Sport - Betting

The betting mind:

I do like having a little wager on the horses, dog's and the football as well as the lottery, but I never lay out alot because I don't believe in heavy betting and trying to fight the bookies profits when at the end of the day you could lose more than you've layed out. On saturday's I would lay out £2 on the football coupon and choose up to either 7 to 8 teams to win, lose or draw and then I would look at the horses in the paper and do a £2 scoop 6, and with my £1 line on the lotto hotpicks all it costs me is a fiver. That's what I call sensible and reasonable betting, don't give the bookies to much to chase, the less you lay out the less the bookies will get.

I will hold my hands up and admit in the past i've done some rediculous and stupid bets which has cost me dearly, even I can't deny that. I have learned from my mistakes and thought back carefully to how much i've layed out in the past and i've said to myself 'these bookies ain't getting alot out of me now'. I once did start putting a fiver on one dog, a tenner on a horses and gradually rised from £20 to £50, i was totally stupid. We all think we can walk into a betting shop with as little as £10 and come out making a fortune, but has i've found out it doen't quite work like that, only if you were really lucky.

I've had some very good winners and made a tidy profit when only spending out between 5 to £10, its much better to lose a little then loss a lot because you don't get much enjoyment out of losing heavy. I once back a horse because of the name and my dirty mind, it was called 'banana groove' and it came in at 33-1 for a £3 bet, that made me a big profit of £102. Sometimes its better to do only a small bet and make possibly a fair profit, and sometimes if I only get back £15 and i've only layed out £5 at least i've made a £10 profit, it may not be much but it's £10 more then you had before (it's what I call small mercies).

That's why when the Grand National comes around every year I only tend to lay out just over a fiver on the horses and still do my £2 football bet and the £1 on the hotpicks. I walked in a betting shop one day with £50 and lost it on two dog races (£25 a race) thats why ever since then I've never layed out big. I go to Romford dogs once ever couple of months and I see people over there laying out £200 in every race and I stand there thinking 'they must have loads of money to throw away'. Honesty, when I'm over there I only seem to lay out £1 every race only choosen one dog, there's only five others to beat so you have a 1 in 6 chance of winning thats better then a 20 horse race. Even if I don't get any winners i've still enjoyed myself, its a great night and I haven't lost a fortune.

During the week I only have a £2 bet on a midweek football coupon and on wednesday's £1 on the hotpicks. I don't really bother with the horses during the week only if it was a special week like Cheltenham and then I would only lay out 50p's on some outsiders. In a 7 day regular week my bets would only cost me £8 for the midweek and weekend together, that ain't bad at all. They always say bet responsibly and I ain't going to give the bookies a chance to rob me blind, so that's why I never lay out alot on bets now...

The Horses:

When betting on the horses I always look at the form and read the write-up carefully, it helps when trying to find out whether the weight and trip suits and the ground is good enough for it to stand any kind of a leading chance. I find its always helpful to follow certain jockeys and whether they've been in form of late, someone like Ruby Walsh is always one to watch. I love to hear what horses jump well, especially when i've read the write-up on their last race and it says 'rallied home by 6 lengths' this always seems to catch my eye. I don't always go on the form though, sometimes I would pick a certain horse out because I like the name of it, 5 times of 10 it would come in and win.

As I've had a glorious 10 years on the Grand National winning five and placing five times, I feel sometimes its down to luck and picking the right horse on the day, if your lucks in your lucks in. I honestly don't have a clue who's running in this years Grand National and I don't really think I could keep up my record every year because it gets harder and harder and more confusing to pick them out.

I used to do a lucky 15 bet which only costs £1.50 and the most i've got before is three winners out of 4 with some low prices, it didn't make much of a profit their. If you do get 4 out of 4 in a lucky 15 with high prices you can really win a fair bit of money (if you have a 5-2, 3-1, 10-1, and a 9-4 winner it can come up to hundreds of pounds). You can also do a lucky 31 or lucky 63 bet as well (I'm not sure how much it costs now because it goes up as so many bets), but this means you will have to get 5 or 6 winners instead which I don't really try myself, but I should because you never know...

