Not that important anyway City will thrash a poor QPR team and United will struggle against Sunderland. I hope I’m proved horribly wrong.

I didn’t watch the first half of the game as I couldn’t really be arsed to listen to Niial Quinn (doing the decorating instead- how middle aged is that?) but promised myself I would watch the later parts of the action and was lured downstairs by my mobile going bonkers. Not really wanting to believe what I was seeing I decided to buy some more insurance after my previous dabble and placed the following when the score was 2-1 to QPR. I thought of it as a way of buying the title for United. As you can see I had two lots. (Apologies the type is so small but it eases the pain!- just click to enlarge)

The rest is obviously history and I feel like the money is unclean. I was lucky enough to go to Barcelona for the Champions league final in 1999 and remember afterwards saying to the lads “wow can you imagine how these German fans feel?”. Yesterday I knew- what goes around comes around and all that.

Elsewhere over the weekend it was another cracking weekend for Steve Palmer of the Racing Post who managed to pick the first and second- As usual I got up nice and early on Wednesday morning and got the value price but it says something about my state of mind that I couldn’t get and still cant get excited about a 50/1 winner- I could barely wimper a kooooooch.

My last post about the Racing Post golf picks and staying away from Jeremy Chapman proved that I know bugger all as he proceeded to tip the first two places! Hmmm. Luckily for me I’ve been following the golf betting tips from the golf guru service which have been in absolutely blinding form recently. I’ve been using the same stakes that I use for the racing post golf picks and the results have been pretty spectacular with winners like Bubba Watson at the masters (50/1) Jason Duffner (28/1 (a doubly superb result as Steve Palmer had picked him that week as well!) and also Rickie Fowler at 50/1 this weekend. Said it before plenty of times that golf betting can involve long losing runs when you are trying to find winners at those sorts of long odds so to get three in a very short period of time really does help.

I’ve got no sort of financial affiliation with the guy so not going to list prices etc but its not expensive and well worth a look.

Congrats to Ronnie o ‘Sullivan on winning the snooker and while the majority of my bets were skewed towards the Betfred Judd Trump cashback or a possible 147 I still came out nicely ahead due to Bet Victor offering money back if the rocket won and also William hill being very generous  with their odds pre tournament. In case of Victor let’s hope the “gentleman bookmaker” doesn’t get his gubbing stick out which he has a tendency to do when people hit the various cashbacks. It’s a book I use frequently as their football odds on the premiership are very good and it would be a shame to see it go. Mind you now I think about it I’m bound to get banned for having the temerity to take the best prices all the time

Racing wise I’m becoming like a broken record promising all sorts of data on my first full year of following Hugh Taylor yet not coming up with the goods. My excuse this time around has been that he has had such a good month I’ve not been able to keep up with the flow of winners. That’s a piss poor excuse I know and I will get on the case ASAP. The racing certainly has been rather fortunate at the moment and this current hot streak was summed up by the market examiner pick yesterday trailing by ten lengths only to see the leader fall at the last and get knocked over at 1.05. Not complaining as plenty of times when those sorts of things go against you.

I could imagine it was also a big night for agents of Colombian marching powder with Diego and Liam having a celebration

Any way this is meant to a betting blog so why am I  Fred up? I’m fed up with hearing about how bloody Fred Done has paid out on United to win the league and its now going to cost him £500k . No its not. United were  as low as 1.03 to win the title when he decided to pay up so if he decided to lay ff the whole amount there it would have cost him £20k (in reality they will of backed City elsewhere) . £20k to get headline coverage pretty much everywhere that talks about football is very shrewd  and hats off to his PR people although  he has previous for it having paid out twice before (once in 1998 when United subsequently were slowly hauled back by Arsenal).

