Greed came in the form of my use of the £50 free bet offer from Bet365 to be used in running during the Manchester City V Manchester United game. I was a bit stumped all day what to use my free bet on, so I decided to watch the game and see if anything jumped out at me during the match, and if not, do something with it at Half Time.

With 30 minutes gone and the price of Over 2.5 goals out to 2/1, I reluctantly backed Over 2.5 goals in the hope that there would be a goal before HT – and so there was as City scored in time added on (the reason I was reluctant to back Overs was due to the fact that both sides were always going to shut up shop whenever the scoreline suited them – and so it proved).

So at this stage, I had got away with not wasting the free bet and was in a nice position to hedge my bet on Betfair and take £50 risk free money regardless of what happened. So what did I do? Well I got a bit sidetracked, missed the first 5 minutes of the 2nd half and decided then that I would wait (hope) for a second goal….. and the rest is history.

So I basically chucked away a free £50, who can afford to do that? I know I certainly can’t.

One thing that using the Over 2.5 goals at the 30 minutes mark did show me though, is that when I come to use all the free bets I have started listing down the left hand side of this page, I may well use this strategy again but in a game much more likely to produce goals.

The system would have worked on tonight’s game, had I not been greedy.

Onto my second foe, roulette style gambling. A week last Sunday I had a silly pound on the draw @ 60 in the Manchester United V Everton game when the score was 3-1, I fancied Everton to give United a run for their money, and so it proved.

I checked back about 10 minutes after I placed the bet to see it was 4-2, I started watching then and was given hope when it went 4-3, there was no point trading out at this point really as it would have been a minimal return, and after all it was only a £1 risk.

Then another Everton goal goes in and it’s now 4-4 and now I am looking to trade out. So I trade out and make around £35, happy days.

So then what happens? Well, not for the first time, I get carried away. All of a sudden it seems like a good idea to start having a silly £1 on all sorts of obscure games which I know nothing about.

Surely one will come in? If I keep going I’ll get one up and get my Man Utd V Everton winnings back? Erm, no one won’t come in.

But not content with that, I also lost the £35 I made on the cricket, and also the £25 I won backing Southampton in the AUQ market last Saturday.

To say I am pissed off with myself at the moment is an understatement.

I had two stand out bets last weekend. I really fancied Coventry to get hammered at Southampton, I was at their previous game against Doncaster and the players looked gone, they were there for the taking for Southampton. The other was a pre match trade on West Brom, they were around 2.18 (when I backed them Friday night) at home against Villa, I could only see the odds for this game going one way.

As it turned out, Southampton came in easy but the West Brom trade lost as they remarkably drifted out to around 2.26 to 2.3, unbelievable really given both teams form. I then ended up laying the draw in that match to try and recoup my pre match loss, another stupid thing to do that resulted in more losses.

My point about last weekend’s bets is that if I had just stuck to my original plan, one would have won and one lost, I won £25 on Southampton and lost £4 on the pre match West Brom trade, so I would have still been well up.

But no, I couldn’t leave it at that. So all in all after indulging in my ‘roulette’ style antics and being greedy with my Bet365 free bet, I have ended up losing out on £145 profit that I should have had. Yes the Man Utd V Everton win was a bit of a lucky bonus I suppose, but the others were not, and I have blown the lot of it so I’m not too happy with yours truly at the moment.

There has been a lot of things going on in the world of football gambler lately, not least the arrival of a new baby son, so as you can imagine a lot of my spare time has been taken up lately.

On top of all that, I have been dedicating a lot of my time to finding ways of building myself a decent sized Betting Bank. Due to the differing amount of ways I have found to create risk free money to achieve this aim, I have decided to create a new blog, Betfree247, which is dedicated to making risk free money. So all in all, this has meant I haven’t had too much chance to update this blog.

I have also spent a few weeks evaluating where my trading has been going wrong and have had a good think about what direction I want my trading to go in. I also have done a bit of thinking about my discipline and whether it is as bad as I think it is, or not? As the case maybe.

