Making A Million Betting Challenge

December capped off month 70 in the “Making A Million Challenge.”

It was a frustrating month at times and after the first 20 days of 2023 I was in a -£2000 hole. In the long term results over a 20 day period don’t really mean much.

However I did feel an expectancy to start the year well. The betting gods clearly though don’t give a fuck about how you feel the year should start and hey why should they!

So I sucked it up and just kept doing what I normally do. Which normally produces a profit at the end of the month.

Let’s dig into results for January.

Value Betting And Trading

Read the markets pretty well this move in terms of getting value against the closing odds. Consistently getting closing line value which in turn should equal a profit. However it doesn’t guarantee it.

Closing line value is the odds a bettor gets relative to the closing odds. If they beat the market closing odds, they got positive CLV. If the market beat them, they got negative CLV. Beating the market means getting a better odds than the closing odds at sharp bookmakers.

January ended up being a losing month.

After 319 bets a loss of -£1411 was made.

Not Familiar With Matched Betting Or Value Betting ?

Read Our Guides Below

Matched Betting Guide

Value Betting Guide

MMA Betting

I made one solitary bet on MMA in January, which was Gilbert Burns to win inside the distance.

The reason for the low number of MMA bets was a lack of UFC cards and the poor quality of the cards. Probably due to not being able to get downs bets until a day or two before events start (no soft bookmakers) and the time it can take to watch tape on lesser known fighters. I just didn’t have much inclination to delve deep into the last few cards.

This weekend however is a huge card with decent money already available on Betfair so this will pick up.

A profit of £220 was made betting on MMA.

FTS Ultimate

Slight change this month to FTS as I started using the poisson database to place bets.

This added one more system but also meant at times it conflicted with an under 2.5/3.5 goals system that I had been using.

I made the decision to drop the goal system and follow the poisson due to the results I have had. One system has been very profitable whilst the other has just consistently lost this season. This may be a bit short sighted but I feel less conflicted about selections and can reassess at the end of the season.

Let’s break down the results.

System 1 (Lay Draw), Stakes – £50 lay bet,  Results = £572

System 2 (Form based system) £50 to £100 lay bets, Results = -£208

System 3 (Poisson)  £120 back bets, Results = £806

System (Underdog System) £10 to £30 back bets, Results = -£100

Unders system (No longer using) – £22

Total – £1092

Bets And Beers Telegram Group

Rough month for Bets and Beers and had a few messages about it after I highlighted as a service that I use last month.

All I can say on the matter is that all services/methods/strategies have losing periods. If you are going to try and make money doing this its something you have to accept. If you choose to follow a service then make sure you understand that. 

historical results

Look at the historical results, its plain to see that there has been losing months but long term the service has been solid. Does that guarantee it will win in the future? no nothing is guaranteed.

However accept that you made the decision to follow the service, you decided the stakes. Nobody forced you into anything and ultimately take responsibility for own betting.

Missed quite a few bets this month for the horses and also for the in-play lay the draw when its a triggered at half time.

Decided to adapt my approach going forward and increase stakes but only play one strategy. The strategy I will follow is laying the half time draw, stakes will go up from £20 to £50 per bet.

My reasons for this are that although all strategies have shown to be profitable, I like laying at lower liabilities. Whilst the straight up LTD from kick off can be fairly high odds. Again this is just my personal preference if you follow the service do what suits you. I will also leave the in-play lay the draws alone just because I know that I can’t follow them all.

A loss of -£141 was made from this service.

In-play Betting And Trading

Decent but not spectacular month for in-play betting and trading. One of the better trades I had this month was laying Gillingham when they managed to go 3-1 up against Swindon.

Thankfully Charlie Austin came to the rescue and bagged a few goals to seal the comeback.

Overall a profit of £944 was made from in-play betting and trading.

Jan Totals

FTS – £1092

Bets and Beers – -£141

Value Betting/Trading – -£1411

MMA Betting – £220

In-play Betting And Trading – £944

Daily P/L

Total Made In January

+£704

Overall Profit Since The Challenge Began

£169,012

Thoughts Going Forward

Not the best start to the year but not terrible either. 

I know that the way I approach betting works and that it just requires some patience to see the results sometimes. In terms of new strategies or services that I am looking at. Been looking into some horse racing services again as I do like the day to day nature of horse but I also don’t want to spend all day in front of the computer (horse racing trading).

