The Home Of Losing Horses

Newsletter Issue I

January Results

January was a very difficult month with poor quality racing and many abandoned meetings, yet we managed to make a profit both for What To Lay and the Private Members Club.

What To Lay managed a 14.15 point profit and the Private Members Club a 10.67 point profit. That makes 12 winning months out of the last 13 for What To Lay and a 100% record for the Private Members Club with 5 out of 5 winning months, 3 out of 3 since we went live.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire

He’s gone mad you will be thinking. He’s reverted to Hype and he’s going to tell us how to become millionaire’s in one month.

Wrong.

Neither have I suddenly become a big fan of Mr Tarrant.

Have you ever wondered what makes a self made millionaire? Well the answer is far from simple, but I just wanted to share one piece of philosophy with you. Many self made millionaires will readily tell you that having several streams or sources of income is very important and it’s often by having several streams of income that they have become so successful.

Thinking on this philosophy, I got to wondering how can this be achieved? Again the answer is far from simple, but I decided to apply a coat of thinking to the matter.

I regularly get asked the following question…… “Neil, can you really make a full time living from Horse Racing and Sports Betting ?” ….The answer is a resounding yes. Having said that it is far far from easy and requires several very important aspects…. More on these shortly.

So let’s take a desired income level, we will keep it very simple and use £1000 per month. Now if we break this down it equates to £33.33 per day if we use a 30 day month. Now that we have done that, on the face of it £33.33 per day is not a great deal of money. So we could in esscence say that £33.33 per day is our desired income stream.

Expand this one stage further, if we require £2000 per month income, we need £66.66 per day OR two income streams of £33.33 per day. £3000 per month, well…….you can do the maths.

Ten £33.33 per day income streams would equate to circa £10,000 per month income. Now we are talking big money. Can you see how if it is broken down into small chunks it appears more accessible.

So all we need now are the income streams. That’s where it gets a little more difficult where do we find them and how do we know they will always be fruitful?

To start with, as you are reading this Newsletter, you will already have probably identified one, that will be your current income from whatever source you achieve this. If you are a current subscriber to What To Lay or The What To Lay Private Members Club you can add another stream or two of income as you will be making profits from these services.

With these streams of income in mind, I decided to see if I could apply some projects to create new streams of £33.33 per day and it is these that I will be devoting much of these Newsletters to.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Before I dive into some of the projects on the work bench, I want to just refer back to the essentials that are crucial in all aspects of what we do and just to highlight them again as they are extremely important.

In all aspects of Horse Racing or Sports Betting, it is absolutely vital to have these well and truly in place and to have a good grasp upon them.

Discipline
Patience
Money Management.

Please keep these upper most in your mind.

So exactly what is on the work bench?

Those of you who know me well will know that nothing but nothing gets a penny of my money until it has been thoroughly tried tested and tried again and again, until I am totally happy with it. I have several projects that have been on the bench for a fair while now and which are getting close to the point where they may have past my test.

Areas of interest are Sequencing and Compounding and these are currently being applied to several projects. I will be expanding on these in future Newsletters. For today I will be looking at one in particular.

Keeping the theme of laying horses, one of the biggest problems faced when laying horses is the liability issue. How many times have you found that one winning horse will wipe out your hard earned winnings and put a big dent in your betting bank. This is why we have our guidelines for What To Lay and our Private Members Club  to limit the liabilities and ensure we profit month by month and our income streams are protected.

So can we really find ten income streams of £33.33 per day, well I have no idea but maybe we will find three, maybe four or maybe seven, only time will tell. One thing is certain, it will not be easy and there will be frustrations and disappointments along the way but hey! That’s life and just think what would happen if we can. Another thing is absolutely certain, it is going to take some hard work. If you know any self made millionaire’s who achieved it by NOT working hard can you let me know their secret’s please.

TODAYS PROJECT

I decided to see if there was a way to completely eliminate the liability issues with laying horses, well at least reduce them to as low as possible, to eliminate them completely is totally impossible. A few months back I started to make Lay selections (horses by the way), my target was to find horses to lay at low odds. To be precise odds under 3.0. Yes you read that right, odds of 3.0 or less.

To date the results have been very encouraging. September, October, November and December have all produced a profit and January will do so also. I will be putting together a full results log as soon as possible, I just need to tidy up the spread sheets, so if anyone would like the full breakdown please get in touch.

I have been running the test at Level Stakes and as I have a fantastic piece of software called The Staking Machine, I have been able to run the results through 11 different staking plans. The most successful staking plan has been the Labouchere Plan.

Results to date based upon a Betfair minimum stake of £2.
            
                       Level Stakes          Labouchere
September           £35.48                  £183.58
October               £29.88                  £133.93
Novemeber         £6.57                    £25.07
December           £21.60                  £42.84
January               £35.76                  £174.27

Considering the stake level, these results are excellent and this has real potential to make it onto a £33.33 per day income stream and with max odds of 3.0 the liabilities are extremely low. One thing that must be mentioned is that this is one hell of a roller coaster and there are many losing days, but the overall line on the graph is upwards as you can see from the results.

A short time ago, I began to post the selections and results on three form sites, so if you want to follow these live you can do so at any of the following forums:

Expert Betting Advice
The Racing Forum
Punters Paradise

Please. Please do not jump in and start to put your hard earned on these yet, I am still developing and testing this one. A few more fine tweeks and I hope it can be banked.

FINNALLY

In an effort to find extra streams of income, I have many many Horse Racing and Sports Betting systems in the filing cabinets. I can not possible try, test or evaluate all these myself as there simply is not enough time in the day even for me to get through them. So if you would like to get involved and try test try again and evaluate any systems to see if we can add another income stream, please get in touch.

In addition if you have systems which you feel maybe worthy of a stringent test, then please send them over and we will see if we can get them processed.

I would very much like to hear from you also if you have any suggestion, or would like to see anything special in this Newsletter.

That’s it for today, have a great week.

Until next time.

Neil

 

Newsletter Issue 2

Results Update

Well there is not a great deal of information to bring you as this last week has been predominantly hindered by the adverse weather.

This has meant that unfortunately we have not been able to get as many bets placed as we would normally and as which we would like.

We can only hope that the Gods are kind to us and that the weather improves and we can get back to some form of normality.

