Close Title Race

Arsenal continued the trend of odds-on favourites winning last night, making it 8 from 8 in the Premier league and a 40-1 accumulator for those who like these things.

More importantly, the game closed out the weekend's action, and the FTL sponsored by TFA is updated.

Of the entries in profit, the big loser was Fedslam who plummeted from top spot to sixth after firing six blanks. As discussed in previous posts, Skeeve also drew a blank dropping down a couple of places, and the beneficiaries are my own Cassini Value Selections, Hofs Hackers, Jamie A and Webbo.

As you can see, it is very tight at the top, with just 0.66 points separating the top three. Hofs Hackers are sitting on £250 after gaining 2.73 points from four selections, while Jamie A was up 4.76 points with four winners from five and is in line for £125. Skeeve is still in the money too, and Webbo moves up with 2.98 points from his ten Premier League selections. Webbo's been steadily climbing back from a nadir of -13.73 points in early November to now be up by 6.07 points. Then come my own XX Draws, who started the weekend poorly, ended the weekend poorly, but which hit a purple patch in the later games on Saturday and early Sunday finding five winners in six matches, including three consecutive perfect (0-0) draws, followed by a 1-1, a 0-1 and then another 0-0. A spell of 365 minutes of XX Draw action without a goal - that's how I like my football these days. Drawmaster Pete also made a small profit with one winner from three and rounds out the top nine.

Falling out of profit was sponsor The Football Analyst, whose sponsorship deal (bounty payment) is now at £150. Graeme is now down 0.53 points after just one winner (York City) from five selections, a list that included the only losing odds-on favourite in the entire Football League. I'm sure Graeme sees the funny side of that.

No action in Germany of course, and the Unders bets on the XX Draws came out at exactly zero despite seven winners and six losses. Fairfranco had one winner from five selections and lost 1.66 points.

There was very little change in positions for the entries in the red by double figures. Football Elite had another bad weekend with three winners from 11, as did Peter Nordsted's Premier Betting selections whose three selections all lost. Peter probably had a wry smile at the eight goals at the Britannia Stadium after recommending the Under 1.5 goal bet. It happens. Here are the laggards:

Punters' Friend Neil had another huge selection of matches, but lost another 15.8 points to fall further adrift at the bottom. It's not often that you can have the most wins and be bottom of the table!

A couple of comments to address. Jake asked how he might follow Skeeve, and the answer is to send an email to him for details. skeevepicks@gmail.com and there are more details on his service at http://www.skeevepicks.com/

Anonymous revealed that:

Premier Betting only have 2 clients .

Not sure about that, but they may be a few members reconsidering their subscription renewals next season. Anonymous goes on:

A serious point is what makes people follow one tipster over another . There are some great tipsters with solid results who have hardly any clients and some really poor ones that have loads. The big craze is accas so the football data analysts are not getting a look in.

Re Southport v Hyde I am interested in the thought process that there was expectation that Southport would win > if we toss a coin 1000000000000000 we may get 10 heads in a row and Hyde with only 3 draws this season surely would be considered to get a few more points this season ????

The price that tipsters charge is obviously a factor, as is their reputation and the type of selection that are offered. It is likely that a 'great tipster with solid results' is either too expensive or has yet to prove himself over the longer period, if they have hardly any clients. A poor tipster isn't likely to have many followers for too long. Profits talk, and while being a nice guy might prolong loyalty a little longer than results alone might warrant, no one in their right mind is going to throw good money after bad.

As for the Southport v Hyde bet, only Skeeve knows where he had Southport priced. With just three points to their name all season, I'm not sure I'd be going with the 'they must be due a win' theory myself.

Over to the US Sports and John Walsh had a small loss on his NFL play-off picks this weekend.

On the ice, John seems to have developed an unhealthy obsession with betting on the draw (or rather tie) and as hard as that is in football, it is even harder in ice-hockey. Seven of his last eight bets have been on the tie, including the two matches involving teams from Los Angeles last night, but with only one winner to date the change in strategy has yet to pay dividends.

I know John stops by from time to time, and it would be interesting to hear his thoughts on why he would change a winning formula at this stage of the season, without giving away any trade secrets of course.