If in doubt, leave it out

As I write this I am following the ice hockey world championships.  Tonight Sweden are playing Latvia.  Sweden should win, but the Latvians are no pushover, so it won’t be the big score run up that has happened in a number of the games at these championships.

I placed a bet on this game, for Sweden to win, but when I did had a very small doubt about this game.  The doubt was small, but never the less, I still had some element of doubt over the result of this game as the Latvians had lost by only a couple of goals against the USA a couple of days ago.

Right now as I write this, Latvia are winning 2-1, with just one period to play. Certainly far from over, but highlights a great point.  If you are in doubt over a bet and think maybe the bookies have it wrong, leave it and move on to the next one.  While you have to accept you will lose some bets, you need to limit these where possible.

Now for the 3rd period, come on Sweden!

Getting a better return

So four weeks in and my original £100 investment now stands at £101.64.  Not bad for a month given I am only looking for a £3.62 gain or more to beat the rates on offer in the best cash ISA’s when I started the experiment. If I keep that up for a year it will be the equivalent to a 21% AER tax free! But could I have done better?  The obvious answer is yes, I could have placed more winning bets, but that would put more capital at risk and remember its quality not quantity that matters.  But there is another way I could potentially have increased returns without risking more capital.

At the start of the experiment I said I had deposited my £100 with a single bookmaker.  Not all bookmakers will give the same odds for the same event, so I may not necessarily be getting the best return available each time I win. 

Let me start by saying my reason for using just a single bookmaker is for comparative reasons for the experiment.  If I had put the money in a savings account I would have left it in that account for a year.  While it is best to regularly check you are still getting a good rate in a savings account, I tend to check mine annually rather than weekly or monthly.

A better option would be to choose multiple bookmakers and deposit some of your investment with each.  This way when you see a bet you like the look of, you can check for the best rate to maximise your returns.  If you are staking 1% of your investment per bet, I would recommend using no more than 5 different bookmakers.  While spreading your money gives the best returns, spreading it about too much could mean you all your money with a particular bookmaker is staked, stopping you placing any more bets with them should the opportunity arise, until one of your outstanding bets is settled.

If you want to check odds there is a great comparison site OddsChecker.com, which will give you the odds available from all the leading online bookmakers.  What you will also notice is that some events are not carried by all bookmakers, so if there is a particular sport you want to bet on, it can be worth having a look here to see which bookmakers tend to run books on it.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will check my bets to see if I could have increase my returns if I had placed the bets with different bookmakers.

Betting in Play

Last time I mentioned that you should stick to what you know when placing bets.  One of the reasons main reasons for this was so as to minimise the time you have to spend making the strategy work.

Last night saw some football matches I was following.  For the sake a a few seconds I was able to place two bets, admittedly at very low odds, on games I wouldn’t have bet on before play started and achieve more growth on my investment.  Worth looking at for easy gains.

Stick to what you know

You may have noticed that the events I have been betting on have so far been limited to certain types of event and certain sports. (You can view my bets here.)  There is a reason for this, simply that these are sports I follow and enjoy.

There are two reasons for the importance of this part of my strategy for handling my investment.  The first, if they are sports/events I know and understand there is more chance of me making a well informed decision about which bets to place.  Looking at one of my football bets, Holland to beat Macedonia, I follow football and knew that this should be an easy win for the Dutch.  If you don’t follow football, despite the low odds suggesting a win for Holland is by far the most likely outcome, you will have a much higher degree of uncertainty about the result.

The second reason is if you follow a particular sport anyway, you are not really investing any additional time in order to place the bets.  Using the same football game as an example, I was looking at who was playing that night anyway.  The only extra thing I had to do was pick out any potential bets and then place them, something which took minutes.  Effectively I have found the bet by doing something I would be doing anyway, so the only investment of my time is actually placing the bet.  On the other hand if you weren’t following football you would be spending time looking for the bet (if you are trawling in general through all options it could take some time to find the ones you want), then researching if it was a good one to take or not.  Remember, we are looking to beat the bank, (it take a few minutes to open a bank account and deposit money) a return of 10% would be great but is that extra 6%-7% return worth spending hours finding the right bets?

A final word of warning, just because you are knowledgeable about and follow a particular sport, doesn’t mean you should bet on it.  The bet must fit in with the rest of the strategy too.

Following my bets

I have set up a spreadsheet to track the progress of my bets during the experiment.  Rather than post each bet to the blog as I go along I have decided to provide access to the spreadsheet on the blog.

To view the bets I have placed, just click the ‘My Bets’ link in the links section on the left-hand-side.

Quantity or quality?

Last time I finished by saying it is the quality of bets, not the quantity of bets that matters, and as an overall strategy I stand by this.  However, to try and keep this experiment as scientific as possible I feel the need to set a minimum quantity of bets.

The purpose is to try and get a better return on £100 by betting than I would get by putting it in a savings account.  If I put £100 in a savings account I would have invested the whole £100.  To try and give a fair comparison I need to make sure I invest the whole £100 in the experiment.  As such I will be making a minimum of 100 bets with a stake of £1 over the year to insure I have invested the whole £100. I say minimum as any bets over this amount will be the same as compounding interest in a savings account.

Early gains and a few mistakes

So as you will see from my last entry, I have already started to make money and at a much better rate than a savings account can offer, but despite his I feel I have already made some mistakes by ignoring a basic principle on which my strategy is built.

So far I have said the basic strategy involves small bets on sure things, but over the last couple of days I am already regretting one bet I have made.  In case you hadn’t already guessed its the Lewis Hamilton to beat Jenson Button over the course of the F1 season.

Now you may be thinking I am regretting this given Hamilton’s less than stellar start to the season which at this point consists of being a couple of seconds of the pace in practice, starting from the back of the grid in the Australian Grand Prix and then having his 3rd place taken away.  If so you’d be wrong, I expect McLaren to improve and as such Hamilton’s performance to improve so still feel he has a good chance of beating Button over the season and that the bet gave a reasonable return.  The reason I regret it is I took it because I thought it offered a reasonable return and it is what is sometimes referred to as a ‘fun’ bet.  Some professional gamblers might say that all my bets are ‘fun’ bets, but I’d like to think there is a bit more to what I am doing than that.

The reason for saying this is I got a little carried away at the start of the experiment and placed more bets than I needed, including some I perhaps wouldn’t have made if I had sat back and thought about it for a moment.  Going forward, it is important to remember, its not the quantity of bets I make, its the quality.  So add ‘NO FUN BETS’ to ‘small stakes on sure things’ to the strategy.