A brief interlude, which could perhaps be implemented as a new sport in the UK as another betting opportunity. Here in Tenerife as you will probably know we have a huge mountain in the middle of the Island called mount Teide. On the rare occasions it rains here the result is that the mountain has snow on its peaks. Nothing like seen in the UK this past week or so, never the less it is snow.

Now the locals here are nuts!. As soon as snow appears on the top, they are off. They take their cars as far as they can and then proceed to build snowmen which they place on the bonnet of their cars.

This is followed by a flag start and they all drive off down the mountain and the winner is the car that has managed to get to the lowest point down the mountain before the snowman has completely melted.

It might sound whacky and a bit of good old fashioned fun, well it is until you actually see them do it. The problem is they build the snowmen as big as they can and completely block any view from their windscreens and drive off with their heads hanging outside the window.

I said they are nuts!.

Down to business…………

Income Streams

In the last Newsletter I talked about the use of many different income streams as being a very creditable way to build a very good level of income. You will recall I broke this down into resultant chunks of £33.33 per day. Each income stream of £33.33 per day equals £1000 per month. 10 streams equal £10,000 per month income.

We will be looking a little later at another of the projects on the table that we are assessing to see if it could merit as one of these income streams. But first I want to add a little something to the work bench which is very powerful. Of course you will no doubt have heard of it and may have looked at how powerful it can be when applied sensibly to a betting strategy.
COMPOUNDING

In simplistic terms, compounding is a means to steadily grow the returns on your bets and your income. Used in the financial world, if you have £1000 in savings and you receive 10% interest (If only), after year one your savings would be £1100, another year on and the interest is now applied to your £1100 and thus your savings grow by an extra £10 and become £1210. When this is followed through, over a number of years the growth becomes very powerful.

But we don’t have years and years to see this with our efforts I say.

Now this is not my idea, I readily admit but I have adapted it to fit into an income stream module of £33.33 per day.

If we take a modest bank of £100. Of course this is relatively low and depending upon the strategy we are using could very well be insufficient to achieve our goals and could disappear very quickly if we were to apply it to something with a none to clever strike rate (more on this in Today’s Project a little later).

However to turn a £100 bank into a £33.33 per day income stream using compounding, we require a compound rate of 1.33%. This means that each bet has a target profit of 1.33% of our bank. Applying this to £100, if we had just one bet everyday and assuming a 100% strike rate, at the end of one year our income would be £12,000 (give or take a little) This is as close as I could get without going to a silly amount of decimal places.

Endith here the mathematical jargon and onto why I have mentioned it…..

Today’s Project

On the bench, we currently have a project whereby we are seeking to produce a “One a Day” winning strategy. This is not stop at a winner but simply to find one bet a day which we think will win. Apply the above compounding rate and we will achieve one of our streams of income.

Simples as the Mere cat on the advert say’s

Well not quite so, we need a 100% strike rate. Impossible I here you say and I totally agree. This is why this strategy is work in progress. Currently the strike rate is in the very high 90’s; coupled with the very small daily growth targets (compared with the bank) and a disciplined steady approach this is workable.

The strategy we are currently working on is to find one bet a day that if you had to, would be the bet that you would put your house on. In other words it should really really win almost 100% of the time.  Having only implemented the idea a couple or so months back, we are some 60+ bets in with only 4 losers and the bank is heading towards double the £100 start.
To achieve a very high strike rate and virtually bank bets, we are as you will have guessed looking at very short prices and very often odds on. But so far the strategy is proving successful. Without the impossible 100% strike rate we will not achieve the £33.33 stream as just one loser reduces the bank and our end target is gone. Having said that it would not be the end of the world and a healthy profit would still be made.

With this work in progress we are exploring the possibilities of applying sensible staking plans to overcome the few losses that we will incur and cement the £33.33 income stream.

More on this next time and how you can find these one a day bets.

Finally

The lay at 3.0 and below project continues and is progressing steadily, again more on this in future issues and confirmation as to whether or not it could be a £33.33 stream.

Thanks to those who offered to help with system tests, and if anyone else is interested the vault is still full of potential income streams that need reviewing and it would be great to here from you.

On the launch of our Private Members Club a short time ago, we created a forum so that the Club could become a small community. Initially this went well but has dried up a little of late. Why not take a look and get involved if you wish, we would welcome visitors also. If we can help each other then we all benefit.

Please accept my apologies if you receive this Newsletter in duplicate we will tidy this up as soon as possible.

Until next time.

Neil

 

Newsletter Issue 3

Update

Somehow I just new that Friday the 13th would be a day that should be avoided. The problem was that Friday the 13th came one day early on Thursday 12th and continued.

At times like this one starts to doubt ones ability and the propensity to pick up the laptop and launch it through the nearest window surges to the upper most regions of the brain.

Fortunately just at the point of release common sense takes over and a saving of several grand is made. Well, certinately in my case, £1000 on a new laptop, £2000 on a new patio window and probably £50,000 in compensation on the person below sunbathing that my laptop landed upon.

It came very close but never actually left my hands, thankfully.

Time to take stock. Simply put we have to just think of what we preach and have done so for a very long time.

If you want a quick fix and huge profits instantly, you are in the wrong place and need to run as fast as you can through the exit door.

If you know how this works, then you know that Friday the 13th’s and Thursday the 12th’s happen and will always happen. There is no way of avoiding them, we just overcome them and overcome this one we will. It’s just a blip!..

Seriously, laptop firmly on the desk, we will put this behind us and come out in front. We know this from the fact that we have made profits from 12 out of 13 months and we will continue to do so in what we all know is the only important factor – the long term.

All around us, major companies and global organisations are going under; we will not be joining that club that’s for sure.

Let’s talk about the positive aspects…..

Projects.

Firstly, thank you to all that have offered their support and assistance in testing and putting systems through their paces. What it means is that we have more projects with the dust removed and in the limelight, thus the possibility of more £33.33 income streams becoming reality.

Still we need more to really make the income streams a reality. So if you have the time and the dedication, please shout and get in touch to help us all.

 

Can we profit by laying at 3.0 and under?

