A strange title for a blog post but probably a rather fitting one, it’s actually a quote from my second favourite film of all time “Sliding Doors”. If you have never seen it it’s basically how your life can take two very different paths due to very simple decisions or in this case occurrences. Life is very much like that, I only really turned a hobby into a career 24 years ago due to a random phone call I decided to make and something similar in my betting life happened 4 years ago when bored during lockdown I thought I would have a look at French racing as they had gone back to it quicker than we had.
I came across the first spreadsheet of original French bets which I was throwing up on Twitter (well everyone else was bored!) – first bet 11th May Listed Chase @ Compiegne Lou Bucks £40 win 4/1 – won @ 6/4. Next 14th May Conditions Chase @ Angers Prince de Bellout £35 ew 8/1 won @ 12/1. I can honestly say I didn’t really know what I was doing and had those first two bets not won no doubt my sliding door would have shut and I would have gone back to sitting in the garden drinking wine!!
Over the next 14 months I kept going – it was all a bit random and a steep learning curve, stakes were largely guessy and I started pricing everything up myself and only betting when I thought I had an edge and I cleared about £12k to pretty small stakes really but when you are running at 50% ROI it wasn’t difficult. I think gradually things changed – most books dropped pricing up the night before but by August 2021 with restrictions biting for me I decided to start selling the tips. People have a go but tbh if you have something that makes money but can’t get on why give up? If you think like that then the books have won by curtailing winning accounts.
All went well for the first 6 months though I was running “too hot” in the first few months figures were running @ 100% + ROI which inevitably is unstainable – don’t believe anyone who tells you any different. I had a terrible run – I was beating the prices but everything was getting beaten. Luckily I had kept spreadsheets of all bets so sat down and analysed everything. Key things like 50+ bets in Claimers with one winner meant those were largely ditched and betting shorties with big stakes was losing money. There was also a sweet spot betting horses e/w between 5/1 and 10/1. All these things were put in place and fortunes gradually changed and since then things have steadied to an ROI of 20% which is fine long term.
This year has tested my patience too – February was the second best month ever and since then in 50 bets have had no fewer than 12 horses finish 2nd! It tries your patience but most have been e/w so no great losses have occurred, it is the way of gambling – you have to just work your way through it – the upward graph is never straight. I have also started sending out some late info from 60 to 10 minutes before the off which works for some clients who happen to be sat there – the results have been rather good!!
So within this short little blog post is some basic gambling advice
1 Always be prepared to try something new
2 Don’t necessarily give up if it doesn’t work straight away – luck can play a certain part of when you start trying something new
3 Do keep records of what you do and analyse your results to weed out the good and the bad.
Now I may well go off and find Sliding Doors to watch again
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition."
Ian
PS If you want to give it a try the cost is £125 for the 2 1/2 months until the end of July
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