Mar 19th – Mar 25th +$8,989.23
This period is going to throw up some really crazy weeks until the Soccer season ends in about 6 weeks. We now have every sport playing at the same time and the amount bet per week has almost doubled. Saturdays alone will have over $100,000 worth of bets. This week also saw the total bet for the year tick over the $3 million mark. It was a very scary 7 days as we had the usual midweek disaster with the Soccer followed by a $11,000 loss in the AFL which had me sitting on $58,000 profit. A massive draw down as just 4 days earlier I was sitting on $90,000. Luckily AFL made most of that loss back and performed in other areas. This week we also saw a lot of emotion expressed in emails from a few tipsters. The psychology behind gambling is a massive factor in betting and is what stops a lot of people from making a profit. I will try and talk more about this in the coming weeks.
Lets address the two emails I received this week from both Skeeve and Graeme at TFA. Another losing week for Skeeve as it is clear he is now chasing losses to try and end the season in profit. A $3,500 loss for the week. Skeeve pretty much promised that he would get me into profit before he kicked me off his service next year, as that is highly unlikely now does that mean I get a full refund (minus my bloggers discount)? What about the losses over all these years? do I get them refunded? Now off course I’m joking and fully understand the risks involved with following any tipster, but when a tipsters ego is so big he pretty much promises you will be in profit instead of saying that maybe they aren’t as good as they think they are then the losses you make with them hurt that little bit more. He then has the audacity to defend his poor form by saying that if we had just bet differently then we would have made massive profits.
But wait, how come I’m one of the most succesful services for the current season participating in Cassini’s friendly tipster league, with a +15 point profit at a 15% ROI? Does Cassini live in some sort of a parallel universe? This season, fortunately for him – yes, he does. The thing is that Cassini is recording my bets as one-point flate-stake singles (and ignoring the Skrill South parts of the doubles because of odds-recording issues). With so many half-won-half-lost double bets this season, it’s easy to understand what makes the difference.
This is classic Skeeve and has been the same story ever since I started following him. After losing a heap on midweek games, he decides to stop betting them, then certain type of AH bets, then certain leagues, all only after losing clients money. The big one for next season is that there will be no bets until December or January. What subscribers are going to end up with is a very small sample of bets and a massive amount of variance. They are either going to make a hell of a lot or lose even more. Skeeve picks is a perfect name for the service as Skeeve seems to pick and choose which strategy he will go with based on what amounts to very small sample sizes and runs that may mean nothing in the longterm.
Onto Graeme and his TFA email. TFA had another terrible midweek and I actually made a profit on Saturday, but was still down $5,100 for the week. This is by far the worst performance I have ever seen in a season by any tipster I have ever followed. The fact that I had so much faith in the TFA system that I made it the cornerstone of my portfolio just adds to the pain I have felt all season long. Saturday was salvaged by a big win on Ipswich and Graeme almost did not follow his own bets.
I said this on Twitter but I nearly didn’t back Ipswich on Saturday. That would have been the first bet I’ve missed in 4 seasons and ultimately, I suspect if I had missed that bet, I would have given up betting for the season and maybe forever.
I have been reading these sort of comments for a while from Graeme and they clearly show that he has never been through a bad run and has no idea how to deal with it. I’ve been there, done that and bought the shirt many times. When the guy you are paying to make you a profit has no faith in his own work then it makes it hard for anyone else to. The beauty of a maths based system is that it has no bearing on the feelings of the creator during the season. It will continue to spit out the same bets even if the creator feels happy, sad, mad, crap or any other emotion. What we do need Graeme to do is to take a look at the hard numbers and figure out using whatever tests he can where the issue is. Is it variance? Is the edge it found gone for good? How can it be improved? What was the likelihood of this seasons result? There are many questions that need to be asked and answered. The great thing is numbers don’t have emotions, maybe 88 feels like two fat ladies at times but for the most part this doesn’t affect the results. This run can only be a good thing for Graeme, unless he quits at his first bad experience. It will teach him many things which in the long run should make his models better and allow him to show more faith to his subscribers in the bad times. The question still remains if the system is just absolutely crap now, but one bad season can’t answer that. We can’t escape our emotions, but how we deal with them is totally in our control. What I would say to Graeme is to get over it and instead of worrying about things, spend that time looking into the issues and working on solutions.
