Category: - A Portfolio Life

A Portfolio Life

The Voice of Gambling

9/11/2018

Bets 95ish. Out £525.
Profit on day £345
(A Henderson double, a 33/1 David Maxwell winner and very nearly a 500/1 double)

Some people seek mindfulness. Not me. I’ve always sought its partner, its mirror – absence. Emptiness. Mindlessness. Stop the voices. Including my own.

Silence doesn’t do this. Meditation, or at the least a lack of distraction, is a gateway to either all the other (indifferent) voices I keep trying to keep at bay, or my one strong inner narrator voice, prattling endlessly on and on.

Gambling does it for me. Partly. The day’s slow movement from morning study and early bets, through to the three hours of frantic betting activity – and it’s important to me that it is frantic – for it to work I need to be betting in virtually every race. That’s what provides the flow, no race any more important than any other, with occasional spikes for big races, or for small races with big possible pay-outs. And then, the winding down with tomorrow’s cards, an updated spreadsheet and a review of the day. And then sleep, thinking about the day gone and anticipating tomorrow – but only in terms of betting. This flow, the total concentration is part of it, of course. The process takes over, and at speed, gathers a rhythm that carries me along in its embrace – a glorious dance.

It’s not emptiness as such, but it is an emptiness of all the things that fill the void otherwise and lead to depression, anxiety, rage. Much better to be cursing a bad bet, or a bad beat in a photo, than about some perceived slight, or some keyboard twat on social media or Brexit or the impending world apocalypse, or any of the other thousand things I might wurrett at otherwise, all of which might bloom voices in my mind.

It’s not voiceless as such, but the one voice is ‘gambling guy’ – excitable but mainly calm, hopeful but mainly pragmatic, with skin in the game but sat sideways to it, focused but driven by distraction. Most people looking in from outside would see this bloke as a loser, as a waste of space, as a fat bloke with a laptop staring at the telly. In fact, people I know and love think that way, including my wife sometimes. Me, I like this guy. I prefer him to the alternatives. And that makes me happy.

No poetry.

Ad Vitam

13/10/2015

I was reading about David M Greenwood in the paper today, the “mastermind” behind the Ad Vitam race-fixing in 2011 and 2012. Greenwood is portrayed by the disciplinary panel as “a stranger to false modesty (who) described himself as one of the best five race readers in the country.”

A successful gambler being a stranger to false modesty is such a well-worn cliché it's hardly worthy of comment. However, the numbers, as reported, (and presented without any analysis) are an interesting insight into the betting habits of “one of the best five race readers in the country.”

It's suggested that he has made a profit of around £5 million in 10 years. And that he was turning over “about £1m each week.” So he bet, say, £50m a year for 10 years to make 5m.

Which would suggest that “one of the best five race readers in the country” has a 1% edge. Which, if true, would make him a terrible gambler. And this without taking into account he's just been disqualified for fixing races – which presumably accounts for a lot more than 1%, else why bother?

And so to the main race in question, where he finally backs Ad Vitam to win and place.
He puts £7887 on the horse to win and £16266 on the horse to place, making a profit of £8378 when Ad Vitam finished second. I repeat, second. That's hardly the betting coup of the century is it, for a man who turns over £1m a week and is “one of the five best race readers in the country.”?

He's been disqualified for 8 years when, of course, if only for the story's sake, he should have been disqualified ad vitam.

What's Up Boys...

23/9/2014

I wrote a book about gambling 12 years ago. Just before Betfair really took off and just before I was at my most successful. I had a publisher and a recommendation from uber-gambler Alan Potts and then the publisher went bankrupt.

So only three people have read the book. One took it as his training manual and remains a successful part-time gambler. Another read the funny bits, ignored the more abstruse non-linear multivariate cognitive reasoning and remains addicted to cheeky 33/1 shots and working man's trixies.

The third was a blogger called Slippery Toad, who at that time had a website detailing one white collar executive's dream of making it from mug punter to the promised land of professional gambler. He was busy reading all the literature on horse racing, especially the American speed-based stuff. All of which is way beyond my modest little book. But what my book did was back-fill some of the basics – which co-incidentally is exactly what my management training does. He's now living his dream and, rather flatteringly, calls me his mentor.

(We did meet once. At Wolverhampton's all weather track one Friday night. As I approached the entrance I realised I had no idea what he looked like, so I texted him. I said "I'm fat and carrying a Racing Post" which, let's face it, didn't narrow the field. “Okay”, he texted back, “I'm six feet four and black”.)

