Introduction to the Sports Betting Diary
So I have been a small stakes punter for almost as long as I remember. I remember when I was about 16 going into the local Coral where a couple of my friends worked and having my first bet on the Grand National. A few years later when I had got myself employment I would spend my Saturdays in the same shop doing £1 bets and losing a few quid each time.
So then in 1994, I started to buy books on the subject such as Clive Holt's Winners Back Winners book, Nick Mordins Betting for a Living, a couple of Raceform Handicap books by Patrick Kilgallon and another Nich Mordin book On Time. I spent a couple of years buying Raceform update each week and calculating speed ratings based on his methods and had some good results but it was a losing proposition really as I was still small stakes and spending time and money on Raceform Update each week. Still, it was an enjoyable hobby.
I then moved on to producing my own Football Ratings and wrote myself a program in GBasic on the Amiga 600 to help with that. Again that was a time-intensive exercise but the ratings turned out really good and in particular provided some nice results in the FA Cup 1996-97 where Chesterfield was selected in almost all the rounds on the way to their semi-final against Middlesboro. In the 4th Round, they were away at Bolton and were, if my memory serves me right, about 8/1for that match. In the 97/98 they pinpointed the winners of all the playoffs using the end of season ratings where none of the favourites prevailed and 2 out 3 in the 98/99 playoffs. These ratings and selections were published at the time on a website I ran called Soccer Wizard. It seems a bit silly now but in those days you couldn't back say Chesterfield at 8/1 as a single bet so you had to look at the HT/FT markets and pick the 3 selections that provided the result you were after and split your stakes accordingly to manufacture a single.
The position on football singles betting was not the only handicap that punters needed to overcome as until 1 January 2002 a betting tax was applied to all bets. So a £1 bet would cost £1.10 and then 9% of that stake (ie 10p) would be passed through the Treasury. That and the over rounds made betting for the average punter a mugs game.
So bringing things right up to date punters have more choice than ever, they can see all the odds from a vast array of bookies online, they can bet on exchanges, they can engage in matched betting, they can learn about EV, ROI, staking systems, betting systems and much much more at the touch of a button and we have normal joe punters, housewives, students et al. making thousands a pounds a year to supplement their lifestyle, pay for holidays or fill in for gaps in employment in each year. How long can this last? Who knows but let's see how we get on in today's world.
So then in 1994, I started to buy books on the subject such as Clive Holt's Winners Back Winners book, Nick Mordins Betting for a Living, a couple of Raceform Handicap books by Patrick Kilgallon and another Nich Mordin book On Time. I spent a couple of years buying Raceform update each week and calculating speed ratings based on his methods and had some good results but it was a losing proposition really as I was still small stakes and spending time and money on Raceform Update each week. Still, it was an enjoyable hobby.
I then moved on to producing my own Football Ratings and wrote myself a program in GBasic on the Amiga 600 to help with that. Again that was a time-intensive exercise but the ratings turned out really good and in particular provided some nice results in the FA Cup 1996-97 where Chesterfield was selected in almost all the rounds on the way to their semi-final against Middlesboro. In the 4th Round, they were away at Bolton and were, if my memory serves me right, about 8/1for that match. In the 97/98 they pinpointed the winners of all the playoffs using the end of season ratings where none of the favourites prevailed and 2 out 3 in the 98/99 playoffs. These ratings and selections were published at the time on a website I ran called Soccer Wizard. It seems a bit silly now but in those days you couldn't back say Chesterfield at 8/1 as a single bet so you had to look at the HT/FT markets and pick the 3 selections that provided the result you were after and split your stakes accordingly to manufacture a single.
The position on football singles betting was not the only handicap that punters needed to overcome as until 1 January 2002 a betting tax was applied to all bets. So a £1 bet would cost £1.10 and then 9% of that stake (ie 10p) would be passed through the Treasury. That and the over rounds made betting for the average punter a mugs game.
So bringing things right up to date punters have more choice than ever, they can see all the odds from a vast array of bookies online, they can bet on exchanges, they can engage in matched betting, they can learn about EV, ROI, staking systems, betting systems and much much more at the touch of a button and we have normal joe punters, housewives, students et al. making thousands a pounds a year to supplement their lifestyle, pay for holidays or fill in for gaps in employment in each year. How long can this last? Who knows but let's see how we get on in today's world.
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