Exponential bet looks interesting, this an automated horse racing service. If anyone has any feedback I would welcome it. 

Another service I have been testing the waters with is Systematic betting. The main issue that most horse racing tipsters have is matching the quoted odds especially when using Betting exchanges but have had success with small stakes so far.

Thanks for reading hope you had a profitable Jan!

December marked month 69 in the “Making A Million Challenge” and we also saw the end of 2022.

Although the world seems to be in a constant state of chaos with inflation, war, climate change etc. After the lockdowns and previous years it did seem a bit more normal.

Still enjoying the betting and trading on a daily basis, overall it was a very positive year!

In today’s post I will quickly go through Decembers results, then take a look at the strategies/results used for 2022.

December Results

Alright let’s quickly go through the results for December.

December was an odd month. It started off very well and I continued to make good trading decisions in the world cup and value bets were winning. Then in the knockout stages things seemed to go pear shaped, everything just started losing and some bias crept into my in-play trading as the bigger named teams squared off.

By Christmas it looked like I would probably have a small losing or winning month depending on the next few days. However the return of “regular” football saw a big increase volume and the last few days of the month exploded in profit.

Which meant that December finished with a decent profit totaling £3632

2022 Review 

Let’s take a look at the year as a whole, breaking down which strategies/services performed well.

2022 was a record year in terms of profit with a total of £39,845 being made. Which was a great total and by March I had run through all pretty much all my bookmaker accounts and focused on using purely the exchanges and betting shops.

One perhaps concern was that the majority of the profit was made in the first 6 months with £27,475 being made at the end of June. The latter 6 months produced a profit of £12,370 which was more in line with previous years.

Obviously one factor was no more soft bookmaker accounts and of course there is always variance with betting/trading. Last year might be just end up being an outlier, guess I’ll find out.

Let’s dig into the results!

Horse Racing Betting

Disappointing year for the horse racing portfolio and by December I had knocked it on the head. Due to the fact that it didn’t seem to be warranting the time spent on it.

The year started fairly well and Beth Bet ( A horse racing value betting tool) continued to do very well and was bringing in the majority of the profit. Unfortunately early in the year (Sometime in Feb/March I think?) they discontinued the service without any reason.

It’s likely they were bought out by either a bookmaker or a syndicate. They seemed to be growing in their customer base and pretty much everyone I spoke to was having success with it.

After that I used some free tipsters from the Smart Betting Club, tried out Hansbury Racing and did some of my own betting. However results just went south for pretty much the entire second half of the year.

I’m not completely throwing horse racing betting away and might revamp things for 2023. However other strategies were proving to be much more profitable, meaning it was better to put more time into those.

Total made – £550

FTS Ultimate

FTS Ultimate is a service that gives you access to historical data and a few different models to use. It isn’t a service that provides selections, the service allows you to dig into the data to find your own edge.

I joined Ultimate for the 2022/2023 season, setting up four different systems that will be followed for the entire season. Exact details of the systems can’t be given out as it wouldn’t be fair to FTS however I can give brief labels to what they are.

System 1 (Lay Draw), Stakes – £50 lay bet,  Results = £2608

System 2 (Form based system) £50 to £100 lay bets, Results = -£335

System 3 (Backing under 2.5/under.3.5) £50 to £100 back bets, Results = -£1200

System (Underdog System) £10 to £30 back bets, Results = £162

Total – £1235

Bets And Beers Telegram Group

A service that I used for the last 2 months of the years was “Bets And Beers.”

Which I know sounds like the muggiest group ever or maybe even the start of a shitty rap song “Give me bets, beers, boobies and bitches, stacking cash backing players on pitches!”

I wonder what Vanilla Ice is up to, maybe we could team up…….

However the service itself though is very solid and has a few years of results backing it up. It’s a very simple laying service, where you lay the draw or lay horses.

I started the service on the 3/11/22 and by the end of the year a profit of £924 had been made.

This was staking £20 on the half time lay selections, then laying £50 in second half should that bet lose. For the horse racing selections I was risking £200 per bet.

If you are interested in the service you can find it here, along with long term results.

Bets And Beers Twitter

Value Betting And Trading

The next section is a couple of strategies that I record on one spreadsheet as it saves me a lot of time. However I will break down the strategies involved.

In 2022 this is what brought in the biggest amount of profit and where I found the largest edge.

