Comply or Die wins the Grand National

After my disappointing selections in last years Grand National I had low expectations of receiving any returns on this years bets. However you have to speculate to accumulate so wasting no time studying the form like last year I instead picked Comply or Die and Slim Pickings purely based on the fact I liked their names and backed each with a £2 bet.

Slim Pickings at odds of 13 came in a respectable fourth but Comply or Die that I backed at odds of 11.5 was heavily backed in the hours prior to the race to joint favourite. All this money going in Comply or Die’s direction proved a shrewd investment for punters as he was able to hold off a strong challenge by King Johns Castle to win the Grand National by four lengths. Finally I had picked the right horse and my ‘luck’ was rewarded with an £18.25 profit.

Free £10 for playing PaddyPower games

I received an email from PaddyPower last week offering me a free £10 to play with on their games site simply for clicking a link in there email. Seemed too good an opportunity to turn down so I gave Blackjack a go.

In total I played 11 games at a £1 a go, winning 4 and losing 7 (I’m clearly not that good at the game!). This left me with £6.40 in my account which I tried to withdraw as a little bonus for my MillionaireAdventure pot. Unfortunately this is where the real games begun…

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My first steps into Matched Betting

Having lost so many of my recent bets I was determined to start recovering my losses from the bookies and having heard how much some people were making through a technique known as Matched Betting I knew I had to have a go.

The basic idea of matched betting is to sign-up for a new betting account with an online bookmaker that is offering a free bet as an incentive to attract new customers. This free bet offer will normally require you to bet through a qualifying stake before you receive the free bet, or in other words risk your own money first!

However there is a way of offsetting your liability by laying on the same result with a betting exchange, which is basically betting against the outcome you risked your own money on with the online bookmaker. This effectively cancels out your original bet and provides a risk free way of qualifying for the free bet offer. If you have never come across this idea then it can be very confusing but it should make more sense as I go through the bets I placed.

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My betting losses continue

I took advantage of a free £5 matched bet offer from Betfair as part their Cheltenham festival coverage. Knowing very little about horses as proved by my experience at Ascot last year I chose to bet on football instead.

I bet £5 of my own money against Portsmouth winning the FA Cup as I believe they have a tough draw against West Brom and within 24 hours Betfair had credited my account with another £5. I used the free £5 to back both Chelsea and Arsenal to win with £2.50 bets each, winning on Chelsea and losing on Arsenal leaving me with a £1.27 loss. However if Portsmouth fail to lift the cup I’ll receive my original £5 stake back plus £4.75 winnings.

I also had a small bet against Man Utd beating Derby which lost me 66p as United scraped a one nil win. Hopefully my betting form will pick up soon!

‘Only fools rush in’ - and doing so cost me £5

‘Only fools rush in’, ‘if it looks too good to be true it normally is’ and ‘he who is greedy is always in want’ are three sayings I learnt the true meaning of today. As I juggled the ironing, cooking my dinner and watching the football at the same time I tried to add making money to that list by placing a bet on West Brom to qualify as they went 3-1 up.

Unfortunately this was a task too many as in my rush to place the bet I accidentally backed Bristol Rovers to qualify instead of West Brom, oops! With only 20 minutes of the match remaining and little chance of getting back into the game tearing up a £5 note would have been as good an investment at that moment.