Wednesday 19 March 2008

Hectic times

Apologies to all for the lack of updates over the past few weeks, work has been really hectic and as a result i've had very little time to dedicate to the challenge. I'm on holiday for a few weeks very soon so hopefully i'll be able to play catch-up then. I have managed to snatch a few minutes here and there at the weekend to work on some matched betting and have managed to make a total of £30.62 (funnily enough I think this might be more than my total for February).

Well that's all for now. Hopefully i'll be back very soon. Best of luck with yor betting!

Daily profit: +£30.62
Total profit: +£104.69

Saturday 1 March 2008

Rain stops play

Apologies for the lack of updates of late. I've been a bit under the weather this week so haven't even switched my laptop on let alone place any bets. Thankfully i'm back on form and with the new month come new plans. Firstly though it's time to reflect on February...

From an outsiders point of view February may have seemed to be a bit of a 'non-event' and it certainly was with regards to making a profit. However, behind the scenes there was a lot going on - mainly concerning my future approach to the challenge. As I discovered i'm not a gambler, I hate the feeling I get with long losing runs, so February was spent trialling out some less-risky but also less profitable systems.

As you may recall I had planned to trial 'system 2' for the full month, but as I found it took up a lot of my time and meant that I had to watch a sport that i'm not particularly interested in - football. At first the system seemed quite safe and in the first week I found that I had doubled my initial investment, however, during the second week I lost everything...twice, thankfully i'd only invested a small amount in the system. Personally, I feel that for someone who is interested in football and knows alot about the teams 'system 2' could really work, but I just didn't have the knowledge to pick the right games.

During the month I also tried out the Pocket Money System, now here's something that I feel is a keeper, it really is extremely low risk although to make serious money I would need a much larger betting bank...but for something that is such low risk I think it's great. Aswell as this i've turned my hand to football trading, now I know I said I don't really like football, but unlike System 2.0, with this I can trade out within about 20 minutes of the game and make larger profits. Again I plan to continue withi this for the moment.

Finally, February has been a month of research as i've been looking into some place betting stats. I think i've found some decent criteria for selections but aren't prepared to risk any money on this until i've got lots of research to back it up.

Now for March, well as i've said I plan to continue with the Pocket Money System and my football trading ventures as well as my research. But I have also plucked up the courage to have a go at 'matched betting'. It's funny but despite living in a so-called 'modern society' I still feel a certain amount of stigma attached to being a female gambler, so as you can imagine the thought of signing up with loads of bookies in order to take advantage of their introductory offers made me recoil somewhat. However, thanks to Mr 20k who made a throw-away comment about it being "impossible to make £1,000 for free", the gauntlet was thrown down. So i've armed myself with some background knwowledge on matched betting and got myself a nifty spreadsheet and i'm ready to commence. For anyone whose interested in matched betting there's a really good forum on it here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=325861

Anyway, I had my first experience with matched betting today and have made £19.43 and hopefully there'll be a further £25.00 to follow as I signed up via a cashback account ( I wont add this to my total until i've received it). Not bad for a days work. I did make a loss of £6.70 following some horseracing tips, but made a further £1.08 trading a football game. So i'd say it's been a good start to March!

As for my total profit, i'm no longer going to separate my results as i've a feeling i'll be adding a few more systems to my portfolio. So to keep it simple i'll be going back to recording only my daily profits.

Well I think i've certainly made up for being away for so long. Here's to a prosperous March! Best of luck with your betting!

Daily profit: +£13.81
Total profit: +£74.07