I said in the Newsletter where I first mentioned this that it would be a roller coaster ride mirroring that of the Big One at Blackpool. Thankfully we don’t have to visit Blackpool to follow its progress (sorry if Blackpool is your home town) I have absolutely nothing against it; please send me a stick of rock.

So 3.0 and under, a rollercoaster, absolutely, a recent run of  5 straight losses decimated profits followed by a recent run of 10 straight wins moved us well ahead again. Only to put the train on the downward spiral again with just one win in the next 7.

Again here I have to re-iterate that this project is work in progress and only time will tell of its validity. I am constantly tweaking to see if there is anyway to reduce the number of losing bets. Trying to find the common factors. So far a couple of things stand out and have been implemented, but my gut feeling is that I could probably tweak push and pull the selection process in all directions and would probably end up with very similar results due to the nature of what I am dealing with. So from a realistic perspective, the assessments that need to be made are regarding the best possible betting strategy and to monitor the results to see if they still stand up as in previous months. To date February is showing a loss and it remains to be seen if this will be pulled around by the end of the month.

I think ultimately the way to go here would be to see out February which would give us 6 months results and then to put it out and let you guy’s apply your own stance on it and see if indeed it can be worked better. If February does pull round that would make 6/6 winning months so my confidence in it is high.

One A Day

Again another very much work in progress income stream as mentioned previously. This week has seen a rare losing bet which takes the profits back a little. The key here is to research the best way to recover losses. Now I hate that saying recover losses, as you know I am not an advocate of loss recovery plans as they have the inevitable ability to ruin your bank.

However, in the right circumstances I am able to see the benefits. This might just be one of those circumstances, the strike rate is so high that it may well be that a loss recovery programme needs to be used here. One loss recovery programme states it should be used when you know that a winner is just around the corner. Well that can certinately be said for this income stream. I am using my Staking Plan software to assess loss recovery, but it is too early in the day for me to be definitive on this. Again though I am very encouraged and confidence is high with this stream also.

Last week I mentioned I would suggest how these one a day bets can be found.

We are looking for a stand out horse in any given race. One which really given the circumstances should at least place, (many actually win of course). At times, these can be thrown up quite easily with the number of non runners that we are faced with.
Regularly we can find a race in which Betfair still pays out for the first three when the non runners have reduced the race to first two only with the Bookmakers. Often in these circumstances two or three or more can be ruled out as their odds are very high, leaving an outstanding horse that perhaps only has one or two possible rivals for the win. So placing is really a given.

Take a look it is really quite easy to find these horses that stand out. Yes the prices are very low and this will not fit with everyone, but if we can get it right and work in a suitable loss recovery strategy then I see this easily becoming a £33.33 a day income stream. Please remember we are also using compounding here to build the income stream to achieve £33.33 a day in the longer term.

Today’s Project

At this stage I will not be introducing any new projects as I have something quite interesting to announce.

As you know I work closely with several people in the industry and a close compatriot who has a very successful lay service has been telling me for a long time now that he is actually as good if not better at making money from Football matches than he is from horse racing. Being a bit of an armchair fan, my in-depth knowledge of Football really just scratches the surface, so I have kind of paid attention but in no great detail to my friend’s constant reminders about his success every weekend.

To be honest, he won’t mind me saying this but it has got to the stage where I was finding it a little irritating, so I said to him stop harping on about it and do something about it. Well that was my first mistake, he took it literally and told me bluntly he had no time to do anything about it as he has full time work commitments and he just about manages to add his racing service to his restricted time. Then proceeded to suggest that I set everything up and he provides the information. After much grumblings about my time and my commitments to WTL and PMC, work in progress, Newsletter etc. he managed to wear me down and I agreed. Don’t tell the wife, this week is one Newsletter she will not read. If she as much as got a hint that I was adding more hours to my time at the computer I think I would be looking for a new one, wife that is.

In agreeing, I did however impose some restrictions, I said I would not promote a new service to my members. I would only allow it to be assessed fairly and for individuals to make up their own minds. Results I screamed, what results he replied, past results I screamed lets have them. The good news is he does not have any results, he has not kept any. Placed his bets banked his profits and moved on to the next match.

Why is this good news. We have no results to asses. It means we can only assess this from future results not by looking at historic results. We all know how easy it is for the unscrupulous to set up a glowing web site full of great looking historic results and take our money for it all to be a sham. You know we are not like that so this is a great opportunity for him to put his money where his mouth is so to speak.

He gave me selections last weekend and again for this weekend just yesterday. So my first step is to create a spread sheet for the results and monitor progress. If you would like to be kept informed of the selections please get in touch.

That’s it for now, more on this and the work in progress in coming issues.

Please don’t forget if you do have the time, we would like to hear from as many people as possible for testing purposes.

Kind Regards

Neil

 

Newsletter Issue 4

Update

February continues to be a challenging month. The curse of the 13th seems to be lingering with us for a while.

Some recovery has been made in the What To Lay camp and hopefully the demons have been layed to rest and we progress further. It just goes to show that we have to have faith in what we know and trust in our capabilities. Constant profits over a long period do not just happen by chance and it is this that we have to focus on at times like this.

A few issues back I put up a short list of the key elements that are crucial to what we do and how true these are.

Many, many times I talk about the long term in this industry and that short term profits are simply not what we are about. It’s very easy to focus on the now and miss the long term goal.

Hence why we have many projects that are on the work bench that have to have the ultimate test of time. Just because something works in the short term does not mean that it will always continue to do so and has to be viewed long term.

I had a long and very interesting conversation with Roger, our handicap form expert this week, as The Private Members Club took its turn to bowl out some googlies.

The facts are that you do not become an expert in anything over night and that once you have qualified as an expert in your field you have actually achieved nothing. That may sound like a very strange statement but nothing stands still and you need to evolve constantly or you will lose your expertise.

One thing that Roger does know is that the handicappers are truly experts in their field, they are very very cleaver people indeed and you have to be right on your toes to keep up with them. Many years of dedication have proved this and he is constantly adapting to the changes.

But the most important thing that came out of our long conversation was this. Roger has been following the handicappers every move for a very long time and he readily admits that sometimes he will get caught out (no-one is infallible). The refreshing thing is that because he has been doing it for so long he can recognise the situation and is able to adapt to it. He has genuine genuine concern for what he does and for the recommendations that he makes and his dedication to the cause is nothing short of remarkable. It is hard to put into words just how much effort he puts in and we have to state it here again that in the long term he will prevail. He is totally confident in his abilities and his success over the years does not just disappear over night.

