Week 9

Spread Betting - NBA/MLB/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 190.20%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 95.39%

MLB 1% * 82.58%

 

 

Better week but still relatively poor. The main culprit continues to be the MLB with the bank dropping further to 82.58%. With a 1% profit target per bet you can see just how poor a start to the season it has been for the MLB. The football has almost redeemed itself having a much better week, bank now sitting at 95.39%. Not long before the footy season is over, and I'm being extra selective with my picks, due to the 'little to play for factor'. We hear it all the time players saying that they are professionals and that they put the same effort into every game, but realistically many players will be grateful to get out of the season injury free, not just so that they can waterski in Hawaii, but also many will have their minds on making it the World Cup fully fit - that to me is not 100% committed. NBA as usual going well, the bets are reducing due to the fewer matches in the play offs. Some great matches too which I like to catch whenever possible. 

 

Speaking of which really looking forward to the Barca Vs Milan 2nd leg tonight, can the special one finish the job, not long until kick off now.. 

Week 8

Spread Betting - NBA/MLB/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 180.02%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 87.49%

MLB 0.5 or 1% * 88.79%

Regrettalbly week 8 did not make a great impression although I am happy to have moved back into profitable territory, albeit a very small one.

As soon as the playoffs started I was ready and the NBA has picked up where it left off, bank now sitting at 180.02%. More last minute draws have undone a healthy looking week for the football, and once again I'm left with little to shout about, bank is now 87.49%. I have added three new Scandinavian leagues this week, and my staking on these new additions is even more cautious (if that's even possible!) with 0.25% & 0.5% bets. These leagues were added as a test due to them running throughout the summer, giving me an option when all other major leagues stop. Another tough week for the MLB, bank now sitting at 88.79%. It is still finding it's feet and unless we have an anomaly of a season the winners should start to come - we've only had 2 weeks from a 7 months season, so plenty of time to go yet.

Weak Number Sleven

Spread Betting - NBA/NCAA/MLB/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 173.32%

NCAA BB 0.5 or 1% * 94.40%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 91.33%

MLB 0.5 or 1% * 93.99%

First off apologies for the lack of regular updates recently, I was halfway through week 8 before I found time to update the blog so I thought I'd wait a few more days and do weeks 7 and 8 together.

Onto week 7 and I must admit it's a week I'd rather forget. I stopped betting on the NBA about halfway through the week (until the playoffs began), as the risk of star players being rested and other unexpected tactics, which are too common at this time of the season. I almost felt like I was resting my star player, and I was right to be concerned as the other sports continued to struggle, without the NBA to bail them out this time. I had a bet on the College basketball final which lost and concluded my NCAA BB bank at 94.40%. The draws in the football have been making things very difficult, that has meant another poor week for the footy, with the bank now sitting at 91.33%. To make things even tougher the MLB has had a rough start to the season, with the bank sitting at 93.99% at the end of it's first week. Week 7 has quite rightfully claimed it's place in history as my largest losing week.

Week 6

Spread Betting - NBA/NCAA/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 167.04%

NCAA BB 0.5 or 1% * 95.66%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 102.25%

Another decent week comes to an end, must admit I did fall prey of bigger picture blidness for a few moments when my last couple of NBA bets lost. If they had also come in I would of been looking at my best week since starting. After I had reminded myself how silly my mindset was I felt much better. I have a longterm P&L bank growth graph which I look at whenever I feel bad about one particular result, it always reminds me of how insignificant it is, as that result is hardly visible causing a mere blip if I looks really hard.

It was a good week overall for the Basketball with even the NCAA giving me some profits in its finale. After a nightmare start about 4 weeks ago the NCAA bank is now sitting at 95.66%, not a bad effort. With just the final to go, I'm happy to have turned it round from 87.71% a couple of weeks ago. Don't think I'll be continuing with this unless I find a different edge somewhere else and am glad to have clawed back most of my losses in the end. The third week of the football has turned over a slight profit, once again the draw as predicted, is making it hard to get paid as often as I would of liked, although I'm confident it will maintain profitable until the season ends.

I'm quite looking forward to the MLB which has just started, so many games to choose from and my stats are showing a clear edge here so I'm hopeful this could even rival my NBA success. I'll be starting on the standard 1% bets though until I hit 150%, there's no hurry with months of the season to get stuck into, and I intend to build the test bank slowly but surely.

Marchish Review

Ok so the first full month of this spread betting exercise has now ended, with just over 5 weeks to review as I will also include the last week of February. Looking over the results I also managed to mix up some of the dates between week 4 & 5 due to the time differences in the US & UK, however all the totals match depending on how you add it up. I've changed my records to UK time only now to prevent this from happening again. Here is the total of all 5 weeks and the break down of each one:

All new systems started off on the 0.5-1% of bank staking and once they have built the bank to 150% an increase to the 1-2% of bank is made. So far the NBA is the only one to have made it through, but to be fair it has been running for 5 weeks whereas the football has been for 2 and the NCAA for 3. April will be an important month to get a better idea of how good the football picks are, the second week predictably didn't go well and almost wiped out all of the profits from the previous week. I need more results to come to any conclusions and will keep it running until the season ends. The NCAA BB has been poor, as you can see from the red bar it has had a terrible start and only had a marginally profitable week in week 5.  Not long to go before this one is finished so I will see it out, unlikely to continue with it in the future if it continues to return so little. The NBA has been consistently profitable even on a weekly basis, and it's profits continue to lead the way.

I'm also pretty sure I will be delving into the MLB which is starting soon, and the NFL when it restarts. The overall aim is to make better use of the bank and spread the liability whilst maintaining the quality of selections. This is already showing early on in Week 4 where the football profits covered for the heavy NCAA losses and in Week 5 where the NBA profits covered for the football. Ideally I'd like at least 3 sports running simultaneously, and with the NCAA on the way out I'm hoping the MLB will prove more fruitful. Once the football season finishes I can't see myself delving into the World Cup, as the stats just don't show any clear edge, at least I can't see one. I'll probably end up trading these matches prematch like I used to do, although I'm not quite sure what to expect as it will be my first World Cup I have got involved in betting wise. Will as ever keep looking out for other opportunities.

Apart from that the only other point to mention is that I have been almost exclusively using Pinnacle in March, roughly speaking over 95% of my bets have been with them. Have to say they have been very good and with 96 bets placed so far, I have not had any issues at all. Will need to look more seriously at spreading the bets out in April onwards, one good thing is the football bets can easily be placed with an exchange at the expense of the commission, so I'm likely to use the exchanges for that, and any other selections that can be used elsewhere. Betdaq offer only 2% commission on all football asian line handicaps which is pretty good to know, even if its just for hedging purposes. In regards to the US sports it will be Pinnacle or 5Dimes, Bet365 also give you good options on the lines so it's good to have them as a backup albeit at a poorer price. Will Hill and Ladbrokes have consistently been poor value so far so I'm unlikely to go with them. Ideally I need to find another competitive US bookmaker as it's looking like many of my bets will be on US sports in the next few months. As ever will keep an eye out, haven't really been looking that hard since discovering Pinnacle.