Geez I’ve been a right bastard this week. We have two crying Tipsters and I’ve probably just made them shed some more tears. But really, if I paid money for a managed fund in the stock market and my advisers started sending me emails saying things like I have been reading in the past week I would tell them the same thing. Grow some balls and get back to work.
Ok, so those soccer systems made a loss, lets look at the others. FB Elite lost 6 from 7 and the 7th was a lucky 90th minute goal. $3,360 lost this week and back to break even. Combo Football Investor turned the recent poor run around with $2,670 profit and ClubGOWI added $2,100.
We also had another win in the Golf and for the first time ever I am in profit. I’m glad I persevered with Bryan and now hope for a few more wins to start making some real profit. $4,830 profit.
Onto Sportpunter models. I have stopped NBA and should have done so sooner. Every season is the same, nice profits until the end of December and then a big downturn. Silly me for following it longer then I should have. NHL on the other hand has turned around big time since the start of the year. $4,080 profit this week. We ended the NBL regular season with a small profit of $300. Only a few more games until we wrap up the greatest season long return I have ever experienced. It has really saved my bacon this year. The amazing thing is that it’s record may not last more then a few months as both the NRL and Super15 models are doing even better early on. The Union added an incredible $6,570 this week and the League added $4,010. They are at ROI’s of 78% and 69.4% respectively. The ATP made a $700 loss and AFL lost $600.
That’s it for another roller-coaster of a week. It ended pretty well and with a massive midweek of Soccer starting tonight and a full round of AFL this week, there’s every chance I will be sitting on $50,000 or $100,000 by this time next week. Lets hope it is the latter.
Total profit for the week was $8,989.23
Stats Year 4
Total bet amount: $3,018,681.34
Profit/Loss: $82,709.87
POT: 2.74%
Bets Placed: 5,237
Won: 1901
Lost: 3068
Half Payout: 26
Refunded: 242
Winning %: 38.3%
Total profit per day: $270,231.96 / 1364 = $198.11
Total Turnover: $12,768,510.87
Total ROI: 2.12%
ATP – SP $360,351.00 $5,821.30 1.6%
week profit/loss: -696.79
AFL H2H – SP $39,005.00 $8,318.75 21.3%
week profit/loss: -365
AFL Line – SP $235,006.00 $38,825.89 16.5%
week profit/loss: -239.28
Rugby SP $19,473.00 $15,183.82 78.0%
week profit/loss: 6570.50
NRL SP $11,448.00 $7,946.50 69.4%
week profit/loss: 4010.17
FB Elite $213,000.00 $1,279.00 0.6%
week profit/loss: -3360
Skeeve $110,098.00 $(9,755.70) -8.9%
week profit/loss: -3504
Combo FI $122,715.00 $15,002.38 12.2%
week profit/loss: 2670
TFA $561,876.00 $(52,707.08) -9.38%
week profit/loss: -5,120
ClubGowi $207,822.00 $7,843.30 3.8%
week profit/loss: 2095.50
NP Win $22,129.34 $269.16 1.2%
week profit/loss: 4830.50
NHL Totals $265,923.00 $7,559.36 2.8%
week profit/loss: 4079.93
NBL Totals $99,607.00 $29,619.64 29.7%
week profit/loss: -1543
NBL Line $100,362.00 $23,909.83 23.8%
week profit/loss: 1829.70
NBA Totals $146,687.00 $1,465.67 1.0%
week profit/loss: 0
NBA H2H $92,790.00 $4,930.38 5.3%
week profit/loss: 0
Great post Steve, some serious turnover last week.
You say you’re close to $3m for the year in turnover – when did you start your trading year?
Also why do you think your NBA has dipped since December – how many seasons has this happened and what do you attribute it to?
Some interesting stuff regarding Skeeve and TFA. Seems like you have some big decisions to make there. What has their numbers been like for the last few seasons?
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
I start in July. The NBA has had the same pattern for the past 3 years and I asked Jonno to look into again last week and he said it’s a clear pattern and to stop following. I always meant to but it seriously slipped my mind. I could make up anything to attribute it to but none of them would be right.