I have been asked several times this past week or so…”Neil, will this rough patch be turned around”?, the answer is unequivocally yes.

Projects

Again a big thank you to those who have come forward to review and test projects for us. I hope to be able to bring you the initial results of some new projects very soon. If you have been kind enough to offer your services, could we just ask that you report your findings to us on a regular basis if possible.

Reports on the ongoing projects as follows…. Can we profit by laying at under 3.0. This income stream has followed suit recently and has been struck by the demons. Five straight profitable months preceded but it looks like February might show the first loss.

The important thing is that it is great that we have these projects under review as my guess with one week to go will show that whilst the staking plan Labouchere has shown strong profits in the first five months, it will be level stakes that proves to be the winner.
I will be able to expand further on this once the month has panned out. It is still however very encouraging and I definitely see this as a £33.33 income stream but it does need some further work just to confirm the best approach.

One A Day….. Last week I reported a loss for this project which was only the second loosing bet since it came to the table. We are now well into 70+ bets and just 2 losers. This week has produced 100% winners and the bank has recovered to above its level when the loss occurred. This is without the application of any loss recovery.

Very encouraging indeed. The compounding is showing its worth and the only thing that remains to be done here is to assess some options available when we do have the rare losing bet. I will be focussing on this in the next couple of weeks and will report my findings. My initial thoughts are that there are several simple options available and it will be just a case of which sits the most comfortable with you as an individual. To be fair to my philosophy of time being the ultimate test, this project is really still in its early stages but I am really really encouraged by it and I won’t say 100% but very close to confident that this will be a £33.33 income stream.

Today’s Project

Following the theme of laying horses at low odds, we have resurrected an all weather system that proved rewarding over a year ago but which was shelved due to time factors. Now that we have some time available I thought it well worthwhile revisiting this to see if it is still profitable. The basic theme is that we are using the theory that horses like familiarity and they pretty much do what they did the previous occasion. So we are looking for factors that suggest they will not be able to repeat past performance. Amazingly the odds involved will be forecast odds of between evens and 2/1. Strike rate will not be in the 90’s but if it performs as I expect I will be looking closely to see if The Staking Machine software indicates a suitable staking plan that can make this simple system worthwhile and if it can be developed into a £33.33 income stream.

The last word on projects this week is again to put out a shout for testers if you have the time. In addition, thank you for sending us systems that you think might be worthy of investigation, if you have any that you want investigating please keep them coming. We will do our best to work through them.

Finally

Last week I mentioned that I had been asked to develop my compatriots Football service and that if you wished to be kept up to date with results and progress to let me know.

Thanks to those of you who got in touch, I had hoped to bring you results to date this week but time has been precious. I can say however that so far the results do seem impressive and true to his word he is profiting from Football.

I will however ensure that I send out further news on this with the full results to date mid week, so please check your inboxes for a special message.

Have a really great weekend.

Kind Regards

Neil

 

Newsletter Issue 5

Update

Firstly, my apologies for the lack of a Newsletter recently, I have sat down to write it half a dozen times only to be pulled away on another matter.

The main reason is that the recent launch of 100Football.Com has taken a very large chunk of my time and effort. Followed by the huge response that we had, meant that my inbox was pretty hot and I have been answering many questions. The good news is that we are now up and running with this and my time should be released again. If you missed the launch, the link below will point you in the right direction:

http://www.100football.com/first50.htm

I want to focus this week on my business module that I set out a few weeks ago. Multiple income streams. As I said at the time many multi millionaires use several income streams to become such.  If we can unearth several £33.33 a day income streams we can start to make some very good money. You can refer back to this module by reading past issues of this Newsletter at http://www.whattolay.com/newsletters.html.

Work in Progress

So what are the modules that we have on the table? To recap, of course we have What To Lay and The Private Members Club, which are well established.

Then there are our below 3.0 lays, One A Day , my resurrected all weather lays at short prices and several systems under test. At this point could I just ask those readers who were good enough to offer their services in testing systems if they could send me updates as soon as possible so that I can report findings; many thanks.

Let’s take these in turn.

Below 3.0 Lays

An interesting month in February, level stakes resulted in a profit, this makes six months in a row where a profit has been made using level stakes. However after 5 straight months of profits using the labouchere staking plan, February showed a loss. Then followed 5 straight losing bets in the first two days of March and I was beginning to think this income stream was looking a bit dodgy. Then as if by magic just to confirm my statement that we are on a roller coaster here the next 15 bets produced 14 winners. Since then, bringing this right up to date, the system has again proved its worth and the Labouchere staking plan has completely recovered and crept into profit again. So where do we go from here? The answer is we need to now decide if this stream is best suited by level stakes or Labouchere or indeed a. n. other staking plan. I will utilise my Staking Plan software this week and do a full assessment.
I will report my full findings next week as it looks like this will be a viable income stream, and then I will throw it out to everyone for use/assessment.

One A Day

This income stream continues to flourish, a 100% record the last two weeks. Remember we are using a 1.33% stake here and using compounding to turn this into an on target income stream. I remain very encouraged by this and the work this week will be to reflect back and analyse the losses. Perhaps there is a suitable recovery plan as I hinted at last time. With the strike rate here, I am sure there will be something which is very simple that will recover the losses from the two that this has suffered since inception. This would mean that the target for this stream would be achieved without any major headaches. It is interesting to note that the stakes are starting to rise now with compounding, but with such a high strike rate this is comfortable.
Again I will report further next week.

If you need a refresher on the compounding element and the percentage of bank staking, you can find all the details in past issues at http://www.whattolay.com/newsletters.html .

All Weather Lays

Recently brought to the work bench, very early days to confirm that this stream is replicating the results that it produced a year ago so more time needed really. All I can say at this stage is that it has produced 16 winning bets and 9 losing bets so far. Given that the odds here are between evens and 2/1, the results are not discouraging. One interesting point to note that I have identified is that the system avoids horses that are dropping in class. I have been recording these horses when they are thrown up just to check the accurateness of this filter. It is true to say that they do need to be avoided but….. The interesting thing is the number of times these drop in class horses actually win. So continuing to monitor these could well mean that we are able to develop a nice little income stream from backing the drop in class. This will continue.