That’s a pretty nice graph and although there are some £1-2k downswings. The amount of volume and lack of volatility makes it look like it was plain sailing. Although it never really felt like that on a week to week basis.

The strategies used were pre match trading, value betting and what I would say is advanced value betting or what I have heard be called “The top down approach.”

Pre Match Trading

Pre match trading is something that’s been covered a lot on this blog and I’ve also made videos about it. 

Your aim with pre match trading is to be in and out of the market before the start of the event, backing at a higher price then you lay or vice versa.

Here is a video which explains what pre match trading is with examples.

Value Betting and Top Down Approach

Value betting again is something else that been written about a lot on this blog. The aim is to beat the closing odds at Pinnacle or on the betting exchanges. This has been shown long term to be very profitable with very big sample sizes of data showing this.

Here is our guide to value betting if you want to learn more.

Due to running out of soft bookmakers the opportunity to do standard value betting was pretty limited this year. After listening to many successful American bettors talk about using a “top down approach.”

Which is reading odds movement and basically predicting where the market is going to move. Basically making a prediction on what the value side is likely to be.

I started to try and figure out if this approach would work for myself.

For example tonight Arsenal are playing Newcastle and looking at the market a few days earlier, there were signs that Arsenal would get backed in. I placed a bet at 1.87 and its currently moved in to lay at 1.82. (An indication of value, lay odds being lower then back odds.)

With value betting although I tend be right more then more then I am wrong. I stake smaller and leave it as a value bet (leave it to go in-play) as opposed to pre match trading. For pre match trading I am usually more confident in my read so stakes used are higher.

Also there are some smaller markets where you can’t get too much money down, which makes pre match trading difficult.

Hybrid Approach 

The third strategy is a hybrid of the first two. If my confidence level is fairly high I will stake a higher amount and then as the market moves in my favour reduce the liability. This is done by laying at a lower amount and leaving 20 – 30% of my stake as an enhanced value bet.

In the above example the lay bet is now at effective odds of 2.25. Crystal Palace are priced at 3.8 to lay. So by reading the market, laying then backing its enhanced what was already a value bet but lowered the stake.

The reason for this approach is that it lowers the volatility of straight value betting. Which means that you don’t have to deal with as much variance. 

How To Read A Market

How do you read a market?

That’s probably the biggest question and unfortunately if I gave out every detail it would either kill my edge or greatly reduce it. Which means I can’t give everything away however I can give some helpful advice.

First off you want some odds comparison software, value betting or arbitrage software. This enable you see odds movement in the market. (In real time)

Personally I use Oddsmonkey, Trademate and Oddsportal (comparison site).

This allows you to see what’s getting backed in with bookmakers, exchanges and sharp bookmakers. Then your basically looking for recurring patterns in the markets. There are some teams that I call “Market favs” you see them time and time again getting backed in.

Perhaps it’s 3 days out and you see money coming in on Sheff Utd for the 3rd week running. It’s fairly likely that the money is going to keep coming.

Next up you need to think about the market in different time frames

What happens 5/3/2 days before a game is due to start?

If there isn’t Pinnacle odds, which is the sharpest bookmaker?

When a team wins 5-0 what happens to the price in their next game immediately after the current games finished. 3 days before the game, morning of the game?

You will see overreactions in market where odds move too far, looking at time frames you might start to get a hint on when the market reverses.

It’s more advanced then straight up value betting, requires more work. However that’s likely why its more profitable. (Unless your a big multi accounter that can hammer through soft books without worry)

Overall from value betting and trading a total of £33,942 was made.

MMA Betting

Booked in my first losing year of mixed martial arts and boxing betting. The MMA markets have definitely become sharper over the last few years.

Whether it was just variance or I need to change my approach time will tell. 

95% of bets are on underdogs and a sample of 107 bets isn’t massive. However it did suck out a lot of the enjoyment that I get from watching MMA seeing bet after bet lose.

This is the nature of betting though and downswings can happen. We all know this we just don’t it to happen to us, 2023 should provide some answers on if things need to change or not.

A total of -£1314 was lost betting MMA.