Anyway, the other day he tweeted that he was re-reading my book and that I should publish it and at least two other drunk people said they'd buy it. And Helen tweeted to say said she'd do the cover, like she did so brilliantly for One Dog and His Man. All I had to was choose a horse.

So I've been boring her with photos and videos of What's Up Boys. Especially this one – the Coral Cup at the Cheltenham Festival 2000, when he loses his place at the front of the pack, drifts back to 20th, is 15th jumping the last and then runs up the hill like I've never seen before or since. At 40/1. When I fell in love...

The Grand National on Gogglebox

12/4/2014

If you didn't catch Gogglebox on Friday it's well worth hunting it down on catch-up or whatever. Not just because it's one of the funniest programmes on telly, but because this week it started with the Grand National.

For those who don't know, Gogglebox is us watching people watching television. About ten families, covering the full Channel 4 demographic, are asked to watch television shows whilst the camera watches them. It's all in the editing of course, but if you're anything like me, you can't help but be drawn in, and will have your favourites. Mine, for the record, are the lady vicar, the old sweet Everton supporter and his wife, and the young bloke living with his girlfriend who to date has not said a single word but swivels his eyes furtively at everything her parents say. Anne and I believe he's actually an erudite Oxbridge scholar but his witty apercus and cross court volleys have been airbrushed out for comic effect.

Anyway, back to this lot watching the National. None of them had the faintest clue what was going on. They'd backed plenty of horses, but spotted not a one of them. They were entirely reliant on the commentary. I say this not to mock - only this afternoon I spent the first circuit of the Scottish National trying to pick out Merry King - but to show how those of you who know colours by owners (Magnier, Hemmings, Johnson, Wylie, Abdullah, Mohammed etc) are practically experts. And to suggest yet again that horse-race commentary is gobsmackingly difficult.

Back to the race. One of the girls from Brixton had backed Across the Bay and had whipped it to glorious victory long before the horse was taken out by the loose horse at the end of the first circuit. God knows what would have happened to her had he stayed in the race, my guess is at Bechers Brook second time round she'd have spontaneously combusted, taking out most of Railton Road.

None of them had backed the winner, not even my scouse hero who had backed 12 horses on the one betting slip and was shouting at his wife to bring in the second betting slip. Personally I watched the National in a Ladbrokes in Limehouse and the cashier came from round the counter, took several betting slips out of her pocket and, sat in front of me with her back to the race, listened to the commentary, crossing out horses as the commentator announced their fate. From Battle Group's refusal to race to the final fence it was a cavalcade of “Facking 'ells” until, reaching the last name mentioned she started screaming home Pinny De Row. At the time I thought to myself I was watching Gogglebox. Turns out I was.

A Day at the Races

25/1/2014

You arrive nice and early and find somewhere to sit, maybe have a drink or some distinctly dodgy food, and look through the day’s racing. You circle some contenders for a fun placepot, and pick out your nap of the day in the third, the one you’re going to put a nice wedge on. You’ve given yourself £100 to play with, not including entrance fee but hopefully including sundry drinks and scoff. In your mind you’ve divided it into £10 on each of five races, and £40 or £50 on the big race. Your nap looks to have a lot going for it – Henderson and Geraghty, and in this field you may be able to get 4/1. You tell your mates you like the look of that. You like to think of yourself as a shrewd gambler, compared to them anyway.

You look at the first race and can’t see anything you fancy. Two of the big yards have unraced horses with chances – Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson. You wouldn’t dream of betting in this race at home, but as you’re here you may as well have a bit of fun. You decide to see what’s happening with the prices – they are both a tentative 3/1 on the Racing Post tissue. Opening show has the Henderson horse at 5/2 and Nicholls' at 4/1. You lean towards Nicholls. After all, you’ve just seen him tucking into an ice cream in the pre parade ring. Besides the punters don’t give Henderson's a chance and it drifts out to 7/2 at the off. You’re happy you got the ‘value’ (a tenner at 4/1) on the well-backed Nicholls horse, which goes off at 11/4.

The Henderson horse wins. The Nicholls horse drops out of contention three from home. Your placepot choice falls at the last when hanging onto third. You have a drink. Henderson's got the favourite in the next. It’s won it’s last two races, looks to be improving and nothing else looks likely. 2/1 will have to do. You’ll at least get your money back.