I saw a quote from him along the lines of ” odds on shots get beaten all the time so I’m going to take it on the chin” – fair play its just a shame that his line about “taking it on the chin” doesn’t apply if you have placed a series of multiple bets with winnings of £823k , if that happens you try and worm you way out of it. Its fairly old news now but still worth a read if you haven’t seen it and a very real demonstration that bookmakers can do pretty much what they want. Next time someone puts  a “Bookmakers  kept my £25 snr bet can they do that?” post on MSE then just read this link.  Barney Curley Coup

While on the subject of  Bet Fred and taking it on the chin, that very nearly happened to the manager of my local Fred shop when I went to pick up the winnings of my Ronaldo double delight bet that I covered in my last post . Having backed £100 at the lunchtime enhanced odds of  7/2 he tried to tell me that the double payout didn’t apply to those odds. We then had quite a comedic exchange which went something along the lines of ” so double the odds isn’t double the odds then?” answer- “nope not at BetFred on this offer mate” , “but I thought you were the bonus king?” ” it isn’t double the odds mate”. I asked for my slip back just as he read a message on his screen telling him that it should be paid out (as I had told him) and he begrudgingly paid me my £700 instead of the £500 he had tried to palm me off with. I wonder how many people would just have taken his word for it? Shocking.

Lastly hats off to Steve Palmer from the Racing Post who has come back to form with 2 places at the weekends Balantines championship and a winner in the states with Jason Duffner at 28/1.  Great stuff although all the excitement was obviously too much for him and he has had the week off to recuperate . I only wish he had told me so I  didn’t drag my arse out of bed to the newsagents at 6am this  morning to get the early prices only to see that Jeremy Chapman was filling in for him. Chapmans record may or may not be   be great but he also posts on the Ladbrokes website so not sure that there will be any value there.

Ok – not got time to update the Hugh Taylor stuff so that will follow..

Well what a great couple of days of Champions league football with both games going right to the wire. I’m not the biggest Chelski fan so once they were one nil  and a man down (what was John Terry doing?)  I turned over and for once didn’t flick onto various media to check scores so was pretty gutted to have missed an amazing finish. Fairplay to Torres as I genuinely  believe that if he had missed that chance he would have been finished from a confidence point of view. What made the goal  even better was  the amount of time he had to think about it as he had to run 50 yards first. Even better than the goal is was what has quickly become know as the Gary Neville “Scoregasm”. There cant be a football fan on the planet who hasn’t seen this but I don’t really care as its funny as f**k.

Gary Neville on Sky is a strange one. When it was first announced that he was taking over from the disgraced Andy Gray  it was  decision that was thought rather odd as he was thought to be so pro United that it would never work . I’m a United fan so I’m obviously a bit biased but even I thought it strange as he always seemed a bit miserable and I couldn’t see it working out. I  know a few of my friends were fuming about it and jokingly said that they would cancel Sky Sports. Now 6 months into his first season and his expert post game analysis along with his ability to laugh at himself means that I know longer turn off the football once the game has finished. Here is  a clip where he is talking about the foreign influence on our game when the diving controversy sparked into life again a couple of weeks ago. Its random…….

A friend who is a Chelsea fan summed it up  “I still think he is a dick but he knows his stuff”. Bit harsh but you get the point. I still think it might take a while for Liverpool fans to see the light though and it will be interesting to see if he has any involvement in Monday nights Manchester derby as I cant believe for one minute he will be able to remain neutral.

From a trading point of view the games would have been an absolute dream and the evenings price movements are brilliantly summed up in  two excellent posts by Sports Trading Life with great screen shots showing the actual price movements. Well worth a read.

Onto the Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich game and after missing out on the previous nights action I settled down to watch the game. I”ve previously got involved in the Bet Fred Double Delight offers and thought that this game looked like a perfect opportunity. For those that don’t know this is where Mr Done generously offers double the odds if the first goalscorer goes on to bag a pair and treble if he scores three. I’ve  had some near misses when Ba and Aquero have scored in the first ten minutes but then failed to hit the target again so I didn’t get too excited when Ronaldo opened the scoring in the 6th minute. I did get excited when he scored again after 15 minutes and at this point I thought I was on for a bumper payday. Sadly it wasn’t meant to be but as I placed the bet in store and took an enhanced price (they pushed it to 9/2 (4.5) at midday (laid at 4.3 5 minutes before the game started it) it was, after commission, effectively a free bet and very much “value”.  I will be taking my wheelbarrow to Betfred later today.