2022 Totals

Horse Racing – £550

FTS – £1235

Bets and Beers – £924

Value Betting/Trading – £33,942

MMA Betting – -£1314

Misc/Everything Else – £4508

(Misc/everything else accounts for in-play betting on UFC, in-play football trading, casino offers and some free tipster bets. Whilst I account for these in my daily profit and loss sheet, I don’t track them on separate sheets as there isn’t a massive amount of volume. Overall it cuts down on the amount data input I do on a daily basis)

Total Made In December

+£3632

Overall Profit Since The Challenge Began

£168,308

Thoughts Going Forward

Very happy with the overall results for 2022.

In terms of goals it would be good to push towards £50,000 profit in a year. However I could have just run very well in 2022 and profits could drop off. Have to be realistic and keep that in mind.

The UK betting scene does seem a complete fucking mess at the moment, which is a slight worry but completely out of our control. What we can control is to keep learning, finding edges, putting in the time and hopefully the profit continues to come.

Thanks for reading, hope you had a good 2022 and wish you all the best for 2023!

September was an interesting month.

Enjoyed football being back in full flow until the dreaded international break. There were some exciting UFC events to bet on and I spent much more time looking at live betting/trading football.

Let’s take a look at how things went in Month 66 of the challenge!

Value Betting/Trading

Not a great month for value betting which hit a pretty bad losing streak pretty early on. Didn’t find any really big pre match trading opportunities either to counter the down swing.

The international break also meant a reduction in the amount of bets compared to last month.

In total there were 176 bets made in September.

A total loss of -£1197 was made.

Overall a disappointing month for value betting and pre match trading. However long term the strategy is solid, I know it works just got to continue to put the work in.

Not Familiar With Matched Betting Or Value Betting ?

Read Our Guides Below

Matched Betting Guide

Value Betting Guide

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

Been a while but finally hit a decent win on a casino offer.

Betfair had been running a bet £25 get £5 bonus promotion for a few weeks, which was plus ev. Managed to hit a bonus round whilst staking £5 and won £651.

Overall I took part in 13 casino offers during September.

A profit of £697 was made in total.

Click Here To Read Our Guide To Making Money From Casino Offers

Smart Sports Betting Community/MMA Results

Booked in a losing month for MMA betting.

One bet that I was really confident in was Jake Collier to win inside the distance. This looked like it was going to cash in the few minutes as Collier put a beating on Barnett for most of the opening round.

However props to Barnett, he was incredibly tough and came out to finish Collier in the 2nd.

Overall I made 6 MMA bets this month and a loss of -£392 was made.

Horse Racing Tipsters

Down to following one horse racing tipster at the moment. That horse racing tipster is Kieran Ward’s Value Tips (free SBC tipster.)

Occasionally I also have my own horse racing selections which are based on market movement.

From the start of September horse racing bets were in the red. This continued throughout the month and there were many days where no selections were placed.

Overall a loss of -£227 was made from horse racing.

FTS Systems

FTS is a subscription service that offers a wide range of data to help you develop profitable betting strategies.

Currently I am running 3 season long strategies. One strategy focuses on laying the draw, the second strategy is goals based backing unders. The third strategy is again a lay strategy on the match odds markets.

During September these three strategies combined made a profit of £699.

In-Play Betting (Football and UFC) And Misc Bets

Last month I started looking a lot more at the in-play betting markets for football. This is something I have looked at previously but this month I approached it slightly differently .

The video below outlines an in-play trading session on football, discussing some of the strategies used.

Alongside the in-play betting, I also follow selections from a few podcasts and articles.

The football guys at Matchbook Insights are worth a listen with Mark O’Haire in particular being pretty sharp.

A total of £1553 was made from in-play betting and misc bets.

Results For September

Value Betting – –£1197

Casino Offers – £697

MMA – –£392

Horse Racing Tipsters – –£227

FTS Income – £699

In-Play Betting/Trading And Misc – £1553

Total Made In September

£1133

Overall Profit Since The Challenge Began

£162,252

On to month 63 in the “Making a Million Challenge.”

Overall from a betting perspective it was a slower month then usual. My plan at the beginning of the month was to be super productive, get more blog posts done, look at other ways to make money online and get shit done!

Writing this at the end of the month. I spent a lot of time going out for walks, running, playing football with my son, playing computer games and catching up on a few Netflix series (Umbrella Academy and Ozark). 

Although I did fail to be productive in the sense I set out too.

When I think back to when I started this blog more then 5 years ago. I was working a 60 hour security job. Having to work every weekend. Working nights and missing a lot of time with my family.