You go outside and it seems everyone wants the Henderson horse. The bookies are being cautious – you see 7/4 a few boards back and try to get there, but a bloke in front of you gets £700 to £400, and the bookie rubs the price off. Most boards are now going 6/4. Suddenly you see 13/8, you run and grab an extra note from your pocket to make the most of it. It’s a score. You find yourself giving the bookie both notes. Your tenner fun bet is now a £30 win bet. Still, phew, you’re on.

It seems like the whole crowd is on your horse. Two out, it hits the front and the crowd starts cheering. Fantastic. From the corner of your eye you see another horse travelling ominously well a couple of lengths behind. They jump the final flight alongsides and the jockeys settle down to fight it out. Your horse must win under the Geraghty drive, but as they stretch away to the line you can see that he other horse is going to win – the cheers die in the crowd’s throat. Your mate’s girlfriend next to you starts cheering. Her horse – let's call it Pretty Iris - has won at 20/1. “I liked the name” she says. You smile, but you’re cross with yourself. And then you look down and see that it was trained by Nicholls, his second string ridden by the stable apprentice. Just brilliant.

The girlfriend gets her £40 winnings from the Tote and buys you all a drink. She’s delighted. It’s the first time she’s been racing and it all seems so simple. You smile. You’re a bit late leaving the bar, and the prices are up for the next. So much for that 4/1. More like 3/1. You groan. You wait to see if it will go to 7/2. You re-look at the form. There’s another nice-priced Nicholls horse, this time at 8/1. You look up and see 10/1 at the board next to you. You immediately ask for twenty quid at 10/1. Once you’ve got your ticket you realise the ‘value’ on the Henderson horse has gone – it’s now 11/4 at best. You go inside and do a fiver combination exacta on the two runners. No a tenner. After all, you meant to have a good bet on this race.

You go back to the standing area where you and your friends meet between each race. They ask you what price you got. You smile enigmatically and don’t say anything. The girl says she’s had a fiver on Barney Geraghty. Oh how your friends laugh. And so does she, when Barry goes six lengths clear at the last to win to tumultuous cheers. The Nicholls horse fell four out when struggling.

You excuse yourself and go the toilet. You go to a cubicle, wondering whether you really are going to pretend to your mates that you had backed the Henderson horse. You count how much money you have left from your hundred. What with a race programme, lunch and a placepot, plus £80 in bets, you have £2.15 left. And it’s your round.

Familiar?

Another Poem about Gambling

20/11/2013

Here's another poem about gambling. Well, that's not strictly true but it is for me.

Back in the day, one aspect of being a full-time gambler, that always surprised me, was the response of people when I told them what I did for a living. Reactions ranged wildly. Occasionally someone would be wide-eyed with excitement at the notion of me “living the dream” and then spend the rest of the evening drunkenly sharing with me their own sure-fire system for beating the roulette wheel. And occasionally someone would swoon, clutch their crucifix and run off looking for garlic and a spike. But by far the most common response was a simple refusal to believe that such a thing existed, could exist. Which always struck me as extraordinarily small-minded.

That's what this poem seems to me to be about, failure of the imagination. Written by Wallace Stevens, an insurance man who paradoxically in his spare time cranked out some of the most beautiful and unfathomable poetry imaginable. Granted, he presumably has in mind something more artistic and long-lasting than picking the winner of Strictly Come Dancing. Still, in essence, I think we are on the same page and, for close on a decade, I'm proud to say I caught Tigers in red weather.

Disillusionment of 10 O'Clock

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches Tigers
In red weather.

(Wallace Stevens)

To Every Football Season, Turn, Turn, Turn...

13/8/2013

With the Great Premiership Kick-off soon upon us, time to wonder when football lost its soul. Gary Neville was very candid in the Guardian today.

“Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game. The heavy financial interests; the absurd transfer and player-selling system; the lack of any birth or residential qualifications for the players, the betting...the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the press.”

Oh no, hang on. That wasn't written by Gary Neville. It was written by JB Priestley, in "English Journey", in 1933.

An Even Break

2/7/2013

I was planning a half year review as to progress. I was going to post a separate update on each of the three streams of my portfolio life. Then I read one of the entries in my book The Northern Line to Shropshire and realised that it said it all - even though it was written in 2011.

Gamblers have a uneasy relationship with luck. After all, we're hard-headed mathematicians spanking the arses of mis-estimated probabilities and systematic pricing errors. Strange that we're also a neurotic mass of wine stains, gibbering through the glass darkly about hubris and the gambling gods.

