker for an ev of a £1. These offers do add up over the long term but don’t think its that time efficient.

Accumulator Offers – No lays

I made 33 accumulators this month. A total profit of £46 was made.

Not much to see here. Pretty low volume as the season draws to an end. At this time of the season there are mixed motivations for sides and lesser sides seem to be able to grind out better results. If I can get some accumulators where all the teams are still actively competing for something then I will. But otherwise I will leave them alone until next season.

Trading Results

All of my trading this month was pre event. Mostly pre match trading on football but there was also two horse racing trades. Multiple trades were also made on the Joshua vs Klitschko fight.

After 21 trades a total profit of £403 was made. This consisted mostly of lots of small 3 or 4 tick moves. The biggest single trade was on Real Madrid vs Valencia game.

There were two factors to this trade. Ronaldo was a slight doubt for this game but most reports indicated he was going to play. I knew that this would cause the price to shorten. Valencia at one point early in the week were priced 14.00 to win at the Bernabeu. My own analysis had this way too short so I took advantage.

I actually exited these trades a little too early but still a good profit was made. 

Quentin Franks Racing – Tipster Service

 

Quentin Franks suffered a rare losing month. At one point things were looking pretty grim at -£810 but I knew this downswing would not last too long. A few wins right at the end of the month lessened the damage.  

They were exactly 100 selections from Quentin Franks this month. A loss of -£226 was made from this tipster.

I have followed Quentin Franks for a long time now. No tipster that I know wins every month and there is always going to be negative months. I am sure that in the coming months Quentin Franks will deliver the profits.

Sports Betting – Value Bets and Personal Bets

I made 28 bets in April. They were a combination of value bets found using the oddsmatcher software from oddsmonkey and my own. A profit of £119 was made.

Not much to take from these bets really. Tiny sample size and something that I may increase as more of my soft bookmaker accounts get promo banned. For now though it will mostly be my own mma bets and a few value bets when I spot them.

Summary

In terms of profit I have not really smashed it out of the park. But its been a pretty solid month and an enjoyable one. Spent a lot of time with my kids and family during easter. I don’t mind sacrificing some money as a result.

Feel like I haven’t got the balance completely right yet in regards to my portfolio. I would like to focus more on the casino offers, also spend less time on the computer when there isn’t much going on.

This month I have looked at maybe adding some more tipsters to the portfolio. Golf seems to be a market where there are some decent tipsters. Also recently finished a trial with The Football Guru which is a good service. It is coming to the end of the season so not sure what will happen with the service. It might go on a hiatus or tip in the summer leagues. One that I will start following in the new season I think.

Here is a breakdown of this months results.

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

£885

Matched Betting – Sports Offers

£787

Quentin Franks Racing – Tipster Service

-£226

Accumulator Offers – No lays

£46

Trading Results

£403

Sports Betting

£119

Total Made 

£2014

50k Challenge Remaining Target

£47,986

Services Used

Oddsmonkey – Matched betting, Value bets, Accumulator offers

Profit Maximiser – Casino offers, Matched betting

Quentin Franks Racing – Horse racing tips

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

I have taken part in 23 casino offers these past two weeks. A total profit of £431.6 was made.

The month started really well with a few decent wins in a row of £202, £98, £167. It was good to get off to a strong start. I know I am running way above EV but hopefully it continues.

Something I do enjoy about these offers is that they can be done at any time of the day. You can also semi automate them so you can do other things. I can start an offer and then go for a workout checking it between breaks. Put the kids to bed, relax and just check the wagering from time to time. It’s less time intensive that other parts of my portfolio.

My general plan is just to grind out as many of these offers as I can. Fit them in whenever I am at home.

Matched Betting – Sports Offers

There have been 89 offers I have taken part in. A total profit of £296 has been made.

Not very impressive on the profit or volume front. I have a few reasons/excuses for the volume. Which I will write about later in summary.

Still considering there was the grand national and a Bet365 £50 in play offer. It was a pretty decent month for matched betting opportunities in general. You can see from the graph matched betting has very little variance involved. Its mostly just a case of tiny losses with a bump in profits when you trigger an offer.

There are quite a few bookie signups that I haven’t got through. These are easy money so will make sure I get these done by the next update.

Quentin Franks Racing – Tipster Service

So I made the decision just to straight bet Quentin Franks selections. In the past I have traded them betting with bookies and laying at the exchanges when they shorten. I figured that in the long term the profits would not be that different if I bet them outright. Also it would free up some time.

Well these two weeks have been a kick in the balls. I understand its just short term variance but still no one likes to lose.

There have been 52 bets placed and a loss of -£490

These periods happen in betting. Having followed Quentin Franks for a long time I know he is a profitable tipster. I bet to £20 a point so I am down 24.5 points which sounds a bit better then -£490. I am confident that this will turn around and two weeks is really a very short amount of time.

Accumulator Offers – No lays

This strategy involves taking advantage of bookie refunds on accumulators. You can often get a 10% expected return on your investment with these offers. They are worth taking advantage of. I am just straight betting these with no lays involved. (no lays involved………….. feels familiar) 

I only managed 17 accumulator’s for a profit of £81.40.

Not to much to be said with such low volume. It’s nice to be showing a profit but I would expect there to be quite a lot of swings with this style of betting. Again I am running nicely above EV with these at the moment.

Its pretty easy to hammer these out on a Saturday morning. I would like to increase my volume as there is only a few months left in the season. 

Trading Results

Pretty surprised with how little trading I have done so far this month. I was ill at the beginning of the month for about 5 days which were a write off. But still 5 trades in 9 days is pretty poor.

My biggest trade was with Smarkets. The attack on the Dortmund bus caused some market movement before it was postponed. Then I adjusted my position in play for a bigger payoff had Dortmund equalised.

Its pretty tough trading on Smarkets. No API software and a glitchy interface make life difficult. It saves 3% commission but it would be nice if they could make things more reliable.

The other trades were in secondary markets where liquidity is not great. I don’t really want to share much about these as I would just create competition for myself.

Haven’t made any big pre match trades this month. Hopefully I spot a good opportunity in the near future to take advantage of.

A profit of £152 from 5 trades was made.

Sports Betting

I am using Bettin.gs to record my bets. Its a free website that records your bets and has some nice features.

It just makes life a bit easier and means one less spreadsheet.

All of the value bets I found using oddsmatcher. Which is software provided with Oddmonkey. Alongside these were also my personal bets on mixed martial arts.

After 13 bets a total profit of £288 was made. Which is a tiny sample size so there is not much to take from it.

Summary

The recurring theme here is low volume. I had a virus at the beginning of the month which wiped me out for about 5 day. My kids have had a two week holiday which also means I haven’t put in as much time as normal. Those are my excuses. I expect things improve in the next update.

If I want to make 50k in a year a real goal. I am going to have to ramp up my volume in pretty much all area’s. Also will see where I can scale up my stakes as time goes on.

Lets breakdown the results.

 

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

£431

Matched Betting – Sports Offers

£296

Quentin Franks Racing – Tipster Service

-£490

Accumulator Offers – No lays

£81

Trading Results

£152

Sports Betting

£288

Total Made 

£758

50k Challenge Remaining Target

£49,242