Looking at it that way, this month was pretty damn good. Having the time to do the things you want to do, with the people you want to do it with. Is real wealth in my opinion.

Hopefully I can keep progressing with betting and keep creating free time for myself and more time with my family going forward.

Let’s take a look at results from June.

Value Betting/Trading

A lot less volume in June with most of it coming on the Nations League. Where England performed really poor and my biggest bet of the month on Kane to register 1 shot on target when down in flames.

Really frustrating watching a game where you just need one shot on target.

Buddha, Jesus, Odin, whichever god I prayed too, Kane couldn’t find the target!

Recovered at the end of the month with a good run on the horses at the end of the month. That did kill the last remaining Bet365 account was I had however. Which pretty much brings me to the end of betting with soft books.

As time has gone on I have been using the exchanges more and more. However its a shame that the money train that is Bet365, is now over. At least for the near future anyway.

In total there were 113 bets made.

A total profit of £1246 was made.

Not Familiar With Matched Betting Or Value Betting ?

Read Our Guides Below

Matched Betting Guide

Value Betting Guide

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

Barely worth mentioning casino offers this month.

In total I did 3 offers.

A total of £18 was made

Click Here To Read Our Guide To Making Money From Casino Offers

Smart Sports Betting Community/MMA Results

Been a rough run this month with MMA betting. Two wins in the last 13 bets hasn’t felt good.

If Bet365 had offered a ridiculous price on Curtis to win by decision things would have been much worse.

Watching some of the fights it has been frustrating. With fighters being so close to getting finishes only to find themselves getting finished a few minutes later (Baudot,Emeev) but it’s just the volatility of the sport. The same volatility that presents value over the long term.

Overall there were 13 bets in June.

A total of -£700 was lost betting on MMA.

Horse Racing Tipsters

A decent month for the horse racing portfolio. Which could have been much better had a not missed the day that the tipsters”No Photo Needed” hit a few winners.

Hansbury Racing was the standout tipster of the month providing a nice 74.9 winner.

The current racing tipster portfolio consists of 3 tipsters.

• Hansbury Racing
• No Photo Needed (free Smart Betting Club Tipster)
  
• Kieran Ward’s Value Tips (free SBC tipster.)

Overall a profit of £340 was made from horse racing.

Golf

Golf bets performed poorly this month with nothing but consistent losses.

To save time I have grouped bets into their markets. (Winners market and top 5.)

A loss of -£766 was made.

Not a lot to say really, betting at higher odds so there is bound to be more volatility. Will keep putting the bets down and hopefully catch an upswing soon.

Misc

Misc includes profits or losses made from anything that is noted down on the previous headings. This is usually from following from bets from free tipsters. That I don’t individually record.

Total made from misc £45.

Thoughts

Going forward I will be pretty much using the exchanges exclusively. Apart from the odd local shop bet.

So I have been looking at services which look at profiting from Betfair, Smarkets and Matchbook. FTS Income is one of those services and hopefully should be joining their Ultimate service for the coming season.

Other then that I will continue value betting on the exchanges and trading. The last few months of the main leagues produced a lot of profit. I have tried to use the same methods on the summer leagues however it hasn’t worked as well, with the differences in liquidity.

Looking forward to the women’s Euro’s coming up. As that should produce some value betting opportunities and decent liquidity.

Results For June

Value Betting – £1246

Casino Offers – £18

Golf – –£766

MMA – –£700

Horse Racing Tipsters – £340

Misc – £45

Total Made In May

£183

Overall Profit Since The Challenge Began

£155,962

Recommended For Matched Betting/ Value Betting/ Arbitrage

Oddsmonkey Matched Betting And Arbitrage Software (Click Here For A Free Trial)

Subscription Cost – £12.50 a month (Annual Subscription)

Trademate Sports Value Betting Software –   Click Here For A Two Week Trial

If you comment “Smart Sports Trader” in the chat when you sign up for a Trademate Sports trial. You will get an extended two week trial and also a 10% discount off your first month.

Subscription Cost – £105 a month (Monthly)

This blog post features affiliate links.

Which means that if you subscribe to a service through a link on this site I will receive a commission.

This does not come at any additional cost to you. In fact with some of these services I have negotiated discounted prices for readers of smartsportstrader.com.

I only recommend services I am using or have used in the past.

