Damn you, you fine wine, you! With your seductive airs and beguiling charms. One glass has led to another. And another. And another. Silly not to polish off the bottle now...a couple more others later...oh dear! You may have to excuse the odd typo!
Well, things have settled down a little this week (so far). No huge swings, although Tuesday stung a touch, but since Sunday results appeared to have regained some semblance of normality. The odd winner, horses backed each way running into the places. This is more like how it should be. No remarkable gains and still a long way down on the month, but things feel a little less fraught now. Perhaps it is just the effects of the wine. Summary of performance further down...
Last week Andy contributed a post which detailed the approach he takes to "managing" his bookmaker accounts. It was provoked by a thread in the SBC forum started by someone who was a little concerned by the failure of the Pinnacle Sports website, a symptom he recognised from the past suffered by a bookmaker that went bust. The one thing you don't want a bookmaker with whom you have lodged a considerable sum of money to do, is to go out of business. The chances of regaining your funds in such circumstances are negligible. Happily, Pinnacle were soon operating again, but the point remains. As serious gamblers we have to acknowledge the risk, however small, of losing out as something goes bump in the night.
Andy's thoughts (and I know it has been posted before, but as a reminder, especially to those who may have been drinking and forgotten some of the salient points)...
"Tonight (12th April) i saw a thread on the SBC forum where one member has expressed concern about the website outage of Pinnaclesports. He is rightly a little worried, as in the past he experienced a site go bust. I don't think this will be the reason in this particular case, but it is possible.
It brings me to an area of discussion where i hope to provide useful thoughts.
When the banks in the UK were going through the beginning of the rough patch, many people were worried that they could lose their money. I think now the government have guaranteed everyone will have personal savings secured to the sum of £50,000. What about the money we have in bookmakers accounts? How much of our money is guaranteed to be safe?
I don't actually know what would happen to my money in the event of the bookmaker going bust. I haven't looked into it, but there are ways to safeguard ourselves.
Those of you who (like me) may only have smaller banks might not worry so much at one bookmaker going bust, but those with larger banks might.
This is what i do..
At the beginning of each month i work out how much money i may need in the account for betting over the next 2 weeks. For example, if i have account with "Expekt", which i only use for a couple of bets each week, then i will only have a small amount of money in the account to cover the predicted amount of bets. If they lose, it is easy enough to transfer more money into the account.
I let all moneys sit in every bookmaker account until the end of the month. At the end of the month, if the total amount in that account is more than i might need for the next 2 weeks then i will withdraw everything over that amount. That way i can either have it sitting in my moneybookers account, or even better, taking it one step further and withdrawing it from moneybookers into my bank account, where it is guaranteed safety and will accumulate interest.
I hope this of some help to any of you. Also it would be good hear other peoples activities/thoughts on the matter.
Some years ago, I invested in a company that subsequently went bust. I lost my money. It was not a nice feeling. Last year I know of some people who had money lodged with a company that was set up to place bets on their behalf, promising that they could get bets on with bookmakers at decent prices. When following the likes of Equine Investments whose tips rapidly shorten in price, such a service must have held great appeal, particularly to those that were restricted by a lot of the high street bookmakers. When this company went bust, the money entrusted to them by their customers served only to pay the company's creditors which essentially means the tax man first and foremost. Whatever scraps are left after the Inland Revenue have taken what is owed to them are distributed amongst the remaining creditors which includes the people who provided the funds. I know a lot of folks that had entrusted their money to this company lost their investment. It must have stung.
So, in this light, is it sensible to have a lot of money lying in an account with a bookmaker? In the above context, no it isn't. I like Andy's solution to this problem as it seems to maintain a level of working capital whilst reducing the risk of being an unwitting victim to circumstances beyond our control. I shall start to take steps to follow Andy's lead. I suggest everyone else give this matter a little thought too. It could save a lot of heartache in the future, and there's enough of that involved with this game as it is, without adding to it unnecessarily.
Performance since Tuesday 19th April
Tuesday was depressingly familiar - a significant loss posted (-£174.10). Four racing services couldn't find a winner amongst seven tips and Sportyy had a fairly sizeable bet that went down too. An oh so familiar story this month.
A better day yesterday (+£126.20) as ProBandit found a nice 13/2 winner and Winning Racing Tips had a fairly substantial bet on a winner at 5/1. Truth be told, I was actually cursing WRT just ten minutes prior to the winner as a selection staked more heavily than any for a while ran an absolute shocker of a race and I had good reason to be fearful of yet another dreadful day materialising.
Very quiet today but a small profit (+£17.32). Chasemaster found two winners from four selections but at relatively short odds (2/1 and 11/8) and unfortunately one of the losers was carrying a larger stake so overall a small loss. WRT's tip finished third at 8s for a small return. The Sportsman advised a small wager on the 180s line in the Jenkins/van Barneveld Premier League Darts match tonight which was landed easily.
It's going to be quiet tomorrow - no racing! Still, I can do quiet. Especially after a month like this one.
Finally I want to draw your attention to an excellent blog and a truly superb post. The blog is "Secret Diary of a Professional Gambler" and it is written by an SBC member and regular contributor on their forum, a chap called Mat Hare. Mat's posts on the forum have always struck me as insightful and make very relevant points in a very succinct fashion. His most recent post has been written in light of the recent poor performance of many services and the worries expressed by some of those following. I have added a link to the blog under "Excellent Reads" (above right). This certainly is. It covers a lot of the ground we have in here, only Mat does it better. Go take a look.
Right. There's another bottle of wine downstairs. I can hear it calling...
Back tomorrow.
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