NEARLY HOME AND DRY

Wednesday 28th June 2006

It's World Cup final day and I've spent the morning clearing up my accounts and withdrawing the proceeds that we made during the programme.

So this will be the last but one article of the diary as there are still a couple of bets to be settled after the final whistle. Also, in the final article that I will be writing next week, I will be outlining details of how I can help you do exactly what I have done here, when the football season starts. More on that later though.

Since the World Cup quarter-finals, I have placed a variety of bets with varying degrees of success. You'll remember that the last time I wrote, we were showing a profit of £264.97 and the secret at this stage was to play it safe and keep the profit intact.

The first thing I did was to use up the free bets that were left in the accounts and I did this on the Germany v Argentina quarter-final by placing £25 with Skybet on Germany at 17/10, £25 on Argentina at 13/8 with Stan James and £20 on the draw with Victor Chandler at 2/1. The draw came in and I got £40 winnings from £75 free bets, which is a good return.

That left me with just the free £40 Totesport bet and I cashed this in on the England v Portugal quarter-final. I had to use some of my own money to do it but it worked reasonably well. I used the free £40 Totesport bet on England at 6/5, backed the draw with Total Bet at 85/40 with £20 and Portugal with Sporting Odds at 57/20 with Sporting Odds. Again the draw came in and I collected £62.50, which equates to my £40 cash back and just over half of the free £40 Totesport bet.

With opportunities for World Cup betting now running out, I switched attention to Wimbledon and tried an experimental bet. There were eight men's singles matches on Monday and I worked that if I backed the favourites of every match with a tenner each, I would make profit if six of them came in. Unfortunately only five of them did and I got back £63.13 for my £80 outlay. But I clawed back £2 on a bet-in-play with Sporting Odds on Federer to win the first set of his game that day, which he duly did.

I got the feel for bet-in-play and when Italy and Germany clashed in the semi-final, I kept a close eye on the odds and noticed that they were being updated on major incidents and every five minutes. So just before 85 minutes and with the score at 0-0, I placed £42 on the draw at 1/7. Literaly 20 seconds later, the odds moved to 1/10 and I amde £5.17 at the final whistle.

Then I got greedy. With twenty-five minutes of extra-tiem played, I was so sure that the game was going to penalties and that Germany would win the shootout that I put £10 on Germany to qualify @ 8/11. Then Italy went and scored twice in the last minute and I ended up £4.83 down instead of £5.17 up. Always get out when you are on top!

And that brings us nicely up to tonight's final and the one outstanding bet that we have. Once again, I have opened up a new account and it's with Betclick who are offering to match your first bet up to the value of £20. You get your stake back as well.

I've backed the draw with Betclick with £20 at 2/1 and that has been matched. I've also layed the draw with Betfair with £42.40 at 2.88 (I needed £79.72 in the account to cover this and if it is a draw, I will win £120. If it isn't, I will win £122.11 and I laid out £99.72 so I will make a minimum of £20.18, whatever happens tonight.

So here's how we stand up to now. You'll notice another unsettled bet in there with Betdaq. That is also on tonight's World Cup final because originally, I was going to lay the draw with them but I messed it up and ended up backing it instead. So I layed that bet to nullify so everything in that column will come back later tonight, as well as the rest of the money in the unsettled column.

Since the programe started on 6th June, we have made a profit of £322.69 when you take the above into account and I'm not including the guaranteed £20 profit on the final in that. I told my colleague Chris Bean that the aim of this programme was to make £300-£350, so I am absolutely delighted with the outcome and as mentioned earlier, when the football season starts again, I can do exactly the same for you. You'll be hearing about it...

FIRM DEPOSIT UNSETTLED BETS WINNINGS (Cashed Out) IN ACCOUNT FREE BETS
888 221.78   217.44 59.03  
LadbrokesPoker 55.93   97.26   10.00
Total Bet 145.00   102.50    
Paddy Power 50.00   34.55    
Bet365 70.00   96.00    
Victor Chandler 70.00   146.50    
Betfred 75.00   250.00 22.00  
Stan James 75.00   10.71    
Skybet 55.00   75.51    
Coral 30.00   41.44    
UK Betting 90.00   74.60    
William Hill 30.00   27.17    
Betfair 115.00 79.80 127.46 0.07  
Sporting Odds 103.00     47.25  
Totesport 40.00        
Betdaq 81.22 79.71      
Betclick 20.00 40.00      
           
TOTAL 1326.93 199.51 1301.14 128.35 10.00

Until next time.

Steve

Feel free to email me if you have any questions about anything I've covered on this page...

BACK TO DIARY INDEX

BACK TO WORLD CUP INDEX PAGE