The bets I use to love doing on the horses were pound win pound win double and if you get two decent prices you make a bit of a high profit. But, this means both horses will have to win in order to get anything and if you lay out a pound it will cost you three. Some people I find go a little crazy with this bet by laying out as much as 60 to £120 for just two horses and they pick to outsiders such as two 20-1 shots, its a chance I know but its completely stupid to lay out such alot of money for one bet.

I do enjoy the buzz and the excitement of seeing my horse challenging for the winning postion and seeing it charging and romping home makes me feel adrenaline pumping inside me. Alot of punters including me shoot out 'Come On' to whatever the horse is called and that gets me going and over excited about betting and watching the horses. There's a limit of how much I spend on each race, these are races I only bet on at big events like Cheltenham and The Grand National.

The Dogs:

I used to bet alot on the dogs and used to lay out a fair bit, but now I don't bet on them as I often did because I used to lose alot of money. I was so stupid to lay out so much on just a six runner race around the track, occassionly i'd win but alot of times I moreless gave it away to the bookies. I found It's just not worth putting loads of money on one dog and if it gets beaten that's a fair bit to lose. The most I put on one dog was £30, stupid eh! and it ran it stone last, it didn't even get out of the traps and I regretted it even since.

Like I mentioned with Romford dogs, its a splendid night out but can be a very dear one too, by the time you buy something to eat and something to drink and not forgetting the entrance fee. That's why ever since I started losing heavy on the dogs I have been rather sensible with my money and tried not to bet so much on each race (£1 a race).

When I'm in the betting I seem to always glance up at the screen with the next dog race just about to start and i'm not always sure whether to have a crafty little punt or not. So, I don't seem to bother much with them now, it might be because I prefer to have a bet on the football coupon instead. There are fore-cast and tri-cast bets you can do on the dogs where you have to get first and second or first, second and third, but I don't always bother to try this.

The Football:

The football coupon bet is the most common bet I do every week and my favourite type of bet I love to do. I fill out a coupon of up to 7 to 8 teams and just wait to see whether they come up or not. The football coupon is the one I mostly win on as it can come up to quite a bit of money depending on the odds of the teams you've chosen and how much you lay out. The most I've won on the coupon in one fold was £336 and that was for a £2 stake, luckly I won it 5 days before my 23rd birthday, now that was some birthday present!

I have won £105 and £84 there on many different occassions, so I don't do that bad on the football, until recently. It has been a while though since I picked up anything big as now the results seem to being going all over the show. Its seem now I do my 7 to 8 fold and theres always one that mucks me up, its so uncanny that I seem to get 7 out of 8 all the time, as if there trying to fix one result on each. But some weeks the results just go crazy and often enough I've had 5 out of 8, but mostly it's one I always get wrong for say, over a couple of hundreds of pounds.

I don't really know how they can justify the prices they put down for every team, you could have the home team at 8-11 on and the away at 3-1 and what happens, it could up has a draw, as the saying goes 'football is on the day'. I remember betting on one European team at 1-7 on and the bloody away team won the match 3-2, that's how twisted these results are going at the moment. I still enjoy betting on the football even if my fold goes down or not, to me its a bit of interest and excitement and you have to make your own entertainment these days.

The Lottery:

Like I, said every Wednesday and Saturday I always do a £1 line on the hotpicks and choose 4 numbers to match. It's always the same numbers I pick because I believe one week they will soon come up, this is worth £7,000. I used to do pick 3 match 3 and lay out for 4 different lines with different numbers which would of gave me £450 if one of them would of come up, but I got fed up with laying so much out on all different bets so I didn't to cut it down to £1 for 4 numbers. Even if the £7,000 did come up one day at least I wont be laying out up to that amount to get it, so I won't be losing alot every week.