Systems Under Test

We have a few systems under test, could I just repeat here please, anybody who asked to test a system could you please report you findings so that I can update all our readers. Also again, could I just add that if there are any further offers for testing, could you please advise if you are able to follow the live racing or not. We do have a few systems which require the ability to be able to follow the live racing and adjust according to results. The biggest problem in testing live systems is that one person can only do a couple at a time due to the closeness of the races when there are a few meetings. I have tried to do three or four at a time in the past and it is fruitless, you just end up confusing yourself.

I am also personally reviewing some other streams and will report further on these in due course.
Finally

A question that I get asked quite a lot is when is the best time to place your bet?

This is a subject that could be debated into the early hours and there is probably no definitive answer. Obviously it depends upon what we are betting on and the principals that we are using for the bet, as sometimes there will be better times than others. But my personal opinion is that everything in this business changes on a regular basis, such that placing a bet early on one day could be beneficial but not so the next and vice versa.

My money management system that I use personally is that I set a liability level compared with the size of my bank that I am comfortable with and if the bet is there to be had that satisfies my liability level then I tend to take it. It is my belief that over time by doing so I am probably on a level playing field.

One of the biggest problems that many people face whilst we are on this subject is the ability, or should I say the flexibility to be able to have the luxury of choice as to the timing of the bet. I do know many of you are tied with other commitments and have a limited amount of time available and in fact sometimes have to place your bet and take your chance. Maybe first thing in the morning before work or a quick dash to the Internet café or where ever at lunch time to get things done.

As a result of something which we have been looking at recently, I am exploring the possibility of producing a Betting Bot; well not personally, I did do a Google search to see if there were any instructions out there on how to build one of these little devils.
After all, I thought if I can teach myself how to build a web site, I can build one of these. I found a few resources but soon put that idea to bed as the information I was reading might as well have been in Russian. Far too technical for me.

So I am in the process of outsourcing this and as I say as a side issue of something else we are doing, there is some potential that we might be able to achieve this. If we can it would be great as we could provide you with a little application that you can set in the evening or the morning which would place your bet/s as you wish and you can walk away and carry on with your day without having to dash to grab ten minutes access to the Internet some where. I am not promising anything but I am hopeful.

My last word will be to ask you to get in touch if there is anything that you would like to see in this Newsletter or anything you want us to look into for you, or indeed any suggestions you may have.

Until next week

Kind Regards

Neil

 

Newsletter Issue 6

Update

Firstly, I wish to let you know that time pressures are making it a little difficult for me to do a weekly Newsletter in the current format. So forthwith, I will be doing a weekly email summary which will be short and snappy and I will produce a fuller Newsletter once a month.

So for this issue, I want to concentrate on our Lay a 3.0 and below and get this out to you, as promised.

Laying at 3.0 and Under

As I mentioned last time, I would be conducting a complete analysis of this system using my staking plan software, as we now have 6 complete months’ data.

So let’s start with the results. I have extracted the results for the staking plans which have shown a consistent performance. The results are based upon a £2 stake and starting bank of £200 where a staking plan uses percentage of bank. In addition the Lay Liability plan was utilised with a £20 liability.

	Level Stakes	Maria	Lay Ladder	Lay 1 - 4	Labouchere	Lay Liability (£20)
September 2008	35.48	37.39	58.49	90.58	180.47	280.81
October 2008	29.88	30.88	70.67	75.56	129.68	160.05
November 2008	6.57	5.16	44.89	-9.95	25.07	-1.95
December 2008	21.6	22.13	15.12	15.4	42.84	157.34
January 2009	17.04	16.42	52.5	62.54	108.75	126.81
February 2009	-11.82	-11.82	18.96	-34	-105.79	-73.03
March 2009 (to date)	10.6	10.72	-9.04	40.84	81.76	68.29
TOTAL	131.21	177.56	296.68	370.75	529.95	870.12

I have included March to date here so we have almost 7 months results.

It is a little tricky to turn this into a £33.33 per day income stream as we are laying at very low odds and the results are up and down like a yoyo on a daily basis. The main objective that we were looking for with this was to see if we could successfully lay at odds of  3.0 and below and profit in the long term. The beauty being that our liabilities are extremely low.

The answer seems to be yes we can but it is definitely a roller coaster ride when operating day by day.

My preference would be to use the fixed liability betting not simply because it has produced the biggest returns but because it is a consistent way to approach the stakes with such a system.

I said I would complete this analysis and throw the system out for you to do with as you wish. It certinately does show that it could add to your income in the long term. An additional benefit is that it can be done the night before or in the morning and does not need you to follow the live markets.

So how do we operate the system?

Firstly, go to Betfair and to the first race of the day. We are going to look at every race; we look at the favourite and the odds. If the Lay odds are between 1.5 and 3.0 then we have a potential lay bet.

The following MUST be noted.

Firstly there must be a minimum of 6 runners.

Once we find a selection, we look at the race as a whole; we need to confirm the selection by checking the potential chances of that horse.

You will see many occasions there will be two horses at the top of the field with odds of, for example 2.52 and 2.8. On the face of it the horse at 2.52 is our selection, however a closer look at the race may reveal that the next closest horse is at odds of 6.0 or similar.

This now makes this race look like a clear two horse race and should be avoided.

A clearer example of the type of race to avoid would be what I will term red hot favourites. The top horse may be for example 1.71 and the next closest horse is 7.0. These should also be avoided.
.
That is it. Now I said earlier you can do this the night before or in the morning, and you may now be shouting, no you can not because you may have a selection in a six runner race and non runners will not be declared until later. Also the price may be 2.92 and closer to the race has drifted out to above 3.0.

Other possibilities are that there could be horses at 3.1 who nearer the race come in to under 3.0 and become a qualifier.

Yes we could adopt the above but that would involve following the live racing.

All my results have been based upon the first show price when I operate the system and have been calculated at that price. So I tend to do this first thing in the morning and as soon as I find a selection, I place the bet. The horse could well drift to beyond 3.0 later in the day but I have taken the price under 3.0 and it does not matter if it drifts.

