PART 1 - THE WORLD CUP

1

In an effort to make life exciting, I'm spending 4 and a half hours a day betting on the World Cup. I started with £20, have added more and now have around £83 from £67 invested from 30 games.

Though good, this situation would be a damn site better if Spain had kept it to 2-1 rather than fluking a penalty and winning 3-1 against Tunisia. That injury time goal cost me £67, but, that's gambling - it’s a fool hardy and rather stupid waste of time, but I enjoy it and in this weeks Sporting Diary I’ll be sharing details of how I’ve been getting on...

2

Good news..

I made £30 of yesterdays £67 back on Germany trouncing Ecuador...
5 bets - 5 wins.

Next up: ENGLAND vs SWEDEN..

England hadn't beaten Sweden for 40 odd years and weren't playing well. Meanwhile Sweden needed something from the game to be sure of qualification and were also under performing…

Half way through the second half with Sweden level and my two goal scorer bets gone to shit, it was clear a draw was on the cards, so I stacked bets against my previous England win prediction and onto the draw.

When England stuck the 2nd away with a few minutes remaining I felt like shit, I was about to take a £10 hit on a result I’d initially favoured and on a team I wanted to win!!!!

Business is however business

COME ON SWEDEN!!

3

So, how can you bet against your own team?

Well, unless you’re in a position to fix games, the key to successful gambling is to treat the whole affair like a business deal.

As in business, it’s essential you don't bet with any sentimentality or preference based on what you’d LIKE or would WANT to happen in a game. You have to focus exclusively on what IS happening and what is most likely to happen.

Frequently you have to bet on the lucky overpaid wankers, not the plucky outsiders...You have to take the stupidly low odds and avoid the exciting bets. Get romantic about it and you'll loose far more than you win..

£108.23 (40% profit).

4

IVORY COAST VS SERBIA

I had £5 on The Elephants to start with and would have got odds of 10 or 11-1 at the very least when Serbia were 2 goals to the good. Instead, I lost the faith and went to cover when the score was at 2-1 with an exact score bet of 2-2. The bet wasn't taken due to it being placed on the nail of the equaliser - I took this as a sign not to bother and settled for my original Ivory Coast win - It paid off..

PORTUGAL VS MEXICO

I missed most of this one and therefore decided not to bet at all. When I came in and saw 2-1, and Mexico being denied a blatant penalty with less than 10 minutes to go, I was sure there’d be no more goals. It was a strong instinct, so I put £100 (all but £8 of my stake money) on -4.5 goals at 1.2 and took home a £19 profit...

This is the first time I've gone all in and it's paid off, which is a bad precedent...

HOLLAND VS ARGENTINA

This was either going to be a high scoring classic or a 0-0, so I bet on both to start with and then moved more heavily onto the 0-0 as the game went on. I would have been fleeced if Holland had taken it 1-0, but that never looked likely..

So, I'm now on £132 off £62 and I feel it possible I've broken the £100 barrier for good...

5

Should have been well in the region of £150/60 today, but I lost concentration in the Italy game and took a £32 hit for no good reason.

Again it was a case of making the prediction right the first time then changing my mind, betting against myself and loosing out....

This can of course happen if you're concentrating fully, but the mistake was not totaling my potential losses correctly and therefore over compensating for my potential loss rather than leveling it.The difference was around £30.

I pulled most of it back in the second set of games involving Brazil, Australia etc and now stand on £130.80. It's pleasing when a bad day is a loss of less than a tenner...

6

This is becoming hard work….

Because they've been playing 2 games concurrently for the last 4 days, I have to concentrate on two games at once and therefore many, many permutations at any one time...

Furthermore, it’s all very well gambling with small amounts of money for fun. If its £2 or £3 a hit, it doesn't feel that important and if you loose, it’s the equivalent of a night down the pub at the very worst

But, thus far I’ve turned £62 into £165.98 By playing the full 90 minutes - most often predicting the goal markets -/+ 1.5 or 2.5 and by playing more conservative than Maggie, and as a result I’m turning over a daily profit more days than not

The problem is I don’t want to loose even a portion of it. You see I have this idea I can get up to £4-500 by the end of the World Cup. It’ll be a challenge unless I make some huge and very risky selections, but I reckon it can be done.

To have any real chance, I need to concentrate 300% each time there is a game and this is making me as anxious as fuck.

