Small Stakes, Big Fun

I made a total profit on Betfair for the week of £3.48 over the last seven days, not bad considering I only tanked on two bets, both of which happened yesterday - neither Shimizu S-Pulse or Zenit St. Petersburg won their games - the Zenit game was a mistake on my part (I should have dutched win/draw) but I thought Shimizu were good for an outright win.

Having said that, the insurance bets I placed over the past week showed a profit  of £2.36 so the overall profit figure was £5.84. I also had a punt on a whim (Billy Sharp anytime goalscorer for Doncaster Rovers v. Bristol City) which came in spectacularly when Sharp scored a late equaliser from the penalty spot but I'm not going to count that one as it was a gut reaction that wasn't based on planning and organisation. Oh and winning the same bet last year.

The next decision is what to do with the cash. To be honest, £5.84 won't even buy you a couple of pints or a packet of cigarettes these days so the wisest choice is to re-invest it; I've opened trading positions on the Dutch Eredivisie, French Ligue 1 and the Premiership but I'm not really going to take much notice of what's happening with individual leagues right now.

Talking of the Premiership, my wife bought me 'The Premier Football Betting Handbook 2010/11' by Matt Finnigan and Pete Nordsted for my birthday and even though I've not had much time to get stuck into it, based on having read the book they wrote about World Cup betting and Mr. Nordsted's book 'Mastering Betfair' I would thoroughly recommend it. I kept an eye on some of the advice they recommend during yesterday's Premiership games and there were a couple that looked very promising that came up trumps. I personally think that it's far too early to get involved with individual games in either the Premiership or the Football League at the moment, but that's purely because of the way my system works. In any case, it's fun keeping an eye on how competitions develop before getting involved with them - there are plenty of opportunities in the summer leagues, although they've been few and far between over the last couple of days.

A couple of dates for the diary: the draws for the group stages of both the Champions League and the Europa League take place on consecutive days at the end of the month - UCL draw is on August 26th and the Europa League draw is the following day.

I've also modified my horse laying system a little and that seems to be working, but once again I'm not thinking of posting any recommendations until they start showing a profit. There won't be any football recommendations tomorrow but there may be a racing one; I'm off to do investigate that now.