Good spot Sir G. Can't wait for delpiero to come back - it takes bleeding ages to do!

Amended table after week 14:

Curva 146.90
CzechC 134.50
shevvy7 132.20
il ferret 129.70
leadbelly 122.10
Liam 120.55
interbhoy 117.06
sigga 115.30
M_L_V 105.60
Dave 105.19
Saviola 105.00
kthx 102.25
Sir George 100.54
markieboy 98.75
Lilli 92.10
spinoza 90.00
Del Ner 88.50
Gio 81.40
delpiero 79.50
Inter#1 72.50
ivano 70.00
Raj 54.50
mezz 49.00

If, as a collective group, we make a "profit", what shall we do with the "winnings"? Big piss-up?

-------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail from delpiero at Thu, 9 Dec 2004 09:33:50

Hi Myles,

thanks a lot for taking time out to post the slip for me - If you could post a message on the sticky thread to say i'll be withdrawing from the competition i'd appreciate it - My account has been 'suspended' so i doubt i'll be back on any time soon; I suppose the lads will have to sort out another marker for the competition for the immediate future.

Thanks again Myles

Regards
delpiero*


* = replaced his real name with forum name

--------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not sure if delpiero has access to view the forum, depending on whether the moderators have blocked his computer or have just prevented him from logging on.

If you want to send a message to delpiero you can do so by e-mailing me at forumpredictions@yahoo.co.uk and i'll forward it onto delpiero. I will not post delpiero's e-mail address on the forum without his permission.

What on earth did he do to get suspended? Very bizarre.

Sorry Sir George, i don't know, he did not say.

I was 'suspended' for no reason some years ago. Well, the pc's I was using were blocked, so it might have been someone else I suppose. Very frustrating as I was doing rather well at Totocalcio at the time.

Table : Week 14
-------------------------
Curva Fiesole---------------146.90
Czech Calcio----------------134.50
Shevvy 7--------------------132.20
Il Ferret-------------------129.70
Leadbelly-------------------122.10
Inter Bhoy------------------120.70
Liam------------------------120.55
Sigga V17------------------115.30
Michael La Viola------------105.60
.Dave-----------------------105.19
Saviola---------------------105.00
Kthx------------------------102.75
Sir George------------------100.54
Markieboy--------------------98.75
Lilli------------------------92.10
Spinoza----------------------90.00
Del Ner----------------------88.50
Giovanni---------------------81.40
Delpiero---------------------79.50
Inter Numero Uno-------------72.50
Ivano------------------------70.00
Raj--------------------------54.50
Mezz-------------------------48.55

Ammended table to reflect week 14 results (Cagilari @ 2.05 rather than 2.50)

I'm down 45p!

It's a bloody conspiracy!



+ FORZA LA VIOLA +

But I'm €3.64 to the better. Well done DP. You should get banned then come back under a pseudonym more often. And I had Udinese last night....

Not the best of weeks for me.

I went for a Messina away win at Inter (attractive odds of 9). Result: 5-0 to Inter. Then I went for a draw at the San Siro. Result: 6-0 to Milan.

Fortunately, with real money, I had a tenner on Henry being first goalscorer against Chelsea and pocketed £55 courtesy of Ladbrokes. Nice.

Yes, but a mug bet is a mug's bet whether it wins or not, and if you keep placing mug bets, you're losses will far exceed your wins. As they no doubt do already...

For ordinary match odds, markets tend to be 110%, which is poor enough, but for 1st goalscorer market they are often over 140%. The reason they are so uncompetitive is that they know mugs will bet on them whatever paltry odds are offered.

So have your "bit of fun", but don't kid yourself that your wins mean anything or that you're not just giving money to bookies hand over fist.

That's funny. 3 embittered paragraphs over absolutely nothing!

Sir George,

Go get laid!

Hope that helps.

No offence meant. I was just trying to help. I make (for me at least) a very tidy profit out of bookies. The reason is that they are making so much money off mugs like you that they aren't very much bothered about making occasional errors and allowing folk like me to skim some of their profits.

I should really thank you, but I do sort of think I have a duty to spell out punters' poor punting when they tell me about it. I don't expect them to listen of course...

First 3 rules:

Never do accumulators
Never bet on first goalscorer bets
Look for "value", not winners.

Believe it or not George is actually being helpful and is quite right.

George what do you mean by "Never do accumulators", sorry but I know jack about betting. cheers

First point is that if you nothing about gambling, steer well clear altogether. It's a desperately pointless pastime if you aren't doing it to make money. Win some, lose more, all you've got at the end is wasted hours.

But for those who must punt, a sensible punter should look for value. Simply put, he bets when a bookie offers better than evens on a heads or tails bet (or what he judges, in his wisdom, the sporting equivalent). Obviously this happens very rarely. But when it does that's when the clever punter strikes. If the bookie builds in 10% leaway on every bet (which they do of course), an accumulator just increases this. I'll spare you the arithmetic, but from the punters point of view you're just multiplying improbability by improbabilitly.

If you've decided on a bet because it is good odds, what chance finding another bet also with the best odds on the market. E.g. You want to bet on Chelsea to win the quadruple. One bookie will offer best on on league, another on league cup, and another again on FA Cup. So whichever bookie you bet with, there's always another bookie offering better odds on one of the events you are betting on. So the chance of getting "value" on such a bet is nil.