The only exception is that there is no allowance for non runners. If I have a selection in a six runner race then the bet goes on and if one pulls out so be it.

As I say all my results have been inclusive of 6 runner races and there have been occasions when these have gone off with less than 6.

So as you can see this can be done in about 10 to 15 minutes, just find the selections check the race and place the bet.

I hope you find this of use and can follow the principal, of course please just email me if you need any more information. More importantly, if you do take this on and follow, if you make any personal changes or observations which may improve the results can we please have this information so that we can pass it on.

Work In Progress

Thanks go to those who have been good enough to get involved and I am hoping for some results of new systems on test at the end of this month.

Our one a day continues to show steady results, March has thus far seen 17/18 winning bets. I will keep this updated in the weekly email and defer my full analysis until the next Newsletter.

Like wise with my All Weather lays. March has shown 10 winning bets and 3 losing bets. Still very early to make any detailed comments but I do have my previous test period with this one to look back at and so far the results are of a similar nature. So I am confident that I can conclude on this one in the near future.

Finally

In my next issue I hope to report on other tests that are being worked on by our volunteers for us and add these to the pot.

We do have a very interesting on going project which I mentioned in the last issue where we are looking at the possibilities of a small application to automate the betting process and we have made some good progress with this and we are currently adapting a potential system which could be applied. So far results and our prototype are looking good, we do have a lot of work to do but encouraging to date.

The Flat season hit us this week, which heralds the start of spring, hopefully better weather and more meetings and racing. Always a tricky period though the first few weeks of a new flat season so please take care out there.

Kind Regards

Neil

 

Newsletter Issue 7

It’s been a while

Hi

Well it has been a while since I wrote to you, too long in fact and I send my apologies.

Sometimes life just gets in the way.

I am not making any excuses for myself at all but I have recently had to deal with the harrowing task of taking one of my best friends to court for an outstanding debt of almost £20,000. This has played a big part in my absence and had quite an effect on me psychologically. It is by no means finished or clear as to the outcome but I have now mentally managed to pigeon hole it and get on with other matters.

Just a timely reminder that the old adage “Never go into business with your friends and family” is a true as it says.

Not everything has come to a grinding halt, in fact the opposite, the wheels have been turning as normal and the racing world, as usual, has presented us with some challenges over recent weeks.

I want to be quite general in this Newsletter and talk about some interesting points that have been raised in some member emails that have landed in my inbox recently.

Whilst What To Lay still makes a healthy long term profit, there have been some ups and downs of late and our Private Members Club has struggled to make any great advancement but still shows also a healthy long term profit, it reminds me of one thing. Something which I have mentioned many times in the past and which I no doubt will mention again in the future.

We are in a business where money management and discipline are two of the most important factors that must be taken on board and adhered to strictly. Combined with acceptance that we are investing for long term profits and not quick easy returns. If we have these embedded in our strategies and our mind set then we can all profit.

You will have heard this many times before and from many different sources, “there is no such thing as instant big profits in this game”, or something very similar and it’s as true today as it will always be.

Returning to the emails in my inbox, several of you have asked if there is an alternative to level stakes betting and questioned the merits of using a staking plan.

So I thought I would place some emphasis on this subject in this Newsletter as the question does certinately have its merits. I have read many times that it is not possible to make a profit with level stakes. Whether I actually agree with that or not is a debateable point. It certinately is possible to make a profit with level stakes as we have done. However, I think what we need to read into the question, is not is it possible to make a profit with level stakes, but is it possible to make a big profit with level stakes?

Again the answer is somewhat debateable because we know we can make a profit with level stakes so naturally if we place large enough bets then naturally we can make big profits. Two points spring to mind, one the term big profit means different things to different people, me included. It all depends upon your positioning and attitude to risk as to what you call big profits. The second thing that springs to mind is the liquidity issue. To place big stakes, there has to be the liquidity, especially with lay betting. I will talk a little later about someone who has been making big profits with large stakes.

I also once worked closely for a good length of time with a professional gambler, now he was pre-dominantly a backer not a layer although he did place lay bets frequently. I will never forget him telling me that there is not a professional gambler in the land who makes a profit from level stakes betting. So perhaps there is something in it after all. He made his full time living from gambling and was/is still very successful.

The way I like to view investment in what we do is from the side of minimising the risk as much as possible and applying the correct money management in accordance with your individual circumstances. So taking the email questions in relation to level stakes and staking plans, I have spent some considerable time employing my staking plan software and all the data that we have for What To Lay and the Private Members Club. The software has a fair few plans that can be analysed and almost all of them have different settings/filters/adjustments that can be made. I have spent many hours on each and every one of the plans and entered every scenario possible for each of the plans.

My view on staking plans has been the same for many years. Yes they have their merits, but they can equally be very destructive and dangerous at the same time. You will have read before no doubt that using a loss recovery staking plan will eventually mean that you go broke. Never a truer word spoken and I have always treated any loss recovery plan with some caution if not distain.

So in my analysis, what I decided I needed to find if possible was something which was not only definitely not dangerous and destructive either short or especially long term but which was also comfortable and could fit into most budgets and bank sizes. Anything else just would not do and in my mind had to be dismissed.

We have had the What To Lay staking plan on the web site for a long time and it has shown that it can produce greater profits than level stakes betting, however, I wanted to re-visit this plan and all the others as it’s never good to just let things ride without a regular review of what is happening. Please do not get me wrong, as there is nothing that my analysis has shown that makes the plan flawed in anyway, or that it can not be continued to be used with great success. I just wanted to see if there is anything else which might fit neatly with my attitude of caution and which would work for all.

The biggest problem with staking plans in my opinion is that on the face of it, in many cases, they seem to do the job and often look fantastic and you get a euphoria of why have I never employed this before. Then the old realisation comes back into play. They either don’t work in the long term or (the biggest problem) the stakes that they require you to use simply become far too risky and unmanageable. I will give a clear example of this a little later.

What I was looking for was something that fits the above and which has sensible money management without any huge risks.

The results of my findings:

May I first state that I have not found something that has never been seen before, I have not had a Eureka moment and found something which is a pure gold mine and which I plan to sell for thousands and that I will be telling you that you can not live without. All I am going to tell you is that, in my opinion, I have found something which stands out from all my analysis and which fits very well with my above requirements. You will probably have even heard of it before and seen it before; you might even be using it right now. But in case not I wanted to just bring it to your attention.

