Behind Schedule

A rare post from Mark Davies' blog contained an unexpectedly amusing line. Writing about the possibility of FOBT stakes being reduced to £2 as reported in the Daily Mail today Mark writes:

Equally, the biggest head-scratcher of the day is that both Ladbrokes’ and William Hill’s shares have risen, which can only suggest that no-one in the City wants to admit that they read the Mail.

 Very droll. Not quite so amusing is the frankly awful gross profit and loss total seen in the latest Friendly Tipster Table over at Gold All Over. I may have to rename that blog Lead All Under. The individual 'contenders' for want of a better word are broken out into 27 individual categories, but they fall into distinct categories.

My own XX Draws take up 15 of the categories, and then there are the professional services offered by Football Elite and Peter Nordsted's Premier Betting.

Of the remaining 10, nine are comprised of two from Griff (Draws and Under/Over), one from Tony, Little Al, Neil, Premier Edge, Jon (Talkbet), Free Under / Over Selections and Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster. The final entrant is that of the 'Lay the Draw' selections. Added against their will and true intent, and which might well be expected to be a loser, these anti-selections actually proved very profitable last season when they were introduced.

The first group are currently in profit by 28.38 points, but the second show a loss to date of a massive 46.13 points, with only Tony's Tips in profit. Poor old Talkbet props up the table and talks about his losses (11.15 points) to date in his blog today. Griff takes up two of the next three places with a combined loss of 17.94 points. Five draws from 29 shows how elusive the draw can be at times. Also struggling to find draws, is Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster picks, with just one from 14 to date. The life of a Draw Hunter is not always glamorous.

Only twelve of the 27 are in profit, and two of those by a whisker. Those categories focused on the Under / Over markets are down 9.58 points. While these totals all sound rather bad, and they are certainly not good, it's important to keep the numbers in perspective. A loss of 17.75 points from 536 selections is 'only' a loss of 3.31% - a loss, but as soon as Griff and Talkbet turn into profit we'll be fine. No pressure boys.