Month 62 is done in the “Making a Million Challenge” and it was another very good month with Golf and Horse racing tipsters chipping in with decent profits.

Things will be a bit quieter now we are in June and the majority of the football leagues take their summer break.

Let’s take a look at results from May.

Value Betting/Trading

There was a bit more volatility in value betting this month. With it being the end of the season and varying motivations for teams. Odds movement in football becomes much more volatile.

Whilst a lot of my value betting looks at recurring patterns in the markets, it was a little bit different during May. I couldn’t just rely on looking at odds movement as the markets behaved pretty differently.

I often use Trademate to keep track of closing line. You can see from the above image that there were some big swings in prices by the time games kicked off.

Overall however it was another very good month. The gravy train that was Bet365 odds boost has slowed but they still offer decent value now and again.

One of my long term Bet365 accounts was limited which is always frustrating however had it had lasted about 2 years. So can’t really complain.

Using the exchanges as much as possible as long term there are only a limited amount of people I can work with. In terms of getting bets down on soft books.

In total there were 325 bets made.

A total profit of £3813 was made.

Not Familiar With Matched Betting Or Value Betting ?

Read Our Guides Below

Matched Betting Guide

Value Betting Guide

Advantage Play – Casino Offers

In total I did 9 offers during May.

A profit of £148 was made.

Not much to write about here, there are more offers that I could be doing. However I just don’t really have the motivation to grind casino offers like previously. Sticking to doing higher value reload offers when they come through.

If you are looking to build a bankroll then doing lower value offers is worthwhile. Looking through Oddsmonkey’s casino reload offers you can still make £50+ a week from casino offers, fairly easily.

Click Here To Read Our Guide To Making Money From Casino Offers

Smart Sports Betting Community/MMA Results

A profit of £856 was made from pre fight MMA bets this month.

If your interested in receiving these bets for free email me at [email protected] and I will send you the link.

Horse Racing Tipsters

Rejigged the horse racing portfolio this month, after things had been a little flat for a while.

In came the highly touted Hansbury Racing, along with the free SBC tipster “No Photo Needed.”

Along with the long standing tipster in the portfolio Kieran Ward’s Value Tips (Another free SBC tipster.)

Results were really strong this month with Hansbury Racing having some big winners early on in the month. Before giving a decent amount of the profit back. Whilst Kieran Ward and No Photo Needed had strong second half’s of the month which maintained a decent profit overall for the month.

During May a profit of £581 was made from stakes ranging from £10 to £30.

Golf

PGA Profit came good this month in pretty emphatic fashion. Hitting 3 big priced winners over the course of the month. Tipping Sam Burns (34.0 winner), Justin Thomas (17.0 winner) and Max Homa (46.0 winner) which recouped all losses from the year and put the tipster up just under 100 points for the year.

Unfortunately for me. I completely forgot to place my golf bets the week Max Homa won. (Which is  the first week this year that this has happened.)

Only realizing on the Friday when golf had already started. Which meant I missed out on a 46.0 winner, buts that’s betting sometimes these things happen.

Overall a profit of £466 was made from golf

Misc

A profit of £167 was made following bets from free tipsters and misc bets.

This section basically includes profit on my daily P/L which is not accounted for in any of the other sections.

One free tipster that I think is worth a follow comes from Asian Connect. If you register your interest with them as broker you get sent free tips.

I don’t bet every selection but I think the break downs usually make sense. In this case Poland did shorten pretty significantly before the game started.

Thoughts

This year has been excellent so far. Profit made so far in the first 5 months is around what I normally make in a year. I am aware that I am running really well and expect things to slow down in the next two month. With a lot less football available to bet on, alongside the fact that I am clinging on to the last few soft books I have available.

In contrast to how well this year has been for me betting wise. The UK betting industry does seem to be on its arse, with over regulation and silly affordability limits. Looking like it could ruin the game completely or force all serious bettors into the black market.

Time will tell!

Given there is a lot less to bet on this month. Going to take a look at other ways to make money besides betting. Just in case it becomes no longer viable.

Looking at freelance writing jobs, creating another website. Always thought trading the financial markets could be interesting. Similar to sports betting it seems like the majority of people get burnt trading however there are those that are doing it successfully.

Thanks for reading will be back with the next report in July.