And naturally this spills into our real lives. On the one hand I know how privileged and advantaged I am, yet, on the other, can't help thinking we've had the most awful run of luck since we moved to Shropshire (for which incidentally we still entirely blame my sister-in-law and a broken mirror).

However, the last couple of months I've had that feeling, that all gamblers know, of being able to see the end of the losing run - glimpsing the sunlit uplands of a successful Cheltenham meeting say, reaching out and touching the joy of that life-changing win treble.

And I'm not talking about gambling, except as a metaphor. After all, sadly that's only a small stakes hobby these days. I'm talking about the world of work. I've been struggling to find any work this year. It's been one long frustration. But lately there have been glimmers, hints, possibilities. Hope.

And it was in such a mood yesterday that I was slathering my toast, when it fell from my grasp and somersaulted to the ground. And landed butter side up. I bent down to pick it up and said out loud: “There. See. Told you.” The world back in kilter. The deck reshuffled. The wheel in spin.

And then somehow, I've no idea how, I dropped the toast again. Butter side down. That's the thing about the gambling gods. They hate dreamers.

Hubris

5/6/2013

When I was a full-time gambler, I liked to think of myself as rational and objective; that I was calmly punishing the mistakes of inferior market makers and spanking the arse of deep-rooted market inefficiencies. At the very same time, I was a gibbering mass of neuroses and red wine stains, desperate to keep the gambling gods on my side.

There's an old truism about gambling: When you're losing you're never as bad as you think you are, and when you're winning you're never as good as you think you are.

And it was when I was winning that I was on red alert for any hubristic comments that made it sound like I'd got the game cracked. No matter how provable my edge may have been, it was critical to act as though it was the gods who had decided to grant me my own pay-window. And that I acknowledged they could take it back at any time if I ever suggested my success was down to myself.

I actually went a little mad trying to appease the gods. I took to seeing people on the streets of London as their agents. Beggars, Big Issue sellers, anyone similar were like choric characters on my gambling journey. If I didn't give them a pound, my head would say “the gambling gods were watching”. I often had to turn around and walk a mile back to someone I'd ignored. It got so bad that I couldn't leave the house without a pocket bulging full of pound coins. Not forgetting that it cost me a fortune. When I moved to Shropshire there weren't any beggars. So I stopped. And so did my gambling success. Almost overnight.

I write this because part of me feels like I've been responsible for a terrible act of hubris, for which someone else has been punished. And part of me thinks it's doubly inexcusable because my gambling experiences should have alerted me to the consequences. (See Writing area of this blog for more details).

One of those weekends....

15/4/2013

I've just had one of those weekends. One where, the dust settled, you feel a bit sick. Sick of yourself and sick of gambling.

I definitely over-played, I probably over-staked, and just possibly I was a little unlucky...

Saturday's racing didn't really interest me. So I had no excuse for getting involved in two races. On the plus side, both horses were very well backed and ran well. Which doesn't disguise the fact they both lost. As did the horses in the race I unforgivably chased in - choosing three horses from my short-list of six, only to see the other three land the bonus trifecta pool.

The football followed a similar pattern. Which left me with the golf. Late on Saturday I hauled myself out of my drunken self-pity onto the laptop to top-up on some bets, all my earlier golfing picks long since out of the running. I wondered whether Adam Scott was being opposed on betfair by all those who watched him lose the Open last year. And there was certainly juice in the price at 8s. Except by the time I'd deposited some money, to replace the day's losses, the price was 5s.

Instead I turned my attention to Leishman. Pootling along nicely, under the radar. And so my Adam Scott money went on Leishman at 25/1 each way, first three. I went to bed when he dumped his ball in the water at 15. He finished fourth, naturally.

Back in the old days I took weekends like this on the chin. Or did my best to. In this new world with a minimal bank, I can't afford to be so phlegmatic. I need a "maximum" loss

All Play In-Play

24/1/2013

I was queueing for the cash dispenser in town this morning. Two elderly couples - I'd say 70ish - stopped and chatted with each other on the corner. I couldn't hear what the men were talking about but the women were having a good old natter.

"Did you watch the game?"
"Oh, yes."
"Did you do anything?"
"I had a little on Swansea at half-time. Chelsea, no penetration in the final third, and I thought Swansea might pick them off on the break."

Truly. I wonder if she has a blog...