Let’s get to some facts…. Firstly I took What To Lay results for the last 12 months and ran them through the software. In doing so I have entered level stakes at £2.00 and where possible compared this as closely as possible with all the other plans. It’s not always possible to do an exact like for like comparison as there are some weird and wonderful plans in the software.

I mentioned earlier that I would give you an example of how dangerous staking plans can be and how they can look great but are really out of control. The plan which shows the greatest profit for the last 12 months with What To Lay results exceeds all others by a long long way. But the problem is the stakes get seriously out of control and are just not comfortable. Not only are they not comfortable, they are not feasible as the size required would just not be available with lay betting. The largest stake required was in excess of £2000. But it did show a very healthy profit.

During the last 12 months a level stakes profit of 126 points was produced.

Many of the plans show that a greater profit than this could have been made. As I have stated, I was looking for a plan that fitted the criteria above. The one which stands out for me and which fits the criteria is not the plan that produced the most profit.

However it does fit very well and as you will see later works for us very nicely.

Taking your starting bank we use a percentage of bank as our initial stake. I chose to use a conservative percentage of just 2%. When a loss occurs we seek to recover the loss but avoid the risks that can be involved in a loss recovery plan and the necessity for large inappropriate stakes. So a stop loss is employed where we simply just accept that at that point we have to accept the loss.

There are several options that we could employ when doing this, such as linking our percentage stake to a cumulative bank and setting our recovery cycle at much greater lengths. I have analysed the plan using many variations of all the settings. My conclusion is that the following is the best and most comfortable for us to operate this plan.

When we incur a loss, we seek to recover that loss over the next 4 bets. At this point you may well recognise this as I stated before, it’s not new or unique.

If we had a loss say of £12.00 we would seek to recover £3 of it on each of the next 4 bets.

It is also best to seek to recover our initial stake.

The best setting is for a cycle of 2 recovery modes. After which we have to accept the loss to keep stakes at a comfortable level and to reduce the chances of going bankrupt to very minimal indeed.

As this plan involves increasing our stakes to recover the loss, it is not possible to give a direct comparison to level stakes; however the results do produce a dramatic increase in our profits.

In fact the plan produces profits in excess of 250% greater than level stakes.

Why I like it so much is that the size of our stakes during a recovery cycle are very comfortable. For example a starting bank of £200 with our 2% of bank stake requires initial bets of £4.00 until a loss occurs. During the last 12 months, the largest stake we would require during any loss recovery cycle would have been just £30.72.

There is the potential to increase the recovery cycle to 3 which does enhance the profits even further, but this does mean that the stake size has to increase, albeit not to uncomfortable levels. In addition there is also the potential to increase profits further by increasing the percentage of bank that you stake to 3 or 4 %. However for me I prefer the settings that I have identified as they limit the risk to a very comfortable level. The bigger the cycles and percentage of bank the greater the risk becomes. I am confident that my levels combined with our strike rate will mean that going bankrupt is extremely unlikely and greater profits will be made.

This is possible due to our strike rate for this period being in excess of 85% and our longest losing sequence being just 3.

For me this plan is superb with our service and the benefits greatly exceed level stakes not to mention the profits. I would highly recommend its use with our service and will be regularly giving updates as to how it performs from now on.

If you would like full details of how to use the plan please contact us in the usual way, or a simple search of the 1 – 4 staking plan on Google will probably suffice but remember there are settings within which need to be set correctly.

I mentioned earlier that I felt this plan fits and works very nicely for us and to emphasise this I can also reveal that I have used the same analysis for our Private Members Club and for the more recent Flat Lay service. Why it works is that the results for both the Private Members Club and Flat Lays are commensurate with the results for the What To Lay service.

Using the plan with the results of the Private Members Club since we launched in November last year, the comparison is as follows:

Level stakes profit for this period is 88 points. Using the staking plan, the results would be 143% greater. From a starting bank of £200 once again, the initial stakes of £4.00 would remain constant until a loss occurred and then the recovery process would kick in. During this period the largest stake required during the recovery period was just £11.52. Very comfortable. In monetary terms this can make a big difference.

Applying the analysis to Flat Lays also produces a  206% greater profit and puts Flat Lays in profit at Betfair Starting Prices.

On the subject of Flat Lays, I feel I must make some comments. It has been extremely disappointing for both myself and especially for Ian who has been producing the selections. One of our members uses the term Murphy’s Law quite often and it certiantely hit us hard with the launch of Flat Lays. I would use something much stronger myself, however these things do happen, after all we are in a very unpredictable business.

Ian has been using his considerable experience for many many years to make a lot of money from producing these selections and he was dumb founded as I am sure many people were when shortly after launch the results started to go very wrong. The answer is quite simple, there was, is, and never will be any explanation for this its just one of those things and that’s the way it happened. It could not have been predicted or foreseen.

The consequences have been quite drastic and gave us quite a problem in that we were faced with a large deficit from the off, one which would be very difficult to recover from. There was nothing that could have been done to avoid this and nothing that could be done to rectify it in the short term. All that was possible was to apply our age old principle that in the long term it will profit as it has done in the past for far too long for it to fail.

To date it looks to be just so, as Ian’s results have been getting back on track and to a level which he expects and has achieved for a long time. The recovery of our initial losses looked very daunting indeed and a major up hill battle, at matched prices, it has turned round and just recently gone into profit and at Betfair SP, the results are just off level at the present time.

Before I move onto the final two topics of this Newsletter, I will just summarise the level stakes/ staking plan question.

Yes, it is possible to make a profit at level stakes we have shown this over time, however what the right staking plan can do is enhance our profits and quite considerably. From now on I will be continuing to use my findings and monitor all our results with the staking plan which we will call enhanced staking. I will give you regular updates on the results and the difference using the enhanced stakes is making. Whether you decide to adopt the enhanced stakes is entirely your decision, but I have no problem in suggesting is as a very creditable alternative to level stakes.

The very last point on this would be that it is quite time consuming and does require close monitoring of the days racing. I know this is not possible for everyone; as such we will be looking to see if we can automate the process and with this in mind will move onto my next topic which will explain more.

