Betting Blog – Bang and Pod’s bets

Its been a while.  No syndicate.  Just been having personal bets which winning and losing, slightly down personally and Pod’s up a little bit.  Betting properly takes time and I haven’t got the time to think about bets nowadays. Been playing a bit of roulette recently and winning. Amazing considering, 1) Its boring 2) The game is mathematically in the houses favour with no skill.

Anyway, just read this about Paddypower. Basically, they’ve paid out already on the election result in America.  Those crazy Irish.  I remember a few years ago now, they paid out on Arsenal winning the league and Man U made a miraculous comeback and won the league so they had to pay out twice.

With the moose hunter running mate, McCain has really no chance. It would need a blackswan event for this to change.

[Dublin, Ireland. 16 October 2008] Following the concluding presidential debate in New York last night Ireland’s largest bookmaker, Paddy Power, has decided to pay out on Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President of the United States of America.

This unprecedented move comes almost three weeks ahead of Election Day on November 4th and sees the bookie paying out in excess of €1,000,000 [$1,360,000] to Obama backers. Prior to Paddy Power paying out, Obama was practically unbackable at odds of 1-9 to be the next American President (meaning a bet of €90 was required to make €10 profit)

To date Paddy Power has taken over ten thousand bets on the 2008 US Presidential Election, the majority of which were placed in support on the Illinois Senator over the past 12 months. In fact betting support was so strong for Obama that Paddy Power paid out over €50,000 ($68,000) on his successful nomination as the Democratic Party candidate back in January of this year, seven months before the convention.

Paddy Power said “We declare this race well and truly over and congratulate all those who backed Obama, your winnings await you. Although the Senator seemed a little off sorts in last nights final debate we believe he has done more than enough to get him across the line on November 4th. The overall betting trend has shown one way traffic for Obama since the start of the summer and punters seemed to have called it 100% correct. It reminds me of the patriotic words of action star Wesley Snipes in the movie Passenger 57……Always Bet on Black!”

Incredibly, Obama was a massive 50/1 with Paddy Power to be next President back in May of 2005. One inspired punter had a long range wager of €50 at these odds which today returns a cool €2,550. The largest single bet placed on Obama to be next President was €100,000 ($136,000) in June of this year at odds of 1-2 which returns a whopping €150,000 ($204,000) today.

Despite today’s seven-figure payout, Paddy Power continues to offer betting right up to and including Election Day. One of its most popular bets currently on offer is predicting the winning margin of the successful nominee on November 4th.

To see Paddy Power’s full range of betting on the American Presidential election click here.

I would like to say a big thank you to Jenningsbet.  Few readers will remember when Premierbet went bust but Pod remembers all too well.  He lost about £550 when they disappeared.

So jenningsbet buy the database of users from the administrators of Premierbet.  As a gesture of good will they have refunded customers like Pod who lost money.   The maximum payout is £200 for users that lost more than that and sign up to both sportsbook and poker room.  They are  not obligated to pay this out at all.  They bought a list of email addresses and old accounts from a bankrupt company.  You can read more about the refunds here

Looking at the jenningsbet site, they do some good football odds.  All premiership matches are booked to 104%.  I am sure in future we will be using jenningsbet as its a solid site with some good odds.

Big Brother bettors will be hoping that Michael can hold on for a further few days as he is now the odds on favourite at 4/5 to win BB9. Michael was installed at 9/2 on the first day in the house with one Edinburgh punter placing a £1000 bet on him in June, which if successful win the punter a £5,500.

“Michael was always going to be popular and punters got it right from day one. This could easily be one of our worst results,” said Hill’s spokesman Rupert Adams.

(more…)

This year’s Big Brother is a bore. Too many heavily odds on favourites to go.

Dale looks all but certain to get the Big Brother boot on Friday night according to bookies William Hill who have cut him from 1/3 to 1/10 to go with Stuart offered at 11/2

“Dale is a no brainer of a bet he will struggle to survive against Stuart how is a genuine contender to win,” said Hill’s spokesman Rupert Adams.

William Hill Eviction: 1/10 Dale, 11/2 Stuart

William Hill Big Brother Winner: 5/2 Michael, 7/2 Darnell, 4/1 Kathreya, 5/1 Rachel, 12/1 Stuart, 14/1 Rex, 20/1 Lisa, 25/1 Sara, 40/1 Mohamed, 50/1 Dale, 66/1 Nicole

Looks like a nailed on cert this one.

Hills are 1/10 that Alex will be voted out of Big Brother on Friday with Mario offered at 11/2. William Hill also offer 6/1 that Alex will beat the record eviction vote percentage of 91.6%. The record 91.6% has stood since 2006 and is held by the unforgettable Sezer!

“Mario is extremely lucky that he is up against such a foul mouthed freak as he is not popular at all, But Alex is our shortest first quote for the boot and she will be gone by Saturday morning,” said Hill’s spokesman Rupert Adams.

