Slow March

A little tardy with the weekend updates, but here is the Friendly Tipster Table as it stands right now. More games tonight.

The XX Draws had a poor weekend on the draw bets (one winner from seven) but the unders had four winners for a small profit there. A little unlucky perhaps, with three of the losing matches being draws at the 79' mark, but that's how it goes sometimes. Last night there was a midweek pick of Evian Thonon Gaillard v Olympique Marseille which was another win for the unders, but no luck on the draw, finishing 2-0. The big story of the weekend was Geoff, who emerged from hibernation to find no less than five draws from eight selections.

And not one was a fluke! Top tipping. Backing the Lay The Draw selection also did well, 'finding' two draws from four games, and Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster found one for a small profit. He nearly found two, but for Van Persie's late winner for a rejuvenated Arsenal. No luck for Griff though.

I must admit that since my snow trip, my motivation for betting has not returned. My next vacation isn't too far away, and my focus just isn't in investing right now. With the return of the NBA, I rather thought the Super Premium Charge would have been reached by about now, but for some reasons the NBA hasn't been so generous this season. Whether the markets have matured or the condensed schedule has made a difference I'm not sure, but the end result is that I have scaled back somewhat, and this is the slowest start to a year for me since a disastrous start to 2007. No doubt this attitude is in part due to the looming Super PC. Wins are a little like birthdays. The more that come along, the less of a cause for celebration they are, although wins are unlikely to ever be frankly quite depressing.

Speaking of the Super Premium Charge, I had an e-mail which I shall keep anonymous, but which asked

I seen that you are closing in on the super premium charge. Do you really think that Betfair is able to tell if you are trading out of a different account?

From what I understand, Betfair have some fairly sophisticated software that can match up trading profiles / styles even if used from different accounts, PCs and IP addresses so trying to fool them would entail a change of all the factors previously listed. And since the penalties of getting caught are that Betfair take what they want and you have no right of appeal, it's probably a better idea to move to another trading platform if you can. It sounds easy enough to open a new account, move to a new part of the country (or world), buy a new PC and start trading again, (well, actually it sounds like a lot of hard work), but it's not so easy to find new strategies, new markets and new hours of trading - all of which will be taken into account when looking for similarities. Plus your old account would presumably go all but dormant, which would raise a red flag that you might have started up anew. The only hope for us is that a viable alternative comes along in the next few weeks. Bit of a long-shot that.

Not surprisingly, the Indianapolis Colts appear set to dump an ageing Peyton Manning for first pick in the draft, (no prizes for who their pick might be, but it's good Luck for the Colts), and in other NFL news, the New Orleans Saints have not been living up to their name. As much as I like the NFL for trading, it is a brutal sport with a rapidly growing number of ex-players suffering from serious problems in later life as a result of head injuries received while playing. Having these two teams in the same post gives me an excuse to post the childish picture below which my sister sent me.