“Inform tipster Steve palmer does it again with 60/1″ winner”

As with all things this only tells half the story as this is his foirst winner since January 25th and highlights a couple of points that I’m constantly banging on about 1) the importance of keeping records, without which i might be getting a bit giddy about this win when in fact all its done is reclaim my money that i’ve lost in February and March and 2) Golf betting is not for people who aren’t prepared for long win-less streaks.

Incidentally the last person he tipped as winner? Branden Grace. Some complete tool managed to back the wrong selection so lets hope history doesn’t repeat itself!

In other news it would be rather childish of me to draw attention to my recent run of good results in the Green All  Over tipster league with 4 out of 8 successful selections for the second week running. Ok I’m childish. Even more satisfying was that one of the winning picks  was a 3-3 draw which drew the now customary “fluke” abuse from Mr Cassini. If  I  manage to carry this on and top the table at the end of the season I may even receive a mention of this very own blog when Mr C publishes the results round up  although I wont be holding my breath.

Its been a year since I  started following the Hugh Taylor ATR  service so there will be a post this week talking about the results so far. I think that is whats know in marketing circles as a “teaser” ………………

Once I had got back up after falling off my chair, I checked my email account to see a nice little freebie from Ladbrokes – not life changing but as I had only used them that morning on some nice horse and golf bets (which they were top price on) I thought it was a nice reward for my custom. I thought I may as well therefore have a little dabble. This is what I found.

Yes the mighty Ladbrokes have decided that probably due to me betting on something that they were top price on (clearly my fault!) then they would not allow me to bet 1p on the mighty Manchester United.

So lets recap that .

1)Go top price

2) Offer free bet

3) Close (effectively) customers account.

Good work chaps- looks like those bookmaker geniuses have been hard at work again.

Ok rant over- delighted to have another guest contribution and this time its from a bookmaker, so over to you “wonder walker”

If you are familiar with betting blogs, you will have come across your fair share of tales of woe regarding account limitations. Usually, it involves a good bit of whining from someone who makes a long term profit betting on horses complaining that the evil bookies won’t lay him a bet. My levels of sympathy for these people are generally low for two reasons. Firstly, because I am jealous that they make decent money at the game and secondly, because I work for a bookmakers and have limited a number of customers myself in the interests of the business. One blog I have read recently has been devoted to despairing over a couple of limited accounts for the last few weeks. The author has written thousands of words bemoaning and questioning the decisions of these bookmakers whilst admitting to being thousands of pounds up on them.  Yes, it must be painful for the customer, but surely it’s understandable. It seems like an entirely plausible concept that a business would wish to rid themselves of a loss maker.

Somewhat ironically however, I am about to embark on a story of an account limitation that not only do I disagree with, I am completely confused by. The betting shop I am employed by is a one shop operation. All members of staff are responsible for managing liabilities through various hedging accounts as well as normal betting accounts opened online in the name of the owner of the business. Some months ago, I took a football accumulator bet from a customer that was paying around £6k if successful. That’s quite a large hit to an individual bookmaker of our size, so I took steps to reduce the potential damage and laid the bet off to win approximately half the amount the bet would pay. I placed the bet with one of the country’s largest betting operators who shall remain unnamed (though it rhymes with Hilliam Will). Cutting to the chase, the bet came in. A twelve team football accumulator. Did we limit the customer next time he placed a bet with us? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. Did said bookmaker who we had hedged the bet with limit us the next time we tried to place a football bet? In a word…yes.

 It was a few days later when trying to place £50 on a player to score first at 25/1 that I realised what had happened. I was offered £1. Yes, a pound. Other wagers attempted equally proved fruitless. This multi-million pound firm was effectively telling us that they no longer wanted our business. And why? Because we won a few grand from that football accumulator. I say won, but it cost us the same amount it cost them.  I checked our account history. Until that bet, we hadn’t had any winners, barring some small returns from a few multiple horse bets mainly placed on Saturdays. Now like I have previously stated, I am understanding of bookmakers limiting people who consistently win on horse betting. They don’t want custom from arbers and people with inside knowledge and to me, that’s fair enough. But people who place multiples on horses and football are surely every bookie’s bread and butter. As far as I know, people don’t get inside knowledge on the outcome of twelve football league matches all occurring on the same day.