I have stopped pissing around with different trading methods and am concentrating mainly on trading the Correct Score markets now. Form time to time I do back or lay teams on instinct, or do overs in the goals markets, but I am mainly trying to concentrate on the Correct Scores, paying particular attention to price movements pre kick off.

I used to trade Correct Scores a lot when I came back from a self imposed gambling abstention and started using Betfair again about two and a half years back.

When I restarted in late 2009 I was mainly trading Correct Scores, I restarted with just a tenner, but on numerous occasions I had my account up over £300. What generally happened was whenever I got to over a hundred pounds in my account, I would become more aggressive with my trading, I would go for it more and take more risks.

I could then go on a winning streak and get up to £200 to £300, before losing it all again and being down at £80 – £90 before I knew it.

Whenever I dropped below £100 though, a different more cautious mentality kicked in. I would be far more measured and disciplined with my bet selections and amounts, I needed to get back above that £100 mark, that seemed to be my safety net. This was crucial and I would ensure that I did do it.

I’ve eventually realised (give that man a round of applause) that this is the mentality that I need to apply all the time, not just when I’m in a spot of bother. Along with a good staking plan, surely this can work?

In the past I had no staking plan, for months I thought my previous methods failed due to bad match selection and poor discipline. I have now realised that yes I did have poor discipline, but if I could turn £10 into £300 something must have worked, so maybe the reason why I failed was more down to no real staking plan and obviously bad discipline.

The bad discipline wasn’t just limited to bad bet selections. It has since escalated to me throwing my whole bank in after a losing streak. By this I mean, that if I was on a losing streak and was 40%-50% of my betting bank down one weekend, I would chuck the remainder of my betting bank at a bet (usually a badly chosen bet) in a desperate attempt to win all my losses back in one hit.

Sometimes this would work, but usually it ended in disaster and meant me having to replenish my account time and time again.

I seem to have got over this now, it is months since I last done this. I hope the long term philosophy I have been drilling into myself lately will help prevent me from doing this again moving forward.

I am now giving my methods another go, yes, I am to a certain extent experimenting, but I am going to stick with these methods now and along with my staking plan – and hopefully good discipline – give it a real crack.

For too long now I would give something a go for a weekend, chuck a load of money at it, fail, and give up. I read a tweet from a professional gambler a few weeks back that said that most methods work if they are persisted with and perfected, the problem is that most gamblers/traders don’t persist with them after a couple of losses.

Like I wrote earlier, I have had a while to take a step back and think about things. I am now refreshed and have already embarked on my new staking plan as off 5th March 2012, the date my son was born.

This is the direction I am going in now, and I am determined to stick to it.

21/02/12 Blackpool v West Ham – Won £1.81
25/02/12 QPR V Fulham – Lost £1.60
25/02/12 Lyon V PSG – Won £5.53

Won £5.74

The two wins were actually topsy turvy affairs, for the Blackpool/West Ham game I had to lay the Correct Score late on to get the win, and in the Lyon/PSG game I had to lay the next goal market as AUQ was long gone with Lyon going 4-2 up early in the 2nd half.

I actually made a bit of a balls up of the Lyon game, I went out at 0-1 wrongly thinking it would be a tight affair that would stay at that score, or maybe 1-1 at worst. I was fairly shocked when I arrived at my destination and checked my phone to see it was 3-1 to Lyon and that it was still in the 1st half.

Had I been doing what I should have been I would have won more as I would have started laying the score (again – having already layed 0-0) at 2-1, as this score arrived too early in the match to sit on it. But due to me never learning my lesson and taking things for granted by going out instead of sitting at my PC, I ended up missing out on that particular Correct Score lay.

The first (and only goal) arrived early in the QPR V Fulham game and I hadn’t managed to get a 0-0 lay matched, so on I went to laying 0-1. As soon as QPR had a man sent off, I abandoned my 0-1 lay for a minimal loss as I could see the game staying at that score, and so it proved. I didn’t see Fulham chasing a second, and QPR struggle to score.