The Lotto hotpicks gives me another bit of interest, because if that does come up soon (£7,000) it will change a few things for me for now. I love that excitement of checking the results and seeing how close i'm getting, i've always been kinda good with numbers in many different ways. It's like cracking a code I'm almost a number out each time so i'm close but still need to find that extra digit, so I'll keep trying, I never give up. It seems even on the lotto they seem to give you the first 2 or 3 numbers and then the other just doesn't want to come out, again its all pot luck.

One time I did pick 3 and match 3 and I thought ,yeh, I've just won £450, I was well chuffed until I got to the counter of the newsagent where I'd place the numbers. I put my ticket on the counter thinking 'oh, i'm going walk out of here with £450' I'd never been happier, until I found out something I didn't know before. That's right! one of my numbers feel on the bonus ball and I didn't know at the time that the bonus ball does not count, I was mortified I couldn't bring myself around the shock. The lady behind me in the queue kept saying the bonus doesn't count and I was like 'are they taking the p*** or what' turns out it was true. At the time I was on the jobcentre and weren't getting a great deal of money so to me that was alot of money for me not to get, I so needed that money then. So, I walked out of the shop in complete shock and looking like a right berk!

I'm normally quite busy during the week and don't get time to check wednesday's lotto results until the next day, that's the first thing I do when I wake up on thursday morning. I always hope that i'm £7,000 richer, until I glance at the numbers and find out i've got 2 or 3 and then I say 'oh b******s'. There's times where I don't get one number and sometimes it can go on for a couples of weeks, until at least one does come out. I then think to myself 'why do I bother' but like I said I never give up and someday, hopefully very soon, my numders will all slot into place on the same night, just as long as I don't lose the ticket...

All Bets are Off:

Over the years I've had my fair share of big pick ups and my really disappointing moments where i'd thought I've won or got close, but just haven't quite. I bet for the enjoyment and for the interest, I don't bet for the sake of it, and even though I do want to win big, I would prefer to pick up using very little money. I have learned first hand myself through experiences its just not worth the risk of losing everything for the sake of a big wager, when at the end of it you might just lose anyway. Myself, it hasn't even gone as near or far as me losing everything, but I have known some close people who have lost their house through addictive gambling.

One thing that does annoy me now in betting shops and that's them bloody slot machines, I could never win an arguement on those things so I just keep well clear. Sometimes on roulette machines you could start off winning the first couple of spins, (proberly because they let you) and then after when you become so involved with it, you tend to start losing every other spin until you're out of pocket. The fruit machinces I don't even bother with or the virtual games that are on it, they are just catch pennies in my opinion.

Another thing I don't go alot on and that is the virtual horse and dog racing, which are all down by computers, its hard enough to win on the real thing as it is. I did once though glance up at one race as I was leaving the shop to go home, I stood there and picked out this horse on the virtual horse racing called 'Go Home'. I didn't back it and what happened, because I was leaving the shop after that race it came in at 33-1, so if I wouldn't stuck £1 on it I would of came out with £34 extra. That was typical, if I would of put some money on it I bet it would of lost, beings I didn't it came in and one, that has a habit of doing that to me.

I say, you have to draw the line somewhere and if I know i'm starting to lose heavy I come out the betting and say 'that's enough now, today is just not my day' so I come back on a day where i've got the money and i'm financually stable. Another little tip, don't always go with what everyone else or the tipsters say, do your own fancy and try not to get too roped into the gambling game. When they say sometings got a chance of winning, find out carefully about it first and make up your own mind, their may just be on that could might think could beat it (whether its against a football team, horses or dogs). Another thing, once you've picked that selection its not always wise to change your mind, i've done that so many times, gone off a horse and decided to go with another one and then finding out that the one I picked first gradually comes in and wins.

Everyone has their ups and downs and some are even luckier then others, others have just got that natural winning formula and some just have that unlucky losing streak. Whatever kind of person you are, lucky gambler or unlucky loser, just keep trying because some day it could happen for you and don't lay out a fortune because its just not worth it. Like I said before, its better to lose a little then to lose alot...Bet Reponsibly!!!

*ThankYou in taking the time reading my review*

GavinWRogers