I sweat through the last ten or twenty minutes of most games and each time the ball goes near the goal I have A BIG BABY!! If it goes in and I didn’t want it to, or the opposite, I have to reappraise my bets and fast or take a big hit...

So, rather than enjoying the beauty of a multinational festival of football, I’m behaving like your Uncle Tony - Soon I’ll be eating pure meat 4 times a day and yelling at my family down the fucking phone because they've called during a FUCKING SET PIECE ON THE FUCKING EDGE OF THE BOX!!!

Well shit, I bet the starving African children are crying for me
"We think we’ve got it bad?! But look at poor James, he has to watch 3 to 5 hours of football a day to earn 10 or 20 quid Lets send him our rations!!!"
"Yeah save James!!!"

7

So why am I doing this??

Why aren't I working a proper job, painting the house, fixing the wardrobe, or walking in the park looking at the flowers, the hot women and the discarded crisp packets??

I think I'm trying to prove that if you treat gambling on football like Investment banking i.e. If you’re careful and realistic, knowledgeable and connected, unsentimental and blunt, you can make money or at the very least break even. After all, all you're doing is evaluating what a commodity (in this case a football team) is likely to do in the market place (the World Cup).

Sure, you won’t always win, but if you do your homework you will do OK more days than you won't and that will make a steady and safe profit over time.

Time will tell...

Anyway, another £20 in the black today says I’m right…


8

If there’s one life lesson from this, it’s that you should always trust your instincts – even if they are wrong …

Today, I hit the £200 mark after getting 5 out of 6 on the Germany Sweden game. I therefore felt I could take a risk on Mexico. They were under performing as have most of the fancied teams, but I had an instinct they had a good chance of beating Argentina. So when Mexico put the ball in, I was confused as to where to go.

The odds on Argentina were good, but I felt Mexico had it in them to win on penalties and the odds on them were fucking excellent

I went on Mexico and more goals....

The Mexicans were brave and pulled it as far as extra time, but the passion was clearly with the Argentineans. Football means more to them, and passion is everything…..

I had to spend £100 to level my bets and came out, down £25 for the match.

VIVA DIEGO!!!!

£190.90 from £62

9

England Ecuador was fine - I had a punt on Ecuador, but they didn't perform. My mistakes were covered by Beckhams goal...

Next up was the farce that was Portugal vs Holland. Never before have I seen such a combination of puerile playing antics and an incompetent referee. Holland, in particular, seemed to forget they were supposed to be kicking the ball and scoring bloody goals!!!!

Anyway, from the get go, I bet heavily on more than 2 goals and once again the second wasn't forthcoming. I've been caught this way 2 times on the bounce now, and though I pulled some of it back with some late exact score bets, I was too disgusted and distracted, not to mention unsure as to what was happening to pull it all back...

Taken all round, the first four 2nd round matches have been very disappointing - Things can only get better...

Tomorrow, I predict a rollicking high scoring win for Australia against a static Italy, and Switzerland to creep through 1-0

£174.44 from £62

10


5:16 AM - TOTAL
Current mood: good
Category: Sports
£211.90
:+)
:+)

11

Well. You all knew it was coming...

THE BAD DAY!!

Brazil Ghana was OK...I had it as a higher scoring game and therefore stacked on at +2.5. This is of course what happened, but once again I got the fear with about 8 minutes to go and bet on the exact score as 2-0 to cover what looked like a loss. Seconds later the third goal came. I quickly added another covering bet and this together with my other earlier correct selections ensured nothing more than a £7 loss overall...

FRANCE VS SPAIN – THE PAIN

France were struggling and Spain looked to finally be on course for something special in a World Cup Finals, so I went heavily with the Spain win and a low scoring match. I lost every single bet I made - about 12 in all, and my last covering attempt was one of the biggest losses...

I don't like to look, but I think I'm in for the night at around £66.63 (+£4.63)

Of course this had to happen at some point. It's unfeasible to go on a run for 10 or so days steadily stacking up the profits without any serious setbacks. A little less severe would have been nice, but at least I have something left to play with...

I now have a much needed 2 days rest, in which I intend to forget the whole thing and come back refreshed for the quarters. I'm confident I can pull back up to some reasonable level of profit by the end of the tournament. Anything above 15% would be a good.