Pre match I had both teams down as a one goal team, maybe a 1-0 either way or a 1-1, so as soon as the first goal went in it was pretty much curtains for the trade, even without the sending off. A moderate loss in the end.

14/02/12 Coventry v Leeds – Won £2.38
15/02/12 AC Milan V Aresenal – Lost £10.80
15/02/12 Ayr v Falkirk – Won £2.02
15/02/12 The Strongest v Santos – Won £2.19
16/02/12 Trabzonspor v PSV – Lost £2.52
16/02/12 Porto v Man City – Won £1.90
16/02/12 Steaua Bucharest v Twente – Won £2.14
17/02/12 Hoffenheim v Mainz – Won £1.09
17/02/12 Fiorentina v Napoli – Won 47p
17/02/12 Reading v Burnley – Won £1.34
18/02/12 Chelsea v Birmingham – Won 55p
18/02/12 Nurnberg v FC Koln – Won £3.18
18/02/12 Kaiserslautern v Mgladbach – Lost £1.00
18/02/12 H Berlin v Dortmund – Won £2.09
18/02/12 Sunderland v Arsenal – Won £1.38
18/02/12 Tigres v Atlas – Lost £7.50
19/02/12 Aberdeen v St Johnstone – Lost £7.45
19/02/12 Cesena v AC Milan – Won £5.43
19/02/12 Gijon v Atl Madrid – Won £2.37
19/02/12 Levante v Rayo Vallecano – Won 78p
19/02/12 Paris St-G v Montpellier – Won £3.70

Won £3.74 overall.

A profit of just £3.74 from 21 games traded isn’t exactly value for money and when you take into consideration the amount of time invested, last weeks effort resulted in a very poor return.

There is a lot of games where I have only won around £1, with three games only seeing a return in pennies. Without analysing them in too much detail, I know that I was over cautious in a lot of them. For example I traded out of Chelsea V Birmingham at 0-1, when the smart money was saying an equaliser was fairly likely.

As a result of this over cautious approach on some of the games, I struggled to absorb the losses. In the cases of the Tigres v Atlas (lost £7.50) and Aberdeen v St Johnstone (lost £7.45) matches, I wasn’t over cautious and they both went and bloody drew 0-0, costing me.

There is an obvious inconsistency there which needs looking at with regard to which matches I am over cautious in. Should I trade in a cautious way in all matches, or none at all? If I’m going to accept £7.50 reds, then I need to be winning more green, when I do win.

Small £1.00 wins aren’t going to be sustainable against £7.50 losses in the long run, it needs to be at least a 1/3 ratio (£2.50 wins against £7.50 losses) or something around that mark in the long run. ie £2.50 wins against £7.50 losses, with a 1 loss in every 5 or more matches traded, rate – which I believe is possible.

Of last weeks games, I lost 5 out of 21, which is a better than a 1/4 loss/win ratio. Work that out on a loss rate of £7.50 to a win rate of £2.50 and the profits would be greater than what I just achieved.

Onto the games themselves and of the losses there was one match in particular which had mitigating circumstances. If I had a red card procedure in place I would have reduced my red in this one match, but at the same time I don’t want to apply a hard and fast rule with no flexibility – to games in which a red card occurs.

For example in the Tigres match, the market supported a home goal, Tigres then had a man sent off in the 1st half and the market totally changed its approach and seemed to suggest Tigres would be happy with a 0-0. There was a point when I could have got out for a loss of around £2.00, so in hindsight I should have just cut my losses. Given the unheeded market warnings, this match has to go down as a bad judgement call from myself.

But going back to my original dilemma, and would a rule with no flexibility have worked there? It may well have done. But at the same time, if that had been a red card for the opposition (away team) then the market would surely have further supported a goal for the home team (who were the favourites going into the match), which would suggest that having a rule that I get out if there is a red card would be stupid.

Taking that on again, say a red card came at 0-0 in the 75th minute of a game and I still had a smallish red on 0-0 and a bit of green on any other score, would it be worth trading out for an all round loss at this stage? As any side in that position would just put all 10 men behind the ball at this stage.