Results For May

Value Betting- £3813

Casino Offers – £148

Golf – £466

MMA – £856

Horse Racing Tipsters – £581

Misc – £167

Total Made In May

£6031

Overall Profit Since The Challenge Began

£155,779

Recommended For Matched Betting/ Value Betting/ Arbitrage

Oddsmonkey Matched Betting And Arbitrage Software (Click Here For A Free Trial)

Subscription Cost – £12.50 a month (Annual Subscription)

Trademate Sports Value Betting Software –   Click Here For A Two Week Trial

If you comment “Smart Sports Trader” in the chat when you sign up for a Trademate Sports trial. You will get an extended two week trial and also a 10% discount off your first month.

Subscription Cost – £105 a month (Monthly)

This blog post features affiliate links.

Which means that if you subscribe to a service through a link on this site I will receive a commission.

This does not come at any additional cost to you. In fact with some of these services I have negotiated discounted prices for readers of smartsportstrader.com.

I only recommend services I am using or have used in the past.

Month 61 has been and gone in the “Making A Million Challenge.”

Building on a record month in March where for the first time a fix figure profit was made.

April was going to be interesting, let’s take a look at the results.

Value Betting/Trading

Another strong month for value betting and trading.

Although with football nearing the end of the season, my usual strategy wasn’t as straight forward. Some teams have bigger motivations then others with potential relegation/promotion. Whilst other teams had little to play for.

This means more volatility in the football markets.

Bet365 also seemed to have settled down a little with their boosts. Initially they seemed to be offering value on almost every game, however now they are being a little bit more selective.

In total there were 512 bets made.

A total profit of £3042 was made.

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Advantage Play – Casino Offers

It was the lowest volume month in years for me when it came to completing casino offers. Just doesn’t seem to be as much around as there was. However I will also admit that I am not actively looking every day.

Let me know in the comments if your still doing a lot of casino offers?

During April I did 10 offers.

A profit of £190 was made.

Smart Sports Betting Community/MMA Results

A profit of £690 was made from 9 bets this month on the pre fight MMA selections.

I also bet in-play on MMA using Betfair but I added these results to the value betting/trading section. The pre fight bets I send out for free on Discord.

If your interested in receiving them email at [email protected] and I will send you the link.

Horse Racing Tipsters

The horse racing tipsters are holding steady at the moment.

CD Systems is having a a pretty bad year but has a stellar record behind it.

I always find it tough following tipsters, as you always wonder whether the downswings are due to variance.

Has something changed in the market?

Do they still have an edge?

The other two horse tipsters made a profit this month.

Quentin Franks Racing – Betting odds 5.0 or above using only exchanges (Click Here For Our Review)

Kieran Ward Value Service (Free Smart Betting Club Tipster)

A total of £354 was made from horse racing.

Staking £10 on horses above odds of 10.00 and £20 stakes on odds below 10.00.

A New Tipster Emerges

Hansbury Racing is a tipster that readers have emailed me about. It’s a service that multiple stellar reviews. Including the Smart Betting Club who recently showed in their review that the service is very profitable even betting at Betfair SP.

So it made sense with football winding down to look at adding more on the horse racing side. Hansbury Racing looks like it should be a good addition.

Click Here To Read More About Hansbury Racing

Golf

It was a poor month for Golf betting.

PGA Profit has not performed very well this year, my own value selections (based on what the markets is doing) also under performed this month.

Overall a loss of -£463 was made betting on golf.

Misc

Misc includes bets from free tipsters such as Matchbook Insights.

Along with other bets/trades that I don’t track in any of the above categories. For example live bets if I watching a game. However I do add these to my daily P/L at the end of every day.

From this section a profit of £506 was made.

Thoughts

Overall it was another strong month. With football winding down and no big international tournament in the summer profits are likely to drop.

The horse racing markets are still something I would like to get more involved in. From talking to people it seems like one of the sports where following tipsters is a good option.

Other then that I think its just a case of continuing to scale what is working at the moment. Which is mostly value betting and a few strategies of my own that are based on beating the closing line.

I do want to keep this blog interesting, as I realize just writing profits from strategies I am not willing to give away will become tiresome. So if you do have any interesting tipsters or services, you would like me to trial let me know.

Results For April

Value Betting- £3042

Casino Offers – £190

Golf – –£463

MMA – £690

Horse Racing Tipsters – £354

Misc – £506

Total Made In April

£4319

Overall Profit Since The Challenge Began

£149,748

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