I’m sure it was ex-footballer Iain Dowie that coined the phrase – or rather, mangled several words to create it – ‘bouncebackability’ after the team he was managing came back to win from a losing position.
In this eletter, I want to give a few practical ways in which we as punters can adopt more of that into in our betting – especially after experiencing long losing runs.
No one likes losing, and it’s made even worse when you are caught in the middle of a slump that continues past your previous losing averages.
You know the feeling when…
You hit 9 or 10 in a row and although you get slight wobbles you have been there before and are confident of a winner arriving soon.
Then… you hit 14 or 15 and now the nerves start to kick in but you carry on anyway as you feel you are closer to a winning run after such a lengthy bad spell.
Next… you are now into an unprecedented run of 16 consecutive losers and your faith in the service or strategy is severely shaken.
You’re left puzzled as it is the first time you’ve experienced a down period lasting so long. And it is all made that more puzzling by the fact you are following a high strike rate method/service with typical losing runs no higher then 7 or 8, 9 at most.
Reluctantly deciding to call it a day despite you still having an adequate betting bank to cope with such downturns, you now decide to sit on the sidelines and continue to watch results to see when the upturn arrives… only for the inevitable to happen… That is, if you had carried on betting for real you would have won the next 4 bets in a row!
… Followed by a few losers… then another good winning run that not only would have cleared your losses but have swung you back into profit, too. Damn!
Of course these Win/Lose patterns will depend on your method/service strike rate.
If it is a high strike rate method then losing 7 or 8 would be commonplace. If it’s a low strike rate and high priced winner service then losing runs of 20+ should be the norm and not be treated as unexpected. Yet in knowing these upfront forecasts, many still get the jitters when they occur and so this has to be addressed.
For most people, 8 losses in a row appears to be the psychological limit. At this point some start to feel they need to “fix” something, leaving them to wonder whether more filters or a tweak here and there may work.
It’s a very familiar pattern by many punters who decide to stop when the going gets tough, and one that’s hard to shake.
The only option if this rings true with you is to find practical ways of breaking this cycle once and for all, as this is the single biggest hurdle in punters making a profit or not – full stop!
A predictable kneejerk reaction to failure is to look for someone or something to blame. In most cases, it is the strategy or service provider – when in actual fact it could be a perfectly sound strategy/service, proven over many years and operated by vendors who work very hard to deliver profits for their paying clientele.
The crucial point is always at the start: if subscribers experience early losers they can quickly go into a nervy downward spiral, wondering whether they are in for another big drawdown before getting off the ground.
All is not lost, however
There are a few ways in which we can trick the mind into giving us that comfort blanket, encouraging us to persevere. So take advantage of the upturn that many miss out on when they cease betting after being knocked for six after a bad spell.
First and foremost, you have to make sure you still have belief in the service or method you are following. This belief can only be formed if you have access to reliable past data. After all we don’t t want to be throwing good money after bad.
Now this may sound a little crazy but bear with me as it worked for me in the early days, and worked for many more since.
Let’s say you join a service that advises a 100 point betting bank, and you decide on £10 per point as you stake.
Having put aside £1,000, you start betting and very shortly hit a prolonged drawdown that sees your bank drop to around the £600 mark, or to a psychological low that finds you on the verge of giving up.
Instead of stopping, our next move would be to top your bank (If you can) back to your original £1,000 starting bank (remember ONLY do this if you have faith in the service going forward and based on reliable historical strike rates).
What we are trying to do here is return to the financial comfort zone we originally started with, helping us carry on betting to take advantage of the upswing when the average strike rate returns. Remember we can always withdraw the added money later.
What if you haven’t got the funds to top up?
Here we can switch to betting a set percentage of bank at all times. For example: if your starting bank is £1,000 and you were betting 1% of bank (£10 level stakes) and your bank has now reduced to £600, then instead of carrying on with £10 level stakes simply stake 1% of your new bank total of £600.
In this example, that would mean £6 on each selection and would go up or down depending on your new bank total.
This is a common staking plan used by many from the outset designed to see them through the bad times and take advantage of the upswings.
Good and bad services – the truth
Despite popular belief and punter perception, there are quite a few good horse racing and sports strategies on offer today – and, in part, the internet can be thanked for that.
Some vendors work very hard for their clients, and there are certainly enough good ones to form a profitable portfolio. The question is – which ones?
My mission here at Betting Doctor is to deliver you a profit either by reviewing products I think have potential, or by researching profitable angles I have found myself.
Therefore I will in the future be taking out more trials of services with the mission of highlighting the most profitable. More importantly, ones I forecast will continue to profit based on strike rate and nature of selections chosen.
Over recent months I’ve been alerted from trusted sources to services that are making some excellent profits for their members. Even though they are from trusted courses I still want to test them myself and in full view of Betting Doctor readers to ensure they are watertight before recommendation.
Some are well known, others not so well known – but profitable nonetheless from what I’ve seen and I really don’t want them to escape our radar as we could be missing out big time.
My aim will be to group the best of the services together and provide a profitable portfolio mix. Eventually I plan to have a few portfolio mixes for you to choose from based on funds available, attitude to risk, and favoured betting interest.
I’m a great advocate of working a group of successful methods together in order to spread risk, so in the coming weeks I will be starting a trial of at least three services at any one time that I feel could do the job for us.