Accumulators simply accumulate bookmakers profit. They love it because they rake it in and, now and again of course, somebody's dodgy accumulator comes off and they publicise how much the punter has won. So a chap who takes a 10,000 to 1 shot with a tenner that wins gets his face all over the papers, encouraging every other mug to do something similar. In reality the probability of him winning was closer to 50,000 to 1. So while a bookie pays out £10,000 for this publicised bet, he's already raked in £50,000 on similar rubbish bets.

quote:

---

No offence meant. I was just trying to help.

---

Sorry for being rude. For some odd reason I assumed you were being condescending and superior rather than attempting to be genuinely helpful. What on earth gave me that idea?

The moral of the story is this: one day you win £45 with a tenner (the £55 I quoted included the £10 stake at odds 9-2; 450% profit) and the next day someone's telling you you're a mug. That's life, my friend: one day, you're busy bonking a babe in some paradisal corner of the Earth; and the next day, you're busy applying Anti-Herpes Lotion.

I suppose different people have different aspirations. Me personally, yesterday I staggered into Ladbrokes after having had one too many and had a casual flutter on the top Premiership goalscorer scoring first. 9-2 seems generous in those circumstances. It paid off. Sheer luck of course - that's what makes it all the more enjoyable. Quite how many other folks there are paying Ladbrokes a tenner for Lampard (10-1) or NoGudjohnsen scoring first (and losing) is of total irrelevance to me and my having essentially a free Sunday afternoon pi55-up wi't lads courtesy of me picking Henry and not Lampard. It served its purpose. It's better to have £55 than £10 - 5.5 times better, to be precise. Your aspiration, on the other hand, appears to be making a continuous, systematic profit out of the bookies in some capacity to supplement your state benefits. I don't know why you (albeit sarcastically) think it your duty to inform punters like me that they're wasting their time; if everyone made a profit out of the bookies, they wouldn't exist. "Bookie makes profit; not every punter wins" - Sir George's thesis. Give the man a Ph.d for that contribution.

I'm very, very lucky at gambling. I won a grand in Vegas. I had a fiver on Fulham and United drawing (7-2). I often win at horses (I never pick the favorite). I often win at dogs (utterly random betting where form means nothing). The best punters are those like me who haven't the foggiest what they're doing and still win. You don't have to be a published academic in the field of gambling to make a few quid at Ladbrokes. You just have to be a lucky piece of slime like me.

I did actually say that without mugs like you I wouldn't be able to skim bookies' profits, hence my expression of thanks.

Your luck, such as you perceive it, is that you only count your wins and find excuses for your losses, forgetting they ever happened. To me there are few things sadder than somebody bragging about winning a couple of bob on a mugbet. Even mugs win occasionally, as they wouldn't go back if they never did win, but advertising that you "won a grand in Vegas" and that you "often win on the horses", is, to me, simply another way of saying "I chuck a fair chunk of my income away on gambling". Good for you, if that's what floats your boat and thanks again, but don't delude yourself that you're "lucky" and that you haven't been busy swelling bookies' coffers. Make a note of your winnings and losses over the next 2 months and then ask yourself if your one of the "best punters". Or ask your bookie...

As for why I feel it's my duty to inform the ill-informed, it's partly due to a niggling worry that my earnings from bookies (and thus indirectly the addicted or stupid) are morally dubious. So I'm, erm, putting a little back into society. Now you don't have to thank me Spinoza.

Not quite sure what your [sic] on about SG. You only need a 1 win in 2 bets record to make a profit. My ratio is more like 3 in 4.

There's no way of proving this, obviously, but I DO NOT chuck a fair bit of money away on gambling. I hate bookies - they're full of scruffy old men and, far worse, people who think winning a few quid requires intelligence. I meant I actually win often in proportion to the amount of times I bet - which must be 5-10 times a year, including the Grand National. I have bet more often than usual recently admittedly, but nothing drastic.

I won a grand in Vegas with 4 bets - $100 turned into $200; another $100 into $200; $200 into $400; $400 into $800. I think it was 900 actually - 4 simple bets, all winning. And if my initial 100 hadn't won, I would've cursed my luck and never repeated the exercise. You don't have to be a gambling addict to do this; you just need to be on holiday, have lots of luck and a sense of adventure.

Week 15
------------------------------------------

Czech Calcio--------------147.50
Curva Fiesole-------------136.90
Shevvy 7------------------136.20
Liam----------------------132.30
Inter Bhoy----------------127.20
Leadbelly-----------------125.10
Il Ferret-----------------123.70
.Dave---------------------118.19
Kthx----------------------113.25
Sigga V17----------------112.30
Saviola-------------------111.50
Michael La Viola----------111.30
Markieboy-----------------102.75
Sir George----------------100.94
Lilli----------------------97.80
Spinoza--------------------86.00
Giovanni-------------------85.40
Delpiero-------------------85.20
Del Ner--------------------78.50
Ivano----------------------65.00
Inter Numero Uno-----------62.50
Mezz-----------------------55.55
Raj------------------------47.50