Autobetpro, as you will know, we have now been working on Autobetpro for some time and were hoping to bring you a fantastic automated system with striking results that you could just plug in and go.

So where are we at with Autobetpro?

The answer is that we still firmly have this as one of our long term projects and that we have not been entirely happy with a couple of aspects of the software. The first is a developer issue with our people in Thailand who have developed this for us. To cut a long story short the database to run the software is held on their on server and it is the server which has caused some issue. I can not be more specific as they are issue which are way over my head and enter the realms of Rocket Science as far as I am concerned. However, it has taken a while but they have now conducted a complete re-build and re-installation of their server and we are reliably informed that it is now on a much more secure footing and all the previous niggles and problems have been resolved.

This has meat that there has been a delay our progress and we now need a further period to ensure that everything is in place and that there are no further issues.

In addition to this we have been honing the formula within the software with regards to the selections and are continuing to do so to make it as smooth and profitable as possible. I can tell you at this stage we are very encouraged by the results and how it is running now and would like to thank our testers who were looking at it for us. For those that have been testing for us, we will be in touch very soon with an update.

As we have to extend our testing period to confirm the new server is performing as we need, it has given us the opportunity to talk to the developers with a view to building in the enhanced stakes plan as an option. This would mean that the process could be automated and the need to be sat at the computer and make adjustments after each race would no longer a hinderence, the software would be programmed to do it all.

I will keep you updated with our progress, suffice to say that we will have to extend our proposed launch date to ensure that it will be as good as we expect.

I will finish this Newsletter by referring to a comment I made much earlier when I said that I would talk to you about someone who has been making big profits with large stakes. The developers in Thailand working on our Autobetpro software are English guys and they have been involved in developing software to act with the Betfair API for a long time and have made it one of their specialities. Out of the blue they contacted me having met another English man based in Thailand who has for the past 6 years been making considerable amounts of money from Football. To cut a long story short, he has kept records for the last 6 years of all his bets. The problem is that he has been in Thailand for the last three years and thus his first three years records are here in England spread between his brothers house and his own house in the Lake District, so to compile all his records is a bit of a logistical nightmare but we are trying with the help of his brother. To add to this he has only ever used bookmakers via telephone and has never used Betfair or any of the exchanges. So all records are paper based.

What will come of this I have no idea as I am yet to be in possession of the full facts and paperwork, all I can say at this point is that he claims to have been extremely successful and is now operating with large stakes and making large profits.

Why do I tell you this, well he has agreed that he is prepared for this immanent Football season to share his knowledge, past 6 years results and to provide his bets to me.

Sorry I can not be in anyway more specific at this present time. I can only keep you posted if anything is to come of this.

As I said at the start, it has been a while, hopefully now I can keep in touch more often.

Until next time, the very best of luck.

Kind Regards

Neil

 

Newsletter Issue 8

I want to just digress and go off subject for a short while.

The word HYPE is something which we are all aware of and see very often in the racing business.

For the past 18 months, I have been looking into the subject of Internet Marketing as I like to work from home and to me nothing is better than choosing the hours you work.

Now if you think there is a lot of Hype surrounding the racing business, it pails into insignificance if you look at the world of Internet Marketing. Boy! Is there Hype and B S in abundance. So to find something constructive and worthwhile is a major task as you can be had over many many times. There are some major players out there who just want your money and they will tell you anything they can dream of to get it.

I have however found one individual who is the genuine article and I have purchased from him. He knows his onions and produces some excellent material.

By the way if you are wondering what I am talking about, just type “make money online” into Google. That phrase is searched 1000’s of time a day. You will now be presented in the results with a deluge of the Hype I mention.

I received an email, in fact I subscribe to this guy’s Newsletter so I get them regularly. He is shortly launching a new seminar on the subject which I know will be spectacular and full of useful relevant information. He does not say what format the seminar will be in but I imagine it will be online video. He also states that it will be Free.

One thing it is not though, is short, it will be 6 hours long.

So if you are interested in this subject, or looking at ways to make a living online, you will do a lot lot worse than take this seminar.

Once he gives out the full details, I will send the link if anyone is interested, for me I can’t wait it will be fascinating. Or if you prefer send me an email if you want to make sure you get to see the seminar.

Back to business. In the last Newsletter I talked a lot about the enhanced staking method I had unearthed and said that I would send out regular updates as to how it is affecting profits with our services.

The full details I gave last time were to that date so I will send the updates starting from fresh at the 1st August. Or perhaps better put, implementing the enhanced staking from the 1st August.

Suffice to say it’s early in the process and the enhanced staking recovery has not been required for the Private Members Club or Flat Lays.

These both have a 100% record so far in August and Flat Lays has really turned around after the poor run Murphy threw at us at the start. We have not had a losing bet in three weeks and we are currently on a run of 19 straight wins. That’s probably just woken Murphy up again.

Enhanced staking has kicked in for What To Lay as we have hit a couple of losing bets so far this month. Such that the plan has just entered the second cycle so it waits to be seen how it will affect the profits. It is possible that we will have to accept the losses here but we are confident that results will be good enough to show its benefits.

I will update again soon.

Talking Thai. I received a large brown envelope in the post last Friday stuffed with statements from the likes of William Hill, Stan James and so on. They were the statements from the chap in Thailand who makes big money on Football. His brother here in the UK kindly dug them out and sent them for my perusal.

He certinately is making big money with Football, but sadly I fear it’s not for many or for the faint hearted. Looking at his activities, he is simply placing large stakes on long odds on shots. The likes of Manchester United to beat Middlesbrough at 1 – 6 last season as an example. The majority of his bets are of this ilk although he does have some doubles and accumulators. There is little point that I can see in taking him up on his offer to send me his bets as they can be pretty much found every week quite simply. There is a system on the Internet which uses similar Football bets backing the top three teams in the league and laying the bottom three. Using a 3 step recovery plan this can work quite well but you do have to be comfortable with long odds on.

There is also a guy in the States who has a service providing Baseball and Basketball bets in a similar vein using an ABC bet plan which gives him a success rate of 97%. There is serious money to be made but I would suggest that you need serious money from the start in order to make it.

However, if you like the adage large Oak trees start as very small acorns then it could work for you just as our one a day project does.

Until next time.

Kind Regards

Neil