I wanted to query this decision with the firm but the shop manager instructed me not to bother. So I still don’t understand. Maybe someone reading this can give me an idea. Answers on a betting slip please…

Thanks to Wonder Walker for an excellent post and dont forget if you have anything you want to get off your chest we’ll be more than happy to publish.

From a betting/trading perspective it was a superb weekend as pretty much everything that our friends at HAMBET suggested came off allowing us some  to trade from a comfortable  green position on the Sunday and it was also helped by the fact that the golf traders at Ladbrokes obviously didn’t fancy the Kooochs chance at all as they were very big on him after the 15th hole . It was my first real experience of trading a whole golf event and one I will certainly be looking to repeat. Thanks to all the guys in chat for your help over the event- you know who you are. I  imagine it was also a good weekend for the bookmakers with Tiger and Rory not really getting going.

I spoke in a recent post about the poor runs that both the Market examiner and Hugh Taylor had been experiencing and I’m glad to report that they have both turned it round in spectacular fashion with the Examiner finding 18/1 and 10/1 winners. Glad I kept the faith with these services despite the bad run.

I need to keep the faith in the racing post golf picks from Steve Palmer  and this morning I had a test of my devotion when Tescos had sold out of  the racing post at 6.30 ( which is when I go out to buy it so I can get the bets placed before the value goes.) I decided to seek my answers elsewhere and managed to track down the paper – lets hope its a sign!

Sad news over at Trading Football  where some complete scumbag managed to put a keylogger onto the webinar that they held on Saturday and then cleared out Robbos account a couple of days later. A timely warning that Internet security is of paramount importance and one that we all could probably tighten up on. Any one who has benefited from Robbos expertise on the nags and feels that they wish to contribute can do so on the top left of the site.   TGT had superb post on security a while back which can be read here.

A rather strange note on the front of the Geeks Toy . I’m not quite sure how the Geek is going to ensure that “each and every user” is going plug the product considering that my user names for betfair, the geeks forum and here  are all different? That aside its a brilliant product and I for one cannot believe its free to use.

Lastly enjoy the Grand National meeting this week and don’t buy into the hype and hysteria if something unfortunate happens to one of the horses over the courses of the meeting. Without sounding harsh would these horses be anywhere nearly as well treated without racing  or perhaps I’m missing the point as usual…….

Stay green.

First off without sounding too smug I hope some of you were on the back to lays in my original post on the Masters. For those too idle to check the post (I would as there is quite a bit of  decent Masters info on there) it was suggested to have small back to lays on the following:

Louis Oosthuizen
Angel Cabrera
Fred Couples
Thomas Bjorn
Henrik Stenson

All of them have traded at less than half the advised odds and in the case of Stenson and Couples have both come in from 260′s to somewhere in the 20′s and lower.Niiiiice

Thanks to Hambet for the tips and their golf desk tell me that todays value back to lay is  Fredrick Jacobsen who is currently at evens and shot 4 under in the 2nd round. He was a silly 620 last night and while that is all gone there is still some big value to be had.

Unfortunately my charity bet mentioned in the last post of a hole in one on day two didn’t quite come off (despite a ridiculously easy pin position on the 16th) but in fairness to them they have offered me a money back special if Couples goes onto win the Masters.

Talking of money back- bit of a twitter fight going on at @stevepalmer78  after the RP man had the temerity to suggest that perhaps bookies might give money back on his selection of Jason Day who pulled out with a foot injury that he (Jason day) had kept quiet about until the day before. Unfortunately for  Steve Palmer  he was one of the main picks in the Racing Post so he has been getting some abuse from people who may have lumped on.  The twitterarti were suggesting that is was unprofessional of Palmer not to know about the injury and one person said this

It was cos of his tweet asking bookies to refund. No right to ask that – it smacks of desperation and embarrassment

Bit harsh in my opinion!!! Why not ask a bookie for a refund?- “don’t ask don’t get and all that” AND  you never know stranger things have happened! While we know that certain bookies will happily pocket your cash there are a few from across the Irish sea who may well be thinking about it

Good luck for the last two days and personally I will be buying some champagne if any of the above are still in the mix on day four.