This is why I think I’m correct to be flexible when it comes to red cards, I just need to judge the game better in future and weigh up the options in a more balanced way.

Going back to the Chelsea V Birmingham game and my judgement was in question there as well. At 0-1, it was stupid really to take my green and not lay 0-1 when another goal was almost assured. Not only did I not lay 0-1, I also closed out my position to leave a profit of just 55p, when I was green to around just under £2.00 at the time of it going 0-1.

Not my greatest trade I have to say, but I was experimenting with the over cautious approach at the time. I believe that if I was to do it that way in the long run, every game would have to be treated the same way as the margins of error would be so small. Anyway, I don’t think that will be a route I will be persisting with much more.

I have though almost settled on a lay ratio between the different score lays, but it is still in the final stages of being tightened up. The problem I have though is that I realistically need a trade to start going wrong to see how the situation can be rectified, that is why I am persisting with very low stakes at the moment that should see a maximum loss of £10.00 on any given game.

It’s the 0-0 loss that is the bigger more common problem though and that is where I really need to tighten up my trading technique.

All day long I had it in my head that Peterborough were absolutely certain to get nothing against Cardiff tonight. They were priced up at 6 to 6.2 on Betfair, but I thought as this is the Championship where anything can happen, are they a touch too long to lay?

So what did I do? I went and threw a few 0-0 lays in for easy money and turned it into a multiple. And what happened? Yes, a 0-0 in the Birmingham V Hull cost me the whole bet.

I ask myself, why the hell did I do that? Why do I keep doing these stupid things?

Peterborough not to win was basically a 1/5 shot, I hate backing at odds that short, so that is where the problem arises. If I had just done that bet and the ‘Posh’ had sneaked a 1-0 win, I would be kicking myself just as hard and asking myself why I was backing at such short odds.

I often find myself facing this sort of conundrum, where I strongly fancy something, but short odds put me off. But if it is a so called banker (I am aware nothing is certain), then surely it’s worth doing, is it not?

Is a 1/5 banker I’m 99% certain off, a worse bet or worse value than an even money shot that I’m about 75% certain off, but carries more risk?

This is the kind of situation that I really seem to struggle with. When does a short price become too short? And what is value?

If for example the New Zealand rugby team were 1/5 to beat Italy in New Zealand, I would probably be rubbing my hands with glee and thinking this is buying money, 1/5 wouldn’t be too short then, would it? I’d snap that up in an instant, surely any gambler worth his salt would also do so?

I think I may be answering my own question as I write this!

It should have been better and would have been had I not taken my eye off the ball in the Wolves V West Brom game, as a result of this I only ended up with a scratch trade from what should have been a comfortable win. That match aside, I only traded 4 others and this is how they ended up for the week 06/02/12 – 12/02/12…..

08/02/12 Middlesbrough v Sunderland – Won 95p
11/02/12 Betis v Ath Bilbao – Won £2.37
12/02/12 Aston Villa v Man City – Won £4.18
12.02/12 FC Koln v Hamburg – Won £6.55

I traded Middlesbrough V Sunderland to the book, and as a result I had rather annoyingly reduced my liabilities before Sunderland took the lead in a game I was certain there was going to be goals in. The result of this was to have an impact on my weekends trades.

In the Betis game I covered my position late on due to a sending off and the away team parking the bus, so that reduced my winnings after the late deciding goal.

The other two games also were decided by late goals, very late in the Koln/Hamburg match. After what happened with Sunderland, I decided to take the position in some games that I am just going to take my chances on it not ending 0-0 and leave most of my liability (up to a maximum of £20), I thought this could be slightly risking with Villa V Man City, but I did have a feeling City would edge it late on with a 0-1 or 0-2 scoreline – and so it proved.

I also couldn’t see Koln V Hamburg finishing 0-0, so I was very relieved to see a last gasp winner go in for the visitors, a 0-0 there would have wiped out the whole week’s winnings again.