William Hill Bet:
6/1 Alexander gains more than 91.6% of the eviction vote

William Hill Eviction Betting: 1/10 Alexandra, 11/2 Mario

William Hill Big Brother Winner: 5/2 Kathreya, 7/2 Luke, 5/1 Michael, 8/1 Rachel, 8/1 Darnell, 12/1 Rex, 14/1 Dale, 25/1 Mohamed, 25/1 Rebecca, 25/1 Jennifer, 40/1 Sylvia, 50/1 Lisa, 50/1 Dennis, 66/1 Mario, 100/1 Alexandra

Hull win 1-0.  Nice.  £98 profit each.  The 1X2 price for Hull was 2.38.  £40 extra if we’d have gone for that.  I am going to have to start doing more ‘odds against’ 1X2 bets.  Asian Handicaps are good but its so hard to make a consistent profit betting on those.

Anyway. a couple of interesting blogs.  First is an Italian Betting Blog.  (here’s) the google translated link.  Looks like he is a long term winner.  Maybe I’ll follow his picks for the summer.  Love the disclaimer at the bottom.

The other one is punt.com.  Its a blog by someone who makes a living off Betfair.  I think this page is worth a read if you are serious about betting.  http://www.punt.com/faqs/index.html

Knowledge is power.

If you aren’t a gambler but want to gamble, then I’m not going to stop you.  I always tell people to not gamble if they haven’t started and to stop if they have.  Particularly when they don’t appear to be very clued up.  Before anyone gambles for entertainment or otherwise they need to know a few things:

• Why bookmakers make a profit.
• Why casinos make a profit.
• Gambling causes problems for people, it can be dangerous to do, even for those with the best of intentions.
• This is a mathematical game, if you know points one and two then you will also know the chances of you making a profit is close to zero!
• The chances of you losing your money is therefore close to 100%.
• If you are doing it for entertainment then spend time figuring out how you will feel once you have lost.  Because quite simply, you will – make sure you are ok with that and make sure you won’t want to make it back.
• Never bet more money than you can afford to lose.
• Probability, probability, probability.  You can’t beat it.  The gambler’s fallacy. Don’t know about probability ? – Give up now.
• Never use gambling as an escape from real life problems.  Some gambling games hypnotically affect people, they are designed to suck you in and make you forget reality.  Never forget the bigger picture, know how much money you are betting.
• Some casinos pump oxygen round to keep the gambler’s going for longer, slot machines make trance like patterns with their lights.  Don’t you think this is more than a little out of order?
• It is in bookmakers best interests to glamorise gambling.  To make you think you can win and to push bad strategies subconsciously onto you.  Hardly surprising is it?
• People selling systems are almost guaranteed to be losers.  Why would you sell a system when the rewards for using it would be so much higher.  Also, a sold system becomes worthless because so many people use it and the bookmakers / markets change because of it – system no longer works.

I knew all those points apart from the casinos pumping oxygen into the rooms to keep gamblers alert.  I don’t think its out of order at all.  Allowing drunk people in to the casino is wrong.  Oxygen and flashing lights are the least of things thats wrong with casinos.

You can read the blog here

It was meant to start again this month.  There’s only this weekend and next left of the football betting season so we’ve decided to give it a miss.  We’ve still betting individually but not putting money in to a pot. 

My first bet of the month is going to be a rock solid banker treble.  If any of these fail, I think it’ll be time to stop betting for good.  Just can’t see it. Man U have to win, Derby can’t stop getting thrashed and Villa are in form and still could take 5th place from Everton. 

Man Utd v West Ham
Aston Villa v Wigan Athletic
Blackburn v Derby

All home wins, £50 staked at 2.36

Pod’s bets go down the toilet due to a couple of late goals.  The whole bet was a little stupid anyway.  Most he could have won was about £850 from his £350 and that was if all of the came in.  He should have had a accumulator on the 3 results rather than a patent.  I think patent bets are only worth while if the odds are 4/1 or greater.  As they were all Asian Handicaps, he needed all 3 to win to make any decent profit. 

Anyway, going to try a bit of spread betting next season.  I figure that football spead betting will be more profitable as when we lose, we don’t lose by much.  Thats the plan anyway.  It’ll be something for next season as funny things happen toward the end of the season and with spread betting, you can win big but also lose big. 

After the terrible Saturday, I forgot about a four fold I stuck on midweek.  I was looking at the fixture list and picked out, Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea and Villa as bankers and stuck them in a 4 fold multiple.  I got 5.73 for that, £50.  I figured that the rest of the fixtures were too tricky and would be best left alone.  I really should not have bet on any other matches. 

Fingers cross.  If this comes in, I’ll regard this weekend as a ‘stinker’ rather than a ‘fatal body blow’. 

Just read this on the Indie website
Footballer ‘fixed match to pay off gambling debt of £50,000′

How an ‘epidemic’ of addiction is destroying the careers and lives of some of the game’s top players

A footballer with a serious gambling problem has admitted accepting a £50,000 bribe to help throw a game in Britain, The Independent can reveal.

According to a source familiar with the circumstances, the player – who has a Premiership club on his CV – racked up a £50,000 debt with a bookmaker. The bookmaker said he would write off the debt if the player got himself sent off and also persuaded three team-mates to get booked in a specific game.

That explains how my rock solid bets lose Looks like a lower league anyway.  I don’t be on them.  Dying to find out who the bookie is.  Never betting with them again.