12

A day to reflect leaves me thinking I should have seen that French win coming, or not so much that, as stuck to a +1.5 or +2.5 goal bet, especially given all the previous 2nd round games except Brazil had been low scoring...

But that's perhaps the flaw with my thinking on this. Yes, if you have the knowledge, you can get more bets right that wrong. However if the ones you get wrong are the ones you stack a lot on, you can take a beating REGARDLESS.

You’ll always make mistakes. If you're lucky they don't cost you every penny you have....

Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but I did realise I'd put £72 in not £62 so I’m
down by about a fiver overall....

This so, like a fool, I’ll return to my vomit with my head held high and today my mind has wandered both onto the 1/4 finals, and onto the Tour De France...

13

Now betting on football might be stupid, but predicting the result of cycle racing is severely fucking foolish. Each stage of a major tour can be won by anyone from 180 or more riders, and once you factor in corruption, unofficial alliances between teams, hidden agendas, drugs, crashes and illness, picking a winner becomes very tough indeed.

For example: On stage 1 of the Tour De France, I bet on 5 people to be in the top 3 including 3 favourites and only got one - Today I didn't bother, yet had I have bet on what I was thinking I’d have got 3....

See what I mean?

Anyway, I badly need a win at the moment and preferably a big one!!! Funds are getting low and it's less than 2 weeks til rent...If I don’t have it, Princess Paola will chop my balls off.

14

Well, who’d have thought the final 4 would be short of a South American team?? Why is it that Germany always do well regardless of the quality of their team? And will England ever win a penalty shoot out??

Basically, I've had a torrid time of it these last few games. I'm now down around £40 on the tournament...Nearly all my initial predictions on the quarters and semis have been wrong and I've been scrambling for cover for more than a week.

One part of me says ‘QUIT YOU FUCKING FOOL!!!! Why didn't you quit when you had 200% profit??’

The other (louder) says ‘It's a phase, Chill out and play the game!! It's not about the winning - It's about the taking part ...’

Well shit, I've only got one request and I'd happily loose all my money in exchange for it - Please don't let Germany win again!! France, Italy, Portugal - Anyone but the fucking hosts ...

15

GERMANY 0 - ITALY 2 (aet)

First of all congratulations to both teams for one of the tournaments finest games. It was full of quality and edge without the bookings, fake falling, penalties and fighting that has tarnished other encounters.

Secondly, FORZA ITALIA!! - 2 beautiful goals taken, with class, when it mattered...

My good news is that after a quite appalling run that started with the pain when France beat Spain, I finally turned in a !!!!PROFIT!!!!!

My only disappointment is that I only made rather conservative pre-kick off bets.
The thing was, I was watching the game in the pub with a large crowd of Italians and was unable to gamble as the game progressed. To torture myself, I made them in my head, and therefore know that had the computer screen been with me, I’d have made a lot more than the £6 I did...

Knowing this might be the case, I was very reluctant to go out at all - but Princess Paola kept bothering me about it until I gave in. I don’t regret it, sharing a winning moment with a bunch of Italians (You know how excited they get), whilst puffing an enormous Cuban cigar in a rather unbelievably German friendly pub?!? was as good a rush as I've had in recent times and far more what the World Cup is about than a steady accumulation of money...

Or is it???...

16

Once again, Portugal played their diving game and this time it didn't pay off...
Neither did my selections. Despite correctly predicting the winner, I lost my one and only bet which was +1.5 goals. Again I was down the pub and not on the job to counter my early prediction.

I can't say I'm bothered, I'll play the tour until Saturday and stake whatever’s left on Italy to win...That's that!!!

17

So, Bleus vs Azzuri in Berlin. But before that, the 3rd place play off, and at last it’s some sustained success.

After winning heavily on Oscar Friere to win the stage of the Tour (17/1) I scored a very pleasing 5 out of 5 bets on the Germany Portugal game which put me at £137.34 (+£7.29)...This left a dilemma: Should I go all in on Italy to win, out of a sense of style as much as anything, or be cautious...

Well fuck it, instead of wasting time thinking about it, I booked a pair of flights to Bergamo, from where, we'll train it to Milan for the final. On the one hand making this last minute adventure is a huge risk in itself - essentially an EXTRA bet of £100 or more each.On the other, if Italy win, we’ll be in place for the mother of all parties..

Anyway, it’s bed time now, so I’ll leave you with the problem
ALL IN OR NOT??