I have decided to be a bit more gung-ho with this system now, this is down to the fact that I have put a maximum loss amount on all trades, and also down to the fact that in being too cautious in general I am costing myself winnings.

This change should result in more losses I suppose, but also bigger wins when 0-0 lays come in. Match selection will obviously be key, but I am prepared too run with this for a while and see where it gets me. Again like last week, it will be done on a limited amount of matches.

To qualify all I need to do is have a £50 bet pre kick off with Bet365, which I’ll lay on Betfair to break even (it will probably result in a small loss of around £1 to £2).

Then I will do the in running free bet, probably at half time so the price can’t change too much due to a goal or sending off, etc. After I have done the in-running free bet, I’ll partially lay it on Betfair to ensure a profit.

The way I will do it will see a guaranteed profit, working on a theory that the free bet is an even money shot, I’ll guarantee a profit of around £25, as I would only partially lay the bet on Betfair.

I would stand to win £50 from Bet365 if the bet wins, but my lay on Betfair would only be for £25 of the even money shot, ensuring a profit of £25 no matter what happens.

Bet365 have done a couple of these offers recently. I don’t use them myself these days, but it is always worth having an account for these sort of offers, and the Bonus Bagging service certainly comes in handy for alerting me to the offers.

Results for week 29th Jan -5th Feb….

31/01/12 Everton V Manchester City – Won 63p
01/02/12 Sunderland V Norwich – Lost £9.75
01/02/12 Fulham V West Brom – Won 78p
01/02/12 Mirassol v Paulista – Lost £3.50
05/02/12 Chelsea v Man Utd – Won £3.32
05/02/12 Zaragoza v Rayo Vallecano – Won £4.27

The obvious spanner in the works is the Sunderland V Norwich game. I traded this pretty much by the book and took action when it went 2-0 fairly early on. When it went 3-0 early(ish) in the second half I managed to get myself in a position that seen me half my starting liabilities whether it finished 3-0 (as it did) or Sunderland went on to score a 4th.

On the flip side I was quids in if Norwich had managed a goal, on another night I may well have ended up with a nice win here.

The other loss in the Mirassol v Paulista game was down to me following the market in the belief that Mirassol would score again. I could have traded out at half time for scratch, but I followed the market and stayed in waiting for the equaliser – which ultimately didn’t come.

Thursday and Friday didn’t present any trading opportunities for the system, while I also didn’t use it on Saturday as I just did a bit of good old fashioned gambling in a back to basics fashion.

Onto Sunday and I got out of the Chelsea trade at 1-0, thankfully. And I also did exactly the same in the Zaragoza match.

As a result of a rethink of late I don’t intend to be trading using this system all the time any more, I’m going to be far more selective with my ASP match selections and just use it more sparingly going forward. The main reason for this is because I intend to go back to basics a bit more with my trading and not over complicate things.

Now I check my account almost daily, for example there is an offer on this weekend to play Iron Man 2, and if your £5 losses, Hill’s will give you it back.

And it’s not just weekends that you get these offers either, only last week there was an offer on for Australia day, they seem to be popping up all the time.

See below for an example of where to find it on your login homepage page (I’ve seen tweets from people who struggle to see where they are), this screenshot shows you where to look for the offers… they are usually about half way down on the right hand side….. and they are often emailed to you, just click on ‘My Account’ and the emails are in the ‘Messages’ section.

I won just under £5 playing the ‘Iron Man 2′ offer tonight, I’m obviously not going to retire on that, but I almost doubled my money and it was risk free. I can’t stress how worthwhile these offers are. I’ve only won about £15-£20 overall so far, but it’s all risk free. Imagine you did drop a big win on one of these offers…

One final footnote about these offers, always make a note of the offer you played through and the day you played it. I have noticed that the money hasn’t always been returned to my account after I have lost, on every occasion I have contacted Hills through their live support and on every occasion I have been credited with the money immediately. I’m not sure how I might have got on had I not had the information available though, so it’s always worthwhile to keep a record. Good luck…

More information on Pre Match Trading can be found here.