Skeeve has not performed the last 3 season but did prior to that, that’s an easy one to get rid off.
TFA has performed extraordinarily well since inception and this is his first poor season.
The TFA service is special and quite different from other
services.
As you know TFA has just been awarded the prize as the best
Football Tipster at Secret Betting Club.
This is remarkable as TFA is actually not a TIPPING service.
It’s a collection of a large number of systems (52 at the moment) from which
subscribers can build their own portfolio. Many of the systems are correlated
in the sense that a team can appear on several systems.
Therefore a vital issue is to decide which STAKING strategy
to use on the portfolio.
When Steve writes:
This is by far the worst performance I have
ever seen in a season by any tipster I have ever followed.
he is blaming TFA for the performance. My opinion is, that the
main explanation is the poor staking plan, Steve is using.
OK, Graeme is not helping Steve with this problem as this
mail shows:
You do have the
option of just applying an arbitrary max bet but I’ve done a quick piece of
analysis for you on your portfolio of bets. As you will see, the returns from
following these multiple bets are very high and therefore, any max bet you
apply will just reduce your profit in the long-run. Your decision at the end of
the day but based on all the analysis, any cap just reduces your profit. The
best bets are the ones appearing on more systems and the fact you stake these
the heaviest is the way to make the most money long-term I think. Plays the
biggest stakes on the biggest edge.
Apparently neither Graeme nor
Steve possess the math skills needed to solve this staking problem.
In a note called ‘Staking’
attached to Graeme’s email to subscribers on October 2, 2013 I explain the math
behind a staking plan as Steve’s and I show how extremely risky it is.
Hey Tage,
Thanks for the post. I believe the SBC award was a massive surprise to Graeme. It shows the lack of good Soccer tipsters (something I am becoming more and more aware of) and also a few issues with the SBC.
I also thing we could go on and on about staking plans and I did read your attachment. But historically Graeme was right, it would have been more profitable to bet everything, and yes, when they go bad like they have this season then I am going to get stung. It’s very easy to back fit a staking plan and assume that will continue to work in the future. As I mentioned in my reply to TFA post, there are millions of possible ways to create and stake the portfolio and in the short term some are going to look amazing and in this case yours would have saved me a lot of money, but another might have made me even more.
How dare you belittle my maths skills. If there’s one thing I wont take on this blog its…. bahahaha, yeah your right, I do suck at math. Lets hope Graeme is not at the same level as me.
I tweeted earlier today that I was going to come on here and write about balance and so here it is…
I feel that the musings on here are overly negative, especially when it comes to football (I refuse to call it soccer). Take today’s post as an example….
“Ok, so those soccer systems made a loss, lets look at the others. FB Elite lost 6 from 7 and the 7th was a lucky 90th minute goal. $3,360 lost this week and back to break even. Combo Football Investorturned the recent poor run around with $2,670 profit and ClubGOWIadded $2,100.”
One sentence about Football Investor and that manages to combine a back-handed compliment with a negative reference to the recent bad run. What bad run is that? I think the Combo system has had one losing week in the last two months!!
That’s some bad run Steve!!
Contrast this with 11 whole paragraphs about Skeeve and TFA..
See what I mean about balance?
Not all of the services / models / sports will make money all of the time but it does seem like Football receives a regular bashing on here.
What happens when the inevitable losing run hits the Combo system? Can we look forward to an increase in column inches then?
Don’t get me wrong, this is a great blog. One of the best on the net but like I said before, the balance is skewed on the negative side.
Rant Over!
Stewboss
Completely agree with that Stewboss. I’ve noticed it myself and have tried to change my tact a few times. I’ve also been thinking about the weekly posts as it is a pretty pointless timeframe and a monthly post while also pointlesss might be better. But then I have to balance the amount of posts and the likelihood of people returning. Weekly posts have also become a routine for me.
Football (I hate calling it Soccer to, but have other “football” bets and it would make it complicated) has sadly been one of two losing sports I have bet on this year. Currently down $50,000 with midweek bets to come.
I guess it is also easier to criticise a tipster then praise as I expect to make a profit from them. I also know that I have sent new subscribers to every system I follow as I talk to a number of readers via email and know they have joined on my advice.
I want this site to be for the guy who was like me at the start, not knowing where to start, who to trust or what to do. But if you look at the people who reply on here and twitter, it is usually the Tipsters themselves.
In regards to my comments about the Combo system, I feel that while I could praise it a bit more (even though I do quite a bit), as it’s a weekly post I assume my readers are regulars and have read that it lost the past two weeks, that’s what i meant by “recent poor run”. If you do look back, I say how amazingly consistent and happy I am with the Combo system. But as mentioned, weekly results are pretty useless.
I usually leave all the praise for the end of year review post which I know will be at the top of google if anyone types in Football Investor review. I feel this post is more likely to have new visitors read it then my regulars.
I do appreciate you taking the time to bring my negativity to my attention, I have noticed it myself and would love to write more positive reviews. To be honest I have seen a dramatic increase in visitors since I started to “get mean”, and it made me realise that as sad as it is, negative comments get spread much more then positive ones. I will try harder to be more mindful of the Tipsters I follow as I know the hard work that is put in and do appreciate the chance I am given to make money from this game, but won’t ever shy away from saying what I think if I feel something is wrong.
Thanks
Steve
You are quite the emotional bettor – can I ask why don’t you just stop following these tipsters? You clearly have lost all confidence in them. Or are you trying to do the world a service by pointing out their inadequacies to the world.
From my own perspective I dropped Skeeve – I simply didn’t enjoy chasing odds. However from a TFA perspective my bank sits at 150% of what it was when I started in 2012. That is after a horrific season this year.
Hey Tam, welcome to the blog. I think my emotions are actually quite steady. But I need to write something once a week and don’t really take more then 10 minutes on it.
I believe the emotional side is actually the most important and the least amount of time is spent on it.
I have no problems beating Skeeve odds. I did lose faith in his service a long time ago and if I didn’t have the blog I would have dropped it. But I feel I need to see out the season to give my readers the full picture. Pretty stupid I know, but I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed 🙂
I’ve never lost faith in TFA, i hate the results right now but I still have faith. I think that’s pretty clear to see.
For what it’s worth Stewboss it’s due to Steve’s blog that I am now on your waiting list for next season !
Am interested in your issues with SBC Steve, I am off out now but will list mine when I get a chance.
I like the work they put into the magazine each month and like their general idea. But the forum is just potential tipsters trying to get a track record going. Not sure it’s worth the price for the magazine. I was hoping it would be filled with like minded people like me trying to find the best tipsters to follow.
Other issue is that they only have a very small amount of tipsters in there and all very Englishcentric and the horse racing is of no use to me because of limited accounts.
Not sure why Sportpunter isn’t in there, he would be a shoe in for gold medals.
Your negativity can be irritating because it reminds me of myself. I am sitting here wanting to smash my screen because of the GOWI results tonight.
In order to calm myself down, I went on to the SBC forum and read Bside’s post about GOWI, in which he says consecutive losing months are perfectly normal. The level of analysis in Keith’s newsletters is incredible and I look forward to receiving it every day. It’s also important for me to remember that he “only” wins 54% of his bets. This is a huge number given the odds we are taking, but I think I’m expecting to win every bet, or at least not have any bad runs.
I do wish the SBC community was more active, but I think it’s worth the relatively small annual fee. I joined because I was hoping to find decent tipsters and get recommendations from the forum, but that hasn’t happened. It seems like any service which doesn’t feature in SBC’s hall of fame is quickly rubbished. This happened recently when I asked if anyone knew more about Hejik’s results.
Some of the recommended services are terrible, too. Pro Backer, a horse racing tipster, is shadily close to operating like a conman, yet received a fairly positive review from SBC.
Hey Andrew,
haha, yep. We are simple creatures really. Even after all these years I still get pissed based on a single result.
In regards to GOWI, i think I have been following for a few months now and the results are not very positive. As of today these are my results for his Soccer bets.
$ 202,257.00 $ (519.60) -0.3%
His Tennis and NFL have produced the only profits for me. I think if he was more selective in his approach to Soccer then it could be improved. Some writeups sound amazing after the result, but others sound terrible.